Only By Strengthening the Will Can We Fundamentally Remove Attachments

By a Falun Dafa practitioner from Liaoning Province

(Clearwisdom.net)

I'm a college student. I have been practicing Falun Dafa for a while. I used to have strong pursuit of everyday people's things. I was very attached to popular computer games, games on the Internet, cartoons, and even some immoral things. Thanks to Teacher's benevolent salvation and fellow practitioners' help, I gradually became more and more diligent. Still, my previous attachments often interfered with me. I would be able to maintain a good state and a clear main consciousness when studying the Fa and sending forth righteous thoughts; but when I sat in front of my computer by myself, I had various kinds of attachments and desires. Even when I was able to control myself and not physically follow my attachments, I often wouldn't be able to focus on doing the things that I was supposed to do. Sometimes, I couldn't do anything due to the interference. Because of this, I wasted a lot of time that I could have used for study, work, practicing the Dafa exercises, or saving sentient beings. I often felt very guilty afterwards.

When I shared with fellow practitioners, we talked about cleaning out our dimensional field. I suddenly came to realize that I had software for many computer games, cartoons, music, and other things loaded onto my computer. I decided that I should remove them all. I had gotten rid of some of them before, but only those related to lust. I kept the rest since I thought it would be a pity if I simply deleted them. I thought I would just keep them and they wouldn't do any harm since I seldom play those games, watched those cartoons, or listened to those songs or music.

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When I started to delete those things, I realized that it was because of my strong attachments that I had kept them. They had been interfering with me. When deleting those computer games, I dug out a notion that I used to think those games were part of normal human "culture." I even did some research on them. I spent a lot of time on them and I even recommended them to others. I wasn't willing to delete them before. When I deleted those cartoons, I saw my sentimentality, lust and wild thoughts. I wanted to keep those feelings and that's why I didn't delete them before. As for music and songs, I had an "ability" to remember a music or a song after as I heard it just once. I would remember them and play them in my head over and over again and I couldn't forget them even if I wanted to. I felt I was great for having this ability. I liked many kinds of music. I used to listen to music or think of music or sing songs all the time. I spent a lot of time, effort, and money collecting those songs and music, and I got to know many people this way. To put it simply, I wasn't willing to delete them since I was unwilling to completely face and remove my attachments even when I realized they were attachments. I thought it would be such a waste if I simply deleted them.

When I finally removed all those files, I felt my computer became new again and I had light in my heart. After that, the interference wasn't strong at all and could easily be removed. When I removed my attachments, my computer was saved as well. Before, I used my computer to satisfy my attachments and lust. Now I'm using it as a Fa tool to help me save sentient beings.

I came to realize that the reason it took me so long to pass this test wasn't because I wasn't aware of my attachments, but that I wasn't willing to remove them. I acknowledged their existence. I allowed them and even followed them. I saw my attachments through studying the Fa, but I didn't or wasn't willing to find ways to remove them. The root cause is that I wasn't determined to remove my attachments.

When we face a test, tribulation, or persecution, it often takes us longer to break through them since we pursue comforts or aren't determined. As time passes, we tend to become numb and cut ourselves some more slack. The old forces then take advantage of us. Eventually, we give up and passively bear the tribulations or persecution.

Teacher said, "When I held classes in other regions some things happened all the time. There'd always be some people who felt awful, and they'd be sitting there bent over their seats, they wouldn't get up, and they'd just wait for me to come down off the stage to heal them. But I wouldn't heal them. You can't even clear that hurdle, and later on when you cultivate on your own you are going to have a lot of big tribulations, so if you can't even clear this one, tell me, how are you going to cultivate? You can't even overcome that little thing? You can all definitely overcome those things, so don't ask me to heal you." ("The Second Talk" in Zhuan Falun)

If we are so weak-willed when facing our attachments, we will let Teacher down and let sentient beings down.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/7/15/158895.html

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