(Clearwisdom.net) Today a colleague told me, "You look more and more sexy these days." She thought she was praising me, but I felt very uncomfortable. Why do people want to be sexy, why do people think sexy is good? This is a reflection of an extreme deviation and the desires of modern people; they judge a person from the angle of sex appeal rather than virtue. Sexy has turned into a popular buzz word today.
I am on the heavy side, about 154 pounds on my 5'3" frame. These days clothing tends to be tight to show one’s shape. I often could not find suitable clothing. I felt embarrassed and occasionally thought about losing some weight.
In August I only ate vegetables and fruit for dinner and also did weight loss exercises. As a result, I lost several pounds. I was so happy that I could wear some clothing that I could not wear before that I wanted to lose more weight. I felt a little uneasy about the situation, but I did not pay much attention to it.
In today’s society, weight loss has become a trend. Everyone is trying to lose weight: the old, the young, men and women, the fat ones and the not-so-fat ones. As a result, weight loss centers and programs have sprung up all over the place. How to lose weight, what to eat, and how to exercise are all anybody talks about these days. I was deeply influenced by this trend. Losing weight was not only a wish, but a way of thinking, and I measured many things against this standard.
For example, if someone offered me an ice cream, my first reaction would be the thought that I would gain weight if I ate it. This was an attachment that I did not recognize. My diet was centered around weight loss. I noticed many women, even women fellow practitioners, with similar thinking. I often heard women practitioners say: "I gained ten pounds recently so I can only eat vegetables and fruit at night" or "You won't gain weight if you eat more vegetables." I thought we practitioners should cultivate while conforming to ordinary human society, so it was not wrong to pay attention to our looks.
I realized that it does not matter if a person is fat or skinny. Modern people have overemphasized the importance of weight. In ancient China, people emphasized virtue and ethics, not weight. I think in a normal human society, a person’s virtue is much more important than his/her looks, shape, or clothing. People should be wise enough not to judge anyone by their weight, and there should be appropriate clothing for heavier people.
There are many poisonous chemical ingredients in today’s foods that contribute to making people gain weight. However, the chemicals only work on ordinary people. A diligent cultivator should not be affected by them at all. For a cultivator, everything is the best as the body becomes younger and younger and healthier and healthier. In other words, if a truly diligent cultivator only thinks about saving people and does not care about anything else, everything will naturally be the best for him/her. I know an older lady who is overweight, but it does not stop her from sitting with her legs crossed. She is very nice and cultivates very well. Everyone likes her.
The modern standard is very deviant, equating beauty to being skinny. Modern clothing is deviant, too, exposing lots of skin. I think the desire to lose weight for a woman reveals the attachment of lust and showing off. She loses weight so that she can wear fashionable clothing, look pretty, and have others be attracted to her and praise her. As a matter of fact, most people today do not pay much attention to others gaining or losing ten pounds. It does not really make much difference in others’ eyes, yet people pay so much attention to themselves, thinking others will notice.
There have been different standards for beauty in different times. For example, being heavy was considered beautiful in the Tang Dynasty. This tells us that the concept of beauty is different for different times, different people, and different societies. The moral standard is very low in today’s society; demons are all over the place. This trend of losing weight must exert its own control in other dimensions. If we also want to lose weight, that means we acknowledge its existence, and, as a result, we may be controlled by it. We must clearly recognize this is a deviant trend and not be controlled by it at all.
I suggest every fellow practitioner check to see if they have similar thoughts. Our minds must be centered on the Fa at all times. We must pay attention to every single thought. Let us all cultivate more diligently.
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