Getting Rid of the Competitive Mentality

(Minghui.org) I started practicing Falun Dafa in 1996, and I am 70 years old this year. When I was little, I only went to school for three years before the Cultural Revolution started and I had to follow my parents to a farming village. With my limited education, it is rather difficult for me to write a cultivation sharing article, but I still got up the courage to do so today to share with Master and my fellow practitioners. Kindly let me know if there is any room for improvement.

I am rather timid. I am kind to others and have never gotten into a conflict with anyone. Throughout these years of cultivation, I have felt that there were not many instances that moved me and that such an ordinary life was good. Much to my surprise, however, when I was out with a practitioner to clarify the truth a few days ago, something happened. I do not know how to ride a bike, so this practitioner always takes me on her tricycle to nearby villages to clarify the truth.

When we were coming home one day, she pointed out a bike and said, “That is a really nice bike.” I said, “Yes, if I dared to ride one, I would buy one like that. It would be so convenient to go places that are too far to walk.” I did not expect her to say, “If you were forced, you would be able to walk as far as you had to.” Her remark made me feel uneasy, but I did not reply. She thought that I had not heard her, so repeated the sentence twice. She even asked me, “Isn’t that right?” Left with no choice, I could only reply, “Yes.” But I didn’t feel right about it.

Back home, I kept thinking about why she had said that. For six days, I could not stop thinking about it! One afternoon, I recalled our exchange and thought that it was actually so trivial. But even still, I could not get over it. What attachment kept tugging at my heart? I couldn’t figure it out after thinking for a while, so I got ready to study the Fa with a practitioner who was coming over. I thought I would ask her about it after we studied. After Fa study, I told her about and she asked, “Is it the attachment to competing with others?” I said I did not know. She then asked, “Do you really think that you can’t walk and you felt uneasy when she said that about you?” I replied, “Yes, indeed.”

This practitioner encouraged me, saying that if I were to follow the line of this attachment, I could find other attachments. So I did and found the attachments to thinking things were unfair and not wanting to be criticized. I also found my attachment to benefits and gains. We sent forth righteous thoughts for half an hour as I kept getting rid of these attachments. After that, my legs felt relaxed when I went out. They no longer felt so heavy, as though they were filled with lead such that I could not even lift them up. This was the first time I had really looked within, and I would like to thank that practitioner here for helping me!

Through this experience of looking within, I recalled that a similar situation had happened in the past but I had not realized that I had to look within with regard to it. Once, when I was “holding the wheel above the head” in the second exercise, a practitioner said that I wasn’t doing it quite right. I told her, “I had a surgery before, so I am not able to hold my arms that high.” She replied, “We shouldn’t harbor that kind of thought.” I was unhappy.

Seeing that I was still not enlightened, Master showed me a Falun one night while I was doing the second exercise.

Master said,

“It doesn’t matter since your body in another dimension didn’t have an operation, and in qigong practice it’s that body that is acted upon.” (Lecture Seven, Zhuan Falun)

I thought, “That’s right, my body in another dimension didn’t have an operation.” I used my strength to raise both arms. To my surprise, they really came up to where they should be. Pleased, I asked my husband to look and he said in surprise, “Huh? How did you do that?” I said, “I will tell you after we finish the exercises.” Since then, I’ve been able to hold my arms in the correct positions for the second exercise.

This attachment of being competitive has troubled me such that I could not cultivate diligently for so many years. Only now do I truly understand and I am really ashamed of myself. From now on, I must study the Fa more, send forth righteous thoughts more, look within myself more, do the three things well, catch up with the Fa-rectification progress, and follow Master home.