(Clearwisdom.net) Many Dafa disciples have been discussing the issue of fundamental attachments recently. I have pondered this issue for a long time, and I still do not have a clear understanding about it. When I first read Master's article, "Towards Consummation" (June 16, 2000), in which he first mentioned practitioners' fundamental attachments, I simply compared my situation to the scenarios that Master mentioned, and I concluded that I had no fundamental attachments, and that I was a genuine Dafa disciple just as Master described. Furthermore, I enthusiastically tried to help other practitioners search for their fundamental attachments, because Master said,

However, just about a month after the article was published, I was illegally arrested and sent to a labor camp. Under intense persecution in the labor camp, I soon came to believe the lies spread by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its officials. Long after I was out of the labor camp, I still could not free myself from the evil "enlightenment" and I still deemed it reasonable. More than two years later, my mental and physical conditions had become much worse and I had realized humanity's plight, especially the terrible situation of the society in China. I then started to have doubts about the CCP brainwashing I had accepted, and to realize its deceitful nature. Of course, I have come back to the practice of Falun Dafa since Master compassionately awakened me.

I feel that among all types of persecution, the most severe is not being tortured to death, but rather, it is giving up or going against Dafa. Just as a fellow practitioner said, hypocrisy and lies are more evil than violence, because they agree even more with the practitioners' attachments, aggravating them and making them go along with the lies and accept evil "enlightenment," while pretending they don't want to. Even though the practitioners can sometimes realize this error, their will has already been worn out. As a Dafa cultivator, I know the consequence of betraying Dafa. So I always look at which of my loopholes were taken advantage of to make me betray Dafa. I must have fundamental attachments, but what are they?

If my fundamental attachments were not among the types that Master mentioned in the article, how many are included in Master's "so on and so forth?"

To find out my own fundamental attachments, I read many practitioners' articles. It seems that many of their attachments, which were fundamental to them, have also existed for me, such as, the attachment to reaching Consummation, and to the length of Fa-rectification.

At one point, I came across an article by a practitioner that pointed out, "During one's cultivation, one should not be confused by the manifestations of various attachments. One can start from the mentality that we had when we initially walked into Dafa, find out one's fundamental attachments, and recognize their manifestations. This is the only way that we can avoid being controlled by our fundamental attachments, effectively break through the old force interference, and validate the Fa even more efficiently." (www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2005/11/13/66815.html)

I suddenly realized that pursuing Consummation and eternal life with a human mentality is an attachment; a fundamental attachment!

It may be because I had read too many books that I had unknowingly gotten used to learning Dafa in a way that ordinary people take when they learn a theory. As a result, I was attached to reaching Consummation. I wanted to get the result of my "hard work" and I wanted to achieve it after so many years of work. Furthermore, because I wanted results, I developed an attachment to the timing of Fa-rectification. My attachments to my cultivation realm, as well as my being afraid of suffering losses and hardships, all reflected the fact that I used a human mentality to view the things of higher realms. This, in fact, means that I was using my human notions to corrupt and twist cultivation, and I was not doing genuine cultivation. No wonder Master told us,

Genuine Dafa practitioners need to unconditionally assimilate to the Fa, and unconditionally do things according to the Fa and without pursuits, because being worried about loss or gain, or weighing advantages and disadvantages, are all human notions. Assimilation to the Fa means that one elevates and changes oneself from inside, rather than relying on changes in the external environment, the passage of time, or reaching the goal by accomplishments.

It was because of my trying to understand the Fa with human notions and carrying that kind of fundamental attachment that my righteous thoughts became weak in the environment of the forced labor camp, and my enlightened side could not come into play. When I asked for Master's help, I always carried human notions. So, in the end, I stumbled badly during the evil test, and this was a terrible lesson.

In fact, without letting go of human notions, one can hardly eliminate the attachment to self and selfishness, because pursuing benefits and dodging harm, protecting oneself and obtaining personal interests is part of human nature. For a genuine Dafa cultivator, who has already seen the truth of the cosmos, there exists the issue that he or she needs to choose between personal interests and others' interests. However, if one uses human notions to view the problem, one can easily define the interests as something in the human dimension. For example, by being able to make a sacrifice for Dafa and do better than ordinary people, one feels that he has a high realm of mind. In fact, this reflects using a human mentality to view things. This human notion, if not eliminated, will manifest itself as the attachment to pursuit and selfishness during the Fa-rectification, such as his validating the Fa to establish one's own mighty virtue, having conflicts with fellow practitioners by validating oneself instead of the Fa, placing high hopes on the collapse of the evil CCP, etc.

I like very much a fellow practitioner's description of the Fa-rectification: "Master is using 'Truth-Compassion-Tolerance' to produce all new, unselfish and selfless enlightened beings, who always consider others first, and to make the future indefinitely immense colossal firmament be in a perfect and harmonized way and last forever."

Therefore, only by completely getting rid of human notions and by viewing things from the perspective of Fa-rectification can one become a genuine Dafa disciple during Fa-rectification, do Fa validation work well, and meet Master's expectations.