Recognize and Get Rid of Attachments Through Cultivating

Revered Master!
Fellow practitioners!

My name is Lauris. I obtained the Fa in November 2009; then my conscious cultivation process in Falun Dafa began.

In the first cultivation year I cultivated diligently by studying the Fa and doing all the five exercises every day. In the second cultivation year, I understood that I had to validate Fa, and I started doing the three things. Through what Master had said in New York Conference on 29 August 2011, I started to understand more deeply what Dafa disciple is, and awareness in me that I am a Dafa disciple became stronger and stronger.

In May 2012, I attended an experience sharing conference in New York, and I had an opportunity to listen to Master teaching the Fa in person for the first time. All the week in New York was filled with Dafa activities and passed quickly. I returned home filled with tremendous elation that was given to me by the conference and experience sharing with practitioners, as well as with an idea that we should renew the Zhen, Shan, Ren art exhibition project in Latvia. I shared this idea with practitioners at the collective Fa studying. Gradually a group of practitioners, who were ready to start organizing and arranging exhibitions again, was formed. From the end of 2012, I took the responsibility to be the project coordinator for art exhibition in Latvia.

Until now, every time when I have participated in practitioners' experience sharing conferences and listened to the experiences that Dafa practitioners presented, I have very often spotted in myself those things that the speakers were talking about, which gave me an opportunity to ascend along with them. Now I have enlightened how important it is in our cultivation process to share our understanding and experience.

Therefore this time I also want to share my cultivation experience gained in taking part in the Zhen, Shan, Ren exhibition project.

At the end of 2013, we had already started to prepare for an exhibition at the Liepāja museum in good time, doing many things simultaneously and trying to coordinate as much as possible. We planned to show the Special set of the Zhen, Shan, Ren exhibition at the Liepāja museum, which had started in Glasgow (Scotland) on its European tour. In order to become a better part of one-body, I spent one week in Glasgow, helping in setting up the exhibition and promoting it.

In Scotland I also met two Latvian practitioners who were taking part in this project. One of them suggested using the 37-second video in promoting the exhibition, as it presents the exhibition. When I came back, I talked over this idea with other project participants, and all of us thought that it would be useful. From the European project coordinator we got to know that practitioners from NTD in the US were engaged in creating this video. By contacting with them, we got to know that we had to prepare two files: one for informative text about the exhibition, the other for a voice in Latvian. The work progressed quickly, as everyone was giving a hand, and the technical side was provided by a practitioner with skills in working with records. I hoped that I would promptly have everything that was necessary to send this prepared material for further montage. But it did not really work out that way. We had to record a male voice. We asked other practitioners to help with this, and I also took part in test recordings. After the voice recording tests were done, we had three versions to chose from. And this is where a test for me began. We came together to decide which one of them to chose. Opinions varied, I did not consider my voice to be appropriate, but other practitioners suggested exactly my voice, which gave me an idea that I was good, really capable, better than others.

“For a cultivator, all the frustrations he comes across among everyday people are trials, and all the compliments he receives are tests.” (A Cultivator is Naturally Part of It, Essentials for Further Advancement).

Since our opinions varied, we decided to ask for the coordinator's point of view, and he reasonably answered how each of the voices sounded to him, but he did not even add anything about my voice, and because of this some indignation and some feeling of being offended sneaked into my heart. How come that everyone else approves me, but he does not even mention of me?! Arrogance and selfishness had already started manipulating with my consciousness. Now I see how little is needed for the evil to find a loophole in our cultivation and start using our attachments in trying to deflect us from fulfilling our vows to help Master in saving sentient beings.

At our next meeting we discussed again how to proceed better. The practitioner who provided recording suggested me to record an audio track one more time. All of the other practitioners also supported the idea, and I had no choice. One of the practitioners wanted to come with us to send Righteous Thoughts, and on the same day, immediately after our meeting, the three of us went to the recording studio, located at one practitioner's house, to write an audio track for the video. At the beginning we read the Fa; then we sent Righteous Thoughts, and just after that we started recording. Two practitioners sent Righteous Thoughts while I was recording an audio track. During the recording I felt a field of One Body and a strong Gong that flew through my body, my mind was rooted in the Fa, and I was thinking about saving sentient beings; selfishness and arrogance had disappeared.

That is how I managed to recognize my subsequent attachments and get free of them, at the same time also upgrading in the practitioners' one-body.

In Zhuan Falun, the Fourth Talk, Master says:

“For us cultivators conflicts come up suddenly. So what should we do? If you always keep a compassionate heart, and a peaceful state of mind, when you run into problems you’ll handle them well because it will give you space as a buffer. If you are always compassionate and friendly to others, if you always consider other people when you do things, and whenever you have issues with other people you first think about whether they can take it or whether it will cause them harm, then you won’t have any problem. So, when you cultivate you should follow high and even higher standards.”

As a Dafa practitioner, I have to improve my Xinxing persistently and always do things in accordance with a Dafa practitioner's Xinxing criteria, and before I start doing something, I should first of all think about others, not myself.

Now I want to share with you a test that I went through at the beginning of this year. It happened to me that on one day I could not get out of bed, because something had happened at the lower part of my backbone which on the surface seemed like disc hernia. My condition was really bad, as I could neither get up and walk nor sit; pain attacks were unbearable even when turning from one side to the other in bed. At the first moment I had no idea or understanding, I just lay in bed on my back and was perplexed as to why it had happened with me. Possibly it was my karma, but maybe it was the old forces' attack.

Many practitioners called me and shared their understanding; one said that it was interference of old forces to hinder me in clarifying the Truth; the other said that it was elimination of karma; the third one said that I had to look inward more deeply to reveal the real reasons, the fourth and the fifth ones expressed yet different understanding; some other practitioner called me and said that we could not acknowledge this, and that he wants to ask other practitioners to send Righteous Thoughts not to let the old forces persecute my body, to which I answered: if you have such an understanding, I do not have any objections, but I myself did not have any understanding about it yet.

After all these conversations with practitioners, I perceived and understood more deeply that all of us cultivate in accordance with the characteristic of the Universe “Zhen Shan Ren”, and that each of us is at their own level, and that at each level there is a manifestation of the Fa of this level, which has a guiding role for a practitioner.

Master Li says in Zhuan Falun, The First Talk:

“What’s actually going on is, the same Law changes at each level and manifests in a different way, and for cultivators, it can guide them differently at different levels.”

Along with this understanding, I started looking inward and saw my attachment to judging practitioners and blaming them in my thoughts if their actions or words did not correspond to my level of understanding of the Fa.

Now I see that this incident was, on the one hand, a test for me to see how truly I believed in Master, and on the other hand, it was possibly the old forces' attack, who were using my loopholes and attachments not to let me participate in Dafa projects, through which we are helping Master to save sentient beings. Recently I have devoted much time to Dafa projects, I even could not balance it with my everyday work because I spent a great part of my time coordinating the exhibition project when I was at work. When I got to know that the book exhibition in Riga, that we usually participate in and that was coordinated by me in two previous years, was at the same time as the Zhen, Shan, Ren art exhibition in Valmiera, I thought that probably some other practitioner would take on responsibility for the book exhibition, since I was really busy with coordinating the art exhibition. However, as time went by, no one showed any initiative; later on I tried to balance everything in such a way that I could do both things and take part in the book exhibition as well. But it happened that one day before the book exhibition opening this incident happened with me, and I could only stay in bed. Mutual coordination gave us an opportunity to hand over things I had started to another practitioner, who took upon himself further coordination to participate in the book exhibition, and other practitioners also joined, and everything worked well.

Master Li says in “Zhuan Falun”, The Sixth Talk:

“There are also folks who track me down for an autograph. What are they up to? That’s still an ordinary people’s thing—getting an autograph, getting a keepsake, or whatnot. If you don’t cultivate, look, I’m going to tell you, I can give you my autograph but it’s useless. Every single word in my books has my image and Law Wheel, and every sentence is my words—do you really want me to still sign something? Some people think, "Once he signs it, I’ll have Teacher’s messages protecting me." They still believe in those message things. But we don’t care about messages. It should be obvious by now that this book is priceless. Is there more you still need? All of this reflects those attachments. There are some people who notice how the students that travel with me carry themselves, and then they go and imitate them, not knowing what’s good or bad about it. The fact is, we don’t care who it is who acts what way—there’s only one Law, and only by following this Great Law in your actions are you meeting the true standard. The people who travel with me don’t get any private coaching, they’re the same as others, only they work for the Research Society. Don’t let these attachments swell up. We often end up damaging Dafa without meaning to when we let this kind of attachment swell up. And if you make up sensational things, that could even cause tension, or maybe stir up other students’ attachments, it could make them elbow to get closer to me so that they can listen to some things, too, and so on. Don’t all these things go back to this problem?”

I understand we should never, by no means, not even in thoughts, blame any other practitioner for the way he or she cultivates, for what he or she says or does, because only Master can evaluate it. By thinking bad things about another practitioner, we cause harm to Dafa. By supporting each other, by sharing experience and understanding, as well as by encouraging others, we can ascend in Dafa disciples' One Body and help Master to save sentient beings. I have to clean my head of all the bad thoughts about practitioners and fill it with the Fa. Looking at it from whatever point of view I wish, cultivation depends only on me myself. I have to cultivate myself, not others!

The next day after this incident my physical body began recovering fast. And I could do a sitting meditation. After three days I went outside to do the first four exercises by my house, as usual. Thanks to all fellow practitioners (both in Latvia and elsewhere in Europe within the art exhibition project) who inspired me and supported me with Righteous Thoughts at that challenging moment. I truly felt that I was a part of Dafa disciples' one-body

Owing to Master and the main coordinator of the Zhen, Shan, Ren art exhibition project, professor Zhang Kunlun, the Special set of exhibition arrived to Europe in autumn of the last year; it was for the European tour, and it gave us, practitioners in Europe, an opportunity to strengthen One Body by cooperating and coordinating in organizing exhibitions in different countries and cities. At the same time it gives us an opportunity to speak to prestigious art galleries and museums in the biggest European cities about organizing this exhibition, as well as giving us an additional opportunity to promote and show the usual reproduction collections to help Master in saving sentient beings.

The main thing that Master looks at, is our heart. I think that practitioners in Latvia have managed to renew the art exhibition project because such hearts exist, and in mutual coordination they are able to reveal their human attachments and get free of them.

If you see anything that does not correspond to the Fa, please, point it out!

Thanks to our compassionate Master!
Thanks to fellow practitioners!