(Minghui.org) I've come to understand through my own cultivation that selfishness is a great burden that is integrated heavily into human life.
People won't be able to get rid of it unless they cultivate, but when we as cultivators rid ourselves of this attachment, all our resentment due to this attachment will disappear instantly. Without that attachment to selfishness, we'll be able to sleep well, eat well, become healthier, and always put others before ourselves.
A New Perspective
Before I started practicing Falun Gong, I was a very selfish person – I was motivated purely by money. I believed the modern-day saying, “if a person is not after self-interest, heaven and earth will kill him.”
I struggled for decades to make money. However, as it wasn't in my destiny, I couldn't make much of it. My health was ruined as a result of my attachment to money, and I ended up with all kinds of ailments.
I used to be a manager in a small wood processing company during the 1970s and 1980s. Once, a customer gave me 400 yuan and asked me to buy some wooden beams for him. I couldn't find the right wood at the time, so I put the money in my bank account for the time being.
Though I managed to deliver the wood that he needed a few months later, I kept the 400 yuan still in my own account and didn't give the money to the company accountant. When my boss found out what happened, I was suspended from work for two weeks as a warning. But even through I was given a warning, I refused to learn; I was back to my selfish ways after coming back to work.
In the '80s, lots of people quit their jobs to start their own businesses under China's Open-Door Policy, which allowed people to own and run their own businesses. Many people became rich through their business ties.
Our company set up a construction materials supply center open to the public. We mainly sold iron, steel, wood and concrete, but the prices of the materials were partly controlled by the government in order to maintain the balance of supply and demand.
So there ended up being two different sets of prices for each material – one controlled by the government and the other dependent on the market. The prices controlled by the government were less than half the market price, so the head of the company would buy the materials at the government price in order to sell them at the market price for a profit.
I was put in charge of selling materials at market price, but I wasn't much of a salesperson. I wasn't good with words, and had trouble increasing my customer base and profit.
To make matters worse, I was cheated once and lost 5,000 yuan. I felt really indignant and felt that I needed to get my money back. I finally got a chance when I took a 3,000 yuan kickback from a customer; I felt vindicated after I had done so.
After I learned of Falun Dafa and the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance, I changed my greedy ways. I realized that the true purpose of being human is to assimilate to the nature of the universe and revert to our most original selves.
Our lives all follow the plans of fate, and I shouldn't be fighting or harming others over personal gain. Instead, I should try to take money and material things lightly, get rid of my attachment to selfishness, and think about others first in my daily life.
An opportunity to improve myself came when I was on a business trip. According to company policy, I could get 15 yuan extra as a food subsidy every day. So I could get a subsidy of more than 3,000 yuan from my eight-month-long trip.
While my colleagues on the trip all took the 3,000 extra yuan, I told myself that I wouldn't take one extra penny from the company. And I didn't.
Another time, my company gave me a new, 925-square-foot apartment, but I told them to give it to a coworker whose living conditions were tougher than mine.
My colleagues couldn't understand and asked me, “Why don't you want the apartment, which is much bigger than your old one? We couldn't get that even if we fought for it, but here you are giving it away.”
I told them that I didn't mind the size of the apartment, as long as I had a place to live. I didn’t have these material things when I was born and I couldn't take them along with me when I die, so they didn't matter as much to me.
A Healthy Body
Before practicing Dafa, I used to suffer from high blood pressure, heart disease, and cerebral arteriosclerosis. My body felt numb and in pain, especially the area around my heart. I tried Chinese herbal medicine and Western medicine, but nothing seemed to work.
I then started looking to Qigong for a remedy. In July 1998, I read the book Zhuan Falun and I thought it was a wonderful book. I only read it a few times, but my body underwent great changes nonetheless.
It felt like I was treading on air whenever I walked, and it felt like someone was giving me a boost whenever I rode my bicycle. All my illnesses amazingly disappeared within one month after practicing Falun Gong.
About the time I started the practice, a new 20-floor apartment was being built by our company, and all the owners wanted to decorate their new flats.
To ensure safety and maintain the main structure of the flats, my company assigned me to the decoration administration office. As a part of this job, I needed to walk from the first floor all the way to the top floor for inspections every day. Amazingly, I didn't feel tired at all.
Even today, I am still very energetic; I'm also involved in all kinds of activities.
My wife, who has been watching me all these years, told me, “You need to care of your health – you're nearly 70, after all.”
I replied, “But we are cultivators, and our bodies are being restored to a youthful state as we cultivate further. So I don't feel tired.”
I haven't taken any medicine or gone to hospital since I started practicing Falun Gong. My colleagues ask me for my health secrets all the time, and each time I give them the same answer: it is because I practice Falun Gong. My teacher took away the root cause of my problems. Why don't you also give it a try?
I thank Master for teaching me to be a good person and giving me a healthy body.
Category: Improving Oneself
