(Minghui.org) For many years I wasn’t aware that I had any fundamental attachments in my cultivation. But after practicing Falun Dafa for so many years, my cultivation path has gotten more and more difficult. Especially over the last ten years, I’ve struggled with constant interference and it always took a lot of effort for me to do Dafa projects.
Particularly in recent years, I developed several strong attachments and struggled to eliminate them. I could not control my addiction to my cellphone and couldn’t stop watching videos, doing online shopping, or following certain social media channels. I was also attached to jewelry and fashion.
Before I began practicing Falun Dafa, I liked to dress up. I did not get rid of this attachment even after taking up cultivation. A fellow practitioner suggested that the desire to look good was a lustful thought, but I covered it up with the excuse that I was trying to give people a good impression when I clarified the facts about Falun Dafa.
All that time, I was plagued by one form of interference after another. I felt drowsy when I studied the Fa and fell asleep when I meditated. My relationship with my daughter got worse. Later, the police harassed me and held me in a detention center. Fear got the best of me and I couldn’t overcome it to clarify the facts. To avoid police harassment, I had to close my store. The gap between me and fellow practitioners grew bigger.
I knew that something was wrong with my cultivation. I looked within and found a bunch of attachments, but my cultivation state still fluctuated. I was exhausted. But deep down in my heart, my determination to cultivate has never changed.
As I continued to cultivate my thoughts, study the Fa, and look inward, I realized that maybe the interference was indeed caused by lustful thoughts.
In the past, I’d always thought that I no longer had lustful thoughts. I divorced more than ten years ago and I have never considered starting another family. I took it for granted that my attachments concerning marriage and lust were gone, and I never paid attention to this aspect of cultivation.
I read in one practitioner’s sharing article about memorizing and reciting the Fa to inhibit indecent thoughts and desires, so I started to do the same. While it helped improve my cultivation state tremendously, I still felt I hadn’t found the root cause of my problem.
One day, I recalled that when I first obtained Falun Dafa, I had the following thought: “This exercise can make people younger and more beautiful. It’s terrific. That’s what I need to practice.”
I realized that this was my fundamental attachment, that my original intention to practice Dafa was to look younger and more beautiful. I believe Master saw my sincere wish to improve and gave me the hint.
Looking back at my cultivation path, much of the interference I encountered was related to this attachment, which the old forces seized upon when I failed to recognize it.
Master reminded us:
“Do you know that one of the biggest excuses the evil old forces use at present to persecute Dafa is that your fundamental attachments remain concealed? So in order to identify such people, the ordeals have been made more severe.”
“After cultivating for a period of time, are your thoughts still the same? Are you continuing on the path because of those human attachments? If so, you cannot be counted as my disciple. It means that you have not discarded your fundamental attachments and have failed to understand the Fa from the Fa. Those who have been weeded out during the evil tests that Dafa has encountered in China are all persons who hadn’t abandoned those attachments. It should also be said that they have negatively affected Dafa.” (“Towards Consummation,” The Essentials of Diligent Progress II)
When we have a hard time eliminating our attachments or get stuck at a certain level, maybe we should take a look to see if is it because we’ve failed to find our fundamental attachment and thus gave the old forces the opportunity to exploit our loophole and amplify our tribulations.
Fa-rectification is nearing the end. It’s crucial for us to eliminate our fundamental attachment to reach consummation. If we remain oblivious to our problem, the old forces might use this as an excuse to destroy us. This is extremely serious and dangerous. I want to remind fellow practitioners that we must pay attention to this issue, and my personal experience is a profound lesson.
Copyright © 2023 Minghui.org. All rights reserved.
