(Clearwisdom.net) Just now, right after I finished doing the fifth exercise and was trying to listen to Master's first lecture, suddenly my MP3 player stopped working. I couldn't find out why and just kept trying to fix it. After a while, it started working again and I was able to clearly hear Master's lecture--he was talking about showing off. As a practitioner, I know it all happened for a reason. It is time for me to get rid of the attachment to showing off.
"We do our cultivation in the setting of ordinary people, and because of this a lot of our students can't seem to let go of many attachments they have, and a lot of their attachments have already become natural to them, they can't notice it." (Zhuan Falun)
I am the kind of person who has a lot of attachments. Since starting my cultivation, under the help and protection of Master, I began to remove them, but there are still a lot of attachments I am not aware of. There are also some I knew I had but hadn't really made the conscious decision to eliminate. Under Master's compassion, I finally make up my mind to eliminate my attachment to showing off.
Showing off in the past
In my case, the showing off attachment has been in my heart for quite a while. I was considered very smart when I was young. I attended a country school which was not considered a very good one. Among my group of friends I was known as the "top student." I was used to showing off all the time and was not even aware of it. After I studied hard and moved away from the country, I became a city resident. I found a good job, got married, and had a very lovely son.
I used to think that all my showing off occurred in the past. Now when I look back, I really feel that those things were not worth showing off at all. They now seem really childish and ridiculous, not only for a cultivator, even an ordinary person would think this kind of showing off cheap and the person not well behaved. So from then on, I felt there was nothing worth showing off about from my past.
Showing off in my present daily life
How about now? Now everything is connected with cultivation, no matter if things are good or bad. The attachment of showing off is in my dimension, like Master said,
"Showing off can appear in all kinds of situations, and it can also show up when a person is doing something good. Maybe some people brag and show off in their day-to-day lives when they gain a little status or wealth" (Zhuan Falun)
My article was used by "Minghui Weekly." When I was writing the article I was in a pure state of mind as a practitioner, and I did not think about whether my article would be used or not. After my article was printed, the hidden attachment of showing off started to appear. Two articles I wrote in 2009 were used by the paper, and right after that, a short one was used by Clearwisdom. I started to wish more articles could be used, because my showing off attachment was growing. The result: Practitioner A was talking to me one day said she never wanted to write articles for Clearwisdom anymore, because none of her articles was printed. That made me realize: "My articles were used, but it did not encourage fellow practitioners around me so that she would write more articles for Clearwisdom and we all could build up our practitioners' website together. I only discouraged her. Isn't that something I caused, since I did not have a pure state of mind?" Because of my showing off, this whole thing did not have the noble and purity it should have, and my behavior didn't help to improve our cultivation as a group.
Another time when I was clearly aware, I used a supernormal ability to accomplish a certain thing. Deep down I knew it was not brought about by my own power, it was clearly Master's power, a much more noble thing. Even though I knew this, I still carried the essence of showing off and happiness when I was talking to a fellow practitioner. Although I claimed it was with the help of Master, I could still feel that I was not that pure when I explained it.
Truly eliminating showing off
"Cultivation is up to you, gong is up to the master." (Zhuan Falun). Because everything we accomplish is all related to Master's efforts, no matter what we achieve in this surface dimension, in whatever aspect, whether among ordinary people or among practitioners, big thing or small, we should never feel proud of ourselves. There is truly nothing to be proud of or that is worth showing off. It is the wisdom given to us by the Fa that enables us to achieve anything, and the pride belongs to Dafa and Master.
If a miracle occurs, we should be more appreciative of Master's compassion and understand more deeply how noble and great Dafa is instead of showing off to fellow practitioners. At this very urgent moment, we have to help Master to validate the Fa--how can we have time to show off?
Dig out the attachment of showing off, clear it layer by layer from the surface to deep inside, and be a true disciple of Master. Let's all use pure hearts to fulfill our responsibilities and not disappoint Master's great compassion.
My level of cultivation is limited, please feel free to give corrections.
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Category: Improving Oneself
