{"id":10184,"date":"2011-10-03T17:58:02","date_gmt":"2011-10-03T09:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/?p=10184"},"modified":"2011-10-03T19:09:15","modified_gmt":"2011-10-03T11:09:15","slug":"improving-or-backsliding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/2011\/10\/improving-or-backsliding\/","title":{"rendered":"Improving or Backsliding?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10185\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/11.jpg?resize=153%2C119\" alt=\"\" width=\"153\" height=\"119\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/11.jpg?w=255&amp;ssl=1 255w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/11.jpg?resize=96%2C75&amp;ssl=1 96w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 153px) 100vw, 153px\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Question:<\/strong> Sometimes, I feel tired and worried. Despite diligence in Dharma learning, I seem to still be in the darkness of delusion, uncertain of whether I am improving or backsliding.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Answer:<\/strong> I think it could be because you lack a clear unshakable direction. In terms of the diligence, maybe you&#8217;re going towards multiple sources of light in the darkness here and there, but sometimes not in a way that leads steadily out of the darkness in one direction. It&#8217;s important to keep moving in one direction to get out, or you could be going in circles, without a sense of steady progress.<\/p>\n<p>If you know the Buddhist basics already,\u00a0 this means it is time to learn to focus on a main Dharma practice (\u4e13\u4fee\u4e00\u4e2a\u6cd5\u95e8). Myself also learnt here and there without a solid sense of progress in the past. But now that I focus on the Pure Land path, I know clearly where I&#8217;m going. When Pure Land is reached, there will be no need to worry about backsliding too, as the path to enlightenment will be smooth and the goal definitely within reach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: Sometimes, I feel tired and worried. Despite diligence in Dharma learning, I seem to still be in the darkness&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[109,415],"class_list":["post-10184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mix","tag-delusion","tag-diligence","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}