Eliminating Fundamental Attachments to Self

(Clearwisdom.net)

Recently after studying the Fa an attachment surfaced. I was worried about how I was going to deal with some people I haven't seen for some time, because of how they had known me to be in the past. I thought about how I was going to act. After catching these thoughts and looking at them, I came to realize some fundamental attachments.

Through the years of interacting with people on different levels and in different ways I had acquired many notions of "Who I Am" and "Who am I supposed to be," notions of how I should act in this situation and that situation, and what is expected of me. It was through these notions that I had completely masked my True Self, trying to conform to other people's expectations and standards of me rather than conforming to Dafa's requirements and standards at different levels.

I thought about how I acted towards different family members, who I was around friends, my 'enemies', my boss, co-workers, those who I thought were more beautiful and those who I thought were not, different ethnic groups, different religious group, and to those who I considered good and those I considered bad. It was like I had a different mask for every occasion, every person and every group.

I realized that these masks were actually stemming completely from emotion and sentiments and the attachment to reputation (worrying what others thought of me), to protecting oneself (as to not get hurt and to save face) and self-interest (to get what I wanted). Teacher says in Zhuan Falun, Lecture Six:

"There's emotion in society, so for ordinary people these things are just normal. Since people have emotion...being angry is emotion, being happy is emotion, love is emotion, and hatred is emotion, enjoying doing something is an emotion, not enjoying doing something is an emotion, your thinking someone is nice or someone isn't nice, your loving to do something or not loving to do something--everything is emotion, and ordinary people just live for emotion. Then if you're a practitioner, a higher person, you can't use this logic. So there are a lot of attachments that are derived from emotion, and we have to really care less about them, and at some point finally let go of them all."

I realized that because of this emotion and attachment to self (selfishness), I treated different people differently, and from a human standpoint. The way I acted with my Mom was different than the way I acted with my Dad and the way I acted with close friends was different than the way I acted with strangers. This emotion and trying to protect myself out of the attachment to fear, got in the way of treating all people equally as my understanding of Dafa requires. I truly realized that emotion and sentiments were the barriers between having compassion for ALL sentient beings.

So then I thought about how I would "act" when I'd see those people that I haven't seen in awhile, and all other people. Teacher said,

"Maybe ordinary people can't understand this: if you're attached to this stuff you can't cultivate at all. That's why this isn't a part of Buddhism. If you want to cultivate, you have to set aside human emotion. Of course, while we're cultivating in the ordinary world we're supposed to respect our parents and be good to them, just as we should teach our kids and discipline them. In every situation we should be good to others and be kind to others let alone your family members. We should treat everyone the same, be good to our parents and our kids, and always be considerate of others. Then your heart isn't a selfish one when you do that, but a compassionate one--it's compassion. Emotion is the stuff of ordinary people. They just live for emotion." (Zhuan Falun, Lecture Six)

It is my understanding that one of the fundamental attachments is the attachment to "self."

When I can completely let go of the attachment to self and to "who I think I am," I can truly be a true particle of Dafa, a particle of "Zhen-Shan-Ren" and closer to my original True Self.

Through these realizations I feel I am able to care less about protecting myself and my own self interest and less attached to emotion. I am calmer and not easily moved by the people around me. I am better able to treat all people equally in accordance with "Truth-Compassion-Tolerance" and be less concerned about my own self-preservation.

This is my current understanding. Please point out anything inappropriate.