Detecting the Showoff Mentality

(Minghui.org) As soon as the Mid-autumn Festival passed this year, I went online to search for the greeting card I had submitted to the Minghui website, but I couldn't find it. Not only that, I couldn't find any greeting cards that I had submitted during the past year. After spending a lot of time searching, I still couldn't find them.

I was confused--why would that be? I was pretty sure I had seen the confirmation page after I submitted it. Why was it not there?

Then it hit me: What was I doing? Why did I need to see if it was published or not? What kind of attachment did I have? I had to look within.

In the past 10 days, I have found my deep-rooted attachments: failing to be truthful and the mentality of showing off.

I love to cook and was addicted to taking pictures of my dishes and posting them on the Internet, seeking praise from friends and coworkers. In the past two days, I'd had several accidents: hot oil burned my arm; my spatula fell out of my kitchen window; I dropped my soy sauce bottle; the salt jar was smashed; and my camera broke. I realized how dangerous my showoff mentality was, but I didn't look inside further, nor did I eliminate the attachment. It wasn't until the greeting card incident that I started examining myself.

In the past, as soon as I submitted an article or a greeting card, I would go online and look for it the very next day, hoping it would then be published in the Minghui Weeklyso that I could look good in front of other practitioners. It was an awful showoff mentality that was hidden behind the attachment to fame and difficult to detect.

If my greeting card was published on Minghui, I would compare mine with others' in my area and perceive that mine was better. When one of my articles was published in Minghui Weekly and fellow practitioners praised me, I would feel complacent. When a practitioner pointed out that one of my articles had untruthful information in it, I fought right back: “What is untruthful? When a practitioner was persecuted, where did you hide? Now I have exposed the persecution, and you are accusing me for being untruthful.”

Seeing that I failed to enlighten, Master gave me another hint with the greeting cards, helping me remove my attachments and improve quickly. I only completed middle school, so the reason that my articles were published was because of the wisdom given by Master. My ability to design greeting cards was given by Master. My ability to persuade people to quit the Communist Party and its affiliated organizations through face-to-face truth-clarification was also arranged by Master. The only thing I did was act as a vessel. What do I possess to show off with?

There are so many practitioners who have powers, but they keep them under control very well. I, on the other hand, like to brag about such tiny achievements. It is because I did not realize the seriousness of my showoff mentality.

Master said:

“Therefore, no matter how many supernormal abilities you have developed, how great they are, or how powerful your divine power is, you must conduct yourself well. Recently, we had someone sitting here who could disappear at one moment and reappear the next. It is just like that. Even greater supernatural powers will be developed. What will you do?” (Lecture Six in Zhuan Falun)

“If you put Dafa in a secondary place and put your supernatural powers in the primary place, or as an enlightened person you believe that what you understand one way or another is correct, or if you even regard yourself as being great and beyond Dafa, I would say that you have already started to stumble. It would be dangerous and you would become ever worse. At that time, you would really be in trouble, and your cultivation would end up in vain. If things are not done right, you will stumble and fail in your cultivation.” (Lecture Six in Zhuan Falun)

In my greeting cards, I always write, “I will make sure to do the three things well, study the Fa more and save more people.” Have I really been able to do this? How can I promise Master something but fail time after time? Failing to fulfill my vows, am I deceiving Master or deceiving myself?

When it comes to clarifying the truth, I sometimes boast or exaggerate. I am promoting the evil party culture and deceiving people rather than acting like a practitioner to save people. It takes sincerity and compassion to save people, not distortion and inflation. When Master had that fellow practitioner point out the untruthful information in my article, instead of looking within, I blamed that practitioner. Now I am really ashamed of myself.

I went to see a relative who is also a practitioner. His seven-year-old son had a simple greeting card in childish handwriting on his desk, “Master, Happy Festival! Master has been working hard! I am a young Dafa disciple.” I was moved to tears.

There was no Internet in his home, but the young practitioner still made a greeting card for Master with a pure heart. Even though his characters were barely the same size, that had nothing to do with his sincerity. My card was pretty, but my heart was not pure.

I felt so ashamed. I'm sorry to have Master worry about this poor disciple.