(Clearwisdom.net) I felt very touched after reading an article written by a fellow practitioner entitled "A Manifestation of Selfishness: Validating Oneself vs. Validating the Fa" (http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2007/6/14/86747.html). I discovered in it the fundamental reason for my not being able to break through the state of my cultivation, not being able to make fundamental changes, and not being able to dramatically improve my xinxing. It is because in terms of the fundamental issue of whether we "are validating ourselves or validating the Fa," I was not very clear-minded. I did not find my attachment to self, and it was not completely eliminated.
Ever since I started cultivating Dafa, I thought I was validating Dafa when I was doing Dafa related work. I did not realize, and neither was I aware, that I had the attachment of validating myself. In this case it was as if a human being was doing Dafa work with a selfish heart. That is why very often I was not aware when the attachment appeared. For example, on November 14, 2006 when I was printing a small copy of a book, I did not do it well. When I looked inside, I only saw that I did not make any big mistakes after running a materials site for a long period of time. Superficially it was because of my attachment of self-confidence and zealotry. When I tried to look further inside, I did not find anything. For a long period of time, I did not make many mistakes. It is not that I did not make any mistakes, it was because Master helped me. But since I did not enlighten to this, I was still self-confident. That is I still had a very good feeling about myself, and I felt that my xinxing had improved quickly. Actually, that is because behind my self-confidence, I still had the attachment to myself. It was so deeply hidden that I still could not find it. Since I did not find it, there was no way for me to eliminate it. As a result, my xinxing did not improve.
The fellow practitioner's article reminded me. When I looked back upon this issue and checked inside myself, I saw clearly that the reason our compassionate Master guided us to the environment of running family informational materials sites was to have me validate Dafa and save sentient beings. Also, in doing all this, the purpose was to elevate my righteous thoughts and behavior, as opposed to validating myself. Everything is created by Dafa, and every single ability that we have was given to us by the Fa. When I did not enlighten to this as I was making the informational materials, whenever things went pretty well or when I had problems, my first thought was always how "I" did it. Was I not validating myself? Behind every chance for me to do something well, or whenever there was some problem, there was hidden behind it the unknown attachment of validating myself.
In examining my cultivation, I can say that more often than not I had the attachment of validating myself instead of validating Dafa. Today I found the main manifestations of these attachments, exposed them, and eliminated them so that I can eliminate the fundamental attachment to myself with my righteous thoughts in the process of validating Dafa.
I am a senior practitioner who obtained the Fa relatively early. When I obtained the Fa, I did not have the attachment of curing illness, or other purposes for obtaining the Fa. After walking into the door of cultivation in Dafa, when fellow practitioners were shared about how they began Dafa cultivation, and what attachments they needed to get rid of, I dared to say that I had no attachments to eliminate. It seemed that I was a relatively pure life prior to cultivation. Actually we were all lives saved from hell by Master. We have karma all over our bodies. Master really cherishes us; that is why he holds us one step after another on the ladder climbing up to heaven. We go from being people who only care about ourselves, to being good persons, even better persons, and then beings walking on the path of divinity in different realms. All of this is done for us with Master's efforts. While I was showing off that I had no attachments to eliminate, wasn't I was unknowingly validating myself?
Also for example, when I talked about the changes that I went through after I cultivated Dafa, very often I mentioned that previously I did not have any illnesses, and did not take any medication. It seemed that I did not have many changes after I started cultivation. Wasn't this showing off ?
"...for ordinary people things like birth, aging, sickness, and death are just a fact of life." (Zhuan Falun)
That is why for an ordinary person, no matter how healthy one seems to be, one is not truly healthy in the real sense.
"You're a cultivator, so the path your life takes will change after today, my Law Bodies will give you a new arrangement. How do they rearrange it? How many more years would some people still have to live? They don't know. Maybe some folks would get really sick in a year or half a year, and maybe they'd be ill like that for years. Maybe some folks would have a stroke or some other health problem, and they'd be immobile. So how could you cultivate with your remaining years? We have to clean up all of that for you and not let those things happen." (Zhuan Falun)
So after cultivation our body is purified by our compassionate Master, and that is good in a real sense. This is because Master is taking care of us, and it is given to us by Dafa. How can we compare this to the state we were in prior to cultivating?
Also, when I did pretty well doing the exercises, I also showed myself off. When fellow practitioners mentioned that they were too busy doing the three things, and they did not do well in practicing the exercises, I would reply that I did not miss a single time doing the exercises. Even if I missed once, I would always use my sleeping time to catch up. This was unknowingly validating myself, since I felt I did better than the others.
I have some knowledge of writing, and after I began cultivation, it was made use of by Dafa and was supposed to validate Dafa. When it was mentioned that there was this or that article posted on the Minghui/Clearwisdom website, which seemed to be from our area, even though I did not say anything, the first thought in my mind was, "that was written by me." I still put myself first, and unknowingly I was validating myself. Actually all this wisdom was given by Dafa, and was done by Master. If I did it well, it was because I was strengthened by Master. What we do is simply use our skills to assimilate to Dafa and validate Dafa.
Master said,
"If you make Dafa secondary and your divine powers primary, or now that you're Enlightened you think that some understanding or other of yours is correct, or if you even think you're so great you've gone beyond Dafa, I'd say you've started to fall, and you're at risk, and you're getting worse and worse. Then you're really in trouble, you've cultivated in vain, and chances are you'll fall and end up cultivating for nothing." (Zhuan Falun)
If I continue to be attached to myself, I am truly destroying myself and the sentient beings connected to me. From not doing well in the materials center and my own cultivation experience, I finally found the deep-rooted attachment to myself. So I decided to completely eliminate it with my righteous thoughts while validating Dafa. I will make the first priority in my heart to validate Dafa and save sentient beings so that I can walk steadily on the path arranged by Master. I will truly improve myself in the process of validating Dafa, and not validate myself.
This is my personal understanding with my limited level. Fellow practitioners, please point out anything improper with your compassion.
Views expressed in this article represent the author's own opinions or understandings. All content published on this website are copyrighted by Minghui.org. Minghui will produce compilations of its online content regularly and on special occasions.
