(Clearwisdom.net) One day I opened the book Zhuan Falun to study the section about jealousy. I read several pages. Although I read the words on the surface, I was not paying attention with my heart. I tried to clear my mind and started to read from the beginning again, looking inward while studying the Fa... It was time to send righteous thoughts, so I stopped reading, cleared my mind and sent forth righteous thoughts.
Afterward, I started reading the section on jealousy from the beginning one more time. I read it calmly and slowly. Before I realized it, the Fa led me to review my path of cultivation and incidents that I had encountered along the way. My mind became clearer and clearer.
"It is because jealousy is displayed very strongly in China. It is so strong that it has become natural and one does not even feel it."
"If in the course of cultivation practice jealousy is not given up, one will not attain Right Fruit..." (Zhuan Falun, from 2000 translation version)
I understood that jealousy is a very bad attachment, and I was afraid that others would think that I had such an attachment. When I read articles on the Minghui website about jealousy, I often comforted myself, thinking I did not have the attachment of jealousy, or that the article I was reading was not applicable to me, or that my attachment to jealousy was not strong enough to be a problem. I noticed that many practitioners, including myself, openly admitted that they had attachments of showing off, being overjoyed, or irritable when fellow practitioners were not doing well, but very few would admit to having an attachment of jealousy. When fellow practitioners hinted that I might have an attachment of jealousy, I was often angry about it. How could I be jealous?
If it were not my jealousy, then what attachment were those incidents meant to expose? One day when I finally improved my xinxing, I realized that my fellow practitioners had been right. However, it took me a long time to realize this. One year, two years, three years... It took such a long time that whenever I thought about those incidents, I could not realize that they were meant to expose my jealousy. I still believed that it was not my fault and my fellow practitioners had treated me unjustly. It is absolutely right that there are no accidents in our cultivation. Nothing happens in our cultivation process that is unrelated to cultivation. Master arranges our improvement and the evils are watching for opportunities to interfere.
"If someone's good news is made public, others will right away become very jealous. Some people are afraid of mentioning their awards or some benefits from their workplaces or elsewhere, lest others feel uneasy upon learning the news." (Zhuan Falun)
Reading Master's words, I realized that I was similar to that person. When my experience-sharing article was published on the Minghui Weekly, I tried not to let fellow practitioners know about it. Of course I should not show off, but I have an attachment of being afraid. What was I afraid of? While I do not have to let others know that my article was published, my fear of letting others know about it was due to my fear of jealousy.
I continued to study the Fa. Master said,
"This jealousy is somehow related to the absolute egalitarianism that was once practiced." (Zhuan Falun)
All of a sudden I realized why Chinese people's jealousy is so intense. It is related to the culture of absolute egalitarianism created by the CCP. People are poisoned by the evil spirit of communist party. Under the poisonous CCP culture, no one wants to contribute more than others.
I realized that my fellow practitioners and I had been poisoned by egalitarianism. I could not treat the tribulations I encountered in my cultivation correctly. When I encountered a little more difficulty or trouble, I felt it was unfair. As a matter of fact, the reason that I had bigger tribulations was that I had more karma. It is not that Master did not remove my karma. Master could not remove all of my karma. When I had lots of human attachments, I complained about my tribulations and felt it even more unfair when I compared my situation to fellow practitioners.
During today's cultivation and Fa-rectification process, my attachment of jealousy is quite obvious. There are some practitioners I don't really like. When others praised how good another's xinxing and enlightenment quality were, I would feel uncomfortable and wonder how he could be good, and think about how bad he was in such and such aspect. Occasionally, I questioned whether I was being jealous. Then the cunning jealousy told me, "How could I be jealous? I might be jealous of him if he did well in his cultivation. He has not cultivated well at all and it is not worth my being jealous over. I have no jealousy."
When I thought about it calmly, I believed that I would not be jealous if I agreed that my fellow practitioner is truly good. If he had done really well in his cultivation, it wouldn't work if I didn't admire him. It was when I saw his shortcomings and looked down on him, yet others praised him, that I felt uneasy. Isn't this the jealousy that Master is pointing out in the Fa? Some fellow practitioners are coordinators and do a lot of Dafa work. It's hard for them. Sometimes when I am tired, the attachment of jealousy also makes me feel wronged. When seeing others receive Dafa materials easily, I felt uncomfortable. Did I make it too easy for them to get these materials? Should I make them come and pick up the materials themselves? I am not saying that we should not let fellow practitioners pick up the materials themselves, the key is that such an attachment needs to be eliminated. Sometimes, when I saw another coordinator showing strong leadership qualities, and that many other practitioners admired and praised him, I also felt it was unfair.
The attachment of jealousy has stopped me from openly communicating with my fellow practitioners and prevented me from forming one body with fellow practitioners. And it has caused misunderstandings among practitioners and weakened our strength as a whole body. Fa rectification is approaching, and it is time to get rid of the root of this jealousy.
April 10, 2005
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