My Recent Enlightenment on Getting Rid of Selfishness

(Minghui.org) Studying the Fa diligently has helped me improve in my cultivation recently. Selfishness revealed itself through Fa-study, and I worked hard to get rid of it. I also truly experienced how Master has made meticulous arrangements for us to improve.

Being Able to See Selfishness in Myself

I met a practitioner two months ago who has been distributing truth-clarification fliers in the apartment buildings near where I live. Many practitioners rarely distribute fliers in apartment buildings due to fear or laziness. After I told this practitioner I hadn't distributed the fliers in my neighborhood yet, she said that she would help me. I told her I would send forth righteous thoughts for her while she distributed them. I checked with her later to see how it went, and she told me that it went very smoothly—no problems.

She came to my neighborhood again a week later to distribute fliers. I sent forth righteous thoughts to reinforce her, and it went very well again. It was very windy that day, but she said the wind was behind her on the way there and on the way back.

When I saw this practitioner for the third time, I asked if she would like to distribute fliers in my neighborhood again. She agreed. But this time things did not go smoothly, because many people were coming and going from the buildings, and the janitor kept a close eye on her. I wondered why it did not go well this time, and it bothered me for more than a month. I finally understood, but only after something else happened.

I usually distributed materials village by village, and sometimes I went into apartment buildings. After a while, I developed the attachment of delivering materials as a process and was taken advantage of by the old forces. Once, a few people in the corridor of a building saw me. I left the building safely under Master’s protection, but I was fearful of going there again for a while. A practitioner suggested that she could help distribute materials in my neighborhood and I could help her in her neighborhood. I agreed and finally had the courage to go into apartment buildings again.

I was on my way to distribute materials and wondered whether I should go straight to the community in front of me or to the fellow practitioners’ neighborhood. I decided to go to the practitioner’s neighborhood and asked her later to do the same in my neighborhood.

There was a 25-story building. I went up to the top floor and started distributing materials to each floor going down. I had covered two floors and was about to put a flier on a doorknob when the door suddenly opened. A man in his 60s came out and asked what I was doing. I was afraid and told him that I’d gone to the wrong door and quickly took the elevator down.

On my way home, I wondered why things did not go well. The last time someone in a building saw me, I had already delivered a few dozen fliers, but this time I only delivered four fliers before I had to leave.

I thought about this over the next few days, trying to find my omissions in cultivation. One day, I realized that I was selfish and that I had the attachment of pursuit. When I decided to cover the other practitioner’s neighborhood, I had the selfish thought that she could do the same in my neighborhood.

Master said,

“In offering salvation to people, there is no condition or consideration for cost, reward, or fame. They are thus far nobler than the heroes of everyday people. They do it completely out of their benevolent compassion.” (Lecture Two, Zhuan Falun)

I distributed the materials on condition that the other practitioner would do the same for me. I realized I had a selfish heart, asking practitioners to come to my neighborhood to distribute materials. Those practitioners have their own arrangements to cover different neighborhoods to help save more sentient beings. If they kept going to the same place to distribute materials, it would also be a safety concern.

Luckily, with Master’s compassionate protection, they were doing fine. Otherwise, I would really regret it if they faced danger. The nature of selfishness is to think of oneself in everything. I am very grateful for Master’s enlightenment, which allowed me to see my attachments and improve in cultivation.

Getting Rid of Selfishness

I used to think all the time about how difficult it is to get rid of selfishness, as most of my thoughts were about “me.”

I washed some grapes in the kitchen and grabbed the biggest bunch. Suddenly I felt something was wrong and thought to myself, “Am I cultivating to be selfless? Why did I take the big bunch instead of a small one? This is selfish.” I immediately put back the biggest bunch and grabbed the smallest one.

Another thing happened right after this. I had been picking the biggest potatoes to cut every time I cooked, as it was easier to peel them. But this time, after I grabbed a big one, I put it back and told myself, “I should leave the big potatoes for my mother-in-law. She is getting old, and it is easier for her to peel the big ones.”

I realized that I had improved and had been gradually getting rid of selfishness, which had interfered with me all the time.

Every few months I noticed some small improvements, which excited me. But, Master arranged some new tests for me just a few days later. Alas, sometimes I did not pass them. For example, I had a dream that my daughter gave me something from school and said, “This is a new class schedule arranged for you by the school.”

Many of my classes were in either the fourth period in the morning or the eighth period in the afternoon. No teacher wants those time slots because teaching fourth period means that they have to leave half an hour later than everyone else for lunch and eighth period is the last class of the day when the students are unsettled and looking forward to the end of classes. I was unhappy and angry and thought: “There are so many teachers here, but they arranged for me to take all the unwanted time slots. I must talk to the dean to change it.”

After I woke up, I realized that I did not pass the test. I asked myself, “Don’t I cultivate to be selfless and think of others first? I am not in a hurry to get home and cook. Isn’t it okay for me to take these classes? I still have omissions, which I need to work on as I cultivate.”

It is still a small improvement that I realized my mistake after waking up. At the very least, I know what I did wrong, and the way I think about problems is moving closer to selflessness.