(Minghui.org) There are no trivial things in cultivation. Two months ago, I went to a government agency to have some legal documents registered, but I was turned down twice. Last Friday, I went for the third time, only to fail again. Why did this happen?
I visit the Minghui website almost every day and have read many articles about looking within. I also know that I must always look at myself, no matter what other people do. I began to look within and found many attachments.
Competitive Mentality
When my requests were turned down the first two times, I told myself: I will succeed if I persist; what doesn't kill me makes me stronger. So I made a third request. However, it was here that I found my attachment to competitiveness: I didn't look within for the reasons for my failure; instead, I kept doing things the same way.
Attachment to Ego
When I looked within, I tried to figure out why I was turned down for something that was based on the law. In fact, the government did not make things difficult for me on purpose. It was I who did not pay attention to the rules and did things according to my own understanding.
But I demonstrated a strong ego: I knew how things worked; these were all trivial things. I did not put any effort into finding out what the law and rules said or seek any legal help. When I made the request without doing any legal research, I wasted my time and money. If I had understood the rules and followed them accordingly, the officials would have granted my request readily.
I found the attachment to my ego several years ago. It manifested in the fact that I did things according to my own ideas and did not listen to other people's opinions. When other practitioners had different thoughts from mine, I negated them without thinking. I showed off my ideas as being the best. I always liked to enhance or adjust other people's ideas to make myself look better.
I thought that I had let go of this attachment a long time ago. This experience made me realize that it was still there and I had to eliminate it again. After 20 years of cultivation, it is not difficult to let go of this attachment; rather, it is more difficult to look inward actively to find the attachment in the first place.
It was a big step to get from remaining calm to looking within. To cultivate forbearance, I stayed calm and did not get angry after being turned down. That was a good thing. But I didn't think about the reason behind the rejections. It seemed that my documents were short of some necessary items – but, in fact, everything a practitioner encounters has its reason.
Master used this opportunity for me to improve. If I had not realized that I should look within and just focused on adding more to my document, I might still have gotten it approved someday. But I would have lost the opportunity to improve myself.
This was good timing, as it was about time for our local group to lay out a marketing plan for the coming Shen Yun shows. I was unable to stay focused when helping to analyze the data from previous years. My ego made me propose baseless suggestions and made things harder for the coordinator. I was ashamed of myself.
After I found my attachment, I enlightened to the idea that I should analyze the data carefully to contribute to the success of Shen Yun. In an instant, my heart became calm, and my stress and uneasiness disappeared.
We always encounter different kinds of things in our daily lives. But there are no coincidences in cultivation. We will lose opportunities to cultivate ourselves if we only pay attention to cultivating forbearance instead of looking inward.
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Category: Improving Oneself
