Not to Attach to Myself and Harmonize the One Body

 Lucy Zhao

Greetings to Master! Greetings to fellow practitioners! I would like to share some understanding that I enlighten to in doing coordination work in the past year.

When I work on the Dafa projects, I find I can do all right when I work on my own and not afraid of being tired or busy working, but when there is group projects, It is more to do with if I can let go myself and cooperate with others. But iIt is easier to say but hard to genuinely doing so, esp when there is xinxin conflict and tribulation, only when we can truly follow the Fa in our mind and action, then we can meet the standard of the Fa and pass the test.

Recently I ran into such test in one project. In the past, I feel I am solid in cultivation and would not insist on myself and would try to think for others. Recently I had different understandings about some Dafa projects from other practitioners, I realized that I still had such strong ego and attachments. I still tended to use my standard and understanding on others. When practitioners can’t meet my set standard, I would have complaint or look down on others. When other practitioners have different understanding from mine and don’t want to change, I would have complaints, feel unable to use my ability, or even have negative thoughts and would not like to share with concerned practitioners any more, as a result the differences and gaps start to grow bigger between me and other practitioners. When the conflicts were intense and I could not let it go in my mind, I realized that this incident exposes another deeply rooted attachment within me. Only when I look inside myself and let go my ego, I can pass this test. After I carefully looked at the attachment behind the uncomfortable mind I had, I really feel shocked by the strong ego I had.

Such conflicts happened to me one after another, Master uses these conflicts to expose my ego and attachments, helps me removing it so that I can have a purer mind to do such sacred Dafa work. When I got stuck in conflicts and could not get over it, I often find different hints in Fa study that directly pointed out for me to my attachments. “Don’t argue left and right, and don’t emphasize who’s right and who’s wrong. 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.” (“Fa Teaching Given in Manhattan”)

Even when I read some everyday people’s books, my heart is touched by some of their words. Recently I've read one book that was about management, it is mentioned that “When the sub-system is optimized, the whole system can only achieve the sub-optimal state. The system theory believes that to achieve the optimal state of the system, all sub-system can only achieve sub-optimal state.” This theory reminds me that the principle in our cooperation in project is similar. When I emphasize how good my ideas are and always think how I can play the best role and use my ability in full, it may not be the best arrangement for the whole body or for other practitioners. If every member in our group focuses on how to achieve the best for him/herself, then even if everyone did his/her best, we can’t really form one body as we can’t cooperate with each other. But when every practitioner can let go oneself and support others, maybe not everyone would be able to do his/her best, but our whole body can achieve the best cooperation results.

Another example is that the goal for chess game is to win the whole battle and sometimes some chessmen may needed to be given up to achieve the overall advantage. The English word “sacrifice” (give up) comes from the Latin word (sacrificare). Its original meaning is to “devote to God”. When people make sacrifices, they give up lower goal to achieve a higher goal. When we don’t attach to our personal goals or thoughts, we may be able to better achieve what Master need us to achieve as a one body.

In over a decade’s cultivation, I've also involved in many Dafa work and projects, I could not always realize how to genuinely cultivate myself in the process. Sometimes when I am too busy with Dafa work, I can easily develop pursuit of results and even start blaming others, and/or forming separation to others with the excuse 'to be responsible' for Dafa, ignoring the process to cultivating myself and considering other practitioners. Now I start to learn to treat the conflicts and different opinions with a calm mind, check if I have hidden attachment behind, not to immediately reject different views. At the same time, I also learn to open my mind to see fellow practitioners’ different opinions, and see if I can help harmonize and achieve the desired results. I find that any conflict can be a good chance to improve, the short cut to solve an issue is to let go my ego and attachment.

I find that when I can find and remove my attachments, seemingly bad thoughts or action from other practitioners didn’t lead to bad result as I had worried. On the other hand, Dafa harmonizes everything well and the magic power can’t be achieved by our manpower. I also find another aspect I need to improve is to genuinely thinking for others. When I attach to my own idea and feelings, it is hard for me to think for others or be compassionate to others. Only if I let go myself, I can develop compassion and consideration towards others.

Now the Sydney Shen Yun show is one test for the whole body and every practitioner. If we can all solidly cultivate ourselves, let go our egos and support others, we would be able to have our righteous thoughts in forming one body and achieving the success of the Shen Yun shows in Sydney.

The above is my personal understanding. If there is anything inappropriate, please kindly point out to me.

Thank you Master! Thank you fellow practitioners!