By a Falun Dafa practitioner from Liaoning Province, China

(Clearwisdom.net) For a long time now, I have known that I must study the Fa every day. If I were not able to study the Fa enough one day, I would feel anxious. But at the same time, I also treated studying the Fa as a task, or even a burden. This mentality really bothered me. I knew it was not right, and wanted to get rid of it, yet I was not able to do so. I only recently found the cause of this mentality and was able to eliminate it.

The main cause was that when I studied the Fa, I pursued studying a certain amount. For example, I set the requirement that I had to study two lectures of "Zhuan Falun" a day. This thought itself was not wrong. The problem was that when I studied the Fa, I was always thinking about it. I felt anxious and wanted to finish the chapters sooner. Over time, this mentality created a burden and pressure. With this mentality, how could I possibly study the Fa well? Teacher told us repeatedly that when studying the Fa,

"If you're going to study, you need to set aside everything else that's on your mind, keep your mind steady, quiet your mind, and truly study. Even if you just study a few paragraphs [this way], it's better than reading the entire book with a restless mind. When you study the Fa, you have to absorb it." ("Teaching the Fa at the Meeting with Asia-Pacific Students")

Only when we let go of all attachments and study the Fa with a calm mind can we study the Fa well. Yet I was tormented by this incorrect mentality for a long time. I only thought it was good to ask myself to study the Fa more, but this thought disguised the real cause of the incorrect mentality. It was not wrong to want to study the Fa more every day. The key was whether I had this attachment when studying the Fa. When I studied the Fa, I often checked to see how much I had studied and how much was left; I looked at my watch often and wondered why I had read only one chapter in two hours. Over time, this created many bad thoughts and problems. But after all, Dafa is powerful. When I studied the Fa, with the Teacher's help, I was able calm my mind down many times. However, this bad state and its cause still existed. Only when I began memorizing the Fa did I find and eliminate it.

Teacher told us about the benefits of memorizing the Fa. I thought I would follow Teacher's words and memorize. In the beginning, it went quite smoothly. But not long after, I made the same mistake. I was attached to how much I had memorized, and also held this attachment in the process of memorizing the Fa. Although it wasn't wrong to want to memorize more every day, and it was consistent with Teacher's requirement, I should not have let this thought interfere with my Fa study. As a result, although I spent a lot of time memorizing the Fa, I was able to memorize less and less. In the end I could not memorize anything at all. I had to stop memorizing. This happened a few times, and then I finally realized how strongly I was attached to how much I memorized every day. When I finally enlightened to this, I suddenly understood the problem. All of the bad mentalities that affected my Fa study also disappeared. When I studied the Fa again, I felt that it was the most marvelous thing to study Teacher's Fa. The anxious feeling was gone. Now I look forward to studying the Fa every day. It is the most wonderful time of the day. I have also felt great improvement in my cultivation since this change happened.

Posting date: 11/21/2006
Original article date: 11/20/2006
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/11/4/141724.html

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