(Minghui.org) Emotion arises from selfishness, and becomes pronounced as soon as a person falls for something. A strong sense of sentiment is a major hindrance for sentient beings in the Three Realms and can also be harmful for cultivators.
Indulging in sentiment and lust can build karma and strengthen one's desire, whereas enduring suffering can eliminate karma.
For a person who cultivates him or herself, desires need to be eliminated. Refusing to look at beautiful girls and handsome men may sound like eliminating such an attachment, but such an understanding is very superficial. A cultivator must completely uproot the attachment to emotion and see fully the harm that lust and desire have on cultivation. How does lust cause harm? It releases one's vital energy and shortens one's life.
Once its harm is understood, one can then lose interest in desire and let it go. To completely eliminate this attachment, however, one must see clearly its evil nature. The seduction and wickedness of sentiment is at the root of suffering and the cycle of reincarnation.
Sentient beings in the Three Realms are immersed in emotion. Desire and lust have thus blended into human bodies. Cultivation is the only way to clearly identify and eliminate them, and step out of the realm they occupy. Lust is the most detrimental attachment. It appeals to the desire for enjoyment while actually destroying the lives of sentient beings forever, plunging them into life after life of suffering. Those who cultivate themselves must maintain a clear mind and let go of this attachment.
By the same token, true cultivators have to uproot so many other attachments, see their illusory nature, and eliminate each and every one of them.
With one test after another passed, and one tribulation after another broken through, higher and higher principles can be understood. One aspect of true cultivation is eliminating all desires, and obtaining the Tao requires the solid cultivation of an ever-changing heart that behaves according to the highest principles of the cosmos. In this way, true cultivation requires experiencing true change while gaining broader understandings.
Today's society is filled with so many temptations that magnify people's attachments. However, cultivators who are enlightened to their true nature and the harms of the temptations that surround them can disintegrate all false appearances and expose the harmful substances that lie behind them.
Everything in this world has life—some are kind, some wicked. Every attachment we have as cultivators affects corresponding celestial bodies, and when we eliminate all attachments, the sentient beings who reside in the celestial bodies can be saved. Therefore, our eliminating attachments can save countless sentient beings.