My Understanding of Looking Within

(Minghui.org) As Falun Dafa practitioners, we all know that we should look within. But many of us may not know how to do it that well.

For example, when someone's personal interests are adversely affected, the person gets angry. We know that this shows an attachment to self-interest, which needs to be gotten rid of. However, that is just a symptom. If we look deeper, there is a human notion behind it: we get angry when we lose and happy when we gain. As practitioners we should change this notion: we should be happy when we lose and never seek personal gain.

I have asked other practitioners if they could identify human notions. Quite a few could not. If we cannot tell what they are, then how can we change them?

Notions are human laws, preferences, ways of thinking, and feelings. For example, people like to be respected, treated nicely, and praised, prefer good things and comfort, and hope things will go their way. They get upset otherwise.

But being exposed to the things people do not prefer are opportunities to cultivate. As Master talked about:

“suppose someone who is learning our practice arrives at work and overhears two people speaking badly of him;”

“someone spoke terribly of you and complained about you to your supervisor, making you look awful;” (The Fourth Talk, “Reworking Your Karma,” Zhuan Falun)

“one might experience ridicule, verbal abuse, or mistreatment from all sorts of people.” (The Eighth Talk, “The One Who Practices Achieves,” Zhuan Falun)

This is how we can eliminate karma and raise our level. Master has told us that we gain when we endure mistreatment. We should change our notion and accept it.

When we run into conflicts with others, whether or not they are practitioners, some of us tend to think that the other party did this wrong and that wrong. The more we think like that, the angrier we get. This is a classic example of looking outward, not within, of evaluating a situation using human laws, which is exactly what practitioners should get over.

Some practitioners keep thinking that other people are wrong. Actually, if they didn't treat us unjustly, our human natures wouldn't be exposed for us to rid of them.

Master said,

“In truth, the spiritual journey is none other than an ongoing process of learning to let go of the things of this world that we may be attached to.” (The First Talk, “Truly Taking You to Greater Spiritual Heights,” Zhuan Falun)

“If you do not change the human logic that you, as an ordinary human, have formed deep in your bones over thousands of years, you will be unable to break away from this superficial human shell and reach Consummation.” (“Cautionary Advice,” Essentials for Further Advancement)

If we regard human laws as the laws of the universe, we will stay at the human level forever.