PureInsight | September 20, 2026
[PureInsight.org] After reading a recent article by a fellow practitioner about helping young practitioners clear away the gaming demon, I felt that this approach addressed the symptoms rather than the root cause. I would therefore like to share my own process of eliminating my attachment to gaming, in the hope that it may serve as a reference for fellow practitioners who are working to remove this attachment.
Games are part of everyday human society. Many sports programs with huge audiences are also forms of games, such as soccer, basketball, hockey, tennis, and other sporting events. There are also intellectual games such as chess, mahjong, and card games, as well as various electronic games. For ordinary people, it is therefore almost impossible to completely avoid games. The issue for cultivators is how to resist their temptation.
Today, many gaming companies, for the sake of profit, use all sorts of methods to entice and control players. Put plainly, they make money by magnifying the negative and evil side of human nature. As cultivators, if we want to improve our xinxing, we must eliminate these attachments. Only when we can remain unmoved in the face of all kinds of demonic temptations can we maintain righteous thoughts and righteous actions.
The first things that must be eliminated are the competitive mentality and the desire to win. These are also fundamental attachments that interfere with many young practitioners.
Schools, especially in their efforts to help students improve academically, may intentionally or unintentionally amplify competitiveness and the desire to outperform others through their language—for example, praising students with high grades or pointing out who runs the fastest. Many gaming companies exploit the same mentality. They praise people when they play well and encourage them when they do poorly, making it difficult for players to stop.
While playing games, this competitive mentality and desire to win continually expand. Even when a person is already physically and mentally exhausted, he still keeps going. To others, his behavior may seem abnormal, but in reality he is being controlled by this acquired attachment. To correct the outward behavior, one must eliminate the competitive mentality and the desire to win.
Another powerful attachment is the pursuit of mental stimulation and the desire to escape reality.
There is a story about an ordinary person whose mother, the mother of a famous actor, was abandoned by her husband and therefore frequently went gambling. In reality, she did not necessarily enjoy gambling. She had suffered emotional trauma and used gambling to numb herself, somewhat like a person drinking alcohol to drown his sorrows.
Some people feel dissatisfied with their lives and have no way to release their negative emotions, so they hide in the world of games in search of happiness. This too is a very serious fundamental attachment, because it magnifies the negative factors of laziness and the desire for comfort in human nature. In severe cases, some people do not even want to return to real life.
This is also one factor behind the strong demonic nature seen in people who are addicted to games. They develop a psychological dependence on the virtual gaming world, which creates a false impression for them—that the virtual world is the most comfortable and satisfying place to be.
Practitioners whose determination in cultivation is not strong and who are also afraid of hardship can easily be tempted by demons in this way.
But as cultivators, we must remain rational, directly face the negative side of ourselves, and cultivate it away. The virtual world is false. No matter how comfortable it feels, that comfort is only temporary. Only by improving through cultivation can we truly change our destiny. Believe in Master and believe in the Fa. What Master gives us is what is best.
Some people do not play games themselves but enjoy watching sports competitions and other game-related programs. This too is an attachment to games. It consumes precious time and can also bring interference to cultivation.
Chinese version: https://www.zhengjian.org/node/303807
