PureInsight | July 11, 2010
[PureInsight.org] Recently, I contacted a fellow practitioner who came from Beijing because shortly he will have a court hearing on his application for protection as a refugee. As we do not know each other’s cultivation status, I specifically sent him a few experience sharing articles and frequently mentioned how I did things during my application process. Through this communication, the fellow practitioner said calmly: “It is very easy for us to see our shortcomings or those of fellow practitioners. However, we hardly notice our attachment to our own capabilities. Thus, we fall into the mindset of being self-satisfied with out current state, and it is very difficult to break through simply because this attachment has a more illusive nature. What we think is good or bad are all judged by our own standards which are not the standards set by Dafa. We are attached to aspects which we consider as excellent and we are happy if we can do something for Dafa. Our capabilities are limited, whereas Dafa is boundless.” His words warned me.
The projects that I participate in are mainly media and writing articles. They are all related to writing. When I look back on what has happened in the past serveral months, I realized that I was quite delighted and enjoyed all kinds of human sentiments in this world whenever my articles received acceptance from fellow practitioners or praise from everyday people. It seems that I have become proud of these article,s and I find I am frequently chatting about them with fellow practitioners. It also seems that these articles can be used to my “advantage” to mask and substitute for my other unremoved attachments. It made me feel that I have some special rights and thus not treat cultivation seriously. Since I started to validate Dafa with my pen, I always felt good about myself for having such a capability. I even felt secretly overjoyed sometimes. So without noticing, I tended to neglect and not respect fellow practitioners. Similarly, without noticing, I eliminated the “recognized” self on one hand, and on the other hand, increased the self that was “unrecognized.” This is probably why after a while I felt that my writing skill had reached the so-called “peak” level and that it was very difficult to improve further.
After thinking about this issue, I asked myself how can one reach the “peak” when a cultivator is validating Dafa? Isn’t Dafa’s deep inner meaning boundless? The factors that led me to expand self somehow puzzled me and prevented my wisdom from emerging. If it were not for cultivation, how much of an influence could that tiny capability have exerted in human society? If it were not for the strength and wisdom given by Master, how could our tiny abilities do much in saving sentient beings? If it were not for fellow practitioners editing, translation and presentation to the readers, my little ability would not have shown properly. If it were not for the diverse writing styles, which intermingle and bring out the best from each practitioner, how could I validate Dafa by myself? However, I was unconsciously overjoyed to an almost unacceptable extent by my little talent.
In my cultivation, I can see my shortcomings and overcome them continuously. All these are factors from the whole group which have changed me and helped my cultivation move up to a higher level. I need to remember to look inward on what I am thinking and eliminate my attachments. I want to expose these shortcomings to warn myself and hope to do better in the future.
First published in Chinese on April 26, 2010
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2010/4/26/65781.html
