(Clearwisdom.net) Dafa practitioners are validating the Fa, opposing the persecution, clarifying the truth and saving sentient beings. Ordinary people cannot understand the inner meaning behind the things we do. Because we are cultivating among everyday people, sometimes when we are doing our sacred tasks, our human notions will get the better of us, for instance, we may find the attachments of fame, personal interest, and sentimentality. Although they are fairly well concealed, I still found myself attached to fame, personal interests and sentimentality. Here are some examples:
While urging people to quit the Chinese Communist Party, I was somewhat attached to the numbers. Of course, the more people that quit the CCP the better, because more people will be saved - however, my behavior reflected a heart of pursuit and fame. While urging people to quit the CCP, if someone quit, I felt very happy. After I went home I marked in a notebook how many people had quit the CCP that day, and I enjoyed adding up the total. The gleefulness I felt when I noted the number of people that had quit was not necessary. It means I had a show-off heart inside.
Sometimes when I clarified the truth to people, at the end, I would ask if he or she was a member of the Party or the Youth League. If the person said, "No," I would feel I had wasted a lot of time talking to him or her. As matter of fact, this person had come to understand the truth and was saved, so why did I think that I had wasted my time talking to the person? It was because of the small number of people quitting the CCP. Even worse, sometimes I asked right away if the person was a member. If he or she said, "No," then I wouldn't clarify the truth to them.
Can you see how hurtful this heart that pursues fame really is?! It not only hurts me, it also hurts others.
I understand that clarifying the truth and urging people to quit the CCP is to save people. However, the pursuit of fame is reflected during this process. I just mentioned pursuing the number of people quitting the CCP. If a person didn't quit, then my heart felt bad on the surface and I took pity on the person, thinking this person didn't want to be saved. In my heart there was also a number short. "In my paradise," I was thinking, "there is one life short, and my mighty virtue won't manifest as beautiful a paradise." Isn't this an attachment to self interest? One time I clarified the truth and urged someone to quit the CCP, but he didn't quit. Later on another practitioner got him to quit. When I heard about it, my heart didn't feel good. I thought, "Sooner or later I would have got him to quit, but you did it before I had a chance." This heart of pursuit and selfishness is very strong. As practitioners we should get rid of this kind of heart.
Regarding the heart of sentimentality, where is it reflected? When clarifying the truth and urging people to quit the CCP, I was happy when they quit and I felt bad if they didn't. My heart shifted from being lifted up and dragged down so often. Isn't this sentimentality? Also, I spent more time talking to relatives, friends, and schoolmates than other people that I didn't feel as close to. This kind of heart is very bad and really harms our ability to save people. Furthermore, my wife is also a practitioner, and in order to help her build up more mighty virtue, I left the neighbors, relatives, good friends, and schoolmates for her to talk to, but she didn't do it. Eventually, I didn't do it either. Thus, later on, I had to find a chance to talk to them again. Isn't this like keeping us from saving people? This comes about from sentimentality.
Master said in "Further Understanding" in Essentials for Further Advancement:
"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. If you are able to succeed in improving yourself this way, what you do then, with a pure heart, will be the best and most sacred."
Master said in "Success at Consummation" in Hong Yin:
"Fame, gain, emotion—cultivate each away,
And ascend to the Firmament at Consummation,
See the human world with eyes of compassion,
Then are you freed from the spell of delusion. "
Only when we follow what Master has said can we eliminate the attachment to fame, personal gain, and sentimentality. When working nonstop to purify ourselves we can save more sentence beings.