(Clearwisdom.net)
Recently a practitioner told me a story about another practitioner in China who found his own fundamental attachment when he was being persecuted. He let go of it and thus caused the old forces to abandon their arrangements and stop their plans for persecution.
A practitioner who has done a great deal of Dafa truth-clarification work was illegally arrested and put in prison. The practitioner was steadfast toward Master and Dafa, and passed some tribulations. The practitioner was not afraid of anything. The only thing he worried about was being forced to renounce his belief. He was afraid to be sent into a forced-labor camp, because the forced-labor camps in China at that time were very evil, causing many practitioners to enlighten along evil paths. But it just so happened that he was sent to a forced-labor camp, although normally he would have been sent to a prison for what he had done.
In the extremely evil environment at the forced-labor camp, he realized that his fundamental attachment was his own self, worrying about not being able to succeed in his cultivation. He realized that everything that happened to him was due to the attachment that he could not put down. After this realization he had only one thought left in his mind, that is, he would rather die than be forced to renounce his belief. As a result, he found that gradually he was no longer attached to the worry he used to have. At last, he realized that in the Fa-rectification cultivation, everything we have is based on our steadfast belief in Dafa; all principles of Fa are actually one word: "Believe." He realized that with a strong belief in Dafa and Master, no element in the universe could make him abandon Dafa, and, at the human level, there was no such a thing called "conversion," because he only believed in Master, and only assimilated to Dafa. At this time, all that was in his mind was that he needed to complete his mission that he had not finished, and the fundamental attachment buried in his mind, his attachment to the self was gone. This way, he passed the test. When his forced-labor term ended, unlike most others who were forced to stay in the brainwashing class and continue to endure persecution, the term was not extended and he was told that he could go home. This was almost unheard of before.
This practitioner recognized his own fundamental attachment under the cruel persecution and got rid of it in time. This caused his cultivation environment to turn around immediately. Just as Master pointed out in his article "Towards Consummation,"
"Studying the Fa with attachments is not true cultivation. Yet during the course of cultivation a person may gradually become aware of his fundamental attachments, rid himself of them, and thus meet the standard for a cultivator."
When we began to cultivate at first we all had various motives that were not pure, but with further Fa study and better understanding of the principles of the Fa, gradually we discovered that our purpose for cultivation changed from what it used to be when we first started. But since the article was published for three years now, has every one of us practitioners examined ourselves carefully to see if we still have fundamental attachments and have we got rid of them?
Practitioners in China are in a harsh environment, and some are under prolonged severe persecution. Would it have something to do with not having gotten rid of one's own fundamental attachments? The overseas environment is peaceful and comfortable, but some practitioners felt that they failed to work hard or advance for a long time. Could this be because we did not pay sufficient attention to our fundamental attachments? For practitioners in China, if they got stuck in one [bad cultivation] state for a long time, it usually caused the tribulations to become more severe. If one did not pass those tribulations, one could turn to the wrong side. On the other hand, if one discovers one's fundamental attachments in time, the tribulations can be dissolved rather quickly. For overseas practitioners, the conflicts will not be as severe as those for the practitioners in China. If one can break through one's fundamental attachments, one's individual cultivation as well as the Fa-rectification work can be much improved. Problems that could not be resolved for a long time before can now be resolved overnight.
Recently in Lecturing on and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference Master gave some rather serious admonishments to those who have not done well. Initially I thought that Master was referring only to two types of people in particular. But after thinking it over more carefully, I realized that things that Master talked about in public have broad application. Every practitioner needs to think it over carefully, "Was it me that Master was referring to? Am I meeting a Dafa disciple's standard? Have I got rid of my fundamental attachments yet?"
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