Human Notions Behind Explaining Oneself

During a recent group discussion, Practitioner A talked about some of his experiences overcoming xinxing tests. A few days ago, he had a long discussion with the local coordinator. During the discussion, the coordinator mentioned me, along with several other practitioners, saying that I interfered with an experience-sharing conference last year.

Hearing these words, I was undisturbed, since it was an opportunity for me to look within and improve my xinxing (heart and mind nature, character). In response to Practitioner A, I said, “Right now it is the Fa-rectification period and Dafa that have higher requirements for us. No matter what others say about us—even if it was not true, we should be undisturbed. There is no need to defend ourselves by giving explanations.” With those words, I saw several practitioners in the room agree with me by nodding. I felt very good, thinking my xinxing had improved and I had met the requirements of the Fa. At that time, Practitioner B, another coordinator, arrived. I thought that since she did not know the details of what we were discussing, I needed to give her an explanation to avoid misunderstandings. So I briefly said, “The Fa conference last year was scheduled at 1 pm. I did not receive notice until 12:30pm, saying that the location would be in use by some other practitioners several days later, and I was asked to hold the Fa conference somewhere else. However, many practitioners already arrived and it was difficult to find an alternative venue somewhere else. I had no choice but to hold the Fa conference as originally planned.”

Surprisingly, Practitioner C’s face turned reddish upon hearing my words, “What was that? We talked about looking within unconditionally and not giving explanations about one’s actions when encountering specific situations. Didn’t you just explain your actions?”

I was embarrassed, as if someone had slapped me in the face: yes, wasn’t this giving an explanation? I said that I remained undisturbed, but I didn’t act that way. What kind of human notions caused me to explain myself?”

In “Fa Teaching Given in Manhattan,” Master said, “Some people are always stressing that they’re right, but even if you are right, even if you’re not wrong, so what? Have you improved on the basis of the Fa? The very act of using human thinking to stress who’s right and who’s wrong is in itself wrong. That’s because you are then using the logic of ordinary people to evaluate yourself, and using that logic to make demands on others. As gods see it, for a cultivator to be right or wrong in the human world is not important in the least, whereas eliminating the attachments that come from human thinking is important, and it is precisely your managing to eliminate those attachments rooted in your human thinking as you cultivate that counts as important. (Applause) If you can manage to handle things calmly no matter how wronged you may feel, if you can remain unmoved and not try to come up with some kind of excuse for yourself, then with many things you won’t even need to argue. That’s because on your path of cultivation there is nothing that is by chance. So, when you get into a heated exchange and it stirs things up in you, or you get into a conflict over something that concerns your vital interests, perhaps the factors behind it were put there by Master. Maybe you only get upset when it’s a case of someone saying something that really provokes you or hits a sore spot. And maybe the person really did treat you wrongfully. But, those words weren’t necessarily said by that person. Perhaps they were said by me.”

Thinking about these words from Master, I suddenly had new understandings. Was I able to do well when other practitioners misunderstood me? Was I able to remain undisturbed? Was I using human notions to judge others and require things of others? Didn’t the fact that I felt the need to explain myself to Practitioner B mean I was moved? Wasn’t my explanation to validate myself? Wasn’t there an attachment in me that was not willing to let others to criticize me (in other words, an attachment of fame)? All these are related to selfishness. Although I did not explain myself to the head coordinator, I still had human notions—they were just temporarily suppressed and then surfaced later when there was an opportunity. Wasn’t this a good opportunity to remove them?

In fact, since that Fa conference, I had heard some negative comments. I was unhappy but I soon suppressed the feeling since I thought it was a good opportunity for me to look within and improve. Since then, I have been looking within for what attachments I had, but I had failed to find this one even after 10 months had passed. The reason was that in 2006 I was persecuted when this attachment was severe. Upon discovering it, I soon left the evil den with Master’s help. Since then, I thought the attachment was gone and no longer counted it when looking within. Now it seems I was wrong and an attachment may need to be eliminated several times before it is completely eradicated. We cannot just rest on our laurels, since our attachments will continue to be uncovered until Fa-rectification is over.

After realizing this, I shared these understandings with fellow practitioners and exposed my attachments. Then I felt a large amount of degenerate substance that had accumulated in my dimension for a long time had disappeared. I felt things were clearer and my body expanded. I knew Master was using Practitioner C’s words to remind me to look within and helping me remove this substance. Thank you, Master.