PureInsight | June 21, 2004
[PureInsight.org] I realized, from an experience of calling Chinese people to clarify the truth about Falun Gong, that cultivation is a most solemn matter. Any slightly impure thought will surface during cultivation. One must uncover all impure thoughts during cultivation in order to eliminate them. I feel this is absolutely true.
One day we gathered to study the Fa, send forth righteous thoughts and clarify the truth about Falun Dafa, the three things that Teacher has required of all Falun Dafa practitioners. Every practitioner did well in this gathering. Each practitioner made at least one or two calls to China even if he had not completely eliminated his attachment to fear. No one was overcome by his fear or passed the opportunity to clarify the truth to the Chinese people.
That day we focused on calling schools in China to clarify the facts about Falun Dafa to both the faculty and students. At first, we thought no one would answer the phones because it was a holiday. Then we decided that we shouldn't assume that was the case and that perhaps there were people stationed at schools during the holidays in China. We decided that we should at least give it a try and clarify to whomever answered the phone, even if they were not faculty or students. We took turns making calls to schools in China and made sure every practitioner had a share of the opportunity to clarify the truth.
When it was my turn to make the calls, suddenly the situation changed. No one would answer any call I made. I made several dozen calls but no one picked up the phone. I didn't feel frustrated, anxious, impatient or defeated because no one answered my calls, but it struck me as odd that suddenly no one would answer calls at these schools. Meanwhile, I kept thinking in my heart, "I am calling you to share the facts about Falun Gong. You must hurry to come pick up the phone!" I would allow the phone to ring at least six to eight times before I hung up, which should give them plenty of time to get to the phone, but still no one answered my calls. Why was this only happening to me? I decided to seek inward right away. Have I thought of or done something inappropriate? I thought that I must have an attachment that caused the interference.
I carefully reviewed all of my thoughts since I started making calls and quickly found out the root cause. When I dialed the telephone numbers, a fellow practitioner watched me and praised my excellent hand-eye coordination. "Wow! You must type on the computer keyboard all the time. Look how fast you dial the numbers! I will never able to catch up with you!" The compliment brought out and amplified my attachment to zealotry, which must have been the cause of the interference with all my calls.
That was the reason why no one had answered my calls!
After I found and faced my attachment to zealotry, I tried again from the beginning of my call list. On the second call, I finally heard on the other end of the line someone speaking in the Mainland Chinese accent that I had been expecting. After I finished this call, I took a break and contemplated this experience. I thought to myself: "My! Cultivation is not an easy matter at all! I cannot believe I was so vulnerable to temptation. Just one single compliment could arouse my attachment to zealotry, and it took several dozens of calls with no answer to force me to seek inward and to remove my impure thought." It is so difficult to find my own attachments! Yet it is also during these difficult searches that I learned to face my attachments with a more mature attitude.
Everyone has a different degree of attachment to zealotry, but it is difficult to detect its existence unless it is surfaced. I didn't realize I had an attachment to zealotry until I received a compliment on my hand-eye coordination while dialing the telephone numbers. None of the fellow practitioners at the gathering knew what went wrong with the dozens of calls I made. They thought perhaps the evil from other dimensions was obstructing those Chinese people from learning the facts about Falun Dafa. After this experience, I realized that, when we encounter a conflict or an obstacle, we shouldn't jump to the conclusion that it is caused by the evil's interference and try to send forth righteous thoughts. Perhaps we should try to seek inward first because we might have left loopholes for the evil to exploit. After this round of truth-clarification calls, I realized that it is of supreme importance to cultivate our own xinxing (mind character) and to seek inward first.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2004/5/31/27395.html
