How to Cultivate and Improve From the Practice of the Second Home

Xuefeng

March 25, 2011

What is the purpose of self-improvement and cultivation? It is certainly not merely to become a good person, nor is it to seek blessings for the next life. In the cycle of reincarnation, although the same person experiences both this life and the next, their conscious awareness and memory are disconnected between the two. Why then worry about one’s next life on Earth? The purpose of self-improvement and cultivation boils down to two goals: one, to experience happiness, joy, freedom, and fulfillment in this life; and two, to elevate LIFE to a higher dimension of existence, much like how ordinary individuals can enter the Second Home through cultivation.

Whether your goal is to attain happiness, joy, freedom, and fulfillment in this life or to ascend to heavenly realms, what should self-improvement and cultivation focus on?

We Chinese often have the tendency to seek quick results. In self-improvement and cultivation, this eagerness manifests as neglecting the building of the soul while obsessively pursuing advanced methods, mystical techniques, and supernatural abilities. This is the behavior that Laozi criticized as, "The Great Way is extremely simple, yet people prefer shortcuts." What results from pursuing shortcuts? Both the present life and future opportunities are squandered.

Why do I say this? The outcome depends on how we achieve happiness, joy, freedom, and fulfillment in life, and how we live like the celestials of the heavenly realms: the Thousand-Year World, the Ten-Thousand-Year World, or the Celestial Islands Continent in the Elysium World.

How Can This Be Achieved? The Second Home provides a living example. Regardless of which level of heaven you aspire to reach, the first step is to interact with a group. Without connecting with others, an individual cannot experience true happiness, joy, freedom, and fulfillment. Living alone on a deserted island offers no sense of genuine freedom.

If someone can find happiness, joy, freedom, and fulfillment in a group of 100 people, it indicates they have made significant progress in their cultivation. What remains is learning how to face death and opening the Buddha’s eye (which includes divine abilities). However, if one cannot achieve these qualities within such a group, progressing further is unattainable because the foundational conditions are absent—like trying to build castles in the air.

Attaining Happiness, Joy, Freedom, and Fulfillment in a 100-Person Group The key lies not in understanding sacred texts or mastering advanced techniques, but in cultivating the "soul garden." If the weeds in this garden are thoroughly removed, happiness, joy, freedom, and fulfillment naturally follow. If they are not eradicated, these states remain elusive.

What are the weeds in the soul garden? They include jealousy, complaints, comparisons, resentment, selfishness, greed, pride, self-satisfaction, arrogance, possessiveness, control, negativity, pessimism, blame, anger, gossiping, stirring up trouble, sarcasm, ridicule, mockery, taunting, insults, attacking others, treating others as emotional garbage bins, whining, lying, invading others’ privacy, spreading rumors, sloppiness, laziness, cunningness, aggressiveness, having a bad temper, harboring excessive ambition, creating unnecessary disturbances, forming cliques, and seeking special treatment, among others. Without removing these spiritual weeds, not only is it impossible to ascend to heavenly realms, but even a life filled with happiness, joy, freedom, and fulfillment will be hard to achieve.

Eliminating these weeds is nearly impossible without the transformative experience of living in the Second Home. In secular life, the necessary conditions for undertaking this vast and complex personal project simply do not exist.

How Should One Cultivate?

1.Read through the Chanyuan Corpus, the Xuefeng Corpus, and the Chapter of Chanyuan Masters.

2.Apply to become a Chanyuan Celestial.

3.Strive to sever worldly attachments and make effort to enter the Second Home.

4.Actively contribute to the Second Home by repaying debts, accumulating merits, and cultivating the soul garden.

5.Overcome the obstacles of emotional love and sexual love, and once the heart is free from attachments, advance to higher levels of cultivation.

6.Develop divine abilities.

7.Learn the art of transitioning from life to death.

8.Practice Lifechanyuan's Transcendence from the Physical Body Meditation Method to prepare for departing this world and reaching your ultimate destination.