Cultivating My Heart and Mind

(Minghui.org) On the morning of September 20, 2018 I went to a barbershop to get a haircut. After having my haircut, I realized my haircut card had no money left on it and I told the owner that I would pay in cash. However, the owner checked her records and found that there was indeed still some money left on my card. She told me she would withdraw the money owed and not to pay any cash. I agreed to this and didn’t think much more about it at the time. This issue looked so simple, but it was not that simple.

Following my haircut I rode my bicycle along the road seeking predestined people with whom I could share information about Falun Dafa. Having wandered around for two hours, I didn’t meet anyone to talk with. The people I came across either stared at me or said something unpleasant or looked down upon me. All in all, I ran into a stone wall everywhere I went. What was going wrong? The sending forth of righteous thoughts didn’t seem to make a difference and neither could I find the reason by looking internally.

In the afternoon, I went to a Fa-study group and shared my experience with my fellow practitioners about how difficult it was to meet predestined everyday people. I asked them if they could help me find my problems in this regard. Speaking of my haircut, a practitioner reminded me, “The last time you told me that you would have your haircut for the last time, as there was no money on your card.” I recalled that there was a person who went to the same shop whose name was the same as mine. In fact, I also thought about it at the time and wondered if the owner had withdrawn the money from the wrong card. But then another thought came, “Well, the owner said that there was money on the card, so its okay to leave it at that.”

I finally found my attachment of personal interest! This attachment didn’t comply with the Fa and a Dafa practitioner should not do it this way. I decided to go to the barbershop and return the money.

The next day I went to the barbershop and found the owner quite busy with a lot of customers. I explained the reason why I had come back and she said, “It’s okay if you made a mistake. Anyway, our shop doesn’t lose money. Please carry on what you are doing and I’ll check it out later.” I then left the shop.

However, the result of trying to find people to talk with about Dafa was as bad as the day before or even worse. I thought, “If such a thing happened to an everyday person, perhaps they wouldn’t even worry about it and they might also be pleased to have this unearned gain.” But I am a Falun Dafa practitioner and must follow the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance in daily life. I cannot live by everyday people’s principles. I felt very sad upon returning home. I wondered why, after practicing cultivation for twenty years, that I still had not removed my selfishness. When coming across this issue, my selfishness was revealed.

On the third day, I went to the barbershop again. The owner told me, “I did make a mistake. The person’s name is the same as yours. There is no money left on your card.” I then attempted to return the money to her. She said, “You don’t have to pay this time. You can pay it next time you come for a haircut.” She was especially polite to me with a respectful expression on her face. In the past I tried to talk to her about Falun Dafa, but she didn’t believe it completely. Through this incident I thought she would have a new understanding of Dafa practitioners. I paid her the money owed and left the shop.

Just as the previous two days, I rode my bicycle and followed the road along to find people to present information about Falun Dafa to. The time of day and the route had not changed, but it was going very smoothly today. Most people I saw were smiling and respectful of me. While discussing Dafa with an elderly cadre, a young man came over requesting I help him quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Sometimes when I was talking to one person, another person nearby would shout, “Falun Dafa is good! Long live Falun Dafa!” In short, it was going particularly smoothly. After returning home, I looked at my list and found that five people had quit the CCP and eight people quit its affiliated organizations. I realized that this all occurred because today I went to the barbershop to return the money, which was in line with the standards of Dafa practitioners. Therefore, Master blessed me and arranged for the predestined people to come to me.

Through this incident, I realized that it is most important to cultivate my heart. In the past, I always attached importance to studying the Fa, doing the exercises, sending forth righteous thoughts and letting others know the truth about Falun Dafa. I thought that I would be a qualified Dafa practitioner if I did all these things well. I rarely paid attention to the cultivation of my heart and failed to realize the relationship between cultivating my heart and clarifying the truth to people.

Previously the more people I shared Dafa with, the more self-satisfied I was. When meeting with less people, I would complain how difficult it was to reach out to people. For a Dafa practitioner, I didn’t pay much attention before to whether my words and deeds conformed to the Fa principles or not. In the future, I must work hard at cultivating my heart.

I hope that fellow practitioners with a problem similar to mine will pay attention to cultivating xinxing. As long as what we do meets the requirements of Dafa, we will get twice the result with half the effort when telling people the truth about Falun Dafa.