(Clearwisdom.net) I don't recall how many experience sharing papers I have read on the Minghui website (Chinese version of Clearwisdom), written by practitioners from China, that have deeply moved me. They've helped me to see my blind spots and inspired me to become more diligent in my cultivation. Even though I am an overseas practitioner living in a relatively relaxed environment, free from Chinese Communist Party culture, the requirements for every Falun Dafa practitioner are the same.
Although I haven't been persecuted like my fellow practitioners in China, I have unexpectedly encountered many attachments that were difficult to remove and I have endured many tests from the moment I began practicing. Each time, it felt as if the attachments were being gouged out of me. I know that there is no one that we can consult with or whom we can follow in cultivation, and each practitioner must follow his own path. When I first started practicing, I read the experience sharing papers of Chinese practitioners on the Minghui website every day. I was moved to tears by their purity and compassion in such an evil environment and hoped that I could become more diligent in striving forward. I wanted more people to understand the truth about Falun Gong. I hoped that this persecution would end as soon as possible.
There was an experience sharing paper recently published on the Minghui website that deeply moved me. In the paper titled, “Three Moments of Improvement: 1993, 1999, 2011 (Part 2)” (http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2011/12/13/130065.html), I read the following: “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.” “The attachment to self is the root of all of our attachments.” I felt that this analysis of the attachment to self was very thorough.
For a long period of time I studied the Fa every day, yet I felt that my cultivation state wasn't improving and I was further deviating from the requirements of a Fa-rectification period Dafa disciple. I didn't know how to regain the enthusiasm and cultivation state that I had when I first started practicing. After reading this paper, I profoundly understood why many problems kept recurring. When I looked inward I always looked from the perspective of my attachments to fame, profit and qing rather than looking at my sense of self as a starting point. I became mired in a continuous cycle of tribulations.
Master said,
“I can tell you that your fundamental being understands things even more clearly than I’m putting them. The reason is, Master is now using the language of human beings to speak, whereas your true selves are very much aware, only it’s that postnatal factors of the Three Realms as well as those bad things have given rise in you to notions, experiences, and accumulations of things, burying you like dirt would, and preventing your true thoughts from coming back to the surface. So you have to cultivate. You have to climb out, wipe away those contaminating things, and wash yourself clean. That is precisely what you do in the cultivation process, and at the same time, while amidst ordeals, you must save people.” (“Dafa Disciples Must Study the Fa - Fa Teaching Given at the 2011 Washington DC Metro Area Fa Conference”)
As overseas practitioners we rarely face issues of life and death, so the attachment to self is rather prominent. I hope that every practitioner can benefit from this experience sharing paper, raise their level and give up and break away from the attachment to self. May we be assimilated to Dafa and with compassion, emanating outwards in concentric circles, embrace the whole world.
Thank you practitioners in China, I have benefited greatly from your experience sharing papers.
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