Recognizing My Fundamental Attachments

(Minghui.org) Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!

I began practicing Falun Dafa more than 26 years ago. Although it seems like a very long time it flew by in the blink of an eye. I attained the Fa with my friend when we were passing by Castro Street to check out the East West Bookshop in Mountain View. We just walked in to check it out and we noticed a little flyer on the door saying a Falun Dafa workshop was just about to start in a few minutes—had it been even a few minutes later we probably wouldn’t have waited. We had no idea what Falun Dafa was but we decided to check it out. That was the beginning of my cultivation path.

One of the first things that struck me after I started to understand a little bit about what cultivation was: “Why isn’t everyone practicing this?” I was amazed by the clarity, the simplicity and the goodness emanating from the practice. So many questions I had about science, religion, and philosophy were instantly answered.

I’ve been involved in several projects over the years but the one I spend the most time on has been the media and specifically the English edition of The Epoch Times, which we started brainstorming and kicked off at the end of 2004 with the group study in Santa Clara. The same group study, which continues today after 25 years at the same location—with some small interruptions.

The most amazing experience I had was when I first saw Master at the San Francisco Fa Conference on October 21, 2000. I still remember how the two main coordinators got on the stage and welcomed Master who just walked in, and then many practitioners tried to rush towards the front of the stage.

Usually I’m not able to achieve tranquility in meditation—maybe once or twice for a few seconds and that’s it. But at that time, I felt tranquil the whole time I listened to Master speak—it was like I was experiencing and hearing and seeing everything, but I felt that I was somewhere else in a state of bliss, like I was in a different dimension—it was an amazing experience.

So, even though I was expecting that perhaps Master would come, it was also very unexpected at the same time—almost imagining knowing how great consummation will be, but once you experienced it, it might be completely different or much more amazing, something words cannot describe.

But my sharing today is about my shortcomings that continue to persist in my cultivation, and how I am working to improve them. I’ve practiced for so long and I’ve participated in projects for so long, yet, some attachments and shortcomings and mistakes have been really hard to fix. I’ll share a few of them with you.

The Attachment of Fear

The attachment of fear shows up and it could be something as small as going to the dentist to have a cleaning or when my back pain was so prominent a few years ago that I ended up visiting a chiropractor and an acupuncturist because I couldn’t pass the test of pain. But sometimes my cultivation state is revealed when there’s no time to think.

One example is what happened about 20+ years ago. There was an earthquake in San Jose, a medium earthquake, but big enough to make things rattle, maybe a 5.1 on the Richter Scale. It happened right in the middle of Fa study. Several of us where at the group study in San Jose when the earthquake struck. We all continued to sit in the lotus position and I have no idea what was on everyone’s mind, but some practitioners were starting to send righteous thoughts which at the time was a pretty new thing.

When the shaking got worse, I was the first one to attempt to run away and get out of the house because I had the fear of being trapped inside the house if the earthquake got bigger and things started to fall. When I was halfway out the door the earthquake stopped and then I was kind of embarrassed and walked back to the group and continued sending righteous thoughts.

A second example is much more recent. A few weeks ago I was in Las Vegas because my son went to a dance competition there. We were on the 11th floor of our hotel and we were just about to go down to the lobby when my phone beeped and I heard a voice message saying: “Major earthquake duck and seek cover. Major earthquake, duck and seek cover.”

The fear struck fast because I knew because we were on the 11th floor it was going to be hard to get out of the building quickly. I looked at my phone and it said a 6.0 earthquake struck in Mendocino. Even though I knew Mendocino was pretty far from Las Vegas, and is in Northern California, I still felt scared and shaken. During the next 20 or 30 seconds I felt very uneasy. Then I realized that my hands were shaking a little bit. Of course nothing happened.

This again showed me that the first reaction is important and that I should not worry about these things as a practitioner. It also reminded me how easy it is to talk sometimes or to be brave during good times, but how much more difficult this is during hard times, or dangerous times or when the evil is acting out.

The process of cultivation is natural, although I also need to work at it, to improve, to raise my xinxing and in particular to have forbearance. I also ask myself, why do I have fear? Isn’t my path arranged by Master and I just have to follow it? What shortcomings do I have that make these attachments surface and be persistent? Is it selfishness, or worry about my wellbeing instead of letting go in a dignified way? Or something else? The answer is a continuous search.

Sickness Tribulation

Another test as I mentioned before is my back pain. In the last few years at least three times my back hurt so badly that I could only walk for a few seconds and I was in a lot of pain. When I had to take a shower, I had to sit down in the shower. I could not stand up. This went on for weeks. Even though I know in my mind that this is to eliminate karma and there are reasons why it happened and I even figured out some of them: such as spending too much time looking at the computer or the phone about things that were not related to work or not relevant or not important or not appropriate. Even though I knew all of that, I just had a very hard time dealing with it. I asked myself how do I improve in this regard, how do I increase by forbearance?

Soon after I wrote this sharing, I came across a Q&A from the March 1999 “Teachings at the Conference in the Eastern U.S.” in New York which matched so well what I have been going through and helped me raise my understanding.

“Student: I’m from Europe. There’s an ordeal that frequently makes walking very difficult for me. Am I doing something wrong?

Master: Many Westerners enjoy jogging or going to the gym. Some people enjoy walking, and think that doing that can make them healthy. Are those things effective? They can, with the surface body, play a role in defending against minor and not-so-serious ailments. To put it more plainly and accurately, this kind of defense function serves to keep karma from returning to the surface. It makes karma stay over there. It can temporarily fend off illness-karma from reaching the surface body. That’s the type of defense function we mean. For cultivators, on the other hand, we probably need to make all of the illness karma you have accumulated surface—to push all of it out—and truly make you healthy on a fundamental level, make you free of karma, and make you clean and pure. So these [two approaches] might be in conflict. Perhaps it’s for this reason that we don’t tell you to do that. Cultivation is the only means for a being to become truly healthy. So if you want to achieve health through walking, frankly speaking, this says that you still don’t firmly believe in Dafa. You think that Dafa isn’t able to make you attain a healthy body like walking does. Or, perhaps you believe that you haven’t thought about it that deeply and that you just go for walks out of habit. Then perhaps this habit of yours has unwittingly become an attachment, and you need to eliminate that attachment. You might have treated the elimination of that attachment of yours as an ordeal or an obstacle. So, why can’t you look at it from another perspective and see whether it’s to eliminate some of your attachments? Wouldn’t it be better to spend the time you use jogging in the morning or evening doing the exercises instead? I think that when you encounter problems, if you can think about what’s wrong on your part, then you can improve the fastest. When you encounter difficulties, examine yourself, and you might find the problem.”

Maybe for some practitioners its much easier to understand these hints, but for me it has been gradual. For example: I exercise and bike for various reasons such as staying in shape, losing weight, enjoying being outside rather than being stuck in a car, etc.

As practitioners we need to be good people in society, to play a role where ordinary people appreciate and look up to us, but the reason why they admire us is not for us to enjoy or to be attached to it, but for them to have a good impression of us and of Dafa, and to potentially look into it or at least have good thoughts about Dafa that can be crucial for their future. As long as we do things for others with the purpose of saving them, my understanding is that it isn’t wrong to want to look good to ordinary people.

But now I realize how this can be a fundamental attachment that I need to get rid of without going to an extreme—it is the attachment of wanting to be in good shape, of looking good or feeling good through ordinary exercise instead of Dafa exercises.

We’ve been reading Master’s lecture from 2000 Towards Consummation at the EET office every day before we readZhuan Falun. Every time I read this lecture, I’m amazed. Master tells us everything so clearly, yet we still struggle to understand because of our attachments.

Ordinary people live to fulfill their dreams, and they search very hard for happiness. Their entire lives are dedicated enjoyment of more and more things with no end in sight. Of course, they aren’t happy, and what they think is happiness is actually reinforcing their attachments. As practitioners, since we live in this world, of course we also still have some attachments and desires to fulfill, otherwise we could not stay here. But in my understanding the key is to realize that we are here to eliminate attachments, to give them up, not to strengthen or reinforce them.

This brings me to the third shortcoming that I’d like to share about.

Arguing and Trying to Prove That I Am Right

I feel like I’m constantly failing tests when it comes to having arguments with other practitioners and especially with my wife who is also a practitioner. My character, or better said, notions, are selfish and I want to have things my way most of the time. I feel Master has helped me to gradually eliminate this attachment and to eliminate this bad character trait when my wife points out to me things or does things so I can realize it.

Yet while I do realize it, it’s still very hard to avoid getting into arguments. It is the kind of thing where one says one and the other says two and they both feel so attached to their opinion that reason doesn’t seem to matter anymore, and even though we both know and understand the principles, we are not always able to succeed in breaking through these conflicts.

My wife is a very nice person—very easy going, accommodating and flexible. The only time she isn’t reasonable is when my attachments are showing and they need to be removed. But, of course, most times I don’t realize it, otherwise the test would not count, right? However, seeing how conflicts help me remove attachments or at least thinking about them and realizing them and trying to remove them is what I consider an improvement in the last few years. I’ve gradually been able to look at conflicts and see them in a way that helps me improve rather than being detrimental. Of course, this is easy to say.

I think the husband and wife relationship is complicated and it really is meant to help get rid of the attachments and help improve each other but not on a superficial level or on a human level where people just want to hear good and pleasing things but to improve at a much more fundamental level, and give up fundamental attachments.

Many times when I’m calm I’m able to realize the perfect arrangement that is made for me, to help me succeed in cultivation, to help me get rid of my fundamental attachments and do well. But while I see that clearly for a while, I either forget it or get foggy headed once I’m in front of the test again it’s a constant struggle or constant cultivation process to go through. Many times lately I’ve noticed I’ve become more aware of my attachments and therefore I’m more appreciative when things happen to point out to me what my attachments are, and how to get rid of them.

Thank you for listening and thank you practitioners for providing the environment that is conducive to cultivation. Thank you, Master, for helping us and for saving us and pulling us out from the very bottom.

Heshi

(Presented at the 2026 San Francisco Fa Conference)