Eliminating the Attachment of Showing off

By a practitioner in Taipei City

(Clearwisdom.net) Recently, I met a big test during my cultivation that I want to share with fellow practitioners. I am the coordinator of a project; however, the moderator of our email list limited my authority to post sharing messages to the list. One fellow practitioner said that I had submitted lots of experience sharing to other email lists and she did not consider them pure enough to post. I could not tolerate this criticism. I felt as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over my head because of all the positive feedback I had previously received.

The same fellow practitioner then explained to me that many other practitioners listening to my experience sharing at our group Fa study felt very disturbed. Some of them thought that I had the attachment of showing off. It seems that my attachment was completely exposed at that time. At first, I thought that a few practitioners might have a problem, but then it became clear to me that it was my own problem. Later, I read through my experience sharing e-mails again, and also recalled what I had said during the meetings. I concluded that I really did have a strong attachment to showing off.

Master said:

"As a human being cultivates into a god, during this heart-wrenching, agonizing process of removing attachments--think about it everyone--what kinds of things might he be capable of exhibiting? It might be that he is capable of anything. But once he realizes it, he can correct it. And why can he do that? It's not done for the sake of being a good ordinary person, but rather, to cultivate to Consummation. (Applause) That is sacred, and that is walking the path toward godhood."(Teaching the Fa at the Fa Conference at the U.S. Capital )

The occurrence of this conflict gave me a chance to improve myself. I then went to our group Fa study meeting specifically to thank the two practitioners who were in charge of it. I told them what I had learned after looking inside. I enlightened that regular people achieve their goals by ordinary means, but that practitioners have to follow the rules of cultivation. If we do not look inside, our problems will not be solved. As soon as I improved my understanding, I was allowed to post sharing messages to our email list.

I remembered that I had once written an article about letting go of the attachment to showing off. Why did this attachment appear again after I thought it was gone? Master teaches:

"That [occurs] because things developed over a long period of time have been separated into layers by factors pressed down here by beings from the old cosmos. So each time a layer is broken through, that layer is wiped out; then another layer is broken through and wiped out; and another is broken through and wiped out. In this way, they will become weaker and weaker, and there will be fewer and fewer of them. They won't be gone all at once, and this is what leads you to experience that [feeling you have]. The same applies to many other human attachments, the same happens with them." (Teaching the Fa in San Fransisco, 2005)

Although this explains it, I should still try to let go of the attachment and suppress it because the standards are very strict.

While all this was happening I was not able to calm down to explain the real situation about Falun Dafa to others. My righteous thoughts were not strong enough. I was only able to convince half the number of people with whom I talked to to quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). I thought that everything would return to normal after I looked inside. However, although I expected to find lots of friends on the Internet to look for me and to understand the truth and quit the CCP, I now ran into the serious problem of not being able to connect to the web and I could not send out any messages. Whenever someone told me that they were willing to quit CCP, I was suddenly off line. When I managed to log on again, the people were not there anymore. I realized that there were many sentient beings waiting to be saved, but I could not help them quit the CCP. I became so anxious that I cried and said to Master in my heart, " I want to save sentient beings. I don't understand the reason for all of these problems."

Just then, the fellow practitioner who maintains the website that helps people quit the CCP suddenly called me and asked about my progress. I had to reply with the truth. I was very surprised to see that even the coordinator could tell that my cultivation state was not good. I realized clearly that my ability to explain the real situation of Falun Dafa was impeded. The righteous field that I had established previously no longer existed and I felt as if I were a new practitioner. I had the same feeling when I participated in a big experience sharing conference in Taipei. Previously, I did not have any thoughts of fear, but on that day, I felt as if there was a wall blocking me. I kept hearing my fellow practitioner's warnings in my ears, "Aren't you going to show off again?" I had never been afraid of this before.

I had the same feeling when I was reading Zhuan Falun. I gradually felt sorry for myself. I started to cry while I was studying the Fa because I felt so lonely. I had to overcome all of these troubles by myself. I looked at my son who is severely injured and suffers from a malignant brain tumor, and thought about how miserable my life was.

I soon experienced major changes and realized that the part that had been cultivated well had already been separated away. It took me about a month of looking inside from the time I recognized the problem, to finally realizing what was going on.

As soon as I came to this new realization, there was a dramatic change in my ability to explain the true situation of Falun Dafa to others. More people than ever before wanted to talk to me on line. One day, I even broke my own record for the number of people I helped to quit the CCP. It was the first time that people were lining up to quit the CCP. Because my computer is old and slow I had to wait for around ten people to finish talking although there were more who wanted to chat with me. They all had to wait, and while the first group was almost done quitting the CCP, another group was talking to me and getting ready to quit the CCP. It ran like a mechanism. In my heart, I thanked Master for the arrangements He made.

I now have a deeper understanding of the process of improvement and wrote it down to share with others. I am thankful for Master's mercy and for the help of my fellow practitioners.

August 15, 2007

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/8/16/160911.html

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