(Minghui.org) When the Minghui website added “readership indicator” to its sections called “Recommended Sharing,” “Hotlist of the Week,” and “Hotlist of the Month,” I didn’t pay much attention to how many times an article was read. I simply downloaded the articles. (Editor’s note: “readership indicator” refers to how much attention an article garnered, because for Minghui it is hard to collect the data on how many times the article was actually read or shared, for example, how many practitioners read the article after practitioners in mainland China downloaded the article, and how often it was shared on websites outside China or on practitioners’ own social media platforms or blogs.)
I gradually became more interested in the amount of attention and started to compare the quality of articles to the amount of attention flags. I felt that it was unfair that some very well-written articles had a lower number of attention flags than some poorly written articles with a good title to catch readers’ eyes.
I didn’t share my opinion with any practitioners and I was not counting how much attention my articles received, so I didn’t think there was any issue with my xinxing.
A sentence of Fa caught my attention a few days ago and caused me to examine my heart.
Master said,
“You are definitely not allowed to develop attachments in Dafa cultivation—you are only allowed to eliminate attachments.” (Teachings at the Conference in New Zealand)
When I started to submit articles to the Minghui website a long time ago, I only cared about whether they were published. When more of my articles were accepted and published, I began to care if they were featured in the Minghui Weekly magazine because they could be seen by more practitioners; some articles were also made into podcasts.
When two of my articles appeared in the “Hotlist of the Week” or “Hotlist of the Month,” my ego began to grow; I was pretty satisfied with myself for a short time.
When the amount of attention an article garnered first appeared in two hotlists, I didn’t understand them correctly and thought they were number of views. I even wondered how many hits my two articles would get if they were published at this time.
Through all this, I realized that I had a heart of jealousy.
Master said,
“The issue of jealousy is very serious as it directly involves the matter of whether you can complete cultivation practice. If jealousy is not abolished, everything that you have cultivated will become fragile. There is this rule: If in the course of cultivation practice jealousy is not given up, one will not attain Right Fruit—absolutely not.” (Lecture Seven, Zhuan Falun)
In traditional Chinese culture, a gentleman should help others succeed, but the current Chinese society has no concept of helping others and promotes competitiveness.
As Dafa practitioners cultivating in ordinary society, we interact with non-practitioners every day. We should watch out for the heart of jealousy and eliminate it without hesitation.
Category: Improving Oneself
