(Clearwisdom.net) I am a young practitioner from a rural area. I've noticed that, in recent years, many people are becoming more and more attached to delicious food. Farmers are generally poor and, as such, they normally don't buy new clothes. However, some farmers have no problem spending money on their favorite foods.
There are also some people who are a little bit better off, but they always buy inexpensive clothes and necessities. Yet, they have no qualms buying expensive food. Rich people living in the city buy whatever they want to eat. There are similar cases among practitioners.
I am not against ordinary people or practitioners eating delicious foods, but I recently enlightened to the fact that this is an area that could affect our ability to save sentient beings, and, on top of that, it's very easy to overlook.
Today, the old forces manipulate all the evil and corrupt phenomena in society. People do whatever they want to. Is one's desire for good food an old force arrangement? Whether it is or not, it does cause people to focus only on themselves and their desire for certain kinds of food.
This desire makes it hard for people to listen to the truth. Some people intentionally avoid listening to the truth about the persecution for fear of missing out on their easy and comfortable lifestyle. Shouldn't we look inside ourselves and try to improve? So how do we go about improving ourselves in this area? I think that, as practitioners, we should let go of our own attachment to food. Our pure and righteous thoughts can definitely change people’s minds.
I was born into a poor family under very trying conditions. Later on, when things improved for my family, I developed the attachment to food.
Sometimes when I see food that I've never tasted before, I feel compelled to buy it, just to satisfy my desire. I did not think it was a serious problem until a fellow practitioner pointed out to me that she thought I was attached to food. She said that I focused too much on eating delicious food.
I have realized that I cannot upgrade my xinxing if I am still harboring such a strong attachment. I have been controlled by this attachment for a long time and have not realized that my desire for food does not come from my true self.
I should make an effort to distinguish this human desire from my true self and get rid of it. I now try to ignore my desire for delicious food whenever I notice it. Although I'm gradually letting go of this attachment, it has not been completely removed, but it is definitely getting weaker and weaker.
This same practitioner told me today after seeing me eat rather expensive food, “How dare you spend money that way!” I was shocked when I heard this. I told her, “Compared to other practitioners, I spend much less money on good food!”
But then I realized that even this thought was wrong! She was right, I should measure myself against the requirements of the Fa, not others. I should truly improve myself!
When practitioners are financially secure, it should enable them to concentrate more on doing the three things well instead of fostering their attachment to delicious foods and comfort.
I‘d like to say something to those practitioners who always spend a lot of money on good food: we should not allow this attachment to grow. Instead, we need to cultivate well in this area and pay close attention to this issue.
Of course, as practitioners, we need to constantly adapt to different situations. In our family life, we should be very good people, and in society we should conform to the way of ordinary people. We should not go to any extremes. What we need to get rid of is our desire for delicious food and our propensity to spend money too freely.
And then there's the situation where some practitioners have no desire for delicious food but they feel compelled to buy it for their family members. In some cases, the whole family practices Dafa, but the one who cooks cannot get rid of his or her attachment to affection and always buys delicious food for the family.
This makes it harder for the other practitioners in the family to get rid of this hidden attachment. For example, my sister and I love to eat one special kind of rather expensive vegetable. One day we casually talked about how much we enjoyed eating this vegetable and our mother bought the vegetable later that day.
We felt sad because she could have bought so many more vegetables with the same amount of money, but we could not say anything to her because that’s how our mother expresses her “love” for us. From that day on, my sister and I decided to pay closer attention to cultivating our speech. We now make a point of not talking about things unrelated to our cultivation.
Even if some of our family members are not practitioners, we can still do what we need to do but we should not be attached to affections. I also want to remind those who are mothers: You should get rid of the attachment to your children. It is very hard to do this all at once, I know, but if you don't get rid of your attachment, it could become a massive wall in other dimensions and affect your improvement.
As I see it, the main reason why practitioners cannot get rid of their affection to their loved ones is because they don't even know they have this attachment. Or if they do realize it, it is only on the surface, and, as such, they do not pay close attention to it, so it grows. The attachment of affection not only affects our normal state of mind, but it can also affect how well we do the three things.
I also want to remind those who always criticize other practitioners: You, too, have the attachment to affection. You really need to look inside to see why you always manage to notice others' shortcomings. Is it because you need to improve yourself in that same area?
If we cultivate well, what we say will be compassionate, what we think will be pure, and as a result, we will be able to save more people and we will also have a good family environment. All of this comes about from measuring ourselves against the Fa instead of our own human notions.
In addition, we need to pay close attention to our other attachments. The issue isn't about whether we have big or small attachments, rather, it's about whether or not we can actually notice our attachments when they surface. The purer our hearts are, the less we are affected by ordinary peoples' desires, and the more people we can save.
The purpose of this article is to point out ways in which we can improve our xinxing. I am not against practitioners spending money on daily necessities—so please don't misunderstand me and go to extremes.
Please correct me if I've said anything wrong here.
Category: Improving Oneself
