Reflections in Cultivation: My Thoughts on Cultivating Away All Human Attachments

By Xiao Lian

PureInsight | October 6, 2008

[PureInsight.org] Recently, I have spent a lot of time studying the Fa diligently. While studying the Fa a great deal, many problems that had been very confusing for me have gradually become more and more clear. The following is some of what I have enlightened to recently.

An ordinary person who does not cultivate and is lost in the maze does not know what a life has come here for. He is manipulated by fame, self-interest, and human sentiment, and struggles among the so-called joys and pains derived from them. He passes from birth to death, and will then enter another cycle of reincarnation.

A cultivator, however, is different. Although we live in a society constituted of fame, self-interest and human sentiment, our hearts will stay untouched or less touched by those factors. Cultivators have higher goals and aim to completely raise their lives out of the transmigration of life and death, thereby obtaining the eternal magnificence of life. Therefore, we cannot judge many things with deteriorated human notions.

As cultivators, we all know that Master has taught us the principle of “pursue nothing, gain naturally.” We should just improve ourselves, do the three things we should do well, save sentient beings with our great compassion, and eliminate the evil completely with our pure and righteous thoughts. If we are strict with ourselves, everything will be encompassed in this.

However, if we just seek “the end,” await Consummation, and long for the collapse of the evil Chinese Communist Party (CCP) without paying much attention to fulfilling our great responsibility, we will only cry when the day of Consummation arrives, because we did not make good use of this period of time.

Before an ordinary person comes to know Dafa, he finds all the attachments to worldly gain very interesting and happily pursues them, because he does not know anything more valuable for a life to work for. However, a cultivator is different. Whether or not we can see the moment of our Consummation in this lifetime, we still know that people can live a better and purer life than being attached to the loss and gain in the human world. And even in this human world, through cultivation, we obtain healthy bodies and get rid of the worries associated with various diseases. A non-cultivator can hope for this, but cannot achieve it.

As cultivators, we have also come to know different unsolved myths that puzzled many learned people and scholars throughout history. Through cultivation, we have understood the principle of loss and gain. Being always compassionate and kind to others, we are happy and feel peaceful in our hearts despite sometimes the losses we suffered on the surface. This peaceful mindset is what an ordinary person cannot reach or have. Even if these are all we can obtain, they are still far beyond an ordinary person’s expectation. There is nothing we have to be depressed about.

If a cultivator stays faithful at every moment to Master and the Fa, he will truly feel the power of Dafa and the immeasurable compassion of Master, and he will also truly realize the tremendous change his life has undergone through cultivation.

Continuously cultivating oneself will make a person increasingly aware of his cultivated side, thus further encouraging him to be more diligent. This way, the process toward Consummation will constantly accelerate and form a positive cycle.

When cultivating, one will surely encounter tests and tribulations, or else it would not be cultivation. For example, when something like the Beijing Olympics occurs in the human world, we really should examine whether our heart is moved. We may talk every day about having faith in Master and the Fa, but when such a test occurs unexpectedly, are our hearts moved? If so, it means that our faith in Master and Fa is not strong enough, or in other words, the so-called having faith in Master and Fa before was conditional, and deep in our heart, we are still “firmly” attached to a certain time or event that will bring the evil party to an end or bring us to Consummation. If that certain time and incident does not arrive as expected according to our notions, our hearts may fluctuate and become skeptical. Is this the state of a Great Enlightened Being of the future? Are events such as the evil Party’s collapse and Dafa Disciples’ Consummation to be measured by the human heart? Master arranges everything according to the needs of Fa-rectification. Only when we strictly follow Master’s requirements, do well what we should do without pursuit, study the Fa well and improve ourselves according to the Fa, will the process of eliminating the evil Party be accelerated, or even achieved with one thought.

Upon writing the above sharing, I remembered Master’s poem from Hongyin, “Nothing Kept”:

Nothing Kept

In life, nothing sought,
In death, regretting naught;
Washing away all wrong thought,
Buddhahood, with less adversity, is wrought.

When we truly meet the standard set by Master, everything will come naturally. So, the collapse of the evil Party and our Consummation are not at all the result of our longing for them or our being attached to those events. Instead, they come naturally with our determined elimination of the evil.

The above are some of my personal understandings. Please correct me if anything is not appropriate.

Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2008/8/25/54526.htm

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