My Thoughts on the Attachment to Showing Off

By a Falun Dafa practitioner from Taiwan

(Clearwisdom.net) Some time ago, whenever I finished writing an article, I would send it to the practitioners listed in my email address book. Later I debated within myself whether I should be doing that. There are so many articles on the website, and other practitioners can choose the ones they would prefer reading. It was seemingly unnecessary to send my articles to them.

I'd like to talk about why I sent the articles. Since I considered all of the practitioners listed in my address book my good friends, I was willing to share my understandings with them. However, I felt within that I still had a subtle hidden attachment of showing off, as my intention in sharing was not entirely pure. My enlightening to something would produce a notion within me that my understanding was quite good. However, it would not be the same if I could elevate out of this realm.

Once I wrote an article and thought it to be well done. It did not get published, however, and I did not understand why. A fellow practitioner took the initiative to explain to me what was missing and then I read it more carefully to find what I needed to improve.

Everyone has room to improve on their understandings. We should all listen to others' suggestions and be modest. In "Essentials for Further Advancement," Teacher said,

I have memorized this sentence and often remind myself of it.

A few days ago, I called a young woman in Mainland China to clarify the facts. We talked for a long time. She wanted to know the truth, so I gave her the sites for the dynamic web. Her inability to open them had me reassuring her that I would find the technical support people in our area to send her the information. When I talked to the local coordinator, he said, "Just ask your sister to take care of it." I was surprised and said, "She is not very good with computers. Can she do it?" The practitioner said, "Your sister helps 25 people to quit the CCP online everyday. She can certainly fix this problem."

I was astonished to hear this as I had always thought my sister's computer skills were not adequate, but she had actually learned quietly on her own. Feeling ashamed, I reminded myself that I must not use my notions to judge others, otherwise what I saw would probably be false.

This also reminded me that a lot of practitioners who have cultivated well do not try to show off. For example, maybe one person thinks that it's pretty good to help 10 or 20 people withdraw from the CCP a day, and he goes around telling others what he has accomplished, while those who don't show off may help 100 or 1000 people withdraw from the CCP. I don't mean that we can't talk about our accomplishments. It is actually quite necessary to compare ourselves with each other and help each other improve. It is just that we must not have an attachment to showing off. This attachment and the attachment to zealotry are easily taken advantage of by demons. We can only save sentient beings better when our hearts are pure.

The above is just my personal understanding. Please do point out anything inappropriate.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/1/15/118674.html

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