Make Sure to Look Inside for Underlying Attachments

I am a university student and I started to practice Falun Dafa when I was young. For this reason I have felt fortunate all my life, but the path of Fa rectification cultivation has been quite tough, and I have not been very diligent. However, my firm belief in Dafa has never wavered.

Due to the busy environment at school, I didn't do the three things (study the Fa [the teachings of Falun Dafa], send forth righteous thoughts and clarify the truth about Falun Dafa and about the persecution to the world's people) well. Now we are on winter vacation and I have a good environment for Fa study and cultivation at home. I decided to use this holiday time to make up for not doing well the three things. Because my home is used to produce truth-clarification materials and I understand more about computers, I became the main force behind the production of truth-clarification materials. I also tried my best to do what I should do, including making truth-clarification materials, studying the Fa, practicing the exercises, sending forth righteous thoughts, and leaving some time to do other things. I deeply experienced that the time for Fa rectification was precious and intense. I also saw the big gap between me and the more diligent practitioners, and I decided to catch up.

At the beginning, I indeed had more time to study the Fa and practice the exercises compared to the time at school, and I also made more truth-clarification materials, but after some time, I indeed felt some "pressure" and also felt that there wasn't enough time and that I did not have enough energy. In the beginning, I thought that, since I did many things and also studied the Fa a lot, I was therefore diligent. But later I felt that I was not in a right state: I often thought that I should do this and do that, about how I could better arrange my time, etc. After a long time, my mental state was chaotic. Though I saw there were many things to do, I didn't know what to do. When I studied the Fa, sometimes my thoughts were not calm and I often tried to figure something out as I studied. I could not calm down when I practiced the exercises, and I felt tired and sleepy when I sent forth righteous thoughts. I could not concentrate when I made truth-clarification materials. After I studied the Fa or made materials for a long time, I wanted to play or relax and treated it as finishing some task. I also realized that maybe I had some problem in some aspect and I might have some attachments, but then I thought, "Wasn't I striving forward diligently?" I thought about what I should do every day and how busy I was and that I didn't waste time!

A few days passed and I felt my state was still not right and I was worried. I realized that I must have some attachments that were not easy to perceive. At this time I remembered that Master told us that, whatever happens, we need to look inside. I told myself I should calm down and look inside myself. I tried to examine what I did during the past few days compared with the day the holiday started, and what had changed. In this way I finally discovered my deeply hidden attachments: attachment to time-- worrying about not having enough time and having an attachment to achieving quick results; attachment to ego--showing myself off, worrying about being left behind, eager to do very well; and subtle jealousy-- when I saw practitioners do well, I didn't feel happy and instead wondered why I could not do as well. Though it seemed that I was looking for my limitations, there was subtle jealousy; attachment to doing things-- when I was busy with doing things, especially when I did the same thing every day, I could easily develop an attachment to doing things, and I would do things for the sake of doing things, but forget the purpose. Of course, I also had other attachments, such as the attachment of showing-off, attachment of fear, etc.

Through looking inside, I found that I still had many attachments, but these attachments were not easily perceived. I also became aware that, when we are busy with the work to validate Dafa; when we feel that our attachments have been mostly removed; when we feel that we have been relatively diligent, etc., we surely should not forget to cultivate ourselves at all times and not forget to look inside, because there are many attachments and human thoughts that are not easily perceived. Therefore, we should evaluate our thoughts with Dafa because we already know from Master's Fa teaching that as long as we haven't achieved consummation, we still have human thoughts. And we should definitely pay attention to discarding the attachments and human thoughts that are not easily perceived!