Checking Ourselves Upon Seeing the Attachments of Other Practitioners

By a practitioner in Heilongjiang Province

(Clearwisdom.net) In the summer of 2005, upon seeing that a coordinator had some attachments of showing-off, I pointed them out directly. There is nothing wrong with bringing up other practitioners' attachments or problems. However, I forgot to look inward to check myself. As a matter of fact, while I was pointing out another practitioner's problem, I also had the same problem.

During that period of time, some local practitioners thought I understood the Fa well. They were thus willing to listen to me share my understandings. When some practitioners could not overcome tribulations, they liked to come to share their understandings with me. When planning some activities in the local area to validate the Fa, my opinions were also likely to be accepted by the coordinator. Rather than improving myself according to the Fa, I instead began to be attached to myself. I thought I was very capable and influential among practitioners. Unwittingly I started to consider myself very important, and even placed myself beyond Dafa and other practitioners. Upon looking back, I now realize that even if I could help practitioners during the discussions and experience-sharing conferences, or my suggestions were useful in some activities validating the Fa, all these were from the Fa. I am a tiny particle in the Fa. Without Teacher and Dafa, I am nothing.

Because of merely seeing attachments in other practitioners and not looking inward, my self-importance became more and more severe. When validating the Fa, I often tried to validate myself. Eventually, the evil took advantage of this, arrested me, and put me in a detention center. With Teacher's compassionate care, I was able to get out with righteous thoughts after a few days. If I did a better job of checking myself and cultivating myself upon seeing other practitioners' attachments, I could have let go of those attachments and prevented my self-importance from growing. This lesson is very serious.

"A Dialogue with Time" in Essentials for Further Advancement said,

"Divine Being: These problems have already become very serious. It would be good if they could manage to search within themselves for the things that they have been able to find in others.

Master: It's time for them to become clearheaded so that their environment can turn into one for true cultivation practice, and thus they will be able to become real gods."

I realized that cultivating in Dafa provides us with an environment for looking inward. Why would you be allowed to notice other practitioners' attachments? How could that be accidental? It is possible that Teacher is using those opportunities to warn you so that you can look inward. Therefore, when seeing attachments in other practitioners, in addition to pointing them out with compassion, we also need to look within and check ourselves. This will lead to a better cultivation environment and we can improve faster.

However, how many of us can achieve this? For example, some local practitioners saw some male practitioners and female practitioners having relationships that were too intimate and beyond what is appropriate between practitioners or friends. In fact, at that moment we should check ourselves to see if we have developed some similar emotions for other practitioners. Similarly, when finding some practitioners being lazy, we should also check ourselves to see if we have slacked off with Fa-study and doing the exercises.

I hope fellow practitioners can all learn from my lessons. When seeing problems in other practitioners, we need to immediately look inward to check ourselves. Of course, we also need to point them out. That way, our cultivation environment will improve, as well as our own cultivation.

October 26, 2006

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/10/29/141155.html

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