After Looking Inward Efforts Should Be on Removing Attachments

(Minghui.org) As we advance in cultivation we realize that everything happening in our life is an opportunity to improve our character. It does not matter whether we consider it good or bad. We should just look within ourselves to see what improvements can be made.

For a period of time my process of looking within was not carried out correctly. Whenever something happened I immediately looked within and found attachments. Compared with focusing on what had happened and believing that someone else was responsible for the incident, I had made a step forward. However, after a while in a different situation, I found the same attachments were still there, indicating that my character improvement was quite slow.

Later, I realized that I had covered only the beginning part of the looking-within process. The complete process calls for putting in a significant effort to have the attachments removed.

For example, if you found laziness is a problem you have to change that in everything you do: you must insist on doing the exercises instead of sleeping longer and you must attend to details in whatever you do instead of just getting by. Trying to do everything well is needed to complete the looking-within process. Hence, it really is a long and difficult process and you have to remain diligent to complete it.

Teacher said in “Fa Teaching Given at the 2010 New York Fa Conference,”

“The reason is, it takes more than one cold night to form ice three feet thick: the things that have formed are hard to purge in one shot, for you haven’t sufficient heat and haven’t reached the point of being able to melt it. So you have to make many attempts on it before you can melt it away. If you cultivate well today, that much will thaw; cultivate well tomorrow, and that much more will be melted away; cultivate well the following day, and that much more will melt. And it will continue, little by little, till the point that your righteous thoughts are truly sufficient. At that point the amount of heat you generate will have increased, and you will be able to fully melt it away.”

In the past one major reason why I did not complete the looking-within process is that I wanted to avoid anything that was painful. Many attachments are painful to remove, especially those that take a long time to eliminate. Hence, determination, perseverance, and willingness to endure hardship are called for, because many things cannot be accomplished with a single attempt.

I saw the same problem in other practitioners as well. Some said that after more than ten years they still had the same problem. They felt pretty helpless. There can be many causes but not trying hard to correct oneself can be one of them.