Finding My Fundamental Attachment

(Minghui.org) My mother, who is in her 80s, has gradually started practicing Falun Dafa in recent years. However, she has had a hard time overcoming an illness karma tribulation. She used to suffer from intestinal obstruction. After she began practicing, she would often experience symptoms such as abdominal pain and bloating. She would persevere for a few days and then feel unsettled and ask to go to the hospital.

She once told me that the air bubble in her belly was as big as a fist. I replied, “You are a cultivator now. Why do you think that it is an air bubble and not a mysterious pass?” Not long after that, I discovered that my lower abdomen also seemed to have an air bubble. It started off the size of a fist and then gradually grew. Now when I lie down flat on back, my belly looks like it has half a basketball inside it. When I look at myself in the mirror, from the side, I look like I’m four to five months pregnant. There are no other symptoms, and I have no discomfort. I feel a little at a loss.

I have been cultivating by myself and I only know one other practitioner, but he does not live in this town. I gave him a call, hoping to exchange some thoughts about this. He said, “You have to be careful. My wife had the same symptoms as you a few years ago. A very big tumor grew in her stomach and she went to the hospital for surgery. They first extracted the liquid from inside, and then removed the skin …” I was completely baffled after hearing that.

In the process of cultivating, it does not matter whether we understand something correctly or not, as cultivation is a process. But I know that this is definitely not an illness! In that case, where did I go wrong? Was it because I did not cultivate my speech and said, “You are a cultivator now. Why do you think that it is an air bubble and not a mysterious pass?” Things don’t seem that simple, either. When I read cultivation experience sharing articles on Minghui.org recently, everyone was looking for their fundamental attachments. So should I also be looking for my fundamental attachment?

In 2004, a colleague gave me an electronic version of Zhuan Falun. After reading it, I felt that the book was quite good. It teaches people to be good. However, I did not feel anything special. I later became pregnant, had a child, and did not read the book anymore. Only in 2007, after my child turned two, did I suddenly think of reading Zhuan Falun again. This time, after I finished reading the book, I felt that I suddenly understood, and I read through the book again and again with an insatiable thirst, unable to put it down anymore. As to what I understood, I cannot put it in words. It was probably more of some kind of perceptual understanding.

When I first obtained the Fa, I placed great emphasis on studying the Fa. I set a target to read a sufficient number of pages every day and finish one round of the book within however many days. I would look forward to my child going to sleep earlier so that I could make use of the remaining time to read the book. My initial thoughts were very simple and pure. I felt that the book is so great that I could not get enough of it, and I wanted to read it more.

As time passed, I gradually realized that studying the Fa had become more and more like a task to be completed, especially when I was attached to the number of times I’d finished reading the whole book. I set targets like 100 rounds, 500 rounds, 1,000 rounds, etc. I cared about only the quantity instead of the quality. When I was reading the book, my thoughts ran wild. My mind was filled with ordinary people’s matters so I was just mechanically completing this task that I had set for myself over and over again.

Why was I so attached to the number of times I finished reading the whole book? It may have been because I obtained the Fa late and thought that studying the Fa was diligent cultivation and that if I read a lot I could catch up with the progress of Fa rectification as soon as possible. This was not wrong, but when I dug deeper I realized that there existed attachments to comparing myself with others, being unwilling to concede, and an intense competitive drive. On the surface, I seemed to be cultivating quite diligently but my objective for studying the Fa was not righteous. As I was studying the Fa with attachments, my mindset was no longer as pure as before. Studying like that, no matter how many times I read the book, I may not have been able to obtain the Fa. Was this my fundamental attachment? That does not entirely seem to be the case.

I am a single mom and after the divorce, I raised our child who has borderline intelligence and epilepsy. Only I truly know the hardships in the process. When I experienced difficulties in my life, I often thought, “Luckily, I cultivate in Dafa because it gives me the chance to understand the Fa principles. If I didn’t have Dafa, I might not have been able to withstand all this hardship.” I felt that my thoughts were quite correct at the time. But now when I think about, I did not realize that these were tribulations specially arranged for me to get rid of my attachments and improve in my cultivation. I treated them as troubles and hardships in an ordinary person’s life, and I made use of Dafa’s Fa principles to guide myself in withstanding all these hardships in the ordinary world. I treated my cultivation in Dafa as a spiritual belief. Isn’t this my fundamental attachment? Yes! But that still does not entirely seem to be the case.

I have neither a respectable job nor a generous income; neither a complete family nor healthy children. I understand from the Fa principles that as a cultivator, everything happens for a reason, and “fame, gain, and emotion” are all things that need to be given up. However, I still often admire and envy others. I often think that life is unfair and I even feel inferior. Therefore, my cultivation also seems to become a means of seeking “psychological equilibrium,” and proving that “I am actually superior to all of you.” I actually make use of Dafa to fulfill my human attachments! Isn’t this not letting go of my fundamental attachment? Fundamentally, I did not truly treat myself as a cultivator!

My fundamental attachment is the attachment to my human life! I am attached to a so-called good life in the human world! I want to get rid of this attachment! Cultivation is serious. I want to study the Fa with a pure heart, do it diligently without slacking, and attain the state of understanding the Fa based on the Fa. I want to give up everything in this mundane world, and I keep reminding myself that I am a cultivator, so I must view problems from the perspective of a cultivator and become a genuine Dafa practitioner.

The above are some of my understandings at my current level. I wrote this out to share with fellow practitioners. Kindly correct me if there is any room for improvement.