PureInsight | December 15, 2003
[PureInsight.org] From time to time, I complained about a lot of things. To name a few examples, "How can he behave like this? He does not act like a cultivator at all;" "Why can't I finish this work without obstacles;" "This is so unjust;" "It must be the evil's interference again;" or "How come I feel so tired…"
After a while, I finally realized that it had been my stubborn attachments that cuased these troubles and unnecessary worries, and they were obstructing my path on the road of cultivation. Because I hadn't fundamentally removed my attachments, I had become complacent in my cultivation and had been stagnating in the same place without making any progress. I had been handling everything with my conventional thinking, which had created barriers on my road of cultivation and prevented me from seeing the truth of the universe.
The true obstacles on my cultivation road were not other people or the external forces and elements, but my own concepts that I had stubbornly clung to.
After I obtained the Fa, I continued to use my same old behavior patterns in the ordinary people's society and continued to pursue personal gain. Although I am now in the cultivation community, I had not at all changed my goals or means to achieve these goals. When I traced my attachments to their origins, I realized that I hadn't improved the nature of my life. I discovered that, for the past few years since I obtained the Fa, I had been handling all problems with my own interpretations of the Fa. Before I knew it, I had become accustomed to conducting myself according to my own concepts and preferences, instead of by the Fa. I have already formed my own framework of concepts by which I used to evaluate everything. When other practitioners or I encountered problems, I immediately applied my conceptual framework to these problems without thinking. On the surface, it might appear that I had acquired all of my understandings from the Fa, but in fact what had been governing my speech and actions was a framework of concepts based on my personal ideas.
When I discovered the root cause of my problems, I realized why I often felt worn out, why fellow practitioners always felt uncomfortable with my opinions, why I always felt my capabilities somewhat restrained when sending forth righteous thoughts, why I encountered so many difficulties in Fa-validation work and why I clarified the facts with such limited success. I then found my old self incredibly ridiculous. How could I have lived in the shell of my own creation that I have used for such a long time without realizing it? Many practitioners tried to give me hints from different angles, but I refused to heed their hints and always pushed them out the door.
After I had removed my attachments to my past understandings of the Fa, attaining higher cultivation levels, grasping higher levels of the Fa and ceasing to hold fast to my own perspective and concepts as well as my ego, I noticed my own improvement, and the environment around me suddenly improved along with it. My environment became perfectly harmonious. After all, the lack of harmony resulted from my own human sentiments and concepts. I started to pay attention to the kind advice of ordinary people, as well as to other practitioners' thoughts and ideas. I got off my high horse and started to consciously improve myself, starting with the most trivial matters. I am no longer attached to recognition or accomplishments. Fa-validation work is no longer as complicated as before. It now appears to be very straightforward.
It is not that other people, the world or my environment were the cause of my many problems. It has always been me. Now that I have removed my attachments to self and to my own framework of concepts, I am taking a pleasant stroll on my newly paved cultivation road.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2003/11/26/24694.html
