(Minghui.org) I’m a Falun Dafa practitioner. After having obtained the Fa, I came to know that practitioners are the most fortunate beings in the universe. I wrote this article to share a couple experiences of eliminating my strong attachments and having my xinxing elevated.
For many years, when we needed to work as one body, I always joined in. However, in the aspect of solid cultivation, I still lagged behind, and my xinxing improvement was fairly slow. I felt that my greatest obstacles were: being attached to my ego, my tendency to look outward (instead of inward), and criticizing others. When other practitioners kindly pointed out my shortcomings, I often defended myself, which boiled down to the fact that I didn’t want to be criticized.
I recently began to memorize and recite the Fa at home and with fellow practitioners in our group study. I found that memorizing the Fa helped me to have a pure mind when I was studying. When I could take the Fa into my heart, I was in a very good mood after Fa-study. When I ran into an issue or had strong attachments, I picked up Zhuan Falun and began to memorize the Fa. It always happened that the paragraph I memorized targeted my issue. I know that one should not have any pursuit when studying the Fa; as long as one puts one’s heart into studying and memorizing the Fa, everything will fall under the arrangement of Master Li (the founder of Falun Dafa).
One experience of eliminating attachments was a conflict I had with Ms. Liu. She was experiencing serious illness karma. I went to see Ms. Liu at her home and met Mr. Ding. He said to me sternly, “Do you know that Ms. Liu’s situation was caused by your criticizing her?!” What he said felt like a big club suddenly hitting my chest, which made me short of breath. Ms. Liu and her mother were also caught off guard by this. They both began to stare at me. I tried my best to hold myself from arguing with Mr. Ding, even though he didn’t stop criticizing me. Finally, I couldn’t endure any more and had to ask him to stop. But he said, “Maybe it wasn’t all your fault, but at least you are responsible for half of it.”
I clearly knew about Ms. Liu’s situation. She told me that her serious illness karma was interference she attributed to having resentment towards another practitioner who had criticized her, and she couldn’t let it go. Ms. Liu had been cruelly persecuted in prison for three years. After she was released, she developed some illness symptoms in her stomach, and her situation gradually worsened. (Ms. Liu wondered if poisonous drugs had secretly been put in her meals when she was detained, as was often done to practitioners.) The old forces then used her resentment to persecute her, creating gaps between her and this other practitioner.
Before the conflict with Mr. Ding, I had taken Ms. Liu to my home a couple of times to study the Fa, share together, and send forth righteous thoughts. I asked her in our sharing, “Did you have any resentment before this?” She firmly said, “No, I didn’t.” I replied, “Resentment, just like any other attachment, isn’t our true self, it was added on by the old forces a long long time ago. Everybody has it.
“Since we cultivate to return to our original true self, we have to eliminate it. If you don’t even know you have it, how can you eliminate it? Perhaps it was Master who used that practitioner to say something to you in order to expose your resentment. When you can clearly see through this illusion, and know it isn’t you, then Master will help you remove it, which will turn this bad thing into a good thing. Wouldn’t it be a good thing? So don’t you have to thank that practitioner?” But she still couldn’t see through her attachment and let it go.
It was interesting that Mr. Ding accused me of being the cause for her incurring such illness karma. How could I possibly take his criticism? On my way home, I struggled internally. Mr. Ding’s imposition and forcefulness, and the extremes of his past actions struck my heart and made me feel indignant.
After I got home, I sat on the couch and talked to myself: “How could I feel so upset?” I then realized that whenever I feel upset, there is something I need to let go of. After I calmed down, I thought: “No matter what, I have to look inward. As to how ridiculous Mr. Ding seemed to be and what he said, I shouldn’t look at that, but only at myself.”
I wondered, “Did I also criticize others before? Yes, for sure. Did I criticize Ms. Liu before? Yes I did, quite a lot.” Ms. Liu began her cultivation recently. As soon as she started, she began to participate in projects to validate the Fa. She did well in studying the Fa, memorizing the Fa, and clarifying the facts to others. But I felt she didn’t quite understand what personal cultivation was about. She often treated things with good intentions. But when she ran into some issues, she asked other practitioners what to do. She often ended up using ordinary people’s principles to resolve things. So when she came to ask me something, I always lost my patience and ended up criticizing her. But she never got upset at me. Instead, she said good things about me, such as I explained things in great detail to her, and I helped her enlighten to the Fa. I felt pretty good when I heard her comments.
A few years have passed, and Ms. Liu has always behaved the same way around me. Could this be accidental? I couldn’t see much of her strong points to encourage her. Meanwhile, I seldom looked inward to cultivate myself. I put the blame on her instead, which only served to harm her. I didn’t live up to Master’s compassionate arrangement. Some practitioners had kindly reminded me multiple times, but they felt helpless by my defensiveness. When Master saw that I could look inward after I memorized the Fa, He purposefully had Mr. Ding give me a wake-up call. In addition, Mr. Ding seemed very demanding and aggressive. Didn’t Master use him as a mirror for me to see myself? How much better was I than him? Master really had good intentions.
I became clear-minded. I wanted to apologize to Mr. Ding and thank him as soon as possible, but I didn’t know where to find him. The next day, I saw him at Ms. Liu’s home again. I sincerely apologized to him and thanked him for his being upfront with me. The conversation went very well. It was Master who used a heavy hammer to shatter my attachments of being demanding, criticizing others, and not wanting to be criticized.
After a fellow practitioner and I finished studying three chapters of Zhuan Falun, I felt especially peaceful and compassionate. So I wrote a letter to Ms. Liu praising her, saying she had many strong points and encouraged her to make a breakthrough in her tribulation. I also said that I finally understood what she painstakingly did for me. I came to understand that she wanted to use her sincerity and kindness to touch me and warm my heart. However, I treated her way of expression as a purposeful act. I felt truly grateful for her compassionate tolerance towards me and asked for her forgiveness. I then had a practitioner bring this letter to her. That practitioner told me that Ms. Liu cried when she read it. When I wrote this article, I also couldn’t hold back my tears.
This process of solid cultivation became a turning point for me to go from “looking outward” to “looking inward.”
Practitioners Helped Me Dig Out My Notions
A second experience that helped me was when a practitioner, Ms. Hu, said to me: “When you clarified the facts to the manager of a certain department in the company, you didn’t do it in an upright manner. You went to save him, but you came across like you were begging and trying to please him. You even looked very inferior to him. You thoughts were not upright. What you brought with you to give him was also something not good. You have to find it.” I rejected what she said. After we talked for the whole morning, I still couldn’t understand what the “something not good” was that she referred to. I just focused on her shortcomings instead.
One week later, she shared with me again. I still couldn’t figure out what she wanted me to find. Seeing that she persistently asked me to look inward, I began to reason things out with her. I felt that my truth-clarification approach was reasonable, and I didn’t behave in an undignified manner, nor did I feel inferior to others. There wasn’t anything I was pursuing from my manager; I didn’t need to please him. I clarified the facts to him step by step and asked him to share what he learned from me with his father, and he did so. When Ms. Hu saw that I didn’t look inward at all, she felt helpless.
A few days later, because I handed out QR cards with information about breaking through the Internet blockade, I was arrested and held at the police station. During the process, I lacked righteous thoughts. I am grateful to practitioners for their working together to rescue me and strengthen me with their righteous thoughts. The next day, under Master’s protection, I came home safe and sound.
A month later, I saw Ms. Hu again. Upon hearing that I was interfered with by the evil, she regretted that she didn’t help me earlier to look inward. She thought I wouldn’t have been arrested if I could have done this. So she wanted to share with me again. I thought I must look inward unconditionally this time. Simply by thinking about it this way, knowing I must look within, I heard her say, “There was nothing wrong with your approach of clarifying the facts to your manager; however, your notion of ‘being concerned about whether the other party was not accepting the truth’ was off.
“Your heart was impure and couldn’t display Dafa’s sacredness in saving sentient beings. All these years, you’ve had this notion. It affected you in being able to successfully clarify the truth. It was just like 12 years ago, when you went to a reunion of classmates, you didn’t achieve a good result because you harbored the same notion.”
I said, “This time you made yourself understood, and I’m also clear on it. Yes, you are right. If you were able to articulate it this way the first two times, wouldn’t I also have known what you were saying then?” She said, “The way I articulated it has never changed. So why didn’t you understand me the first two times, yet you suddenly understood me this time?”
I felt this was very strange: Why didn’t I feel she said it the same way the first two times? Ms. Hu then shared with me, “You still think that the plainclothes police officers saw you because you handed out information on breaking through the Internet blockade. And you had the notion of ‘being afraid the other party may not accept the truth.’ You also didn’t clarify the facts to those plainclothes police officers; therefore, they framed you. Even at the police station, you didn’t want to clarify the facts to the police officers, which also came down to this notion.”
After hearing this, it was as if a wall came down in my heart, and I immediately felt relieved! My bad notion disappeared. It was Master who saw that I finally awakened, and he immediately helped me remove it.
I also came to understand that during the first two times Ms. Hu talked to me, I tried to defend myself. My focus wasn’t on the Fa; so the evil then took advantage of this loophole and tried to control my thoughts and prevent me from listening to the truth. It also made up a bunch of lies to deceive me, so I was unable to see the truth of the matter. When I was determined to look inward, however, I was on the Fa, and my true self took charge. I could then be receptive to seeing the truth.
From this experience, I came to understand another principle: As practitioners, in all situations, if we can follow the Fa’s principles, what we see and hear will be true; otherwise, what we see and hear is false!
Concluding Remarks
Master said:
“... but from now on you all must pay attention to this. You must get to the point where you are able to take criticism, regardless of who it’s from. If there is truth to it you correct it, and if not, you are mindful of it. If you can stay unruffled while being criticized or chided, you are improving.” (Teachings at the Conference in Los Angeles)
Master made numerous arrangements in order to help me eliminate these substances. However, because I couldn’t use the Fa’s principles to look inward, I missed many of the opportunities Master arranged for me. Even though these two experiences were fairly painful, the notions I was able to eliminate were huge. Therefore, my xinxing improvement was solid.
I keep in mind that I’m a practitioner, no matter what I run into, what kind of conflicts occur, or whether I am criticized or wronged. I know I should quickly snap out of arguing about who did wrong and quietly examine myself to see what I did that didn’t comply with the Fa, or what attachments of mine were hit upon in order for me to rectify myself. I feel that I now know how to cultivate myself!
This spring, I suddenly realized that I went from typically not wanting to be criticized to knowing that regardless of whoever criticized me, I can take it.
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Category: Improving Oneself
