Eliminating the Attachment to Saving Face

(Minghui.org) I’m a young Falun Dafa practitioner living in China. I experienced huge changes when it came to fame and fortune after I started cultivating Falun Dafa in 2017.

I was hired by my high school as part of a special talent search for teachers with Ph.D. degrees. I expected to be respected by my school leaders and colleagues, but it didn’t turn out well.

One day, we had a teachers’ meeting, which took a long time. While our principal was talking about policies, I checked the time and saw that it was time to pick up my child. Teachers usually sneak out of meetings when they have something to take care of. However, when I tried to sneak out, the principal suddenly asked me where I was going. I replied without thinking, “I have to pick up my child.”

The principal didn’t say anything. He looked mad but still kept a straight face. Second after second passed, but it was silent. The air seemed to be frozen. I felt I experienced a dilemma. After a while, one of the school leaders finally said, “Go.” The principal let me go but still looked mad.

Losing Face in Front of the Teachers Assembly

I felt so embarrassed. It was a large meeting. I bet all the teachers who hadn’t met me got to know me from this incident. I felt like a child who had been punished for mischief and was left without any dignity.

It reminded me what Master has told us,

“There are people who say, "If I’m walking down the street and somebody kicks me, I can endure it, since nobody knows me." I’d say that’s not good enough. Maybe later on you’ll be slapped in the face a couple times in front of the very person you least want to lose face around, and that’s to humiliate you, to see how you handle it, and to see whether you can endure it. Maybe you can endure it but you can’t get it off your mind. That’s not good enough.” (The Ninth Talk, Zhuan Falun)

I realized that the incident brought to light that I still had the attachment to saving face, and I should eliminate it instead of complaining about our principal. I didn’t hold any grievance against him and apologized to him later.

Master has told us,

“But, usually when a conflict comes along, if it doesn’t provoke you, it doesn’t count, it doesn’t work, and you won’t be able to improve from it.” (The Fourth Talk, Zhuan Falun)

The next morning, the very first colleague I saw pulled me aside and said, “It was an awkward situation at the meeting yesterday. You should have said that you needed to go use the bathroom or answer a call. Why did you tell him you would pick up your child?” I smiled, but didn’t know what to say. Another colleague of mine laughed at me as soon as she saw me, “So embarrassing! So embarrassing!” she said. I felt uneasy walking in the hallway that day.

Master said,

“You know, when a person reaches the Arhat level he’s not fazed by anything he comes across. He’s not the least bit concerned about any human things and he’s always upbeat. It doesn’t matter how much he loses out, he’s upbeat and doesn’t mind.” (The Ninth Talk, Zhuan Falun)

Thinking about Master’s teaching, I calmed down quickly. I wanted to take this opportunity to eliminate my attachment to saving face. It’s great to have Dafa in my mind. It helped me improve instead of getting confused when facing a conflict.

I thought I indeed eliminated a lot of my attachments given this incident. However, the true storm followed.

A few days later, the director of our grade looked for me in anger. I wasn’t in my office. My colleagues told me that the director had slammed the door so hard when she left that the door handle became loose. I hurried to the director’s office. Despite all the other teachers in our presence, she started criticizing me right away and raised her voice higher and higher. Even though I was wronged, I didn’t have any opportunity to explain.

I forced myself to tolerate the abuse at first but then cried and eventually was out of breath. The harder I cried, the angrier she got. She shouted, “Don’t think you have been wronged! Not a bit! I can’t believe you don’t understand it! You think you are the principal!?” She said many harsh words, but I can’t remember them. No one in the office tried to stop her. I felt terribly wronged and was sure that I had lost my face completely. It turned out that I still had some attachment to saving face.

Afterwards, I felt stunned by her verbal abuse for days and often gazed blankly for a long time. Some colleagues who weren’t present tried to comfort me. I knew that everyone had heard about it. A thought came to my mind to fight with her and to file a complaint to her higher-ups about what she had done to me, because I couldn’t stand up to her!

However, I got rid of this thought after thinking of Master’s words:

“How could ordinary people tolerate this? How could they tolerate that kind of mistreatment? "He does bad things to me, I’ll do bad things to him. He has people on his side, but I have people on my side, too. Let’s fight." Around ordinary people, if you do that, ordinary people will say you’re strong. But for a practitioner, that would be just awful. If you fight and struggle like an ordinary person, you are an ordinary person. And if you did it with more gusto than him, then you’re not even as good as that ordinary person.” (The Fourth Talk, Zhuan Falun )

I realized that she helped me improve my xinxing, and I shouldn’t hate her. However, I thought I should explain to her even though she might not listen to me. My behavior showed me that I needed to correct myself in some regard. I realized that I tended to make decisions by myself and sometimes did things carelessly.

I eventually went to apologize to the director. She smiled and said, “We’ll eventually work together better.” The storm passed. I found myself calm and no longer worried about how others viewed me.

As Master told us,

“The attachments you can’t let go of around ordinary people all have to be let go. All your attachments, as long as you have them, all have to be worn down in different settings. You will stumble, and from that grasp the truth. That’s how you cultivate.” (The Fourth Talk, Zhuan Falun)

I would like to thank Master for helping me let go of my attachments when facing troubles in my everyday life and thereby develop a peaceful mind.

Thank you, Master! Thank you, Falun Dafa!