Understanding and Eliminating Our Demon-Nature

By a Western practitioner in Canada

For a long time I've been struggling with the attachments of lust and desire. From a rational point of view, these things are easy to discard, for there is no point in being attached to anything in this world. Anyhow, I could never dig out the root of these attachments, as if they had many layers. One time, when this attachment was manifesting itself quite strongly, I dissociated myself from "it", and I watched it calmly. It was indeed something very vicious and disgusting that had nothing to do with my true self, and yet I could not restrain it. I was puzzled and frustrated. How could I tolerate this evil thing controlling my mind?

While cleaning out my own dimensional field before sending forth righteous thoughts, I sincerely asked Master how I could get rid of this attachment. The words "Purge your demon-nature" were imprinted quite strongly in my mind. Following this insight given to me by Master, I started to observe how this demon-nature manifests itself. I realized that all attachments, notions, karma and interference are related to this demon-nature.

Demon-nature always searches outside to fulfill its desires. It casts furtive glances towards beautiful men or women, it rejoices when receiving compliments, it makes the mouth water in front of delicious dishes, it worries about its personal interests being infringed upon, it fears being rejected, it criticizes others without looking inside, and it even calculates how much it has given to Dafa. These are all manifestations of demon-nature, and they're all about wanting something from outside, pursuing something and being attached to worldly things. It only lives for those illusory phenomena. Master has warned us repeatedly in Zhuan Falun about looking outside oneself:

"In qigong practice, however, going awry and following an evil way simply refer to people searching for external help. With Buddhism in particular, if you search for external help, you are said to have taken a demonic way. (Zhuan Falun, Lecture 9, A Clear and Clean Mind)

In normal cultivation, a practitioner has to be extremely careful to not develop bad thoughts, because he could well be "enlightening along an evil path." In this period of Fa-rectification, the requirements for Dafa disciples are even higher, because one single bad thought of ours could be taken advantage of by the evil forces, and could therefore bring tremendous harm to oneself, to fellow practitioners, and to the overall process of Fa-rectification. Therefore, we must be extremely attentive to the movements of our minds and completely eliminate the demon-nature with strong righteous thoughts as soon as it manifests itself. As Master says in Essentials for Further Advancement,

"Cultivating Buddhahood is to eliminate your demon-nature and strengthen and increase your Buddha-nature".

If we let the demon-nature co-exist with our Buddha-Nature, are we any different from ordinary people? Do we have the dignity to save sentient beings? Every true Dafa disciple is very busy doing what he should do, but let's not forget to look inside and cultivate solidly. If we give to much importance to what's outside, the demon-nature could well be leading us astray. I will conclude with the last paragraph of "Eliminate Your Last Attachment(s)" in Essentials for Further Advancement II,

"Eliminate your last attachment(s). Everything you have accomplished through cultivation practice has already established your infinitely wonderful, and sacred, future Attainment Status. Take every step well, and don't tarnish what you have already attained. Let the part of you that has been fully cultivated glow with an even purer brilliance."

This is my present understanding. Please point out anything improper.

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