(Minghui.org) Because I grew up in China, my mentality was poisoned by the indoctrination of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). I held attachments to negative thinking, fear, suspicion, competition, and especially jealousy.
In 1998, I arranged with my then-husband to take care of our child so I could go to the park to do the Falun Dafa exercises and talk to people about Falun Dafa. However, he changed his mind before I was about to leave. I was so angry that I slammed the door and left without listening to his explanation.
Immediately after heading out of the door, I knew I was wrong and regretted my display of anger. While riding the bus and thinking about what made me angry, Teacher’s Fa came to my mind:
Teacher said,
“A wicked person is born of jealousy.Out of selfishness and anger he complains about unfairness towards himself. (“Realms” from Essentials For Further Advancement)
I realized that my problem was caused by jealousy, an attachment that must be eliminated.
As I improved my xinxing, I noticed my legs did not hurt while doing the sitting meditation in the park.
I was persecuted for practicing Dafa. My ex-husband could not take the pressure and divorced me in 2000. When the judge suggested that we might remarry, I responded angrily, “Never!”
Many years later, I realized that I said this because I had not let go of sentiment, selfishness, and jealousy. As a result, I did not help my ex-husband understand Dafa.By identifying my strong attachment to jealousy, I began to work at removing its influence over me.
A big growth appeared under my left ear in 2013. I did not worry about it at first because it was not itchy nor painful. But, when the growth increased in size after a few years, I became worried and tried to look inward.
A colleague then said last year, “Envy grows tumors, and jealousy grows cancer.” I was surprised, and suddenly realized that the growth was caused by jealousy.
I then realized there were so many occasions when my anger came to the forefront in my work life. I felt mistreated, and this anger made me react rashly. Now, I understand that my anger was caused by jealousy.
According to the article Eliminating Jealousy, published on July 15, 2016 on the Minghui website, “Chen Jiting, a philosopher from the Ming Dynasty, said there are two shames for a gentleman: bragging about his own strong suits and covering up his own shortcomings. He also said that there are two vices for a gentleman: jealousy of others' capability and spreading others' incapability.”
I was touched when reading the article, as I indeed had the two shames and two vices. I realized that I could not remove jealousy because I had not changed my notion about it.
Once I dreamed that Teacher said, “...Buddha Amitabha spoke of going to a paradise with karma.” (Zhuan Falun) I understood after I woke up, that He was talking about jealousy.
Teacher said,
“There is this rule: If in the course of cultivation practice jealousy is not given up, one will not attain Right Fruit—absolutely not. Perhaps you have heard before that Buddha Amitabha spoke of going to a paradise with karma. But that is not going to happen without giving up jealousy. It may be possible that one falls short in some other minor regards and goes to the paradise with karma for further cultivation. But it is absolutely impossible if jealousy is not abandoned.” (Zhuan Falun)
Master's words told me that I truly had to work hard and let go of the attachment to jealousy.
Jealousy is wicked and is unkind. However, I knew that there were other attachments I had to find through looking inward. Besides jealousy, I found the attachment to complaining, criticizing, hatred, arrogance, envy, and more.
Teacher said,
“Huatuo saw a tumor in Caocao’s brain and wanted to operate on it. Caocao thought that Huatuo meant to murder him, and so he imprisoned Huatuo. As a result, Huatuo died in prison. When Caocao’s illness recurred, he remembered Huatuo and looked for him, but Huatuo was already dead. Later, Caocao indeed died of this illness.” (Zhuan Falun)
Teacher's Fa told me that being on guard and suspicious are also harmful attachments that I had to eliminate.
In addition, I did not understand the relationship between Teacher, Dafa and fellow practitioners. But, I understood that I did not place Fa study in the most important place. I had the attachment of doing things. When encountering conflicts, I did not think of Teacher and Dafa first.
Instead, I used a human mentality to analyze problems. I learned from others instead of the Fa. I spent more time browsing the web than studying the Fa. I was looking outward instead of inward when encountering problems, and my many attachments arose from my not meeting the Fa’s standard of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forebearance.