Understanding “Self” at a Deeper Level

(Minghui.org) Many times when a conflict emerges, it is not a matter of technology or skill, but rather a problem of the “self” and xinxing.

There were two days recently where I encountered a series of tests and had some insights afterwards.

Yesterday a practitioner and I went to repair printers in the countryside. We went to a practitioner’s house in a village in the morning. After the new part was installed, the printer malfunctioned. I believed it was interference by evil factors in other dimensions, so we sent forth righteous thoughts. The printer then worked perfectly.

In the afternoon, we drove to another village. This time we ran into problems one after another, late into the night. I was very worried because my practitioner family members often gave me a hard time if I returned home late.

In the end, we couldn’t figure out the problem and went home. My family was waiting for me, worried about my safety. I didn’t defend myself, so they only criticized me for a short time.

After I woke up the next morning, I began to look inside for why my family always criticizes me if I return home late. I found a notion that I feared being criticized by my family members.

Then my mind gave me two excuses. One is that my family members were not looking inward themselves. Another was that it was not my fault. I didn’t intend to come home late, but I had to wait on the fellow practitioner and driver, who were determined to spend more time fixing the printer.

I realized these were arguments based on human-level reasoning, so I had to look deeper at myself.

I’d always regarded myself as unselfish because I would do my best when fellow practitioners needed me. I was at a loss when no practitioners asked me to fix their printers for a long time. I felt quite happy when I was invited to the mission yesterday. Here I found the second attachment, “a desire to work.”

After that, I found the third attachment, namely, that I considered things only from my perspective. So I concluded that I had to be more considerate. My search was over.

Around noon, a fellow practitioner and driver came to my home and apologized to my family. He said that he was not considerate of others and only focused on his own task of fixing the machine.

His actions helped me realize that I hadn’t thought of apologizing to my family. I immediately understood that the attachment I had found yesterday, only considering things from my perspective, was only scratching the surface. The real attachment was that I regarded the postnatal notions as my true self.

One’s true self conforms to the characteristics of the universe and will be considerate of others naturally. So one’s true self will feel the pain others experience and would want to apologize from deep down in one’s heart.

I revisited the happenings of the past day, and this time my true self felt the worries and pain in the hearts of my family members. I felt very sad and noticed that I had been selfish all these years and hadn’t considered their feelings.

The postnatal notions used excuses and many superficial attachments to protect themselves from being exposed.

I experienced a big change after arriving at this insight. My true self has awoken, and my mind has newfound thoughts of altruism.

Cultivation practice is truly serious and hard. The old forces have planted so many traps on my journey, and only Dafa can guide me to success.