(Clearwisdom.net) I am a young, single, female practitioner. A young, female fellow practitioner recently stagnated in her cultivation. While speaking with her, it was discovered that the source of her problem was the attachment of lust and desire. This seriously impacted her righteous thoughts, and she has been unable to break out of her lustful desires. Very worried about her, we have been sharing with her, based on Fa principles, and helping her send forth righteous thoughts, but with little results. Helplessly, we watched her slide towards being an ordinary person, obsessed with sentimentality and desires, and lost on the way home. Gradually I lost my patience, thinking to myself: “How can someone who has already obtained the Fa not cherish it? There is nothing anyone can do if she does not wish to cultivate herself.” So I stopped paying attention to the state of her cultivation.
A few days later, I had a dream. In the dream, I met my former boyfriend. We started dating each other. It even felt warm and sweet. Upon waking up, I was depressed: Why didn't I remember that I was a Dafa disciple? I hastened to burn incense to Master, saying, “Master, I did not remember in the dream that I am a Dafa disciple. That's why I did not do well in the dream. If I had been awake, I would have surely remembered it and refused the temptation of lust and desire.” So it seemed that I had found an excuse for my not doing well in the dream. Soon after, the phone rang. It was a male practitioner who wanted to meet up to talk about a project. I normally did not interact with this practitioner, but I had a good impressionsof him. I was suddenly very excited. I briefly tidied myself up and put on what I thought were my best clothes. On my way out, I even thought about finding a cozy location, somewhere quiet and elegant, to talk with him. But when we sat down, I felt dizzy and muddleheaded and couldn't speak of anything from the standpoint of the Fa. Upon returning home after meeting with him, I felt that my entire heart was shrouded in a thick, heavy substance. It was so stifling that I did not even have the strength to speak. We actually only had a short conversation, but sentimentality was surfacing uncontrollably. I knew that this was my attachment of lust and desire stirring. The lust demon was trying to destroy me.
At that moment, I truly felt that nothing on the path of cultivation is coincidental. It was not a coincidence that I saw the other female practitioner exhibiting the problem of lust and desire. Not only did I not search inward, but I also blamed her when I wasn't able to help her. I did not pass the test in my dream. Not only that, I found an excuse for myself in front of Master. By now I felt that I was beyond hope. I had been cultivating all this time, yet my attachment of lust and desire was still so strong. Master said in Zhuan Falun, “We begin cultivation practice as everyday people. The first step is this test,...” I thought that I had not even passed the first step. How was I supposed to continue cultivating? Why couldn't I restrain something that I knew was not right? I hated myself for being so disappointing. Sad tears started to stream down my face, as if every cell was submerged in boundless suffering.
I cried and said to Master in my heart: “I want to be your disciple; I will not give up; I shall rectify myself with Dafa, no matter how hard it is.” I sat in the lotus position and started to send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate my attachment of lust and desire and any interfering rotten demons of lust. I also asked Master for strength. About an hour later I was not feeling as much pressure on my heart, but there were still rotten substances in my field, because I still felt stifled. During the following days, I continued to feel lost, oppressed, and cheerless. I could not study the Fa with a calm heart. I kept wondering why I was so severely manipulated by the lust demon. Was it my desire for a worldly good life? I knew that was not the case, because I have been determined to follow Master home since day one of my cultivation, and I desired nothing in this world. So where on earth did the affection come from? What was the root of the problem?
I found that the root did not lie with me, not with my true self. From Master's teachings, our true selves conform to Zhen-Shan-Ren and Dafa. The purpose of cultivation is to return to our true selves, or to our original, true nature. And yet lust and desire is an attachment that comes from sentimentality. It is something dirty and to be relinquished. Many notions have formed since we came to this world, many of which have been embedded into our minds by the old forces. For example, before I started cultivation practice, I longed for a romantic and loving relationship. I also created karma for myself because of a mistake in that area. Now that I am a cultivator, this karma and its associated notions have continued to manifest in my mind. I felt as if I was unable to suppress those wild thoughts. The evil in other dimensions was also using rotten lust demons to magnify my attachments, making me feel gloomy and depressed, even to the point of almost destroying my cultivation.
I suddenly came to understand that there can be no slacking at all in cultivation. We can lose ourselves in the slightest self indulgence. How fortunate we are that we have come across this priceless opportunity to become Dafa disciples. We have gone through the evils' blanketing persecution and incarceration and come out strong, and yet I have wavered in my cultivation confidence due to my attachment of lust and desire. If the old forces find an excuse to destroy our cultivation, how do we face our wait of many thousands of years of incarnations? How do we face the countless sentient beings who entrusted to us their hope of salvation? How do we face our Compassionate Master's enormous sacrifice for us?
Gods and Buddhas do not possess sentimentality. They have compassion instead. To become a great enlightened being established by Dafa, one must step out of selfish sentimentality and put sentient beings in one's heart. In this final moment, let us purify ourselves and save what are ours to save.
Category: Improving Oneself
