Human Attachments Aren't Always Difficult to Eliminate

I believe we have all felt this way before: What people say or do hurts us because of our human attachments. When our human attachments surface, we want to eliminate them but find it difficult to do so. In fact, they may not always be difficult to eliminate.

I know a practitioner named Amy. She worked on producing Falun Gong truth-clarification materials for a while but then she gave it up all together. She just went on with her own life. A fellow practitioner contacted me for help. She said, "Amy decided that she cannot do it any more. We should ask her to return the computer so we can give it to another practitioner. After all, the computer was paid for by fellow practitioners and does not belong to Amy."

This was a challenge to me. I was very attached to my good image and found it difficult to put anyone in an embarrassing situation. It would be impossible for me to tell Amy to return the computer if she did not want to produce the materials any longer. In fact, I wouldn't even dream of saying things like this to her. Fellow practitioners prompted me a few times but I wasn't able to make myself do it. After a while, Amy's cultivation state deteriorated. I thought, "I must not allow Amy to go on like this. I must be responsible to the Fa, to fellow practitioners and to sentient beings!" After I enlightened to this, I forewent all the sentimentality and I called on Amy for the computer.

I learned a hard lesson about the problems surrounding truth-clarification material sites. Two years ago, I learned that the police had information about two fellow practitioners working on producing truth-clarification materials but I couldn't bring myself to ask them to move. It turned out that the police ransacked their homes and arrested them both. One of them was sentenced to five years in prison and the other succumbed to the torture during custody and renounced Falun Gong. That was the most painful period of my cultivation practice. I blamed and hated myself. I cried until my tears ran dry. I asked myself, "Why didn't you ask them to move? If you had asked them to move, they wouldn't have been arrested." I had no idea what stopped me from asking them to move, but I swore to identify the root cause. I was unable to identify the root cause then because I had not transcended my cultivation level at that time; however, I was determined to identify the root cause. It was not until a year later that I realized the root cause was that I didn't have any sense of responsibility. I lacked the sense of responsibility for fellow practitioners.

From this painful experience and from the many other cases of fellow practitioners suffering from cruel torture and losing their lives, I finally realised that we must have a sense of responsibility to the Fa, to fellow practitioners and to sentient beings at all times. By doing so, we will be able to walk steadily on our cultivation path, do the three things well and save sentient beings.

I have learned a lot about myself in this regard. Perhaps there are many fellow practitioners out there that share the same attachment as I do. Sometimes I feel like giving up on a person who is not receptive to the truth about Falun Gong. But when I think, "I must save you, otherwise you will be ruined," the man suddenly accepts the truth and is saved. When I feel people hurting my feelings and I think I must not cause any damage to the Fa, then suddenly everything turns out to be fine. Sometimes I feel like calling a fellow practitioner on the telephone for the convenience of communication, but I dismiss the idea because I remember I must not bring her any trouble and I must be responsible to fellow practitioners.

I bring up these examples to illustrate one thing: No matter how complicated things may appear or how difficult we may think it is for us to eliminate our human attachments, we should remember to be responsible to the Fa, to fellow practitioners and to sentient beings. Then we will find all these human attachments suddenly disappearing and things becoming very simple.

Teacher said,

"Some people also know that it is not good, but they just cannot quit. In fact, let me tell you that they do not have correct thoughts to guide themselves, and it will not be easy for them to quit that way." ("The Issue of Eating Meat" in Lecture Seven of Zhuan Falun)

I find it difficult to eliminate human attachments because I don't have correct thoughts to guide myself. In other words, I am stuck at the present level of cultivation. Of course, that would make it difficult to eliminate my human attachments.

Human attachments can only manipulate people of low levels. When we have the correct thoughts of being responsible to the Fa, to fellow practitioners and to sentient beings, we are placing ourselves on a high level. Naturally those low-level human attachments will disappear. Compassion, rationality and wisdom will replace those low-level human attachments.