Overcoming the Attachment to Sentimentality after Being Forced to Leave Home to Avoid Persecution

By Chen Lian

(Clearwisdom.net) I am a Falun Dafa practitioner who had to leave home for three years to avoid further persecution. Before I started cultivating, my human sentimentality was very strong. The love between a man and woman had become my ultimate pursuit in life. I was married to my husband for ten years before he divorced me. Even after I started cultivating, I continued to use my warped human notions to express my affection toward my husband. Before the persecution, however, my being busy with study and with promoting Dafa enabled me to cover my human notions. After the persecution started, my going to Beijing to appeal, preparing truth-clarification materials, and other activities kept me from seeing them. When I was initially forced to leave home to avoid further persecution, my husband could not bear the pressure and divorced me. I failed to improve myself during the tribulation. Instead, I still longed to live an ordinary person's life with an affectionate marriage. The old cosmic forces took advantage of this mentality of mine. Consequently, I was almost ruined.

Last year, the man who was my first love and who has been in love with me for twenty years, learned of my predicament. He told me that he wanted to divorce his wife and marry me. Amidst the pain of divorce and the loneliness of being forced to stay away from home, I accepted his advances. Unknowingly, I became so bogged down in this relationship that I did not act like a Dafa practitioner at all. I lowered my moral standards to a very low point, telling myself that things were fine just because the two of us did not behave like people in our current society and have a sexual relationship. I inwardly consoled myself by thinking that I could still control myself and not cross that line between a man and a woman. However, I did not realize that I had failed to meet the minimum human standard of morality. Because the man did not have a close relationship with his wife and his wife may have had an affair with another man, he was preparing to divorce her. I recalled what the Minghui website editors said in the editorial, "On the Relationship Between Members of the Opposite Sex and the Issue of Marriage" (2004), "Yahweh told men that they couldn't abandon their wives unless they were unfaithful." I used these words to justify my actions, as I thought that his wife was not loyal to him, so he could divorce her and marry another woman, and that this was not against the law. However, I forgot that he had not yet divorced; and, furthermore, I had not married him!

I tried to find all kinds of excuses to justify my selfish position. Superficially, I tried to persuade him not to divorce his wife, but my doing so was because of my consideration for my own safety amidst my situation of being forced to stay away from home, as well as for my selfishness of being worried about whether I could reach consummation. In my heart, I was expecting him to divorce his wife. Just as the Minghui website editors said in "On the Relationship Between Members of the Opposite Sex and the Issue of Marriage," "If one continues to incorrectly look at the standard that is lower than that of human beings as the standard for human beings, he will hold himself back at a realm lower than that of a human being. If a person wakes up upon 'the great disclosure of the truth,' it will be already too late."

In fact, the old cosmic forces were using this situation to bewilder me, make me deviate from Dafa and thus be eliminated. During that year, I did not study the Fa well and I seldom practiced the exercises. I also rarely went out to clarify the truth. My xinxing kept declining. Although I often reminded myself that I did not study the Fa well and often wanted to stop this relationship, in the end, I could not quit indulging myself in my desire and lust. So I wasted much of my time amidst regret and struggle. I kept this abnormal relationship amidst the constant worries. This period was the worst in my cultivation. It wasn't until I read "Teaching the Fa at the 2004 International Fa Conference in New York," that I started to wake up.

"Disciple: Because of my attachment of emotion, I have made mistakes. I feel remorse over the path I have taken. How should I make up for it?

Teacher: (Teacher sighs) These are in fact the things that pain Master the most. For a cultivator, it's just so shameful. It's shameful even for an ordinary person, but you are a cultivator, so how could you even raise this for open discussion? It is just so shameful. Did you know that in old-time cultivation, as soon as a cultivator broke the rule pertaining to this, he wouldn't be able to cultivate again for the rest of his life. That's how serious it is."

I mustered up my courage and told my fellow practitioners about this shameful matter of mine and asked for their help.

My fellow practitioners did not give up on me. They all helped me by sending forth righteous thoughts. Amidst the suffering, I had tried to use human means to get away from him; however, my human self did not want to let him go. When he indicated that he would temporarily stop the divorce, I slacked off and failed to continue using the Fa to guide myself. So later I experienced several relapses. It wasn't until the present that I realized the insidiousness of the old cosmic forces, which (without my awareness) dragged me down and made me become a target to be eliminated. I have also realized the solemnity of the Fa, and that one's cultivation during the Fa-rectification period will go backward if does not go forward.

Recently, after I experienced another round of emotional struggle, I suddenly realized that this situation had hindered me for almost one year. I was shocked! I started to calm down and study the Fa. It is only when I immerse myself in the light of the Fa, that I experience genuine happiness and vigor.

This time something astonishing happened to me; unknowingly, my sentimentality became less and less. In the past I always carried my human notions when I tried to break away from him, and each time I tried to do so I felt so much pain that in the end I felt I had no choice but to surrender myself to the evil. I developed the warped notion that my getting away from him would always be accompanied by pain. I also took the pain as something that belonged to me. My righteous thoughts could not get strong. But this time when I felt that I (through my understanding of the Fa) could let him go, I was in fact, very relaxed and my heart was full of peace. Master said,

"Cultivation itself is not painful--the key lies in your inability to let go of ordinary human attachments. Only when you are about to let go of your reputation, interests, and feelings will you feel pain." ("True Cultivation" in Essentials for Further Advancement)

I had been worried about whether Master still wanted to take me as a Dafa disciple. However, now I know that, for a disciple like me who took a roundabout course during cultivation, even thinking of such things is too dirty. I just want to make up for my shortcomings, do the three things well, and be a Dafa disciple in an upright and dignified manner.

"Why do you feel lonely? If you do things to save sentient beings and things that a Dafa disciple is supposed to do, you definitely won't feel that way. If you were studying the Fa and diligently cultivating, could you feel that way? Only when you are not diligent will you have the leisure to mull over those ordinary human feelings, right?" ("Teaching the Fa at the 2004 International Fa Conference in New York," November 21, 2004).

I understand that it is the same for the affection between a man and woman; for Dafa disciples who cultivate themselves diligently, it is nothing.

I wrote of this experience to help everyone recognize the persecution of Dafa practitioners by the degenerated notions of sentimentality and to enable us to eliminate it. I also want to remind those who have experienced similar tribulations in passing the test of sentimentality to become clearheaded quickly, and become qualified Dafa disciples.

June 3, 2005

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