Brief Analysis of the Mentality of Depending on Others

I graduated from college and entered mainstream society around a year ago. I first encountered Falun Dafa during the second year of my high school, back in November 1998. The simple and fulfilling campus life, as compared to living in a society where one struggled for personal interest, has helped preserve my innocence and compassion, which helped me find Falun Dafa to be good.

I got accepted into college easily. While my classmates were busy enhancing their credentials to assist them in getting a job, I was practicing Falun Dafa, quietly participating in activities to introduce people to Falun Gong and the persecution, even as I kept busy with studies and my two positions in the student council. I graduated from college easily and even got an "Outstanding Student" award. More importantly, many of my classmates were able to understand the truth about Falun Dafa's situation and learnt that Falun Dafa is good. After graduation, I started work in a financial firm. The facilities were great, but there were many conflicts for personal interest. It was easy to develop the mentality of pursuit, but now I can face these problems calmly. When I first started, there were many problems. After they were solved, I dug deeper into my attachments and I found a deep, hidden attachment, the attachment of depending on others!

Competition in the profession of finance is quite fierce. Every workplace has all kinds of rules and regulations to stimulate workers into taking initiatives to help the company reap maximum profit. However, all of these methods rely on linking everything to profits, and results are interpreted purely by numbers. Therefore everyone would use every possible means to pursue personal gain, which included acting competitively and enhancing surface appearances. When faced with conflicts over valuable business assets, colleagues often got into arguments or even fights. I never understood any of this because I was never very attached to competition, nor do I pursue fame or personal interest. I don't have strong feelings to gain at any cost, which others find hard to understand. My colleagues think that I am foolish and in some cases even feel sorry for me and try to teach me how to compete better over business opportunities. I just smile patiently.

Conflicts at work can often get very irritating, since the whole system of work is in contrast with the principles of the universe, "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance." Practicing in this kind of environment, one must not only show the greatness of Dafa practitioners and leave a righteous path for the future, but also not alienate one's co-workers. It is like going against the current, with many difficulties involved. I often talked with fellow practitioners, discussing how certain issues should be resolved. Eventually, I came to depend upon other's opinions more and more. Whenever an issue came up, I immediately asked for help in resolving it. Now that I think about it, it was like looking outside for help and avoiding a personal responsibility. If one allows others to resolve problems for him, then he loses the opportunity to improve himself; meanwhile, it is easy to cover up his attachment.

The reason for depending on others is because of laziness and shirking one's own responsibilities, disinclination to think independently, not cultivating diligently, and the notion that others are better, often thinking that others are right, and thus excessively affirming others while neglecting oneself. Since other people simply cannot be you, others cannot possibly know more about a situation than you can. When others give you the solution, then that test cannot be counted; the tribulation is still there. Because that attachment has not been given up, others can only act as a stop gap measure, but cannot serve as a permanent solution. On the contrary, if you yourself think and reach a conclusion or choose an action--even if the conclusion is incorrect, that process is at least part of your own cultivation and searching within yourself. If you expect others to help you up every time you fall down, then when can you learn to walk by yourself? Moreover, I believe that in some cases, the attachment of dependence is the result of not wanting to give up one's selfishness and other attachments. You clearly know the existence of such attachments, and yet you do not want to give them up. Meanwhile you also want to successfully pass the tribulation, and expect others to offer some "smart idea" and solve the problem at hand. This way, not only do you prevent yourself from losing anything, you also solve the problem. This mindset accords with that of the old forces. In Fa-rectification, the old forces do not want to give up their original ways, and they also want to smoothly dodge the Fa-rectification. We need to eliminate these kinds of thoughts.

There are many manifestations of depending on others. Some times, a very small action, or a flash of a thought can carry a strong attachment of dependency. Some time ago, I was chatting on the Internet with a Chinese person living in Canada. She had emigrated from China in 1999. When I found out that she had immigrated to Canada, I thought that she must know the truth about Falun Gong. I thought that the overseas environment was free and there was freedom of press. I thought that overseas practitioners had done a great job and that most people should know the truth. But, as we got to the topic of Falun Gong, I found out that she knew nothing about it. She even had some deep misunderstandings about overseas Dafa practitioners' actions. I suddenly realised that I had depended on overseas practitioners, and had hoped that overseas practitioners had done a comprehensive job of spreading the truth, while lessening my own contributions, and avoiding the duty bestowed upon me.

One time I saw a fellow practitioner who was about the same age as me. She did not go to college as she started working at a young age. Recently, she met a friend who was a university graduate, but she felt that it was difficult to clarify the truth to him as it was very hard for him to accept. The fellow practitioner thought that my educational background was similar to that of her friend's, and that we might be able to find common ground in conversation, thus creating an opportunity to let him know the truth. But when I invited him for a chat, he suddenly had other things to attend to and had no time. At first, we thought that it was the old forces' interference, or that it was our temporary lack of predestined relationship and that caused the event to be unsuccessful. Now we recollect that it was the fellow practitioner's attachment of dependency that caused the old forces to manipulate the situation. It was clearly her opportunity to build up mighty virtue. She gave up as a result of a couple of failures and started looking for external reasons. She started depending upon others instead of reviewing and searching internally for attachments or incorrect actions.

In Fa-rectification, there will be scenarios like this sometimes: new practitioners depend on veteran disciples; not-so-diligent disciples depend on diligent disciples; overseas disciples depend on Mainland Chinese disciples; Mainland Chinese disciples then depend on overseas disciples; and all disciples depend on Master, hoping that Master will complete everything sooner. In cultivation, there is no difference between the elderly and the young, the new and the veteran students, and there are no borders. Each disciple has his bright spots; everything in the Fa-rectification is the responsibility of every disciple. "Suing Jiang", "Stopping the Persecution", etc is not only the responsibility of overseas disciples. Similarly, going to Tiananmen and saving the precious Chinese people is not only the honour of the Mainland Chinese Dafa disciples. [Let us] eliminate the attachment of dependency and let the path we walk be steadier and more righteous.

The above is my personal understanding. Please point out if there is anything inappropriate.