(Clearwisdom.net)

A few days ago, I finished writing an article. I felt good about it as I hurried to send it out over the Internet. However, I tried three times in a row without success. I rarely run into problems like this. I felt that it must be the evil forces' interference; therefore, I started to send out righteous thoughts. Afterwards, I tried two more times without success. I started to get frustrated. Suddenly I realized that I was in an abnormal state. The whole thing must be caused by my own attachment.

I calmed down and looked within myself. I finally saw that it was caused by my mentality of showing off. In the past, I had always felt that I should not show off and should not praise myself; even when others praised me, I was not interested and therefore I didn't think I had any mentality of showing off. However, now I saw that attachment clearly, so I firmly eliminated it. I was much relieved. I suddenly saw the message on the screen showing me what the problem was (actually this message has appeared in the past; how did I miss it?). I followed the hint in the message and quickly sent out the article.

After that incident, I thought of all the things that have happened around me recently. I suddenly discovered a very dangerous pattern: I had been using "evil's interference" as an excuse to cover attachments that I should be discarding. At least I had been failing to "look inward." This leads to a deviated way of looking outward. Master Li described clearly the relationship between Fa rectification and cultivation in the article "Beyond the Limits of Forbearance." When facing the evil persecuting Dafa, it is correct to eradicate it with righteous thoughts at all times. However, this absolutely cannot replace our individual cultivation. When cultivating ourselves, we need to upgrade xinxing and remove all attachments. Therefore, whenever confronting a problem, conflict or tribulation, we need to first look inward to expose and eliminate attachments. Our attachments are the root and source of all those things.

In the article "Expounding on the Fa" Master Li said, "Whenever a tribulation comes, you do not see it with the side of your original nature but view it completely with your human side. Evil demons then capitalize on this point and inflict endless interference and damage, leaving students in long-term tribulations. As a matter of fact, this results from an inadequate understanding of the Fa by your human side. You have humanly restrained your divine side; in other words, you have restrained the parts that have been successfully cultivated and have prevented them from doing Fa-rectification." The only way to make our divine side stronger and stronger, and make the human side weaker and weaker, is to continuously eliminate attachments. As a result, the strength of our righteous thoughts will be more and more powerful.

In the article "Further Understanding" Master Li said, "Do you realize that as long as you're a cultivator, in any environment or under any circumstances, I will use any troubles or unpleasant things you come across--even if they involve work for Dafa, or no matter how good or sacred you think they are--to eliminate your attachments and expose your demon-nature so that it can be eliminated, for your improvement is what's most important."

Every time when I read the books and studied Fa, I can see the detailed and considerate guidance from Master Li's words. Every time I get over a tribulation, I have no words to sufficiently describe my gratitude to Master Li. Master Li has been using all his energy on every step in our cultivation. The best way to repay Master Li is to put more effort into reading the books and studying the Fa and to continuously upgrade ourselves, bravely and diligently going forward and closely following Master Li's Fa-rectification path.