What is Behind the Attachment to Money?

[PureInsight.org] Today, my daughter read a WeChat message from my son-in-law and said, “Old Hou is so cool. He’s living in a five-star hotel!” I immediately responded, “What’s so cool about it? Who could live in a five-star hotel without money?” My daughter didn’t want to hear any of it and said, “Why do you always talk about money? You are attached to money. Let us discuss this tomorrow with everyone else!” I left after hearing this, feeling uneasy. My son-in-law spends a lot of money on a five-star hotel and I am accused of being attached to money!?

Later at the park, I sat in reflection. There really were many things that revealed my attachment to money. Just before I started cultivating, my parents lived in a rural area. At the time, the combined income of my wife and I was less than 100 Yuan per month. My father suffered from lung disease and each hospitalization cost hundreds to thousands of Yuans. I had to take care of my three brothers as well. We borrowed a lot of money for each hospitalization. We would then spend the next month paying back debts. As the old debts were paid off, new ones would accrue. It continued this way every year.

During the housing reform, the three-bedroom cottage we lived in depreciated by 13,000 Yuan. At the time, we did not have 1,000 Yuan. I was planning to borrow money from my wife’s relatives. But she objected, saying that I could ask anyone except her relatives. I understood how she felt, because when we had first met, my family was an agricultural household and was very poor. My wife’s relatives disagreed to our marriage, because they thought that she would live a poor lifestyle with me. Yet she was determined to marry me. At that time, we borrowed 10,000 Yuan to buy a house. You can only imagine how difficult it was. I truly understood the feeling of “a man without money is no man at all.”

After the persecution began, I was illegally detained in a labor camp and stripped of my wages. My wife was unjustly sentenced too and lost her job. My son’s college tuition was funded by my daughter’s modest income. When I escaped the labor camp, I lived on very minimal wages and still had debts to return. I often subsisted on bread and pickled radishes. I experienced the difficulties of poverty daily. I was afraid of being poor. Telling my children to save money and be vigilant has now become my mantra. My children do not like hearing it, yet I continue to nag them.

I have recently been thinking about my son sleeping in the living room. When my children grow older, it will be more difficult for them to stay in the living room. I have also been considering saving money to buy them a two-bedroom flat. I have also been saving my granddaughter’s holiday money for her tuition. When discussing this with fellow practitioners, they said that my attachment to sentimentality was quite strong and that I should quickly make a serious effort to eliminate it. Upon reflecting on my experiences, which one was not caused by sentimentality? Sentimentality was also behind the attachment to money!

Fellow practitioners often remind me that my attachment to sentimentality is strong and that I need to put in a lot of effort to remove it, yet I have not put in much effort to do so.

Master said in Zhuan Falun, "Some people say, 'I’ll make some more money and make sure my family’s set for life. Then I won’t have anything to worry about and I’ll go to cultivate.' I’d say you’re dreaming. You can’t interfere with other people’s lives, you can’t control their fates, be it your wife’s, your kid’s, your parents’, or your sibling’s. Is that something you decide?"

Master also said in Zhuan Falun, “Cultivation is something you do right in the thick of tribulations. They’ll test whether you can sever your emotions and desires, and they’ll see if you can take them lightly. If you’re attached to those things you won’t be able to finish your cultivation.”

Master has discussed these issues very clearly. I have been reading Zhuan Falun daily, but I have not been following it. I still stick to my old ways once I finish reading. How is this true cultivation? In fact it is not having enough faith in Master and the Fa!

Master said in Zhuan Falun, "What’s meant by 'not proper thoughts'? It’s when somebody always has a hard time thinking of himself as a practitioner."

Have I been treating myself as a true practitioner all these years? Cultivation is a serious matter, yet I have treated it lightly. Ask oneself if one's thoughts are proper!

These past few years, my physical state has been quite bad. Every time I look inwards, I find many attachments, including the attachments to fame, fortune, and sentimentality. With so many human notions and attachments, how could the old forces not persecute me? I understood through Fa study that the reason was that I did not take cultivating xinxing seriously.

Master said in Zhuan Falun, "So to put it another way, you have to care about character cultivation, cultivate by the nature of the universe—to be True, Good, and Endure—and get rid of those ordinary people’s desires, those character flaws, and those thoughts about doing bad things. As long as your level of awareness goes up even just a little bit, those bad things of yours are shed some at the same time."

Master also said in Zhuan Falun, "When your character improves, your body really changes. When your character improves, the matter in your body definitely changes. And what are the changes? You’ll throw out those bad things that you stubbornly go after."

Fellow elderly practitioners have youthful faces and are full of energy to do the three things, yet I have sickness karma. Not only can I not validate the Fa, but I am also discrediting Dafa and interfering with saving people. The reason is that I study the Fa but do not solidly cultivate.

I wrote this to not only encourage myself to be more diligent and cultivate solidly, but because I also hope that fellow practitioners immersed in fame, fortune, and sentimentality will not be like me. Quickly jump out of it and be diligent! Please point out anything inappropriate.

Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/node/238087