Enlightening to My Attachment to Time

(Minghui.org)

I enlightened to something while meditating and want to share it.

I could never become tranquil during meditation because my leg always hurt. Last night, before I began the meditation, I was wondering how I could become tranquil despite the pain.

I said in my heart, “Master, what is it like to be tranquil during meditation? Can you please let your disciple experience it?”

When I began to meditate, I reached a state of tranquility shortly after doing the hand signs. I felt my body become very big, while my consciousness shrank into my head and stuck to my forehead.

It’s just like Master's description in Zhuan Falun.

Master said,

“When you sit there, you should feel wonderful and very comfortable as though you are sitting inside an egg shell; you will be aware of yourself practicing the exercise, but you feel that your whole body cannot move.” (Lecture Eight, Zhuan Falun, Third Translation Edition )

It was wonderful.

After a while I heard Master’s instruction to change position. It felt like I had only been sitting for a short while. The time continued to pass quickly, until I reached the part of the meditation that requires entering into deep tranquility.

Each round of music ends with the sound of the Chinese temple block. Every time I heard that sound I would think: “Is it over yet?”

When the music started again, it seemed to go on for so long that I felt I might not make it.

I also looked at my watch during meditation, wanting to know how long 'til the end.

This time when I wanted to look at my watch, something Master [Li Hongzhi] had said came to mind:

“I have always said that the toughest thing about cultivation is how long and drawn out it can seem, especially when one is being tempered through tribulations and ordeals. You can’t see the finish line or when it will conclude, and that is in fact what’s most trying about it.”(“2018 Fa Teaching Given in Washington, D.C.,” Team Yellow Translation)

I am not able to know when the persecution will end. I realized that it is the same with the meditation. Why, then, should I worry about time?

Isn’t that an attachment? The pain felt in the legs during meditation is like the difficulties Dafa disciples are experiencing. All the predictions and changes in the external environment are like the music that seems like it is ending, feeding the hope that it will end.

The sound of knocking on the temple block, however, brakes that hope. This is to test whether our will is firm enough to endure and persist, even though we don’t know how many times it will repeat.

As practitioners, we should think of how to do well during this precious time period and not be attached to when it will end.

After I enlightened to this, I was able to keep my heart steady. Whether the music was at the end of a round or not, I maintained the state of mind I had at the beginning of the meditation: not anticipating the end.

The music near the end of the meditation is no longer so important. My state of mind is more stable, so that after a few more rounds of music, the meditation ends naturally.

This state of mind may be what Master referred to when he said, “Cultivate with the heart you once had.” (“Fa Teaching on World Falun Dafa Day”)