(Minghui.org) Greetings Master and dear fellow practitioners.

My name is Sofia and I started practicing Falun Dafa in 2001. I would like to share my understanding and experiences on the issue of eliminating attachments.

Master said in Zhuan Falun:

“I’ll tell you a truth: The entire cultivation process for a cultivator is one of constantly giving up human attachments.” (Lecture One, Zhuan Falun)

For a long time, I didn’t really know how to eliminate my attachments. I was able to look inward to a certain extent, but once I identified an attachment or a problem, I didn’t know how to eliminate it. I felt uncertain, and because the attachments weren’t eliminated, they continued to bother me, and I cultivated slowly. I was able to suppress my attachment by controlling myself on the surface and trying to be a good person.

I later realized that I did not have enough righteous thoughts—I wanted to cultivate but I also wanted to solve problems. This mindset was gradually replaced by a purer state of mind and a strong wish to cultivate and raise my level when I’m faced with challenges.

I realized that attachments can’t be eliminated by reasoning with myself or trying to persuade myself to be more compassionate, tolerant, etc. This only has a slight effect on the surface.

Master said:

“I’ll tell you, for years I have been continually saying that Dafa disciples’ abilities are tremendous, yet many people don’t believe this since those abilities were not allowed to be seen. Under the effect of righteous thoughts, everything around you, as well as you yourself, will undergo changes. Yet you have never thought to give it a try.” (“20th Anniversary Fa Teaching,” Collected Teachings Given Around the World Volume XI)

At one point in my cultivation, I tried to just eliminate an attachment, and I discovered that it actually worked. I continued to do this, and my cultivation improved.

The process often begins when I notice I have a problem because my body reacts negatively. My heart is tense and it beats faster. I can’t breathe properly—it feels like something is blocking me. I start to look inward and ask myself questions to try to understand what the problem is. I gradually see the attachment and identify the problem. It can have a form, and sometimes it looks like me. It’s not me, but a body that consists of the negative substance. When I can clearly see it I can step out of it. For example, I imagine that I’m catching it in my hand, and I think about eliminating it. Or, I just think about eliminating it. It sometimes turns into smoke and disappears or explodes. I immediately feel relieved. My heart becomes calm again, and my breathing eases. Some attachments are eliminated one layer at a time.

In order to identify an attachment and see it clearly, I often have to look deep within and ask myself many questions until I have an answer, which is usually that I fear death or I fear being separated from the divine. When I reach this point, the attachment is dissolved, and my mind and heart become calm. I feel connected to the divine, and things become clear and distinct.

Sometimes the attachment may protest when I try to eliminate it, especially if my righteous thoughts aren’t sufficient. The attachment may try to trick me into thinking that I won’t be able to live without it, that I don’t know who I am without it, that it’s perfectly natural to be this way, or even unreasonable to think otherwise, or it comes up with other arguments to make me feel insecure. I’ve learned not to fall for these tricks, but I’ve also noticed that I need to be in a stable and upright state to be able to make it.

Master said:

“When a person feels hurt, or when he encounters misfortune, it’s really difficult for him to still examine himself and see if he’s done something wrong. If a person can do that, then I’d say that on this path, on this path of cultivation, and for the eternity of his existence, nothing can stop him.” (Teachings at the Conference in Singapore)

This passage has had a deep impression on me ever since I first read it many years ago. I truly experienced that looking inward is a magical tool and that nothing can stop a practitioner who has righteous thoughts. I now have more confidence in the process of eliminating attachments and feel that I can do it as long as I set my mind to it. Sometimes it’s not as difficult as it may seem at first glance. If I just do as Master said, without involving any human thinking, things often go smoothly.

I’ll give some examples.

I work full-time at the Swedish Epoch Times, and I do layout. One of the paper’s supplements has only one contributor, who is a non-practitioner. This supplement was started shortly after I started working at the paper. We usually work with templates to make the layout go faster, but this contributor could not adapt to our working method. The layout in this supplement needed to be custom-designed. Without any real experience or training in layout, this was challenging for me. It was stressful to never have any idea of what the week’s design would be like, and on top of that, the contributor had difficulty submitting the content in time for the deadline. This led me to having less time to do the layout. I sometimes had to work on weekends, which was the time I usually spent with my family.

I felt frustrated because of this and felt annoyed that this person indirectly decided how my life was structured. After weeks of frustration and no improvement in the situation, I decided to seriously look inward.

I could see the attachment was in the form of a person who looked like me, but with thoughts of selfishness and resentment. The being was dissatisfied and annoyed that someone else was dictating her life and forcing her to work on weekends, the time she should be with her family. I could see the selfishness and human thoughts, and I decided to eliminate them. As soon as I had the thought to eliminate this figure, my heart became calm and my mind relaxed. I realized that regardless of whether I’m right or wrong, or whatever the outcome, my priority should be to eliminate the attachment and to raise my xinxing. I’ve sometimes been tricked into settling for the idea that I’m right and thus missed the opportunity to cultivate myself.

On another occasion, I had a conflict with a practitioner at work, and I was upset. It was time to send forth righteous thoughts, and afterward, I looked inward. I put myself aside and talked to my heart:

– What’s going on here? What’s the problem? The answer was that the heart was upset with the other practitioner because of “this and that.” I let the heart speak its mind while I listened.– Okay, is there anything else?– Yes, it answered; I feel like I’m not being respected, not listened to, and not taken seriously.– I understand.

This short moment of reflection was enough for my heart to suddenly become still, my breathing became smooth and the conflict seemed to disappear. The next time I thought of that practitioner, I was calm—the resentment was gone.

In my work, I sometimes need to replace photos that the writers submitted because the quality is substandard. One writer submitted a picture for a book review about angels. The quality was too low. It was a painting by a modern artist and depicted three angels in the form of children. I thought the picture was “kitsch” and that the angels/children did not seem to have any angel-like qualities at all—they just looked like ordinary children. The book being reviewed was about how angels watch over people. I thought, “How could these three little self-absorbed children ever be able to watch over people?” My negative thoughts about the picture and the writer then took off: “This writer often posts pictures with a strange feeling,” “These ‘angels’ do not look divine at all,” and so on. I felt upset, and I decided to replace the picture. I looked up a beautiful ceiling painting from the Palace of Versailles outside Paris with what I thought was a motif that “befitted” the title of angels. I thought it made a nice page in the paper.

However, shortly after the paper was published, I received an email from the writer asking who makes decisions about pictures that are to be replaced, such as in the article about the angels. I replied that it could be the culture director, editor-in-chief, or layout designer, that is, myself, who makes the decision, and in this case, I replaced the image.

After sending the email, I immediately felt I needed to adjust myself. I looked back at the moment when I replaced the picture. I remembered my negative thoughts, and the figure I saw sitting there at the computer had black elements with pointed details and a grayish face! “Oh, so that’s what you look like,” I said to the figure.

I immediately understood that this was the manifestation of the negative thoughts I sent out when I was working with the picture. As soon as I calmly and resolutely decided to eliminate this figure, I saw an incredibly sweet and beautiful figure sitting there at the computer. It was bright, almost transparent, had a friendly expression, and was full of goodwill. My heart became still, and love and compassion flowed through my body. I thanked Master for sending the writer to help me see myself and go through this process.

Once again, I saw that it doesn’t matter who is right or wrong on the surface—what’s most important is the actual cultivation and that we eliminate the negative elements. I may still think that the picture needed to be replaced, but my negative thoughts about it were neutralized and no longer contained the negative elements they did when I replaced it.

I understood that in the process of cultivation, one is sometimes faced with situations that seem unreasonable. By human standards, you were treated unfairly or subjected to something that is undoubtedly wrong. We should not get caught up in superficial thinking about what is right and wrong, but rather see what human attachments or thoughts arise inside oneself and eliminate them. In other words, cultivation is not to be human. It is the path to divinity. Some things one encounters won’t always be logical or consistent with everyday people’s ideas.

I used to feel scared and nervous about my attachments because I didn’t know how to remove them. I no longer look at this process with so much emotion. It feels simpler now; I cultivate in this body, and I’m faced with various situations where my attachments become visible, I identify them, and I eliminate them. Then I move on. The purpose is to improve my xinxing so I can help Master save all beings.

Master taught us:

“You are in effect doing the evil’s bidding when you allow any selfish motives or thoughts to seep into your mind while doing things at critical times.” (“Critical Times Reveal One’s Spiritual State”)

I know that I’ve been selfish even when I do things related to Falun Dafa. I knew I needed to get rid of this mentality, but I did not prioritize it—instead, I focused on “getting the job done.” But when I read Master’s words, I understood that I absolutely cannot have selfishness in my Dafa-related work. So I became very attentive to my thoughts and how I behaved when I did things related to Falun Dafa.

For example, I started working on production for Shen Yun’s performances in Stockholm. As usual, some obstacles and things that couldn’t be easily resolved appeared. I felt stressed. Then I looked inward to see why I felt stressed. It was because I was afraid of failing in my responsibility. I was afraid of making mistakes in what I was responsible for, and I would cause problems for the performance, the audience, or Shen Yun. Why was I afraid of this? I was afraid of getting hurt myself, of having to face the shame of having caused problems or not being able to solve them. This was selfishness and an attachment to protecting myself. I understood this was exactly what I had to get rid of, so I focused on eliminating this fear and the selfish elements. This went well, even though I had to do it in stages.

My old way of doing things involved selfishness and made me feel that I was in control of the situation. After doing things that way for so long, I didn’t know how to do things any other way, and I was afraid to let go of selfishness and the feeling of being in control. At first, it felt like I did things with my eyes closed. But in the process of gradually letting go of selfishness, I opened up to a greater force in which I was just a small part, a piece of the puzzle that did my part in the bigger picture. I no longer limited the grand force with my selfishness, but it was given free rein to operate, and I operated in harmony with it. I felt I was a genuine Falun Dafa practitioner, and I could feel the power of Dafa flowing through me. I was light, happy, warm, and calm all at once.

The difference is very obvious when I go from being in the Fa and having righteous thoughts to falling into human thinking. When I’m in a very upright state, a small thought may pop up about something practical that needs to be resolved. When I want to look at the details of the situation, the human thoughts start to activate, and all sorts of things come in, such as worry, frustration, confusion, and so on. This means that some attachment has been triggered and is causing me to be in the human realm.

Master said,

“You can’t do Dafa work without studying the Fa, or it would be an everyday person doing Dafa work. It has to be Dafa disciples who do Dafa work—this is the requirement for you.” (“Fa Teaching Given at the Washington, D.C. International Fa Conference,” Guiding the Voyage)

I’ve read this so many times and understood it to a certain extent. But now I understand that it's not enough that I studied the Fa a while ago and was in an upright state yesterday, but now my thoughts are a bit off and I’m working on it anyway. This is not enough. I have to actually be in an upright state. I have to be in the Fa whenever I do anything Dafa-related.

The expression “the journey is the destination” is often used among ordinary people. However, when I look back on my cultivation path, I have a deeper understanding of what this expression means. When you are clear about something, it’s not difficult. The difficulty lies in still being able to move forward in the illusion despite having a limited level. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to be a Falun Dafa practitioner in the Fa-rectification, and I will do my very best to live up to the title.

Thank you, venerable Master. Thank you, fellow practitioners.

(Selected article presented at the 2025 Nordic Fa Conference)