Overcoming Attachments and Cultivating Myself

A Toronto practitioner

PureInsight | June 2, 2009

Experience sharing from the 2009 Canada Fa Conference

[PureInsight.org]

Greetings Master and fellow practitioners!

I started practicing Dafa at the end of 2006. Having gone through many things, I am going to share two of my typical experiences with you.

Attachments Exposed in the Family

During my mom’s Canadian visa application, my attachments were exposed. The major difficulty for the application was that the Canadian embassy had rejected her before because my parents had applied for Permanent Residency several years ago, and so the embassy doubted that she would return to China after her visit. One day, I had an idea to tell the embassy that she did not know anything about the previous Permanent Residency application because she was a housewife at that time. But the truth was she had been involved in it.

I thought that she should be able to get a visa this time. My mom also agreed with my suggestion. Just when I wanted to put my ideas into words and email her, my laptop suddenly broke down, and a blank screen appeared making noise. I found it weird because I had just bought the computer in 2006 and took good care of it, and I had very few problems, so why did it break down suddenly?

After a few days, mom told me that she had other application problems. I had to come up with different ideas to help her cover things up, so that the embassy would not detect anything was wrong. At this moment, I found something wrong with myself. Did I do the right thing? She is still an ordinary woman. If I promised to help her, I would become an ordinary person.

Lying is wrong and is absolutely not what a Dafa disciple should do. My original intention was that after she comes to Canada, which is a safe place, it would be easier for her to learn the truth and even start practicing Dafa. Though the thought was good, the process was wrong. A few weeks later, the result of the application came out: she was again refused a visa.

As a Dafa disciple, I have to be very strict with myself. Before I even realized it, interference came very quickly, such as the breakdown of my laptop and headaches. Other bad situations could probably occur as well.

Cultivating Myself While Being a Reporter

One night, I went to Richmond Hill for a small gathering. The organizer provides services for many Chinese people in Toronto who have integrated into the mainstream society, and has hosted large events for many years. Surprisingly, a celebrity also attended. He has founded several Chinese organizations and is a member of the Order of Canada.

I was glad that he agreed to be interviewed and disclosed some breaking news that no English or Chinese media had reported yet. The entire interview went very smoothly and he was very polite. When I took a photo of him, he was smiling. I thought this was awesome, a celebrity plus exclusive news, therefore this article would certainly become one of the top news items in the Epoch Times.

This took place in February of this year, and it was snowing. After the interview, I arrived at home around 10 p.m. The following day, I went to Markham for another Chinese event and came home around 11 p.m.

I felt that I had made a major breakthrough in terms of reporting, cultivating, and validating Dafa. I was able to get rid of the human mindset by going for a small dinner and coming back with breaking news. Reflecting on what I had reported before, I thought this was the most in-depth news report I had ever written, a total of 1000 Chinese characters (after translation, it would probably be 1200 English words). I sent the report to the editor with great confidence.

The following day, the entire report was posted online. But in the paper edition, three paragraphs were removed and the article was put at the bottom part of a page. All of a sudden, my attachment started to hurt me because I was unable to give up myself. I thought it was probably because we had lots of news over that weekend, and they couldn’t fit everything in. A thought came to my mind: if other journalists plan to go to some events over the weekend, I can stay home to avoid having parts of my article cut again.

This was an attachment to protect my own interests. As long as I have no other arrangements, I should go rather than worrying about if the article will be cut again. Even if it does happen, I should treat it in a peaceful manner and act as a Dafa practitioner.

Why did I spend so much time going to events that were arranged by ordinary people? It was because I wanted my reports to be closer to their lives and interests, and eventually to save them. Regardless of where we put an article, on the front page or in a small corner, the mighty virtue is the same. The key thing is how we cultivate ourselves and give up ourselves. It was impossible to place every article on the front page, and we can’t sacrifice the overall quality of the paper because of a single report.

In fact, all grievances are attachments, as a result of a not-so-strong belief in Dafa, not firmly believing that Gods truly exist. Master saw what I really did, and all the gods saw it as well. I should not have been concerned about the rest.

Whenever I felt wronged, I thought of the countless things that Master has done for us, and the countless obstacles against rectifying the Fa that he has encountered in other dimensions, something we could never imagine. However, Master has never expressed any grievances to us and he would never do so—that is for sure. Whenever this came to my mind I felt ashamed and no longer felt wronged.

It is easy to say but hard to do. Once I encounter something difficult, even though I study the Fa every day, I still feel sudden pain. Therefore, I should strive forward vigorously, try to overcome all types of attachments within the shortest period of time, and get rid of them, so that they can no longer disturb me.

Thank you.
 

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