(Minghui.org)
Greetings, revered Master!
Greetings, fellow practitioners!
Master said,
“I’ll tell you a truth: The entire cultivation process for a cultivator is one of constantly giving up human attachments.” (Lecture One, Zhuan Falun)
It is my understanding that writing a sharing article is a process of sorting out one's cultivation. I’d like to use this opportunity to share my cultivation experience in the past year with fellow practitioners.
Breaking Through a Shell of My Attachments
Some time ago, a practitioner invited me to join a project. But I didn't quite understand why I was invited. Since Master arranged it for me, I believed that there was something that I ought to cultivate away through my role in the project.
Most of the practitioners in the project were very young. The work assigned to me was a piece of cake for them, but it turned out to be very hard for me. There was something I couldn't understand here, and another mistake I made there—I felt that the project could go on with or without me.
This was just like something I experienced in China once before. At the time, Microsoft stopped releasing patches for the Windows XP operating system. Out of safety concerns, the computer I used for truth-clarification needed to be upgraded. Our local coordinator asked me to learn how to upgrade the computer. I only had the most basic knowledge about computers, but I still went to a computer class since I was asked to do this task.
It turned out that all the people in the class were computer experts. I did not understand anything from the demonstrations and remembered nothing.
I asked myself at that time: what was this situation trying to get me to cultivate? Nonetheless, I must finish the course. Eventually, I was able to understand how to install an operating system. I also understood that Master used this process for me to get rid of my attachment of depending on practitioners with computer knowledge.
In this new project I just joined, practitioners held weekly Fa study and experience sharing sessions. During one sharing, we talked about how both music and art are for praising gods and teaching people about gods. The successes of musicians and artists were bestowed by the divine.
When I heard that, it was like a layer of material around me had broken, or rather, as if a shell that had been encasing me had shattered. For many years I had the notion that a person's own effort was also very important to a person's success, despite people's individual talents. After listening to the sharing, I realized that people would not be successful no matter how hard they tried if gods do not bestow success upon them. On the other hand, a person's talent is also given to them by the gods.
Master showed me a new principle through these practitioners. It turned out that this project is to help me to break away from the CCP's culture of atheism. We practitioners know that we walk on the path of divinity, but specific things still may cause the Party culture and atheism within us to surface.
I benefited a lot from the many perspectives at this weekly sharing.
The Experience of Working on the RTC Project
After the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, I joined the efforts to send text messages to China. I received a text message from a Chinese person during the 2020 Chinese New Year, which read, “Although I don't believe that the pandemic in China is as bad as you say it is, I still want to thank you. I hope that you stay healthy and have a happy Chinese New Year!”
I became very emotional when I saw the message. It was unfortunate that such a kind life was deceived by the CCP. I shared the message with other practitioners working on the project, and also sent it to the practitioners who make phone calls to China, asking them to call this person to further clarify the truth.
Once I saw a report on the Minghui website from a practitioner in the Xinjiang region: A person received an text message about Falun Dafa. He was so scared that he reported it to the government, with a description of the message content. Many people heard about this and learned the truth as well. What this person did actually had the opposite effect he wanted, and helped spread the truth to more people. The reporting practitioner hoped that the practitioners outside China would persevere in sending text messages to the Chinese public.
I shared this feedback with our team. We all know that we must continue to do well in the future.
Eliminating the Attachment to Contentiousness
Master said,
“If you do not want to change your human state and rationally rise to a true understanding of Dafa, you will miss the opportunity. If you do not change the human logic that you, as an ordinary human, have formed deep in your bones over thousands of years, you will be unable to break away from this superficial human shell and reach Consummation.” (“Cautionary Advice,” Essentials for Further Advancement)
In my professional job as an accountant, I developed the habit of being very exact. One is one, two is two. A penny short means an imbalanced account. This habit transferred to the way I dealt with people as well: what's right is right, and what's wrong is wrong. Everything was black and white.
I brought this concept when dealing with people: right is right and wrong is wrong.
Once I talked to my daughter about something that I believed was not right. She reminded me with Master's words, “I would say that you are best off becoming a policeman.” (Lecture Nine, Zhuan Falun)
I still kept contending that it wasn't right and things shouldn't be like that. While I was arguing relentlessly, I suddenly felt that something was spinning in my head and I couldn't control myself. I was so dizzy and felt like I was about to fall down. I immediately realized that the old forces had found a loophole. They were punishing me as I kept fighting for my own opinion.
I immediately said to Master in my heart, “I was wrong. I will never fight like this again.” The principles in the human world are reversed. When I insisted on arguing about something, that means there is an attachment for me to cultivate away.
One day during the U.S. election period, my husband asked me to make dumplings.
He didn't like dumplings very much, so I wondered why he thought of having dumplings. When I was about to make the dumpling wrappers, I put my phone on the table and turned on a practitioner's YouTube channel.
Suddenly, my husband shouted, “Why do you always watch these things?”
I immediately shot back, “It’s not your business. You watch those bad things all day long and I never bother you.”
He kept shouting but I couldn't quite hear what he was saying; I only knew he wasn't talking about anything good. I shouted back at him, which made him react even worse.
I soon realized that it wasn't him who was behaving like that. He was manipulated by something behind him. I immediately sent forth righteous thoughts to clean up the evil spirits controlling him. Soon, he stopped shouting. After a while, he began to speak to me normally again. But I was still angry with him and simply ignored him.
The next day, I began to reflect upon myself since I realized that my behavior was wrong. Why did he yell at me that way? What did I do wrong? I discovered three problems with myself.
First, I was too obsessed with the U.S. election. I watched related news and videos every day, and my emotions rose and fell with each new development.
Secondly, I hoped that my husband could practice Dafa. He had such a precious opportunity to come so close to Dafa, so why is he unwilling to practice? In his own words, he has one foot inside Dafa's door and the other one outside of it.
As I was thinking about this, I finally caught my hidden attachment: if he practices Dafa, he would be healthy with no need to go to the hospital, which meant fewer troubles for me. In fact, this was a mindset that was looking to take advantage of Dafa for my own benefit. This attachment was very cunning and hidden deeply within me.
Third, I have the attachment of feeling contempt towards him.
At this point, my tears fell. My daughter and I practice Dafa. After the persecution began, my husband was harassed multiple times. Once the police called him at his workplace to find out where I was when they could not find me.
He said to them, “I can't even find her. If you guys have the wherewithal, why don't you go look for her?” The police did not know how to respond. His superiors at work also picked on him because of my situation. He really endured a lot.
Master told us,
“Each individual must discern his or her own attachments, and it is going through that process that amounts to genuine spiritual growth.” (“Another Stern Warning”)
After realizing my attachments, I said to Master in my heart, “Master, I was wrong again. I was wrong, and I will correct myself immediately.”
When I later did the second exercise, a vision appeared in my mind—though my celestial eye is not open and I've never seen anything in other dimensions before. In the vision was a huge earth, where there was a village as big as the earth, but the buildings were only two to three inches high. I was seated in the middle of the village, dressed in my usual clothes, with my legs in the lotus position. Soon, I began to float up and rise, getting farther and farther away from the surface of this planet, but never losing sight of it.
Then a thought came to me, “That (earth) is a giant dimension of selfishness.”
On the following day, this scene came back to me when I sent forth righteous thoughts. I started to ascend again. This time, I was wearing a sapphire blue fairy dress, and the earth was so far away that it was almost invisible.
On the third day, the same scene appeared as I started to meditate. I was also in a sapphire blue dress, whirling around and around as I rose upward.
On the fourth day, I saw myself sitting at the edge of this universe, poking my head out and looking down into the depths of the cosmos. My eyes were large, filled with crystalline water. In the vastness of the universe, there were countless planets, some with open windows which revealed colorful and spectacular worlds, like the inside of a kaleidoscope. Each planet was moving on its own trajectory in an orderly manner.
At that moment, my recent indignation about the U.S. election disappeared completely, such as my thoughts about the injustices in the system, the destruction of democratic processes, and the flouting of laws. My obsession with the election, which had felt as strong as granite, was gone, all gone. I felt that my body was cleansed thoroughly, from the top to the bottom, from the inside to the outside. Master saw that I had discovered the root of my problems and took them away.
Thank you, Master! When I became serious about looking inward for my attachments, you looked after me and showed me the great power of Dafa, and the great value of looking inward.
These words from Master often came to my mind recently:
“Cultivating gong has a pathmind is the wayOn the boundless sea of Dafahardship is your ferry”(“Falun Dafa,” Hong Yin)
After experiencing the new cultivation environment in the U.S., I have a deeper understanding of Master's words. I felt that it was really good to suffer through all these hardships.
In this new environment, a lot of my attachments have been brought up to the surface, such as showing off, competitiveness, resentment, indignation, hypocrisy, and cunning. I need to cultivate them all away. These attachments were covered up by my fear under the persecutory environment in China. Time is really running out.
Master said,
“If every one of you can understand the Fa from the depths of your mind, that will truly be the manifestation of the Fa whose power knows no boundary—the reappearance of the mighty Buddha Fa in the human world!” (“Cautionary Advice,” Essentials for Further Advancement)
The above is my own experience and understanding, please kindly point out anything that is not in line with Dafa.
Thank you, Master.
Thank you, fellow practitioners.