Eliminating the Attachment to Vanity

In "Teaching the Fa at the Fa Conference in Australia," dated May 2-3, 1999, a disciple asked Teacher: "Can you tell us the root cause of our vanity?"

Teacher said:
"Emotion. You like it when other people say that you're good. You like it when other people praise and flatter you. You like it when other people respect you. And you are afraid of anything that damages your image. All of which is developing the mentality that is vanity. It's an attachment. The human desire to save face is very strong. In fact, when you set your mind at ease and don't carry so much baggage, you will cultivate faster."

I previously was extremely attached to vanity. This vanity hindered me from connecting with the Dafa of the universe. I had an erroneous understanding of the Fa because of this attachment.

Teacher said in Zhuan Falun:
"You should always be benevolent and kind to others, and consider others when doing anything. Whenever you encounter a problem, you should first consider
whether others can put up with this matter or if it will hurt anyone."

How did I misinterpret this teaching? Whatever you do, I believed, you should not cause other people to be unhappy. You have to let other people understand you and agree with you. This was my vanity trying to find support from the Fa. You can imagine what problems such a egregious interpretation created. In my everyday life and my work environment, I had been fearing this and that. I made great efforts in contemplating how other people might think, and was always watching other people's expressions, lest I would offend them or cause them to disregard me. When I saw some minor shortcomings of a fellow practitioner, I was able to raise the issue directly with the practitioner. But if the fellow practitioner was unable to see their own shortcomings, or if the practitioner's attachment was large and if the practitioner wanted to hide the attachment, then I would not dare to raise the issue, fearing that I would cause him or her to lose face. When there were frictions amongst practitioners, I dared not face the situation or communicate with practitioners in a frank manner. Also, sometimes my righteous thoughts were not steadfast and I was very easily swayed by others. At times, I was even swayed by non-practitioners. It appeared that I was actively looking inward, while in reality I was only motivated by other people. Once there was an argument I would become indecisive, sometimes even depressed. In addition, my cultivation of Dafa was more or less motivated by the vanity of "wanting to cultivate to a high level" rather than truly purifying myself to assimilate to Dafa. I had so many attachments, which always made me feel very heavy in my heart. I was not frank or optimistic. I was not in a carefree and a happy state. When I did the sitting meditation or when I was sending forth righteous thoughts, I could not enter a tranquil state.

Teacher said in "Teaching the Fa at the 2004 International Fa Conference in New York:"
"We can't be discouraged or demoralized because of those people. How could we be affected by and thus go along with whatever some people might say? We are here to change people, not to be changed by them."

For me, only when I completely let go of my vanity, will I not be swayed by non-practitioners. I know that I should steadfastly do everything that I am supposed to do. Even non-practitioners recognize this idea as seen in the common phrase: "When you have not done anything bad, you are not afraid of having ghosts pounding on your door." All I needed to do was to be upright and frank, and to keep my righteous thoughts.
In the past I did not have any deep understanding of what is "Truthfulness." It appeared that I was merely focused on "not telling a lie." Today, I have understood a little more on "Truthfulness." As a Dafa practitioner, what we pursue is "Truthfulness" and not a disingenuous version of ourselves. We should continuously be enlightened to the Truth of the universe and use the Fa as our guiding principle. We should be honest, genuine, frank and truthful to other people. We should not deceive ourselves or allow ourselves to be swayed by others. Eventually, we should return to our true selves.