Discovering My Attachment of Selfishness

By a Falun Dafa practitioner in Taiwan

(Clearwisdom.net)

Recently, I found out that I have attachments related to extreme selfishness. Showing off is the biggest one. No matter what I said or did, my first thought was whether I could benefit from it and whether I could show off. Such thoughts occurred frequently and seriously. A junior classmate in my lab frequently flatters me because I like to be flattered, which I had never realized before.

I like reading English, but the purpose of my reading English was to show that I was "superior." When I went abroad and met a foreign practitioner, I treated him as somebody that I could practice English with. With such an impure thought, when I saw him talking with other people, I became jealous.

It is miserable to have attachments. The attachment of jealousy means trouble. Everyone has his own fate, so why should we be jealous of others? The show off mentality also makes people say things they shouldn't and causes unnecessary trouble.

Attachments made my life miserable. As a student, it is my responsibility to do well in school. I, however, studied hard just to gain recognition from my professors and graduate, and that is selfishness. At the same time, I wished that I could achieve everything without having to spend time and energy. This is also a manifestation of selfishness. If I did not finish my homework and do it well, I feared that my professors would not attach importance to me any more. If I worked too hard to achieve that, I feared that I was wasting too much of my limited time. As a result, I lived in conflict everyday, comparing gains and losses. I always felt that my losses were more than my gains. I lost patience doing schoolwork and tired easily.

When I was clarifying the truth, I was afraid of people's rejections and did not want to endure hardship. But if I failed to do it, I was afraid that I would not be able to achieve Consummation. So I was upset every day and always calculated how to make things work for me. Isn't that miserable?

When I dealt with friends, I often felt that I was wasting my time. When I did not see obvious gain, I did not treat them sincerely. When a friend needed my help, I felt very uncomfortable, thinking that I had so many other things to do. In fact, I only cared about things that involved my personal interests.

After discovering these attachments, I feel that I have jumped out of a cage. My heart has become generous and I will know how to deal with people and things in the future.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/3/2/121906.html

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