(Minghui.org) Reading fellow practitioners’ sharing articles on the Minghui website has always helped me gain new insights and enlightenment during my cultivation.
Letting Go of Selfishness
Teacher taught us,
“Just moments prior to complete enlightenment, eight-tenths of his gong will be taken down together with his xinxing standard, and this energy will be used to substantiate his paradise—a paradise of his own.” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)
I was deeply impressed by the above teaching the first time I read it. Back then, I believed that Teacher wanted me to work hard and endure hardships, so that I would gain freedom in the future. Therefore, I decided to be more diligent in my cultivation, such as prolonging the meditation time, and so on.
After the onset of the persecution, however, this teaching helped me to realize that the reason Dafa disciples overcome difficulties and hardships was not only for personal cultivation. The greater the responsibility one carries, the more virtue one gains.
A recent article on the Minghui website shared that Dafa disciples’ responsibility is to assist Teacher to save sentient beings. I thus have gained an even deeper understanding of this teaching – most of what we achieve in cultivation are meant for others, not for our own consummation or virtue. Enriching our own world is to create a better living environment for all sentient beings.
I asked myself why I had failed to gain the deeper understanding the first time I read this teaching. I realized that it was because of selfishness, and that I put my personal loss and gain before many other things. When I only focused on how to improve myself, how to gain virtue for myself, the high level Fa was not demonstrated to me, because low-level beings cannot understand the feelings and realms of beings at higher levels.
Finding the Source of “Egocentricity”
Then I found out that I had not enlightened from Zhuan Falun in the recent years, and neither had I made a major breakthrough in my cultivation. The reason was that I had not completely let go of selfishness, which had narrowed my vision, and limited my realms of cultivation. I had been stuck in the state that Teacher explained,
“From an everyday person’s level, perspective, and frame of mind, one cannot understand real things.” (Lecture One, Zhuan Falun)
Those who are self-centered most likely have an illusion that they are doing a good job in cultivation. These cultivators are arrogant, and feel great about themselves.
The author of another article on the Minghui website said that once a monk kowtowed to him. However, as he quickly helped the monk up from the ground, the monk told him that he was not doing it to the fellow practitioner, but the big Buddha behind him.
After I meditated in front of the Chinese Consulate one day, fellow practitioners told me that a Taoist stared at me for a while, then he knelt down, and kowtowed to me. I did not see him because my eyes were closed. I thought maybe he saw something extraordinary in me! Although I did not show it, I had joy in my heart. I felt that I must have done a good job, and that was why the Taoist came to me.
The fellow practitioner’s article awakened me, and helped me realize that it was Teacher that the person was paying respect to, not me. I was blinded by the illusion that resulted from my ego.
Selfishness Blinds Cultivator's Main Consciousness
Usually, selfish people are egocentric. It may be because that the matter of “selfishness” is afraid of being discovered and removed by cultivators, so it blinds the cultivators’ main consciousness. If our main consciousness is not strong enough, we will be easily deceived by selfishness, and might even inadvertently protect and nourish it.
The more unselfish one is, the more one is able to see one’s own deficiencies, and thus become more humble, because this person puts the needs of others first, and is always ready to help others.
Category: Improving Oneself
