Getting Rid of the Attachment to Emotion and Sentimentality

Honourable Master, fellow practitioners,

I’m happy to be here today and share with You my experiences with practising. The fact that I’m standing here also means for me that I overcame my fear. The fear prevented me from presenting my experience during the Czech-Slovakian Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference last year.

To make it even harder for me, I chose the topic of removing attachment to emotion, relationship and sentiment.

I’m 25 and I was raised up in a Christian family. On the outside we appeared as an orderly and faithful family. Yes, perhaps. But, if I look back… this was just something on the surface. In fact it was an artificially maintained relationship. Mother, the authority, carrying everyone through their tears and emotional extortion, the father weaker, who preferred to go to the pub and drink. The mother, demanding love and demonstrating love, the father who was unable to show any feeling. Fortunately, it wasn’t always so absolute. I always take it as normal, that it’s just how it is in every family and I didn’t think about it further. But I was worried and because of this I was unable to establish balanced emotional relationship with them; she was showing the too much affection and he was showing nothing in return.

A few years ago I learnt from a foreign person, that my parents adopted me. That day was the breaking point in my life.

On one hand I didn’t want to hurt my parents, who raised me, for this I was grateful to them; on the other I hated them because they had not told me and I had to hear it from someone else. I felt hatred towards my biological parents, yet I could also understand them; I was telling myself that they probably fell into a difficult situation in which they were unable to raise a child. So I kept silent.

From that day on everything changed. I felt like living a double life, as if I were a shell with two souls. On one hand one of my selves wanted to run away and keep out of the whole world, on the other my second self sought out opportunities to be the centre of attention. One half of me attended church and wanted to be good Christian, whilst my other half mingled with other youths and started to smoke, drink alcohol a hang out with boys to “fit in”.

The result was my frequent changing of partners, my inability to stay with one partner for a period of time and to be able to establish a long-term emotional relationship. I hurt and left others, because I didn’t want to be hurt and left myself.

Several times I was down at heel because of those emotions and relationships, but I wasn’t able to touch my life due to my fear of pain.

After my last relationship I was again at the bottom, because I thought that this one was for real and would be long-term. At that point I met my actual boyfriend and future husband, also a Falun Dafa practitioner. It was him who brought me to Falun Dafa.

At the beginning I didn’t take our relationship seriously. I was afraid that it would end soon as the others.

He taught me Falun Dafa exercises. I take it only as exercises and didn’t mind the improving of character.

My first test in cultivation involved my lust towards another man, a test I failed to pass. I only realised it was a test in my cultivation after a few weeks, while recalling my past and thinking about my future life.

I encountered similar tests several times. I acquainted with a man or met a former boyfriend who would flatter me or recall our relationship. It always helped me to pass through such tests by coming to the realisation that I’m not the same as they and that I have the great fortune of been a Falun Dafa practitioner.

In fact I go through test in regards of emotions and sentimentality again and again. I feel I still have a lot of attachments in this field and always need to improve.

My last test involving my emotions and lust was very hard. It was during a time when I wasn’t so much with my boyfriend and I cooperated with another practitioner on a project. He was always very likable to me and suddenly I had a feeling that I had fallen in love with him. For a few days I was in state where I was unable to think about anything else, unable to do the exercises, send forth righteous thoughts or study the Fa. Then I started to think about why it happened to me as a practitioner. Finally I started to think like a practitioner and came to see that this was a test, similar to the one I didn’t pass at the beginning of my cultivation. It helped me to overcome that period.

There were other tests with emotions in the field I described at the beginning of my paper. After I learnt about my adoption, I tried to find my biological parents.

About a year ago I learnt they are an elderly couple living in the countryside who already had two old children when I was born. I wanted to know them. Only because of Falun Dafa did I realise that this was another of my attachments. I enlightened to the fact that everything happens for a reason, as with my adoption and so on these grounds my adoption is also part of my life's arrangements.

My relationship with my parents also changed, it improved. It can be said, that everything improved. My father is able to say what he feels, although it’s still hard for him and my mother isn’t as hysterical and emotion demanding as before. This isn't because they changed, rather it was the changes in myself, only then could I change what was happening around me.

Recently Ive been going through a complicated period. I have been spending a lot more time with ordinary people preparing for the wedding and moving to a new apartment. I don’t have as much time for Falun Dafa as I want. Although it’s a hectic period, full of tests and opportunities to improve our character and also opportunity to clarify the truth on places like a bank, insurance company, and so on, where it would be difficult to otherwise go and let those people learn the facts.

It’s still hard for me to find the line between doing things accordingly to the principles taught in Falun Gong and doing thongs because of my attachments.

Our Teacher says:

I’ll tell you a truth: the whole process of cultivation is a process of constantly getting rid of human attachments.” … ( Zhuan Falun, The First Talk, Truly Guiding People Up to High Levels)

… "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. Everything has its cause. Why can human beings be human? It’s exactly because humans have emotion. People just live for emotion. The affection among family members, the love between a man and woman, love for parents, feelings, friendships, doing things for friendship’s sake—no matter where you go you can’t get out of emotion. You want to do something, you don’t want to do something, you’re happy, you’re unhappy, you love something, you hate something—everything in society comes completely from emotion. If you don’t sever emotion, you won’t be able to cultivate. But if you do break out of emotion, nobody can affect you, and ordinary attachments won’t be able to sway you. What replaces it is compassion, which is more noble. Of course, it’s not easy to sever it all at once. Cultivation is a long process, it’s a gradual process to get rid of attachments. But you really have to be disciplined.” (Zhuan Falun, The Fourth Talk, Improving Character)

I understood that only sound Fa study and treating oneself as cultivator of Falun Dafa at all times and under all conditions can help me to overcome test of emotions and sentiment and getting rid of those attachments bit by bit.

Practising Falun Dafa has changed us all, including me, for the better. I don’t want to look back on what I was like before, how I behaved and what I was doing. It’s the past, after which I have drawn a thick line. I managed it only thanks to Falun Dafa.

Thank you Master, thank You all.