Sentimentality Can Greatly Harm Your Cultivation

All through their lives, everyday people live and die for sentimentality, not knowing why they are here or where they will go. In delusion, they cannot help producing karma, which causes them to suffer. It is really a pity for them. On the contrary, we are really fortunate to have discovered Falun Dafa. As cultivators, we should take the time to remove all the attachments that we have, wash away the dirt in our minds, cultivate firmly, and make progress on our way home, closely following Teacher. However, some practitioners are still disturbed by the attachments of sentimentality and lust. I would like to share something that happened in our area in the hope that it will alert fellow practitioners who have loopholes in this regard.

In our region in 2005, one male and one female practitioner worked together to make materials exposing the persecution and clarifying the truth on the street. They worked very diligently without any complaints to produce the materials and were also very diligent in their own cultivation. Eventually, we noticed that there was something unusual between them, although we did not know exactly what it was. We knew that they both had their own families, so it never occurred to us that it could be the problem of sentimentality. Yet fellow practitioners nearby always sensed that the male practitioner apparently cared more for this practitioner than for other practitioners. We saw him bring her water and buy her food, which she accepted with delight. But we did not think further about it because they were partners in their work.

Several months passed. One morning, a practitioner arrived at the material site very early to pick up materials so that he could distribute them as early as possible. When he pushed the door open, he saw the couple leaning against each other holding hands. It turned out that they had stayed up together all night. They were very embarrassed when other practitioners learnt their story. They knew that they had done something wrong and felt that they had lost their reputations, so they decided to leave and cultivate alone at home despite all our efforts of persuasion.

It was true that they had let the attachment of sentimentality get the better of them, but then the attachment of saving face appeared. After they went home, those two practitioners, in mental turmoil, were unable to calm themselves down to study the Falun Gong teachings (Fa) because they worried so much about their reputations. As a result, they started to suffer from sickness karma. With encouragement and help from fellow practitioners, the female practitioner gradually let go of her attachment and started to recover. However, the condition of the male practitioner was very serious. His family members, who did not cultivate, then took him to a hospital, where they were told by a doctor that he had a serious liver cancer and would have no chance of survival. After he went home, he ate no food. Fellow practitioners went to his home, read the Fa to him, sent forth righteous thoughts near him, and encouraged him to let go of his attachment. He vowed that he would completely mend himself. Teacher never gives up on a Falun Dafa practitioner. With the compassionate salvation of Teacher, he started to recover day by day. After about 15 days, he was able to do things like a healthy person. His family members were very puzzled by his recovery. They took him to the hospital again, only to find that all his ailments were gone.

Now the two fellow practitioners, profoundly perceiving the compassion and the mighty power of Falun Dafa, have returned to the material production site. To make up the loss that they caused, they make truth clarification materials even more diligently and are cultivating even more firmly. With their motivation, the other practitioners working for the material site cooperate even better than before.

This part of the story enlightens me greatly. There are many tribulations on our path of cultivation, which are actually the result of our karma and attachments. Only when we let go of all attachments can we wipe out these formidable tribulations so that they become tiny in the face of true cultivators and will be transformed into our mighty virtue after we complete our cultivation.

I think all practitioners with the attachment of sentimentality will see the story above as a lesson to learn and help us put our hearts on Fa rectification cultivation. Time is limited, and Teacher is very anxious for those practitioners who do not let go of their attachments. All the gods in the heavens are fixing upon us and paying close attention to every single thought and action of every practitioner. They are so attentive that they do not want to blink for fear of missing an instant. Practitioners with attachments have nothing to hide. Just let go of these attachments, especially the attachment of sentimentality.