Main Impediment: Selfishness and Ego

(Minghui.org) I have become increasingly aware that my fundamental cultivation attachment is the attachment to self. This has become a fundamental obstacle to understanding the profound connotation of cultivation in the Fa-rectification, and myself returning to Dafa. This is also a fundamental factor for causing today’s environment, and an impediment for people to be saved. The “selfishness and ego” factors of Dafa disciples have become major obstacles to Master’s Fa-rectification today.

About four months ago, my lack of diligent practice was taken advantage of by the old forces. I twisted my left shoulder, causing pain in my left joint, which later developed into stiffness and pain in my left arm. Especially when I was practicing the Falun Standing Stance exercise, my left shoulder and arm were in great pain, shaking constantly, and I felt like a mountain was pressed down on top of my head. Every time I practiced I was sore and sweat. I persisted in doing the exercises, because I thought it was the elimination of karma, and it was all for my improvement. During the course of four months, although the pain was gradually decreasing, I was still sweating each time. I began to reflect on why this state lasted so long. I felt that although I had looked within and found some attachments, there was still a fundamental problem that I had not recognized.

Two days ago the pain started again when I was practicing I tried to hold on and felt that the time was so long. I suddenly woke up: “Who is this person enduring the pain and persisting in practicing? I understood immediately that it was the “I” who was enduring the pain and persisting in the practice, because it was the “I” who wanted to eliminate karma and improve. But, my essential life has been recreated by Master’s Dafa, it is a particle of Dafa, a life composed entirely of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. It is a life that harmonizes what Master wants, is in full harmony with Dafa, and assists Master to awaken people’s conscience. He simply does not have the thought of “I want to improve! I want to eliminate karma.” This kind of thinking comes from the basic old factor that formed life in the old universe – attached to ego, not my true nature and essence.

When I realized this, the big mountain-like thing above my head instantly disappeared, and the pain was gone. I felt as if being liberated. At that moment, I really felt that my practicing the exercises was helping Master rectify the Fa and saving the countless sentient beings in the celestial bodies.

This profound experience made me see clearly the negative role that the factor of “selfishness and ego” play in Dafa disciples’ current cultivation in the Fa-rectification. I gained a deeper understanding of the Fa-rectification cultivation.

Master said,

“I also want to tell you that your nature in the past was actually based on egotism and selfishness. From now on, whatever you do, you should consider others first, so as to attain the righteous Enlightenment of selflessness and altruism. So from now on, whatever you do or whatever you say, you must consider others—or even future generations—along with Dafa’s eternal stability.” (“Non-Omission in Buddha-Nature,” Essentials For Further Advancement)

The manifestation of “ego” and “selfishness” in human society is to speak and act self-centered, with self as the starting point, such as: my family, my region, my country, etc. As time goes by, the true self of Dafa disciples was buried by different levels of “private self” in the process of following Master down to the three realms and forming layers of “selfish self” in the three realms. From this “selfish self”, various human concepts are formed.

After the persecution was launched, Dafa practitioners entered the stage of Fa-rectification cultivation. In order for the disciples to keep up with the Fa-rectification, Master continuously lectured and opened up the inner meaning of Fa-rectification cultivation. I finally realized that the basis of doing the three things should be saving sentient beings and validating the Fa, and it should not be about what “I” want. No matter what tribulations we encounter, as long as we can really let go of “selfishness and ego” and truly think about saving people, the environment will immediately turn positive and the corresponding tribulations will disappear, because the power of the Fa is there. There is no need for “I” to “break through” the tribulations in one way or another.

I went to Beijing to appeal for Dafa at the beginning of the persecution, and was taken to a detention center. I was tied to a door panel for a long time. My body was in pain, and my lower back hurt as if it was broken. While I was enduring the pain, I saw that all inmates in the same cell were sitting there silently watching me. I suddenly felt pity for them – due to the loss of their minds in the maze, they didn’t realize they were paying for the sins they had committed. If my pain was to bear the sins for these lives, so that they could understand the true meaning of life soon, I would willingly do so! At that moment all my pain disappeared, and I felt very comfortable as if wonderfully floating in the air. The guard immediately came in to untie me, and I walked out of the detention center that night.

I also remember more than 10 years ago when I was monitored almost 24/7. Once right after I thought of visiting a fellow practitioner, the substance of fear appeared and enveloped my whole body. My legs were shaking involuntarily. I laughed at the situation, pointed at my trembling leg and said: “You can’t stop me from forming a whole body with my fellow practitioners, that’s what Master wants, you can only be destroyed.” 

As soon as I said that, I felt the substance of fear instantly turned into something like cold water and flow out of my toes. At that time even the concept of fear disappeared from my mind, and my mind was pure.

I now realize the reason why my tribulations passed and why the fear went away so quickly. It was that I let go of the layer of “selfishness and ego” and met the requirements of the Fa of that level, and the Fa assimilated it directly. I just cultivate and let go of the impure things, everything is Master’s Fa-rectification at work. 

Of course, as the progress of the Fa-rectification continues to advance towards a more microcosmic level, the standard of the Fa for us is getting higher and higher. In other words, the standard of “selfishness and ego” that I thought I had let go of before, is still there, but this level of “selfishness and ego” is more microscopic. Our Fa-rectification cultivation is to continuously cultivate to remove layers of “selfishness and ego” until our fundamental nature, a particle of Dafa, returns to Dafa.

Master has been waiting with tremendous endurance for Dafa disciples to raise up the understanding. All the obstacles in our cultivation and saving people are fundamentally caused by the “selfishness and ego” factors of Dafa disciples themselves, including the situation in the U.S. election.

Why do many practitioners stay at a certain level for a long time and improve slowly? Why is the apparent environment for saving people like this today? The reason I see is that Dafa disciples do not understand the inner meaning of Dafa cultivation and are hindered by this “selfishness and ego” so they cannot find their true nature.

It is our inability to truly comprehend Dafa cultivation that makes us think of tribulations when we talk about cultivation. This is when we fall into the understanding of the beings in the old universe. Precisely this kind of understanding that deviated from Dafa is used by the higher-level beings in the old universe. Therefore, it can’t be said that today’s people have become so morally low and the environment has become so bad, has nothing to do with the slow improvement of Dafa disciples’ cultivation! The unsaved people are poor beings, and those mutated higher beings have turned the world’s people into what they are today for the so-called sake of Dafa disciples’ cultivation. Thus we should not blame people, but should find our own reasons and improve our xinxing quickly!

I now realize that the nature of Dafa disciples is that of a particle of Dafa, and the life harmonizing what Master wants. The particle doesn’t have the thinking of “I want to be steadfast and I want to accept the test.” If Dafa disciples can completely let go of their selfishness and ego and harmonize what Master wants, then the environment of cultivation and saving people in the United States and the world today will fundamentally change. It truly becomes an environment for saving sentient beings. A large number of people will be saved. This is what Master wants!

Editor’s note: Views expressed in this article represent the author's own opinions, for which the author is solely responsible. Readers should evaluate the article's merits on their own.