Breaking Away from a Competitive and Selfish Mode of Thinking

(Minghui.org) I have spent most of my time working on media projects from home usually, and felt I had let go of many attachments and could take things lightheartedly. I didn't seem to “compete” with others much either. However, when I started working with others, my attachments reappeared, and at times they caused irretrievable loss and interfered with saving sentient beings.

In particular, I saw my strong attachment to competitiveness and a tendency to complain about others while participating in various peaceful appeal activities and reporting work during Xi Jinping’s recent visit to the UK.

Seeing My Competitive Mentality

While in Manchester, I saw a Chinese woman talking to a policeman in a secretive manner. From the way she dressed and behaved, I “determined” that she was affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). So I walked up to the policeman to clarify the facts about the persecution, thinking that I would get an upper hand over the Chinese woman. When she asked me who I was, I turned the question around and asked her who she was. It turned out that she was from the police force in Manchester.

On another occasion, while I was helping a Chinese fellow practitioner in an interview with a media outlet, a Chinese man walked casually into our group of practitioners. I immediately became “alert” and urged the reporter to videotape the man so we'd have evidence just in case the man made any trouble for us. In my eyes, the man was a typical Chinese brainwashed by the communist regime.

I was surprised to find out later that another practitioner convinced the man to acknowledge that only by dismantling the CCP can the Chinese people have a new China. From this experience I saw the gap between the great compassion demonstrated by the fellow practitioner and my narrow-minded way of thinking.

My first reaction upon seeing the Chinese man was to stop him from causing trouble for us, not to help him understand why the persecution is wrong. I created the tense atmosphere due to a lack of compassion on my part. It is indeed not necessary to label people because they are all sentient beings to be saved. They may lose the opportunity simply because of our own selfishness, anxiety and false assumptions.

Transcending the Selfishness

A thought came to my mind while I was sitting on a bus to Manchester in the early morning of October 23: I will not fall into a human way of thinking, especially those negative ways of thinking. I will not complain about others anymore, as such behavior is looking externally and it is in direct conflict with what a Dafa cultivator should do. Master told us,

“What’s meant by "not proper thoughts"? It’s when somebody always has ahard time thinking of himself as a practitioner.” (Zhuan Falun)

In the past, when I came across a situation when others were not treating me well, I would start wondering if it was because of this or that, and when I could not figure out what the cause was, I would try to comfort myself by thinking that it was all due to karmic debts that I needed to repay. But now, I feel I should not follow this way of thinking, because very often what we see with our flesh eyes is false, especially when we see things with the attachment to selfishness and self-protection. If one falls into this way of thinking, it is like he is still practicing qigong at the level of qi, and he is bound to get entangled and lost in the face of false appearances.

On my way back home, I recited “On Dafa” (Lunyu), and when I recited the line “…, and once he has learned to discern what is truly good from evil, and virtue from vice, and he goes beyond the human plane, he will see and gain access to the realities of the universe as well as the lives of other planes and dimensions,” I came to the understanding that only by breaking away from human sentiments and our intrinsic ways of thinking can we discern what is truly good from evil.

When we refuse to fall into selfish thinking with “guesses and associated assumptions,” our hearts become very calm. We are not concerned about how others may treat us or how others may behave, because we are not in that mode of thinking. However, this is not something done in a forceful manner, but a natural stage we reach in our cultivation. We just need to do our best as Master has taught us,

“True compassion doesn’t have any selfishness mixed in, and one will, when dealing with anyone, or sentient beings in general, look at things with righteous thoughts and loving kindness.” (From “What is a Dafa Disciple”)