(Clearwisdom.net),

continued from Part 1: http://clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2011/12/12/130057.html

Master said in “Non-Omission in Buddha-Nature”

“I also want to tell you that your nature in the past was actually based on egotism and selfishness. From now on, whatever you do, you should consider others first, so as to attain the righteous Enlightenment of selflessness and altruism.” (Essentials for Further Advancement)

I realized that all the human attachments and notions, including fame, gain, and sentimentality, are within our selves. Especially after 1999, as we cultivate and validate the Fa at the same time, we must put down these human attachments in ourselves. Although we talk about this quite often, how do we let go of the self? Since I was not clear on this, how could I truly let go of self-interest ?

- From the author

I found that gradually over the years I became the “bad guy” among our local practitioners. I could not succeed in any of the Dafa related work because of interference that I just did not know how to eliminate. Once a practitioner wanted to help me, even my relatives, they would soon be persecuted or get into some other trouble. I noticed that if I just did a little bad thing, it would immediately spread out over the entire city. Whenever people talked about me, they always felt better about themselves. Even some practitioners who had gone over to the opposite side might think, “How could anyone be worse than that guy?”

A few years ago some local practitioners began to tell others that I was no longer a practitioner. Some fellow practitioners said, “Don’t bother trying to help him. He has not been a practitioner for a long time.” Not until later in my cultivation did I find out why they were saying things like that. When I looked at myself in other dimensions I realized I had completely stepped off the path of cultivation in Dafa. I saw myself lying on the ground buried by stones.

I went to another practitioner's home and he put a glass of water on the table in front of me. He compassionately talked to and advised me for a long time. But I was just quietly drinking the water and had no reaction to him. In the end, he sighed and said, “You should at least try to be a good person.”

Another practitioner took me into a courtyard so that no one else could see us. He pointed to me and said, “I would like to talk with you because I feel compassion for you. People like you should really go to hell!” I did not know what to say, as I knew he was right and I could not reply to him at all. In fact, at that time, even during daytime when I sat in the room, I often felt a kind of dark, cold, and dirty smell as if it was the air straight from hell. I also would feel ashamed for no reason. When I saw Teacher's photo in other practitioners' home I would be so scared that I didn't know where to put my hands and feet. I was scared to read Dafa books because I felt I was too dirty and not worthy to study the Fa.Sometimes I would reluctantly pick up the book, and cover the first several pages with my hands so I didn't have to see Teacher's photo. Only then could I read the Fa. I was too frightened to look at Teacher's face.

Often fellow practitioners came by to try and help me. They probably felt that a veteran practitioner like me (who was part of the Masters Fa teachings class in 1993, an assistant, and someone who had done many things for validating the Fa, and who had led many people to obtain the Fa while helping them to pass the test of life death) had sadly fallen to such a degree and needed some help. Sometimes they would take me to group Fa studies and we would sit in the living room and take turns to read. When it was my turn, I would often miss-read the words. Fa study helped me to be diligent for a little while, but because my tribulation was very big and I was tangled up with many things and had many debts, I did not persistently study the Fa. It wasn’t long before I began to slack off again.

Seeing that I was still struggling in tribulations, many practitioners again tried to help in one way or another. Some drove me to other cities to visit practitioners who were doing the three things well. One time, we went to a fellow practitioner's home in the evening. We studied the Fa together and shared cultivation experiences. They hoped it would encourage me. Every two days they would wake me up at 3:50 am to do the exercises at the same time as many others. I rarely got up that early anymore and because I was still half asleep, I did the movements wrong. I heard the local practitioner quietly blaming the practitioner who’d brought me there, “Why didn't you mention to everyone that you’d brought a new practitioner here?” I was so ashamed as I’d practiced for nearly 20 years.

Another time some practitioners hoped that I could experience how others clarified the truth and they took me out with them. There was an elderly lady who often was able to convince nearly 100 people to quit the CCP everyday. Their Fa study group had convinced several tens of thousands of people to quit the CCP by the time I met them. I followed the elderly lady and with my own eyes, I saw how she was able to convince more than 20 people to quit the CCP within less than half an hour. I was stunned because her realm was far beyond mine. Clarifying the facts was very simple for her . She just spoke several sentences and the person would watch her with their full attention, and she would say several more sentences, and the person would nod and agree to quit the CCP. As impressed as I was, once I returned to my own life, I quickly became the old self again. I was not able to follow what Teacher taught us in the first chapter of Zhuan Falun, Master said:

“The above are the two reasons for not being able to increase gong. Without knowing the Fa at high levels, one cannot practice cultivation. Without cultivating one’s inner self and one’s xinxing, one cannot increase gong. These are the two reasons.”

I didn't cultivate following this Fa principle and as a result, doing the exercises felt just like ordinary physical movements. It was really hard to be diligent .

Soon some fellow practitioners came from even farther away. Some of them were very famous fellow practitioners who had been reported multiple times by Minghui for the things related to cultivation and truth clarification. They graciously stayed with me , studied the Fa and did the exercises with me. Of course I changed a lot during this time but I still could not truly surpass my tribulations and enter a new and diligent cultivation state. I was immersed too deep in my tribulations and had too many things to deal with. I had very little time to study the Fa or do the exercises and did not make a set time for them. For many days I did not study the Fa or do the exercises.

In the last few years I often clearly felt that I had fallen far behind the main body of Dafa disciples. I felt that I probably was within the last group to come into Dafa. I even believed that my own system in the universe must be totally fragmented and incomplete.

Once upon a time I had cultivated very happily and I was very pure. Yet I had also cultivated very painfully and helplessly. I had experienced the sacred and glorious feeling when I could keep up with the Fa rectification. I have also experienced the painful and helpless feeling of when I wanted to improve and could not. I understand cultivation's joy and sorrow, of being lost and being persistent, as well as being helpless and carefree. I experienced Dafa first being taught, spreading out across the world, Dafa practitioners' tribulations, and Dafa practitioners rectifying the cosmos. I had two extreme experiences of a Dafa disciple's pureness, righteous belief, while quickly rising to high levels, and then the opposite experience of damage done by former practitioners who have “enlightened” along a wicked path, the pain of falling away, the retribution after doing bad things, and the lonely and painful feeling from being distanced by the great law of Dafa.

Yet this is cultivation, so miracles can indeed occur and one miracle happened recently.

I went to visit a fellow practitioner, who has been in a deep-enlightened state since we cultivated together in the 90s. He knew my cultivation state and knew my attachments. He spent time and told me he saw how our “selves”, attachments, and notions are controlling our lives, and how the selves are formed through many life times of reincarnation. After the third day with him, the interference for my Fa study became a lot weaker. After then I quickly caught up with the process of Fa rectification.

Since then I understood the difference between what the (formed) self is and what the original self is. I now have a deeper understanding .

Teacher said

“The self that is you is the innate self, and it does not change. But a human being tends to easily form notions when perceiving things, and that notion is not you.” (“Buddha Nature” in Zhuan Falun (Volume II)).

During my 20 years of cultivation I had not before truly seen and understood the Fa from a higher level. All of sudden I did now and realized the most important thing for my cultivation in this life is not putting down fame, gain, and sentimentality, nor is it putting down life and death. It is actually to put down my self, defeat the self, and surpass the self. My sentimentality was very weak and at some point without even noticing it I was able to let go of fame and gain and life and death. I was born not being afraid of death, as I knew that death was nothing to be afraid of.

Not only was my sentimentality weak when I was born into this world, but also in order to have me not to form sentimentality as I grew up, it was arranged for me to live in a lonely living environment. When I was little, I lived on a campus. As I got a bit older and began to know worldly things, my family just kept moving, from one city to next, so that I could not get used to anything. So it was hard for me to be completely integrated into each environment.

Also, my brain was partly locked before the 12^th grade. I was not very smart and I did not like to read or study. I had almost no interests. I didn't have many friends and I often just spent time alone. When I started cultivation, the years between 1993 and 1999 were to let go of fame, gain, and sentimentality. Because this was very easy for me I could easily reach a cultivation state of “looking but caring not to see”, “listening but caring not to hear”, and being present, with the heart elsewhere”. The test of putting down life and death in 1999 was also very easy for me, because even before I began cultivation, I had no notion of death. After starting cultivation even the concept of “letting go of life and death” was indifferent to me.

Why after ten years of cultivation did I fall so badly?

Teacher told us in “Non-Omission in Buddha-Nature” in February 1997,

“I also want to tell you that your nature in the past was actually based on egotism and selfishness. From now on, whatever you do, you should consider others first, so as to attain the righteous Enlightenment of selflessness and altruism. So from now on, whatever you do or whatever you say, you must consider others—or even future generations—along with Dafa’s eternal stability.” (Essentials for Further Advancement)

I realized that our human attachments and notions, including fame, gain, and sentimentality, are loaded in our sense of self. Especially after 1999, as we are in Fa-rectification cultivation, we must let go of the attachment to self. Although we always talk about letting go of self, what actually is “self?” Since I wasn't really clear what “self” was, how could I go so far as to say that I had truly and thoroughly let go of the attachment to self? When we reach the realm of truly giving up the attachments to fame, profit and qing, and the attachment to life and death, and continue to cultivate upwards, yet still haven't given up the attachment to self, it becomes a factor separating us from the characteristic of the universe.

Before 1999, I did not fail on sentimentality and lust, I did not fail and fame and gain, I did not fail on the test of life and death, but I failed to let go of “self.” I could not put down my “self” yet I now understand that the attachment to self is the root to all of our attachments.

(To be continued)