Eliminating Selfishness Through Solid Cultivation

(Minghui.org) I had a dream about two years ago, in which a fellow practitioner told me that every Falun Dafa practitioner needed to go watch a movie and had a designated seat in the theater. After the movie started, I entered the scene and played a role in the movie.

The story happened on a beach with white sand. A tall hotel was behind us. The sky suddenly changed color. The sea water turned black and got terribly turbulent. The sea level rose quickly, and huge waves approached the beach. Many of us started running to the upper floors of the hotel. The black water rose quickly right behind us. Many people were washed away. Lifeless bodies floated densely on the sea under the dark sky.

By the time I ran to the top of the hotel, the black water had reached my knees. Only one other person was with me. We found a small, tall platform behind us, but the ladder was so small that only one person could use it. I told the other person without hesitation, “Go! I’ll support you.” As soon as I said these words, the sky turned bright. The sea calmed down, and the sea turned blue again.

The most amazing thing happened. The dead people came back to life and walked toward the beach, as if nothing had happened. The only difference was that everything became more clear, like the same picture had been painted brighter, shinier, and more lively.

After waking up, I felt I had experienced the power of Falun Dafa and profound compassion. The Fa-rectification happened within a fraction of a second in my dream. I was greatly shaken when so many eliminated people were revived with Master’s grace. I saw Master’s teaching in action: I can save my sentient beings only if I can become altruistic. My understanding was simple at that time. I thought being altruistic meant giving the chance to live to others at the critical moment. It was etched in my memory.

As I cultivated further and faced more stubborn obstacles, I gradually learned that the realm of altruism means more than making the critical choice at a life-and-death moment. A cultivator needs to let go of selfishness in many small incidents in his everyday life. Some are obvious. Some are subtle, found in the trivial things of life. It manifests in various forms and dimensions.

I found my selfishness in different facets of my life. I found it during discussions with fellow practitioners when I argued for my opinions and understandings. During tribulations, I found it when I tried to get through them easily. At home, I found it when I got angry and disappointed with my grandson. I also found it when I wanted to stick to my habits and my ways of living instead of making adhering to Dafa the priority. There are many other examples. I simply took these things for granted and hadn’t realized them in the past. Now that I measure these issues with the principles of the Fa, I found that all these behaviors originated from my selfishness.

As I dug deeper, I found that selfishness was the starting point of all human notions and thoughts, which aim to make ourselves live better. It’s sad for humans to be manipulated by selfishness and unknowingly accumulate karma. Selfishness seems to be a hard shell, sealing us tightly inside.

I finally realized why it had been so hard for me to eliminate some fundamental attachments. My cultivation had entered a stalemate. On one hand, I wished to get rid of degenerated material and improve my realm, but on the other hand, my notions, driven by various attachments and desires, refused to give up. I had been pulled down by human notions countless times over the years. I got up and restarted. I have doubted my inborn quality as a cultivator countless times, but eventually decided to continue because of my faith in Master and Dafa.

I have realized that it’s a human instinct to be selfish. I’m not fighting any particular attachment, but fighting a human instinct. It’s not bragging to endure physical and emotional suffering, to summon the courage and willpower to improve oneself solidly, and to truly put it in concrete action in every trivial thing in life. I have been stuck in the most essential bottleneck of solid cultivation and failed to put it into concrete action. It’s a process of changing human notions. My strong attachment to comfort and my fear of suffering have pulled me down and made every step incredibly hard. Behind these attachments were my selfishness.

It dawned on me that the pain of taking a step forward actually comes from “selfishness,” which could be considered a living entity or material substance. I haven’t genuinely cultivated myself strictly in recent years. My everyday life has been filled with big and small human notions wrapped up in selfishness. My attachment to comfort has been breeding these notions. As soon as I tried to eliminate them, the degenerated material would start to torture my mind wildly and uncontrollably, making me go through the motions without any persistence or firmness.

I have clearly experienced how the demons and degenerated material have attempted to block my cultivation. I have been defeated many times. I was confused for a long time and didn’t know why I couldn’t decisively choose the divine thought instead of the human one, and why my righteous thoughts couldn’t take control.

It was because I hadn’t made any solid improvement. The only way to change one’s behavior is to truly change one’s heart. I had failed to understand the nature of solid cultivation and had tried to make quick progress by relying on external motivators. In other words, I had tried to upgrade myself by suffering less and paying back less.

After the persecution was launched in July 1999, I faced storms of extreme pressure. My workplace publicly announced that I was fired from my position in the government office. My family threatened to cut their ties with me. I felt that these tribulations were enormous.

I now know that these tribulations not only came from external suppression by the regime, but also came from karma I carried as a cultivator. The karma, built up life after life, and the restriction of the human shell had tied me up like thick ropes. While tribulations from external sources tested me on my steadfastness, the test of whether I could break through my karma was the essential nature of cultivation. Changing one’s heart doesn’t happen instantly. It’s a lengthy process, because selfishness itself comes all the way from a fairly high dimension. Many tribulations during one’s cultivation don’t show in this physical world, but exist in every thought and every choice we make.

Recounting the dream I mentioned earlier, I realized that Master had really hinted to me to eliminate selfishness through solid cultivation. It takes breaking out of the shell of selfishness to reach the realm of altruism at critical moments. It’s the only way to save sentient beings and to live up to Master’s compassionate salvation.

I gradually learned how to cultivate myself solidly by improving my understanding. I’m determined to grow stronger and more steadfast in my cultivation despite the obstacles. In the meantime, I’ve started to experience the tranquility and freedom of cutting off various attachments and desires. It’s so important to keep righteous thoughts and make every choice well. To meet the standard of solid cultivation, one has to keep one’s heart and thoughts righteous and have righteous actions.

The above is my limited understanding. Please feel free to point out anything inappropriate.