Cultivating Away the Heart of "Validating Myself"

Before I started to practise Falun Dafa, I used to enjoy showing off. Prior to July 20, 1999, I made efforts to get rid of this attachment through cultivation. However, since the persecution started, when I need to do things to help stop the persecution and expose the lies, my show off mentality is still exposed now and then.

On the path of validating the Fa, each practitioner is using his or her best skills to clarify the truth about Falun Dafa to the world's people. I also have been trying all types of methods such as burning CDs, making copies of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, directly explaining the facts to family members and friends, writing articles, etc.

Sometimes, after I succeeded in persuading several people to withdraw from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), in my heart I started to feel very pleased with myself thinking, "Look at me, I am so capable; several more people have withdrawn from the CCP because of me." Sometimes, when I made several copies of the Nine Commentaries or burned several CDs, I started to feel complacent again. Sometimes I even tried to show off to fellow practitioners in a hidden way or had the intention to validate myself when I was sharing cultivation experiences with others. In my heart, I secretly thought, "Look at me. I did so much more and so much better than you!" When talking about it, I also showed a sense of pride.

Sometimes when my article was published, my attachment to showing off also manifested. I always wanted to tell fellow practitioners near me, "Look, another of my articles has been published." Once I showed a fellow practitioner a published article of mine. He told me that he had already read it, and he also advised me to spend more time studying the Falun Gong teachings and to study with a calm heart. I noticed that when I heard his words, I felt somewhat disappointed. In fact I had been waiting to hear some words of praise from him! This exposed my show off mentality and the impure heart of wanting to validate myself.

In "Teaching the Fa at the Meeting with Asia-Pacific Students", Teacher said,

"There's something you must pay attention to: you are validating the Fa, not validating yourselves. A Dafa disciple's responsibility is to validate the Fa. Validating the Fa is cultivation, and what you remove in the cultivation process is none other than the attachment to self; you can't, instead, go and exacerbate the problem of validating oneself, even if you do it unwittingly. When you're validating the Fa and cultivating, that is a process of removing self, and only when you do that are you really validating yourself. That's because ultimately you have to let go of all your human things, and only after you've let go of all your human attachments can you step out from the throngs of everyday people."

Actually, all that I have has been given by Teacher when he saw my heart for validating the Fa, and he opened up my stores of wisdom. What do I have to show off? Each practitioner is a particle of Dafa. We are all validating the practice and must not have any attachment to ourselves or have an attachment to showing ourselves off. Otherwise, our actions can interfere with Fa rectification.

If there are errors in my understanding, please point them out to me with compassion.