(Minghui.org) Dafa disciples are walking the path towards godhood, so we must constantly change our human thoughts and let go of our human notions in our cultivation, in particular, the way of looking at things on the surface level.
The family of a fellow practitioner in our area is living a difficult life as a result of the persecution by the Chinese Communist Party. They live in a rental and often have difficulty paying the rent or buying food. However, her husband still insists on taking a taxi each time he goes out to do something. This practitioner didn’t agree with what he was doing and they often argued over the issue. She thought she was in the right from any perspective. But her husband wouldn’t listen to her and still insisted on getting his way.
When they prepared to go out, she would refuse to get in the taxi, and her husband would grab her hair and pull her in, kick her, and curse her at the same time. She would cry and feel resentful towards her husband, and feel upset inside.
Once, they were about to go out again, and the same scenario played out. However, this time her husband left his briefcase in the taxi. Fortunately, the taxi driver returned it to them after they called him. Her husband thanked the driver by giving him 100 yuan. After this incident, the practitioner started to reflect on herself --- Their life is difficult and she always tries to be frugal and didn’t want to spend money on a taxi, yet they lost 100 yuan due to their carelessness. It appears to be her husband’s fault, but it could be that she was in the wrong over the issue.
As she reflected on herself, she remembered Master’s teaching. Master said,
“We have also observed this situation: When a person is born, a profile of his whole life will exist in a specific dimension. In other words, where he is in his life and what he should do are all included in it. Who has arranged his life? It is obviously a higher life that has arranged it. For instance, in our ordinary human society, after birth one belongs to a certain family, a certain school, and upon growing up a certain workplace; various contacts in society are made through a person’s job. That is, the layout of the entire society has been planned this way.” (Lecture Seven, Zhuan Falun)
She thought: Then, wasn’t my husband’s life also arranged? Which family he was in, which taxi he hired, etc. Even though we don’t have much money, if the gods had arranged for him to take a taxi, then they would have also arranged for him to have the money for the taxi. If I tried to stop him and use the money for something else, then gods would not agree with what I do, and that’s why I was often beaten and cursed, and we had to lose 100 yuan, etc.
After she stepped out of her own notions, she felt different over the whole matter. She no longer gets upset about her husband’s habit of taking taxis, instead, she happily hops in the taxi each time they go out together.
We can see from the cultivation process of this practitioner: At the beginning, due to the notion of everyday people that “If you don’t have money, you must live frugally,” she tried to save money wherever she could; when things did not fit in with her notions, she started to feel anguish and held much resentment. However, when she started to look at things based on the Fa, she could see the causal relationship in things and gods’ arrangements, and let go of her own human attachments and notions.
I’ve realized that in cultivation, we cannot let go of our human notions if we think like an everyday person. For example, this practitioner showed many human attachments in dealing with the taxi issue, such as selfishness, competitiveness, anger and resentment, etc. If she only tried to let go of these attachments on the surface level: I must let go of my competitive mentality, or I need to eliminate my resentment, she would find it difficult to accomplish. Also, such attachments could not be eliminated simply by sending forth righteous thoughts. We need to step out of human notions and look at things from a higher level. Only by breaking through our human notions with the Fa principles can we truly walk out of humanness fundamentally.
When we try to look at things in the realm of gods, we would not have human thoughts, but see the Fa principles and the truth of the universe. At the same time, we would also negate the kind of cultivation arranged by the old forces in which we are forced to suffer hardships and tribulations. Master has arranged for us to let go of our human attachments in validating the Fa and to negate all the arrangements by the old forces.
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