2/27/2003
(Clearwisdom.net)
I have been practicing Falun Dafa for more than six years. Since the beginning I have worked hard at getting rid of my attachments of lust, desire and various others. Strangely I thought that I had cultivated well and did not have these attachments any more, but recently they reappeared in my thoughts with such a vengeance that I could not maintain a calm mind during exercises, Fa study and sending forth righteous thoughts. After seeking within I discovered there were several reasons for this situation and I would like to share these causes that I discovered with my fellow practitioners.
The Internal Factor and the Pretext the Old Forces Use to Persecute Us
The excuse the old forces use is that practitioners still have attachments and that every attachment is a reason for their persecution of us. Teacher said in his article "Towards Consummation," "Whatever you're attached to, they have evil ones concoct lies about that." I recognized that external factors could be utilized to trigger and expose attachments that we were not even aware of, and that these attachments could be used as pretexts by the old forces to persecute us. The most fundamental reason is that these attachments still existed within us. Most of them were not that obvious and usually did not come into view. They remained hidden in our subconsciousness. They would appear when we studied Fa, sent forth righteous thoughts and did our practice. This illustrated that we had not gotten rid of them; otherwise they would not appear nor influence us.
If you were attached to lust and desire, the old forces would make you conjure up the mental picture of the handsome man or beautiful woman in your mind. If you were attached to sentimentality, it would let you think about your parents and children. If you were attached to money, it would make you think hard on how to make more money. If you were attached to doing Dafa work superficially, then it would make you think hard how to do it. If you had fear, then it would make you think about various tortures carried out by police, brainwashing centers, labor re-education camps, etc. Many of them, though, were tribulations caused by thought karma and external interference, and were further reinforced by the bad intentions in our subconscious minds. These are all reasons behind my failure to achieve tranquility. They were also excuses the old forces used to persecute me.
Teacher said in his article "Expounding on the Fa," "Whenever a tribulation comes, you do not see it with the side of your original nature but view it completely with your human side. Evil demons then capitalize on this point and inflict endless interference and damage, leaving students in long-term tribulations. As a matter of fact, this results from an inadequate understanding of the Fa by your human side. You have humanly restrained your divine side; in other words, you have restrained the parts that have been successfully cultivated and have prevented them from doing Fa-rectification. How can the uncultivated side restrain your main thoughts or the side that has already attained the Fa? Having humanly fostered the evil demons, you allow them to capitalize on the loopholes in the Fa." To my understanding this meant that it was futile to suppress them with our human side as that merely postponed them. Instead we must recognize them using the Fa and eradicate them from ourselves with righteous thoughts.
Seek from Within, Eliminate Incorrect Notions and the Old Forces Arrangements, and Take Every Step Well, Thereby Assisting Teacher to Rectify the Fa.
I had frequent contacts with practitioners working at material production sites. I had observed some attachments of my own, as well as of other practitioners, some of which had resulted in interference and persecution. I want to reveal them so fellow practitioners can recognize them if they have not run into them before, thus avoiding potential pitfalls. Here are few examples:
Once I shared experiences with a practitioner whom I had not seen for quite some time. I discovered that this practitioner had good understanding of the Fa, and he did well, but I thought he was very impatient and tended to be somewhat radical. I then realized that I had similar biased opinions towards other practitioners, not just him. I even had feelings of jealousy in my subconscious, and thus tended to gauge others with preconceived notions. The result of this problem was that we could not forge into a single diamond-like body of Dafa practitioners.
One practitioner was in charge of a material production site. In the beginning, he did very well. He was both capable and meticulous, but gradually he became more daring, and started focusing on only the tasks at hand and neglected to study the Fa and send forth righteous thoughts. It did not take long for his human sentimentality to start rearing its ugly head. He did not want to listen when other practitioners tried to talk to him and share experiences with him. Soon the evil forces exploited his omission and persecuted him.
Another practitioner was an expert in computers. He started to work with another practitioner and they started out well. They helped each other by identifying shortcomings and deficiencies in each other, and sought from within. But some of the old force's factor in their thoughts still existed, such as seeing faults in others, not kindly understanding others and accommodating others, insisting on the other person adopting his own idea instead of changing himself. The conflict grew to the point that the two of them no longer had similar approaches anymore. They could not tolerate each other and ended up parting company. It caused a negative impact on Dafa work and both of them missed an opportunity to raise their Xinxing (mind nature).
These are some of my own attachments and issues faced by other practitioners. The old evil forces exploit them to directly undermine Fa rectification. If we do not fundamentally resolve these problems then old evil forces will take advantage of any attachments and use them to persecute us. Teacher said in his article "Further Understanding," "If you are able to succeed in improving yourself this way, what you do then, with a pure heart, will be the best and most sacred."
The above is my personal understanding. Please kindly point out anything inappropriate.