Letting Go of Jealousy and Vanity through Solid Cultivation

(Minghui.org) Reflecting on my bumpy path of cultivation, my heart is filled with deep gratitude to Master for his constant, compassionate protection. Writing this sharing article has helped me to see the gaps in my cultivation, and I am determined to make the best use of the precious time we still have left. I am determined to truly cultivate myself solidly and do well in the three things expected for all Dafa disciples.

Cultivating Kindness and Letting Go of Jealousy

When my mom was in good health, she lived with my older brother’s family and got on very well with my sister-in-law. Since both my older brother and my sister-in-law worked full-time, mom took care of all the household chores.

Later, my mom developed cerebellar atrophy and needed constant care. My older sister offered to help out during the day, and we also paid mom a visit once every three or four days, and bought whatever she needed.

My mom passed away a few years later, and both my older sister and I felt heartbroken over her death. That night, my older brother invited us to have dinner at his place.

At the dinner table, my sister-in-law appeared indifferent, with no trace of sadness. I thought to myself: My mom did so much for you and left you and my older brother a family estate, how can you be so indifferent and cold-hearted?

I couldn’t help but harbor some resentment in me. I realized that it was my jealousy at work behind all this, so I tried to suppress it.

Two days later, when I was chatting with my older sister, she also complained about our sister-in-law. I thought: I’m a Dafa practitioner and I shouldn’t go along with my older sister’s complaints, otherwise I would be acting against the Fa principles, and failing to do well in speech cultivation. Furthermore, I would create karmic debts, too.

Even though I didn’t join my older sister complaining about our sister-in-law, I couldn’t completely let go of it, and made a few casual remarks. Later, I felt it was still wrong to make those comments.

One day, I suddenly realized that as a Dafa practitioner, I should always be considerate of others. My sister-in-law is also a sentient being, a relative of our Master. I mustn’t have any negative feelings toward her, but instead save her with kindness. Immediately, I rectified my previous wrong thoughts.

One week after my mom passed away, we all went to our older brother’s place. On my way, some bad thoughts about my sister-in-law flashed into my mind again. I knew that it was my jealousy acting up again, so I started to recite Master’s words:“A wicked person is born of jealousy.Out of selfishness and anger he complains about unfairness towards himself.A benevolent person always has a heart of compassion.With no discontentment or hatred, he takes hardship as joy.An enlightened person has no attachments at all.He quietly observes the people of the world deluded by illusions.”(“Realms” in Essentials for Further Advancement)

When we arrived at my older brother’s place, I felt that all those negative thoughts arising from my jealousy toward my sister-in-law had dissolved. The power of Dafa had cleared them out, and the atmosphere at my older brother’s place that evening was very pleasant and harmonious. It was such a wonderful feeling when I let go of my human attachments.

Now, my sister-in-law and I are close again—just like sisters, and have no hesitation talking about anything.

Improving My Xinxing in Cooperating with a Fellow Practitioner

Once, when I visited a fellow practitioner, she said she found it difficult to let go of an attachment; not wanting others to say anything negative about her.

I told her how I handled such a test myself and said, “I think I’ve got over it. You should be fine after a few tests.”

Looking back, I realized that what I said to her revealed my tendency to show off. However, I didn’t realize it at the time.

The following day, the two of us went out to clarify the truth to people. We saw an elderly man with a small child in his arms, so I went up to him and started a conversation, and the fellow practitioner joined in and clarified the truth to him. The older man agreed to quit the CCP organizations straight away.

There was a young man listening to us behind the elderly man, and it appeared that he was his son. He didn’t say anything, so we started to clarify the truth to him too, but he refused to listen, and said, “I don’t believe in anything. Just leave me alone.” He then turned around and went inside the house.

We moved on and after a while, the fellow practitioner said to me, “I would like to make a suggestion to you. You can’t just stop someone and start talking like that. It can make people feel caught off guard.”

I didn’t take her suggestion nicely, and felt a bit angry, “Then, you tell me what kind of people I can approach. You should cooperate with me. I don’t always agree with the way you do things, but I always cooperate with you.” My mind was full of human attachments at that moment.

Then I thought: What I said was wrong. It revealed that I don’t like to be criticized or looked down upon. In fact, what she said was also to remind me to be more careful regarding safety issues.

“You got angry,” the fellow practitioner said to me, “In fact, I was looking within as well. I still have some attachment to fear.”

“I don’t feel angry now. Let’s both look within ourselves,” I said to her.

On my way back, I thought I was behaving really badly. The fellow practitioner didn’t say anything harsh, why did I react the way I did? I must dig deeply and find out what was behind all this.

After I got back home, I realized that I still held some fear when clarifying the truth to people, and a fear of being looked down upon by others. I made up my mind to pay more attention to speech cultivation too.

The fellow practitioner is actually a very kindhearted person and when she clarifies the truth to people, she speaks very clearly and to the point, and is always ready to help others. We have cooperated very well all this time. It’s my own human attachments that made me feel imbalanced.

I thought I had let go of the attachment to not wanting others to say anything negative about me, but it was still there; I still have a tendency to show off and complain about others when conflicts arise. All these would taint the environment in which we clarify the truth to people.

With this realization, I thought: Saving people is our shared aspiration. I must cooperate well with the fellow practitioner and help each other so that we can accomplish our mission in assisting Master in Fa-rectification.

I’m deeply grateful to Master for the arrangement, and very grateful to the fellow practitioner, who helped me realize some of my deeply-hidden attachments and see the seriousness of Dafa cultivation. I’m determined to cultivate myself well, let go of my attachments and always look within when problems arise.

The next day, I went to see the fellow practitioner, who was very happy to see me as if nothing had happened. When we talked about what happened the day before, we both laughed. “What do you think it meant in our cultivation?” I asked.

“The old forces were trying to drive a wedge between us to interfere in our efforts to save people.” The two of us exchanged a knowing smile. Through the incident, I let go of some more of my attachments. Indeed, what seemed like a bad thing actually turned out to be a good thing.