(Minghui.org) An unusual thing happened to me last year after the Chinese New Year. Two of my coworkers and I found that our salaries were almost 1,000 yuan (USD$140) less than those of the other employees. That was not a small thing in our factory team. 

My two coworkers and I were shocked and indignant. I asked the team leader and the deputy team leader what was going on. They said that the whole factory had begun implementing a scoring system, and probably the three of us had scored low. I asked why none of us knew about it, and why I was scored the lowest. Both the team leaders hemmed and hawed, saying that they weren’t the ones who scored me and perhaps this or that person had scored me. They said firmly that they could have given anybody a low score, but not me. 

I was the most experienced, skilled, and down-to-earth on the team. It was true that anybody could have been scored low, but scoring me the lowest should have been impossible, according to normal reasoning. But the reality was that I had been scored the lowest. 

Out of anger, I met with the director. The director also hemmed and hawed and couldn’t give me a clear answer either. At one moment, she said that one person had scored me, then at another point she said that another person had. She was shirking responsibility. 

I had no choice but to see the manager. The manager pulled out the original records and said the team leaders had scored me. He said he didn’t know much about our actual situation because he’d been transferred here only three months earlier. Our salaries had been lowered for several months and could no longer be changed. He said that compensation would be made with our future salaries. He commented that this scoring system was not reasonable and many people had objected to it. He called the director with a reproachful tone and asked her to make public within the group the related documents and scoring information to keep people informed instead of hiding the information from them.

The manager’s attitude and approach were relatively good, and that reduced more than half of my anger. My coworkers and I understood everything after we left the manager’s office. It was obvious that the two team leaders, collaborating with the director, had scored us low to gain personal benefits and execute some dirty deals. The interpersonal relationships in the factory had become especially complicated, and unhealthy tendencies of flattery, favoritism, and confusing right and wrong were particularly prevalent. Honest and upright people were being bullied, and that is also the state of the current society. 

I was most angry about the team leader. When he was laid off ten years ago, I got him back into the company and helped arrange a post for him. I provided the opportunity for him to get an operator certificate from the company for free. A year later, I gave away the post of team leader to him. I had been helping him, but he was doing this to me. He gave the highest scores to the two or three people who were least skilled and had the worst performance. I was so angry that I couldn’t eat or sleep well for quite a long time.

Of course, what I have talked about above is all from the perspective of human thoughts and a human state. Society is just like this nowadays. The cosmos has reached the end of the last stage of the cycle of formation, stasis, degeneration, and destruction, and it’s going to be destroyed. As cultivators, we should be clear that to cultivate is to let go of these human thoughts, notions, and everything else we are attached to. We cannot behave the same as ordinary people. As cultivators, we should look within and cultivate our hearts. Cultivation is to cultivate ourselves – not the society, or others.

Only after I looked within did I find that a lot of my problems were exposed through this incident. My attachment to reputation, personal interest, and emotion were all displayed. I’ve always considered myself to be doing okay in my cultivation and that I’ve largely let go of my attachments to reputation, personal interest, and emotion. Yet when I looked inside after this incident, I found that was not the case. I’m far from cultivating well in letting go of my attachments to reputation, self interest, and feelings. I didn’t take any of this lightly at all, or abandon these attachments. At least I didn’t completely abandon them. When the incident happened, the first thing I thought about was that my salary was 1,000 yuan less than others. That shows that I didn’t completely let go of my attachments to money and personal interests. 

When I explained the benefits of practicing Falun Dafa to my coworkers before, I said that suppose my monthly salary was 2,000 yuan less than them, I would still be better off than them, because practitioners don’t smoke cigarettes, don’t drink alcohol, don’t play mahjong and don’t get sick, so we don’t need any injections or medicines. “You probably have to spend more than 2,000 yuan a month for all these costs,” I said. I told them how that’s a benefit of practicing Falun Dafa at the surface level. And then I got angry for just 1,000 yuan! Didn’t I act like an ordinary person? I’m a practitioner and I’m not short of food or clothes, and I don’t have any sicknesses or misfortune. What’s the use of pursuing money? What we want is to upgrade our character and elevate our level. It's sufficient if we have just enough to eat and to meet our basic needs. We should take money and personal interests lightly and remove our attachment to them.

In addition, I felt that my reputation was hurt when the incident happened. I have always been the most skilled worker, no matter where I’ve worked. I have taught a lot of apprentices, batch after batch of them. I don’t take advantage of or bully others and have always been a good person with a good reputation. 

But this time they ranked me last. The contrast was just huge! They wiped out my achievements and my whole life’s reputation with just a single stroke. I couldn’t make sense of it no matter what. But I immediately came to understand, as soon as I looked at it from a cultivator’s perspective: wasn’t Master using this incident to help me remove my attachment to reputation? What use does a cultivator have for pursuing fame among ordinary people? Can that improve my level or increase my gong (cultivation energy)? Hollow fame counts for nothing for practitioners. I shouldn’t care at all when ordinary people say good or bad things about me, because that’s not what divine beings or what Master has said. What we pursue is reaching Master’s requirements, Dafa’s criteria, and to increase our gong and overall level. What’s the use of getting these ordinary people’s things? I must firmly let go of the attachment of seeking fame.

Furthermore, my attachment to human emotion manifested during this incident. I have always treated people with kindness. I had a hard time bearing it when someone whom I had helped with all my heart was doing this to me. We know that human emotion is the most unreliable. Many people are doing things with insincere hearts for their own benefit. Why did I even care about these low and dirty emotional feelings? Ordinary people are degenerating and at the edge of destruction. They are already pitiful and are beings we want to save. Why do I care about my feelings of whether people are good or bad, kind or evil. There is really no need. I need to hurry up and let go of emotion in this secular world, including that which causes me to regard someone as good or bad, or to like or dislike somebody.

I experienced amazing, true cultivation after going through this test. When I realized I had human thoughts, actions, and feelings that a cultivator should not have, I let them go without hesitation. After I removed these attachments, I felt more cheerful and comfortable than ever before. All my anger and grievances disappeared without a trace. A kind of gentle joy arose from my heart. In my heart, I should truly thank those who hurt me. If they had not created this incident that really broke my heart, I don’t know when I could have let go of these attachments to reputation, self interest, and emotion. I truly should thank them. After going through this, my legs no longer feel pain when I meditate. The headaches and toothaches that had troubled me for several years have also disappeared.

I’m sharing this experience with fellow practitioners. Please point out anything not in line with the Fa.