(Clearwisdom.net) I used to share a big house with two roommates, but recently the roommates moved out and now I am in the big house by myself. I originally liked the quiet, and therefore felt that it was good to be alone. It was nice being in this quiet environment and being able to read and study the Fa in solitude.
A short while after my roommates moved out, one day when I was working, studying the Fa and practicing the exercises, I heard the sound of water dripping constantly. I knew that I had turned off the faucet in the kitchen, so where could it be coming from? I went to find the problem but the faucet was turned off, and there was no water dripping. I returned to work, but after a while I heard it again. I thought I should ignore it, and that maybe the water pipe was clogged a little, so intermittently it would gush a few drops. So I did not pay any more attention to it. However for two or three days, every night around midnight, when I started my translation work, the sound of water dripping arose. It annoyed me and I thought, "Is this demonic interference?" So I sent forth righteous thoughts. However, the dripping sound still continued. A ghost story even emerged in my mind that I had heard when I was little. I thought again, "I am a cultivator, what should I fear? Master is watching over me, who dares to interfere with me? If one appears then I will eliminate it; they should be afraid of me, not me be afraid of them."
On the fourth evening, I heard it again. I suddenly felt very annoyed. I jumped up and ran to the kitchen, but the two faucets were turned off tightly, without any trace of water dripping. I was really puzzled, and then suddenly I heard the sound coming from the bathroom. Only then did I realize that it came from the bathroom upstairs. Usually, I only go to the bathroom downstairs, the two roommates had used the bathroom upstairs. So I went upstairs and found that it was the shower head that was dripping water. The drain was clogged with some fibers from towels. After four days of water dripping, the bath tub had collected a small pool of water. The water had been dripping from the shower head onto the water in the tub, thus generating the sound that annoyed me. I cleaned the drain and the water gradually drained away. After returning to my room, I carefully thought about this. What is this "coincidence" trying to tell me? In the end, I realized it was about omission.
I have done the three things regularly, and during Fa-study and discussion I often shared my understandings. I also liked to point out other practitioners' hidden attachments, striving to help everyone in our Fa study group walk each of their cultivation steps well. But in the process it exposed my big attachment – the attachment to myself. Especially, during a xinxing test recently, it alarmed me and was like being hit over the head.
In the Fa study group, I noticed that a practitioner had inferior enlightenment quality. I always worried about her. Other practitioners also felt that she did not have good enlightenment quality and lacked righteous thoughts. So I felt more and more that I should take the responsibility and help this practitioner to break out of her attachments. I then felt even more that my understanding was right, and that I acted according to the foundation of the Fa. I wanted her to do things according to my understanding. I also was hoping to help her so that she could improve quickly and catch up. Yet I did not realize that I had already been trapped in my own attachments toward myself. I always thought about myself, using my thoughts to control and limit others, instead of treating fellow practitioners truly with pure thoughts of selflessness and consideration for others. One day, this practitioner could no longer handle the pressure I was putting on her and became very angry at me. Only at this point, was I able to clearly see my most fundamental attachment. The fellow practitioner was very emotional when she got angry, but every word she spoke pointed directly toward my deep attachments.
I took a step back and looked at myself from a whole new viewpoint. I realized that my actions, while on the surface seemed intended to help her, were actually dragging her down. If Master had not arranged the test of her outburst for me, then wouldn't I have continued committing a big wrongdoing? Shakyamuni, in order to not limit people in their cultivation to the Tathagata level or below, had taught "no Law is absolute." This is the great enlightened being's benevolent heart taking responsibility for the people that cultivated after him. As for myself, a practitioner in cultivation, what is it in me that is limiting other practitioners? We are all practitioners in cultivation. We cultivate the same Dafa of the universe. We can only know the Fa on the level that we have cultivated to. The higher Fa principles can only be displayed after constant elimination of our attachments and improving our xinxing. It is benevolent to help practitioners to improve, but we must not limit fellow practitioners with our understandings. If we do that, wouldn't that be the same as demonic interference with Fa-rectification? Cultivators all hope to cultivate until no single omission is left. To do this, we have to find the root of all of our attachments and eliminate all interference, and remove the attachments.
Maybe we already know this principle, but sometimes when problems occur, we might look for problems in a particular aspect, and continue being troubled as to why the problem cannot be solved. Then at this moment we should stop and look at it from another angle, correct our own attitude, and maybe then we can find the root of the problem.
