(Clearwisdom.net)

"Selfishness" penetrated my whole cultivation practice; recently I could see my selfishness in a lot of areas.

When encountering problems, I knew to look inside myself, but a lot of times I always stopped at blaming myself and still found an excuse for holding on to the remaining human attachments.

Sometimes a word from other people or an event touched my remaining attachments and shook my heart, causing me to become angry. I asked myself why my heart was trembling. I looked inside myself and found that I had some personal attachments. I had insisted on my personal opinion and wanted to gain some personal benefit from it.

I now realize that in the way I treated practitioners, a lot of times I used my own personal opinion to help practitioners enlighten, but I did not do this based on their viewpoint. I really did not take other practitioners' things as my personal things.

Sometimes I was trapped within the problems and my personal understanding. I would think about my personal loss and gain first and would immediately forget that I was a practitioner and I should seriously treat myself according to Dafa's standard.

In my actual cultivation process, I found that all of my thoughts and ideas were mixed with personal selfishness such as the need to truly cultivate myself, needing to validate Dafa, needing to study Fa, needing to keep improving, etc. Everything was all related to "me" and I did not really completely forget myself and assimilate with the Fa.

Actually, we do not have this "selfishness" in our original nature. But it is precisely because we are attached to our own self-interests that we get lost in the human world.

I know deeply that Dafa is solemn and every level has its own standard. During my cultivation process, I have been constantly removing "selfishness" at different levels. Every time when I get rid of one layer of selfishness, I always find another layer of selfishness that exists in another place. I realized that this "selfishness" had penetrated every layer of the old cosmos and it also caused the dissolution and degradation of the old cosmos.

"Selfishness" is like a lock that confines one's wisdom and ability. If selfishness exists, then the person will be occupied by their human notions and will pursue their individual self-interest. If one continues to get rid of selfishness, one will be able to continuously reach higher levels.

As a qualified Dafa practitioner, when encountering a problem, the first thing that should come to our minds should be Dafa. We should always think about others first and recall what Teacher has taught. If we can understand the problem based on Dafa and put down our own opinion and our self-interest, then we can be rectified by Dafa and completely get rid of our attachments.

We should just follow Teacher's words to do things. Teacher said in the article, "Non-omission in Buddha Nature" (in Essentials for Further Advancement),

"I also want to tell you that your nature in the past was actually based on egotism and selfishness. From now on, whatever you do, you should consider others first, so as to attain the righteous enlightenment of selflessness and altruism. So from now on, whatever you do or whatever you say, you must consider others--or even future generations--along with Dafa's eternal stability."

Posting date: 9/29/2003
Original article date: 9/28/2003
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/9/13/57333.html

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