(A Westerner Practitioner in U.K.)
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Responsibility is a word that I have been running from for a long time. So when it comes to the undeniable duty every Falun Gong disciple has to promote the Fa (Laws and Principles) and to spread the truth about the situation in China, I have been falling behind.
Practitioners would say, "you have a responsibility to hongfa (spread Falun Dafa) to let the world know about the situation in China." I would agree, but I still did not like this term, preferring, instead, to say that naturally, when we have cultivated our xinxing (mind nature, moral quality), our hearts will be clearer and our actions appropriate, and whatever we did would be the most selfless thing. To me, responsibility was like an ordinary persons dirty word, a word that did not seem majestic or upright enough to be applied to the Fa. I felt a little awkward and uncomfortable when it was used.
Recently, sitting in a park, talking about cultivation, hongfa and the situation in China, many people were again using the word, whilst I was saying I felt that as long as we studied the Fa, and genuinely cultivated ourselves, we would do everything well including hongfa and that we should always look inside ourselves when difficulties arose, etc. I felt that this was right, until I noticed that another practitioner still seemed to feel she still wanted to talk further. I kept noticing this word, "responsibility", again and again, and each time it was said, I felt uncomfortable. I accepted, to myself, that I must learn to accept the idea of responsibility to a greater degree, that I must be avoiding it, but I still could not get a handle on why I felt this sense of discomfort with it.
Then, a few days later, I found myself feeling at a dead end. I have just got married, moved to the city and have no fixed job. I am trying to set up an acupuncture practice, and to find other work, which is proving difficult. My wife is very lonely and feels insecure and wishes I could provide her with more security. Yet I found the prospect of working hard to set up my own business, of having to support her financially, and emotionally, standing like a wall in front of me.
I had been feeling for some time, that I should not push too hard to make a success of things. - I should not try to take what was not mine. I should not try to interfere in others fate (namely that of my wife) out of the attachment of sentimentality, or seek to create a name for myself out of the attachment of fame, or to avoid hardship. I realised, after talking to my mother (she is very good at pointing out to me the feelings I am trying to deny) that I was not facing up to my responsibility to my wife, to my future family, to myself and to the society. My thoughts about not acting from other attachments were selfish excuses to avoid facing this responsibility. So I thought, "OK, Ill take on this responsibility, and get on with things much more positively, and I will let go of this fear of these attachments." As I tried to do this in my mind, however, it was like running into a brick wall. It was as though I walked into the mental equivalent of flypaper, and just stuck there, squirming, struggling with all kinds of intensely painful feelings and conflicting notions. I gradually managed to pull myself free to ask myself what attachment was underlying all of this.
This is what I found. The nearest I can come to is performance-anxiety. Somehow, as long as I did things only for myself I contained my actions within myself, and there was nothing by which others could measure or criticise me. Like a musician, practising quietly to himself in his house he is very calm, and musical, but when it comes to a live performance, he is petrified with fear and forgets how to play. I still inside had a fear of failure, of failing other people, not out of concern for them, but simply because the fruits of my efforts and the success of my endeavours would be there, laid bare out in the open for all to see. If I did badly, it was obvious; I could not even hide it from myself. This attachment was also underlying my fear of the word "responsibility" with regard to hongfa. As a cultivator, my xinxing cultivation is a largely internal and personal thing, somehow, to take on the responsibility of hongfa and the situation in China is to bring this process out, to have an external thing by which I am afraid others may judge me, and criticise me. These attachments to fame and sentiment were all hiding behind this one word.
Of course, I am not saying that I acted entirely without responsibility before, or that I had never noticed, faced and eradicated to some extent these attachments on previous occasions when they had surfaced in similar ways. I am simply revealing a process by which I was made aware of hidden attachments and selfishness.
Having dug this out by the roots, I am now letting go. I am now learning to act more responsibly, to consider others before myself to a more genuine extent, and have lost from somewhere deep inside, a fear that my fame and emotions will be harmed by my commitment to actions outside of myself. I understand better now why other practitioners used this word. Done genuinely, to carry out "responsibility" is to put others before your self, to put your human heart on the line openly and honestly. To shun responsibility is to hold yourself in, to selfishly hold onto your attachments for fear of their exposure.
Master Li says, "Your past nature was actually built on the basis of egoism and selfishness. From now on, whatever you do, you should have first consideration for others so as to attain the right enlightenment of selfishness and altruism."
I can say now with a very clear mind that I have a responsibility to help rectify the situation in China and to hongfa. I hope to do better in the future, and that when my failings and shortcomings are made apparent, I accept them gladly.
A Westerner Practitioner in U.K.
August, 2000
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Category: Journeys of Cultivation
