(Clearwisdom.net) Recently I got in touch with an elderly female practitioner. When we talked about cultivation, she said, "No matter what difficulties I come across, I give up the attachment first."
She shared one such experience. One of her relatives owed her a great deal of money, but refused to pay her back. She said if this had happened before she practiced Falun Dafa, she would not have let it go. But now she is practicing Dafa, so she knows that cultivation means cultivating one's mind. No matter what the result turned out to be, she would give up the attachment to money first.
Her logic is very simple and clear. I deeply admired her for this ability. Thinking like that is in compliance with and based on the Fa. The purer and truer the mind of a practitioner, the stronger and firmer one is in adhering to the requirements.
The persecution has lasted for over ten years, but practitioners are not defeated. On the contrary, more and more people have joined the practice. People in over eighty countries are practicing Falun Dafa. In China, more and more people are becoming practitioners. Non-practitioners cannot understand the reason. They don't understand the fundamentals of a spiritual belief, so they don't know where such a power comes from. We never talk about reasoning out every situation carefully. As genuine cultivators, we just do whatever we should do and try to do it well.
Teacher said, "......the entire cultivation process for a practitioner is one of constantly giving up human attachments."(Lecture 1, Zhuan Falun) This is the truth that Teacher taught us. It's simple and clear, but it embodies boundless meaning. I think our cultivation is for practicing this truth. How well one cultivates is equivalent to how well one practices this truth. No matter what issue a practitioner encounters, it's an issue of cultivation. No matter what the reason, or the process or the result, we should give up our attachments first. It's unnecessary to attach to the issue itself; the key is to cultivate ourselves well. Therefore, we should give up the attachment first, while other points are second in importance.
No matter how difficult the path or how complex the situation, how confusing the future or how heavy the misfortune, as practitioners, we should give up our own attachments first, because cultivation is cultivating one's mind.