(Clearwisdom.net)
Continued from Part 2: http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2011/12/13/130065.html
The self that we think we are is just the combination of many incarnated lifetimes accruing many human notions. When we do not let go of self, we are holding onto a huge container full of attachments, notions, and all kinds of interests and sensations. When we cannot let go of self, there are only two choices available to us. We are either controlled by “self” and do bad things, or we cover the “self” with superficial good behavior while pretending to be pure. In both instances the “self” is still there and hasn't been given up. Seen from a higher standard, the difference between a good person and a bad person is just on the surface, as their fundamental natures are the same.
Master said,
“Mankind will make a leap forward if it can take a fresh look at itself and at the universe, changing its rigid way of thinking.” ("On Buddha Law," from Zhuan Falun)
When I cannot not change myself or improve myself, if I understand it from the Fa and look inward based on the Fa, then this is the only way I can cultivate myself and no one else can interfere...
--From the author
Actually, the self is built from thoughts that were accumulated from all our many lives. We are forever reincarnating into different lives, such as a warrior one lifetime and a lady the next, a scholar, a rich man, or a slave in the many different levels of society. When we experience all kinds of different roles in society, we also make up human thoughts, which fit those social roles. These thoughts are actually the self, but this “self” is the accumulation of all these notions generated after we were born in each life.
When we are born, all the previous memories are eliminated. After we were born into the human world, we do not know who we are or where we came from in the vast cosmos. We know nothing about our origin. As we grow up and age, we gradually form the notions we firmly believe in, and we forget our original selves. At that time we become trapped in the delusion of the Three Realms. Inside that delusion, we consider that “self” as our true self and enjoy the happiness and sadness, love and hatred, sensation and revenge. When we calm down and really think about it, which is the original self? Actually, a practitioner who does not fully enlighten can never answer this question. When we know who we are, we have already become enlightened beings. Master has taught us the Fa about our original true selves. Our original selves are a stranger we do not know. A divine and pure being cannot be understood in this world, and true compassion cannot exist in the human world either.
Each person really has a true self in the Three Realms. It also covers the entire Three Realms. The huge “self” existing in the Three Realms is also a god to human beings. This being can help all the human beings in the world to form a self-consciousness and culture. Without the self-consciousness, we would not have been able to organize the knowledge and the life experiences we had, and we could not live normally in the human world. The main consciousness would become a closed shell after it formed in the human world, since we have already considered it as our true self.
I also found that the self obscures all the sentient beings in the world. The “self” in all of my lives is mine. But it is not my true, original self.
The self that we think we are is just the combination of many lifetimes accruing many human notions. When we do not let go of self, we are holding onto a huge container full of attachments, notions, and all kinds of interests and sensations. When we cannot let go of self, there are only two choices available to us. We are either controlled by “self” and do bad things, or we cover the “self” with superficial good behavior, pretending to be good. In both instances the “self” is still there and hasn't been given up. Seen from a higher standard, the difference between a good person and a bad people is just on the surface as their fundamental natures are the same.
If one is not cultivating, then the best one can be in life is to not have as many notions and attachments as others.
The self's pursuit of attaining social status is also a strong notion. Fundamentally speaking, when we acknowledge certain kinds of social roles, that role becomes our burden. For example, when I started to cultivate Dafa, the thought of cultivation was from my true self. I felt Dafa was good and I was happy just cultivating myself purely. But later my attachments surfaced. For example, although Master taught us clearly to use the “great way without form” for our cultivation, our human notions still could not endure loneliness. A practitioner still could quietly imagine himself in a certain way, and expect others to look at him that way, thereby safeguarding that impression of self. We might expect others to think of us cultivating well and advancing diligently. Gradually, we begin to worry that we might lose this impression. If, for a certain period, we were not cultivating well, we still need to frequently show up in the group of practitioners so as to not lose the impression. We might be afraid of telling others we really weren’t cultivating that well at the time. We may become very concerned about how to protect the impression that we are cultivating well even though we could not study the Fa and we were doing the three things with all kinds of attachments and human notions in our minds. In the end, we would simply be pursuing the quantity of cultivation rather than genuinely cultivating. Why do we fall into this state? It’s because our minds were not calm, and we didn't stop pursuing fame and sensations. We even had conflicts with fellow practitioners and yet we still did not wake up . We did not actively get rid of the status of being controlled by the self. So, who then is really controlling our lives?
Master said,
“Mankind will make a leap forward if it can take a fresh look at itself and at the universe, changing its rigid way of thinking.” ("On Buddha Law," from Zhuan Falun)
When I can't change myself or improve myself, if I can understand it from the Fa and look inward based on the Fa, then I can cultivate myself and no one else can interfere with that process. Master gets rid of all the impure matter that we have. All we need to do is to keep steady and look inward within the Fa to find what kinds of human notions are still hidden inside us.
It is pitiable to be at the level of everyday people. Humans can only see a small amount of the innumerable dimensions. At the same time, we can only feel the results of countless consciousnesses but we have no way to know where the source of the consciousness originates.
For millions of years, “self” helped people to form the consciousness of self inside the brain and for humans to live for it. As soon as people have the self, their lives are actually lived by “self.” During our cultivation within the Fa, we constantly clean out the self, while enriching our Buddha-nature and constraining our demon-nature. Our righteous thoughts and the understanding of the Fa keep increasing. Gradually we learn to look inward and eliminate the “self.”
We have learned to cultivate ourselves to “attain the righteous Enlightenment of selflessness and altruism” (“Non-Omission in Buddha-Nature,” from Essentials for Further Advancement). After we let go of self, our cultivation becomes purely compassionate. At that time, we have already eliminated the attachments to sensation.
Master said,
“The human body is so mysterious that it is beyond human knowledge, which can merely scratch the surface. Life is so abundant and complex that it will forever remain an eternal enigma to mankind.” (“Firmament,” from Essentials for Further Advancement)
What is our state of being when we let go of our false self and regain our original, true self? Master will open all the iron gates that have blocked our hearts and our original true self will be released. The original self does not have the attachments and human notions we got after we were born. Only the false self has human notions. Master told us very early that we should let go of attachments and human notions. When we can truly achieve that, we will wake up from the lonely, helpless, painful dream and return to our true home in the heavens.
When we let go one self, our minds are compassionate.
Master ever said,
“Compassion should arise in the heart.” (Chapter II, Illustrations and Explanations of the Exercise Movements, from The Great Consummation Way of Falun Dafa)
Compassion is true energy. With this energy, everything we do is compassionate. It is just like when we have coins in our pockets, we will spend coins, and if we have paper money in our pockets, we will spend paper money. If we have gold in our pockets, we will spend gold. In the past, our brains were full of attachments and notions. No matter how well we treated others, how hard we cultivated ourselves, and how we smiled at others, it was still attachments and human notions, since all we had at that time were just attachments and human notions.
During nearly 20 years of cultivation, I have been willing to let go of fame, interests, sensations, and even life. I have been willing to completely clean myself. But I was not aware of or ready to stop the self from dominating my life. This is the true reason that I fell down. I was afraid that the “self” would lose control of this life, because of my notions on the surface. The original self was a complete stranger. But I had known the “self” since my childhood. I established it piece by piece. I trusted the “self” and I was afraid of handing in my life to the original self, which was still a stranger to me. The “self” can offer many kinds of beautiful and smart excuses to prevent me from handing my life over to my divine side to dominate. The false self made me feel how smart I was in the human world and how I could completely understand all my thoughts.
Many Dafa practitioners can let go the attachments in the human world. But how many of us can hand in our lives for our original self to dominate?
During the past few years of cultivation, I have felt the progress of Fa-rectification. Practitioners often published articles on the Minghui website (Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net) talking about how personal cultivation synchronized with the Fa-rectification progress. When Master teaches us the Fa, at that time the Fa-rectification progress has also reached that stage, and the cosmic climate also changes to that stage. Dafa disciples need to cultivate to that stage to meet the Fa-rectification requirements. When Master spreads the Fa, he unconditionally eliminates illnesses for every practitioner in the Fa-lecture class. It was even possible to eliminate the practitioners' family's illnesses as long as you thought about them. I remember in the Fa-lecture class, Master told us that if we wanted our family members to be rid of their illnesses, we could just think of the part of their body that had illnesses (not the original words). Besides that special time period, could we have ever achieved that? It is not possible. Year 1999 was also a big improvement for all of us. Master directly pushed our states to the highest possible positions. Our practitioners who went through that period all knew that the great leaps could not have been achieved during everyday cultivation. We need to completely follow Dafa's requirements and the cosmic changes to achieve big improvements in our cultivation states. It isn't possible for practitioners to achieve such great improvements in everyday cultivation. In July, Master's New Article “Dafa Disciples Must Study the Fa” was published. I was very shocked when I read it. I felt that I had almost practiced ten years' of gymnastics. But at the same time, I truly felt I’d completely caught up with the progress of Fa-rectification. I also felt deeply that we are in another great leap period now. It is the time for us to completely and thoroughly let go of the false self.
(To be continued)
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