PureInsight | January 13, 2003
[PureInsight.org] Previously, when I read the section "Jealousy," in Zhuan Falun, I often thought to myself that that section didn't apply to me because I was never jealous of others. If others are better, then I try my best to catch up. Why should I be jealous? To me, only a person who is incapable and incompetent is jealous of other people. Whenever I read this sentence in Zhuan Falun, "There is this rule: If in the course of cultivation practice jealousy is not given up, one will not attain Right Fruit—absolutely not," I never thought anything of it.
Then one day I realized the attachment to competition was actually a form of jealousy, too. Those who are weak will be jealous while those who are vigorous will compete. The attachment to competition and jealousy are from the same root: selfishness. One's selfish and self-centered nature makes one not to want to see others doing better than oneself. The mentalities of showing off, comparison, zealotry, competitiveness, vanity and many other bad mentalities are all derived from jealousy, which is why Master Li singled it out. Once I understood this, I thought about my attachment to competition and truly realized the seriousness of the issue.
Dafa disciples who grew up in China, especially those who lived through the Great Cultural Revolution, have all been contaminated by jealousy and the attachment to competition in the great dye vat. If we fail to recognize this in our cultivation, it will come out in our work of Fa spreading and Fa rectification. In fact, lots of conflicts and disharmonies among our Dafa disciples, if we look at their roots, are caused by the attachment to competition.
In the section "Demonic Interference from One's Own Mind" in Zhuan Falun, Master gives us the following example. There is one person who thought: "…'I was able to learn Teacher Li's Falun Dafa and have studied it so well, better than all the others. Perhaps I'm also not an ordinary person.' This thought is already not right." Before I did not understand why this thought was not right. Now I knew. For all of the mentalities of comparison, no matter whether you think you are better or worse than others, once you have this thought, it is not right. In heaven there is no difference between big and small, or high and low like here on earth. The high level beings put emphasis on coordination and cooperation. Master Li requires that our state should be "absent-minded, no fighting in ordinary society." (unofficial translation from "Within the Dao," in Hongyin) No matter what we do, even when doing a good deed, if we have the attachment to competition; such as being afraid of falling behind others, or being afraid of not attaining consummation, then our hearts are not pure and human things will be added into our cultivation energy. This is very dangerous.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2002/11/20/19310.html
