(Clearwisdom.net) As a practitioner there are many kinds of attachments and desires to give up, such as the attachment of self-interest, sentimentality for relatives, the fear of clarifying the truth to people, jealousy when seeing others are better than ourselves, resentment when we are misunderstood, and the attachment of laziness and seeking comfort. Those attachments will be strengthened and magnified if we do not pay attention to discarding them, and a vicious cycle will be created. At that stage it will be very hard to get rid of them, because those things will have already become real to us and started to control us. Even if we have righteous thoughts, we still need Teacher's strength to overcome them, but it is really worth it.
On our path of cultivation, there is little time to try again. We should not waste any time available to us. When our main consciousnesses is strong, we can really feel that bad things that we do are sins. We should always remind ourselves and cultivate more diligently within the time left.
"With every trial and every tribulation, there's the question of whether you move up in cultivation or down." (Zhuan Falun, Lecture Six)
Our cultivation really should not allow us any spare time. Practitioners' faults will be the sentient beings' loss. As practitioners, we need to learn to give up all the things that do not truly belong to us and just do what we really should do. It is not for ourselves, but for sentient beings. After relinquishing those things, you will realize that human things are replaced by feelings of stability and steadiness within the Fa. This is another level of "giving up." In addition, in many situations, it is a righteous thought when you give up the human notion and do not want to validate yourself, or when you think about the matter from the other person's viewpoint. At that moment, you do not think, "What is compassion?" because you already have compassion. Then you will be greatly touched by Teacher's Fa and the other person will be touched by you. As a practitioner, we will achieve consummation only after we give up all our attachments.
October 11, 2008