(Clearwisdom.net) A fellow practitioner recently told me, "As cultivators, we should truly cultivate ourselves. We must truly search inward for our attachments to be able to upgrade our cultivation practice." I was deeply touched by her compassion. I could see that she had truly attained a realm of altruism and selflessness. I was inspired to calm down and examine the problems in my cultivation practice. Teacher said,
"I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you this: while saving sentient beings, don't forget to cultivate yourselves. (Applause) You need to do all of the three things. You should always keep your thoughts righteous, and when you are confronted with evil or with certain situations, you should send forth righteous thoughts a lot; you need to clarify the truth and save sentient beings, but even more so should you cultivate yourselves well. If you don't cultivate yourselves well you won't have mighty virtue, what you say will not be in line with the Fa, and then you can't possibly save sentient beings. When what you say has no mighty virtue and no power, it will have no effect, and the evil will capitalize on that. What's more, if you don't cultivate yourselves well and your righteous thoughts are lacking, when you handle certain things you will tend to slip into human ways of thinking, and then you won't be able to have the effect of saving sentient beings. A lot of ordinary people are helping Dafa disciples do things, as a matter of fact, but they are ordinary people doing the things of Dafa disciples. You, on the other hand, are Dafa disciples. What you are doing are things you are supposed to do, and you are establishing your mighty virtue and moving towards Consummation on a divine path. So it will not work if you don't cultivate yourselves. I won't say more on this. I won't take up more of your time. Study the Fa a lot, read the book a lot." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2005 Manhattan International Fa Conference")
After I studied "Teaching the Fa at the 2005 Manhattan International Fa Conference," I reflected on my cultivation practice over the past few years. I realized that I had never truly searched inward before. Oftentimes I just made superficial changes but failed to give up the essence of my problems at heart. I would like to share the problems I have now found. I hope that my experience will be of some help to fellow practitioners who have been suffering from the same problems.
Searching inward in the "Safe Zone"
For example, when I had conflicts with fellow practitioners, before I searched inward, I had already decided that I was in the right. By doing so, I had hidden my real attachments. Sometimes I was not even aware of doing this. At other times when I was aware of it, I didn't want to face my real attachments. Instead, I would search for some minor or relatively insignificant attachment, such as the lack of kindness in my voice or in my words, my strong attachment to sentimentality, and the like. I would only search inward within the "safe zone" of the types of attachments shared by nearly all fellow practitioners at one time or another. I would never touch those deadly attachments in me. My problem has mirrored the precise problem of the old forces that only want to change other lives and refuse to change themselves or the degenerated elements in them. My selfish side is very cunning and deceitful. When I have failed to study the Fa seriously or when I have compromised my cultivation practice, I have protected my real attachments and bred them in my fields.
Showcasing "searching inward" to ask fellow practitioners to search inward
This is another reflection of my selfishness. I wanted to make fellow practitioners cultivate themselves, but I did not want to cultivate myself. It happened when I looked down upon fellow practitioners for their attachments and watched them like a hawk. Teacher said that we should point out fellow practitioners' attachments, so I used Teacher's words as my armor and my spear to poke at fellow practitioners when I saw their attachments. To sugarcoat my true intention, I would use "searching inwards" as a conversation opener in front of the fellow practitioners I had biased opinions about. But my true intention was to prompt them to search inward and admit their wrongdoings and attachments in front of me. When I searched inward in this fashion, I was merely putting on a show with a bad intention.
Using the Fa-rectification as an excuse to hide my attachments
During the Fa-rectification, many attacks of the evils from other dimensions are targeting the entire body of Falun Gong practitioners, although sometimes only certain individual practitioners that have not cultivated well in some aspects seem to suffer from such attacks. It follows that while we deny all of the evils' arrangements, we must also identify our attachments and human thoughts and eliminate them. Sometimes I only did the former and completely neglected the latter because I saw myself as an innocent victim. I would expect fellow practitioners to be sympathetic towards my plight because I was a victim of the evils' persecution. But I had forgotten one thing: Why were the evils able to attack me and not other practitioners? Did I have any loophole in my cultivation practice that gave way to the evil?
Searching inward selectively
If an attachment still exists after we have cultivated for a long time, it must be the very attachment that we are most reluctant to admit or face. When we search inward during or after a conflict, we often search inward selectively. When we intentionally hide our most stubborn attachments, we will be identifying one attachment to hide another. We do so because the attachments we are desperately trying to hide are the most embarrassing types of attachments we are too ashamed to face or admit. On the other hand, these most embarrassing attachments are our very deadly flaws, as well as the very loopholes that the evils will use to exploit us. I have seen many practitioners who share the same problem. We have become the protectors or even nurturers of our most embarrassing attachments. I have failed to eliminate my most embarrassing attachments, and other practitioners have paid dear prices to protect their most embarrassing attachments.
Searching inward out of vanity
It is a fallacious act to search inward for reasons of vanity. When I revealed my minor attachments and candy-wrapped them by acting like I was so sincerely searching inward that I had even identified my most trivial attachments, I was actually being vain and pretentious. I appeared to be noble in order to increase my prestige. "Look! What an excellent cultivator I am to 'thoroughly' search inward." The truth is that I had made a complete fool of myself to show others that I had searched inward. I didn't seem to know what cultivation was about.
This concludes the problems I have identified so far. In short, I have been attached to selfishness or myself. Because I failed to truly search inward, I have protected my worst and filthiest attachments. I have agreed to breed them in my fields. Moreover, I have not been cultivating myself at all when I have failed to truly search inward. If I should continue my foolishness, I would pay a dear price for my attachments. I would solicit the evils' persecution on my body or my thoughts and, thus, obstruct my truth-clarification work. Even worse, I might even cause damage to the Fa and lose my only opportunity of cultivation.
I believe that these problems have occurred because I have failed to truly study the Fa tranquilly, to truly understand the Fa, or to truly upgrade my understandings of the Fa.
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