Why Some Strong Attachments Are Hard to Get Rid Of

(Minghui.org) We all have attachments that are hard to eliminate during our cultivation process. We feel they are peeled away layer by layer. Attachments that we harbored for many years grew to the point that they formed a layer in our body to block us from striving forward vigorously on our cultivation path. Only by seeing through them and eliminating them, can we not be affected by them, eliminate all of them, and thereby truly snap out of humanness.

Reasons Strong Attachments and Notions Are Formed

As people have sentimentality and live in ordinary human society, they will gradually form all kinds of attachments and notions to protect themselves. What they like or dislike forms a set of criteria for measuring things. Gradually, notions are formed. Some may be very strong. As soon as the attachment is touched upon, there is an immediate reaction, or the person feels insufferable pain. Actually, that notion or attachment is resisting because it’s a life and doesn't want to die. So it ends up in a desperate struggle, acting on the human body to bring a person that feeling. 

Master said, 

“The form of the statue in other dimensions can expand or shrink. So after the person’s thought rests on the statue, the statue will come to have a brain and the ability to think, though not yet a body. The prayers from others that follow provide it with a certain amount of energy. And if it is practitioners doing this, the danger is all the greater, for the statue will receive their energy right from the outset, and it will form into a tangible body in another dimension.” (The Fifth Talk, Zhuan Falun)

When we first started cultivation, we developed attachments in certain situations. At first, they were probably very weak. However, if we didn’t use the Fa principles to measure ourselves and continuously eliminate the attachments, but rather followed along with them every time they surfaced, then we actually reinforced them. Eventually, in other dimensions, the attachments formed a tangible body. In fact, every attachment is the same, the difference lies in the degree and the object one is attached to. Consider this example of illness karma elimination. 

A practitioner had illness karma symptoms. If it seemed like it was just a cold, one wouldn’t feel afraid. But if the symptom that manifested was something that seemed to be life-threatening, or one suffered severe pain, one would develop fear. That symptom appeared to be so real, including the degree to which one had to suffer. Just then, the experiences and notions formed in ordinary human society would kick in, the person felt that they were in danger, or other possibilities, according to the symptoms. But it was one’s notions at work. However, as a practitioner, if one can’t understand the Fa while being in the Fa, but rather shared the same understanding of events as an ordinary person would and went along with those thoughts, one’s fear would be amplified to the point where it formed a layer in one’s body. 

There was a sharing article, entitled “I Confronted My Fear,” posted on the Minghui website. The author saw fear as a transparent layer of the body. Every time it flared up, a gray mist would be emitted and envelop the body. This article touched me deeply, and helped me understand vividly and truly that these strong attachments and notions form a layer of the body. 

This layer also boils down to one’s karma, which is also alive, and just as Master said, will make you suffer. If you were to keep replenishing it with energy and make it powerful, in turn, it would control you. It would make you feel uncomfortable and disturbed, and also manifest as illness symptoms. It doesn’t want to die, so it has to make you suffer and feel afraid, have you under its control, and thus continue to live. 

Using Fa Principles to Discern and Eliminate Strong Attachments and Notions

It became clear to me that strong attachments and notions form a layer of the body. When they manifest, they play a role in your body. How you perceive this becomes critical. 

Some practitioners, as soon as they feel discomfort, use ordinary people’s principles to assess the situation. Ordinary people usually regard discomfort in their hearts or body as suffering. But as cultivators, shouldn’t we use an understanding that is higher than ordinary people⸺the Fa principles⸺to measure ourselves? When an attachment flares up, making you suffer, isn't it a manifestation of the attachment desperately struggling to survive? 

We understand and accept the pain in our legs when we do the sitting meditation, so when an attachment flares up and makes you suffer, why can't you treat it as if you are eliminating karma in the sitting meditation?

Just as Master said, 

“Actually, I can tell you that mind and matter are one and the same!” (Teachings at the Conference in New Zealand)

Even though the attachments that result in worry, fear, and agitation came down to mental discomfort, we should eliminate them, as they are the same as the karma felt during the sitting meditation, it is just in a different format. 

Master said, 

“Over time, that addictive substance accumulates, and forms inside of your body an identical version of you that comes to control you. Because it is composed of strong attachment, and has your appearance, it has an equally strong desire to control you; it was formed out of strong desires, after all.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2019 New York Fa Conference”)

I came to understand that it’s very hard for an ordinary person to remove an attachment. As a practitioner, one should use supernatural principles to maintain oneself, and not to be subject to the attachment's influence. Every time an attachment flares up, one should dismantle and dispel it. We clearly understand that it manifests because it’s afraid of death, and it is then that we detect it. It’s rather a good thing, as it gives us the perfect opportunity to eliminate it. 

Master said, 

“If you were to say, “I don’t want you,” and it just died, that would be too straightforward. When you can clearly discern it, you yourself are getting stronger, you yourself are awakening and enlightening, you yourself are breaking from its encirclement, and getting progressively stronger; and while that happens, it becomes progressively weaker and progressively disappears, until the point where it is ultimately eliminated. There needs to be a process.” (Teachings at the Conference in Australia)

I realized that when those notions and attachments become stronger, we might not notice. It’s a process for one to eliminate this layer of the body. Thus, one has to be very firm and determined, and believe that as long as we keep eliminating this layer, it will become smaller, until the point where we completely overcome it and aren’t moved by it at all. That’s when it will be eliminated.

Eliminating Strong Attachments and Notions Through Fa Study and Sending Righteous Thoughts 

Before, when a female practitioner’s leg had severe pain, she sat on the bed and didn’t dare move at all. Practitioners told her the pain was an illusion. However, she clearly felt the pain, which made her unable to realize what was happening. She also knew that she didn’t meet a practitioner’s standards. What to do? How to eliminate this strong attachment to fear? After that, she set her mind to studying the Fa every day. She told me when her fear flared up, she had a hard time controlling all kinds of negative thoughts that popped up. Sometimes she felt she would become bedridden. Looking at her young children, she felt helpless and in great agony. 

All she could do was study the Fa. As soon as she stopped reading, she felt scared. Therefore, she studied the Fa nonstop. She could study six hours straight in one day. Finally, after three months, she felt her fear vanishing and that she could probably walk without pain. Then she got up from the bed and was able to walk. 

Though she had tried to walk before, the heart-piercing pain made her shudder and shrink back every time. Through intensive Fa study, Master helped her remove the layer of fear, so that she could overcome it and become healthy. This shows how important Fa study is. Just as Master said, 

“The Fa can break all attachments, the Fa can destroy all evil, the Fa can shatter all lies, and the Fa can strengthen righteous thoughts.” (“Drive Out Interference,” Essentials for Further Advancement II)

Sending strong righteous thoughts is also a way to actively eliminate strong attachments. 

When we have strong attachments and notions, we have nothing to fear as long as we are determined to eliminate them. By continuously distinguishing and dispelling them, we can eliminate them. 

Due to my limited level, please kindly point out anything inappropriate.