Eliminating the Attachment to Appearance

(Clearwisdom.net) I am a young woman. Before I began practicing Falun Dafa, I cared a lot about looking good. I was impressed by beautiful people, delicate and fine things. I was also quite confident, and often felt that I had good taste and enjoyed exquisite objects. At the beginning of my cultivation, I believe Master once said we can't say that a person has an attachment if she tries to look good, so I didn't care too much about my attachment of wanting to look good. I was focused on eliminating other attachments. I realize now that I was not wrong at that time, but the requirements for the Fa elevate and the requirements at each level are different.

We are now on the final path of Fa rectification, and I feel that I should cultivate away my affinity for wanting to look good. Self-love itself is a strong expression of selfishness. Whenever I sink into this attachment, my power of compassion is very weakened, most of the power being spent on myself, and it influences the result of saving sentient beings. For example, when I saw a girl of my age I paid attention to her looks, I envied her if she was prettier that I, or felt sorry for her if she was not. At that time I completely forgot to exercise compassion. I thought everything centered around me.

Master stated in Zhuan Falun,

"You should always maintain a heart of compassion and kindness. Then, when you run into a problem, you will be able to do well because it gives you room to buffer the confrontation."

I have a new understanding of this. I thought before that only when one cultivated for a long time, consistently practiced the five exercises, did well with sending forth righteous thoughts and clarified the truth well, that compassion would emerge. However, it is still short lived, as one could not reach that state by oneself. Now I realize that in addition to studying the Fa well, one should also be strict with oneself, and view saving sentient being as a priority in one's life, as is sung in a song in the Divine Performing Arts show, "Compassion is God's Everlasting State."

After experiencing much interference from new men in my life lately, I felt quite upset, and I also believed that it was caused by my indulgence in self-admiration. After I began cultivation, my change was so great, it was as if I was reborn. This was a wonderful chance to clarify the truth and save sentient beings; I told people about the wonders of Dafa and clarified the truth when they complimented me, but I felt that I still lacked compassion. I was complacent with their compliments, feeling that it was wonderful to have a pretty face. My heart was not pure, and achieving godhood is truly about having a genuine heart to save sentient beings.

In ancient times, appearance was sometimes described as being related to lust. Whenever we fail in this human world, we are falling at least at that moment on that particular issue. Let Dafa practitioners all over the world use our entire energy in saving sentient beings, and let the power of compassion shine.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/8/8/183606.html

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