(Clearwisdom.net) I began the practice of Falun Dafa in 1996. A deeply rooted attachment antagonized me, like a demon, through all the years of my cultivation. The issue is that I am easily agitated by family members who are also practitioners.
This "demon nature" is most pronounced in my dealing with my mother. I often feel that her enlightenment quality is low and that she has strong attachments of ordinary people. It seemed to me that she sometimes could not think independently and was confused. So I often became very agitated when sharing my thoughts with her about Falun Dafa. I was also quite uptight with her on other occasions. My attitude was even worse when this "demon nature" was strong.
Since the beginning of my cultivation, I have regarded this problem as the number one obstacle in my cultivation. Even to this day, it still bothers me. I know I must wake up. What were the reasons for being so easily agitated by this demon nature of mine? After serious deliberation, I believe the reasons are as follows:
1. Need to Look Inward
Despite feeling sorry and looking inward after I became angry, my searching inside was not truly genuine, and was actually very superficial. Sometimes I would look for excuses for myself. I would be thinking subconsciously: "I was truly being kind to you. How could I not point these problems out for you? Why didn't I treat others this way? If you did not have deficiencies, would I be this way?"
In reality, all the "reasons" only enhanced this "demon nature" that I was trying to eliminate. How could I think that I was "truly kind" to my mother when I was so outraged with her?
2. Sentimentality (qing)
I always thought that I was not attached to qing. When I became agitated with my family-member practitioners however, I exposed very strong qing. Why could I be basically calm when I was faced with ordinary people or other practitioners, but become easily agitated when dealing with family-member practitioners? It was because I felt I did not need to be careful with my family members and thus the attachment to qing was most easily exposed. Why was I calm or even unaffected when I saw more serious problems with other practitioners, but felt intolerable when a family-member practitioner had such problems? It is because this qing was in action. Thus, originally minor issues would turn into unsolvable problems through my irrational words and behavior.
3. Benevolence and Kindness
I felt that in conflicts with family-member practitioners, things that are not benevolent or kind would show up easily when influenced by qing. Sometimes my words were very critical and sarcastic while thinking to myself that I was doing him good being hard on him. In reality it is the manifestation of my cruelty.
4. Attachment to Myself and Being Intolerant
I got used to making decisions on things at home before I began to cultivate. After I began my cultivation I felt that I had better enlightenment quality. I worked diligently, and also began to criticize other people. I subconsciously became used to demanding that other people act as I wanted. I became anxious and eager to point out deficiencies or lack of diligence in my family members. I became agitated when things did not go my way. I forgot that I myself had the same problems and was not thinking of others. My lack of tolerance and abusiveness also showed up when discussing my understandings about Dafa.
5. Looking for Excuses in Dafa
The excuse I most often used was that our cultivation is from the inside-- microscopic level toward the outside surface. We are getting rid of our attachments one layer at a time so before the outside surface is reached, attachments will always show up. There will always be conflicts among practitioners, otherwise we could not elevate ourselves.
The purpose of my writing this article today is to expose my evil nature and eliminate it as soon as possible so that I may become deserving of Teacher's salvation. It is also to remind those practitioners who might have the same problems as mine to wake up. I found that other practitioners around me had similar problems to various degrees. Some might even be quite serious.
I need to awaken. I want to root out this evilness and assimilate myself to Dafa.
