(Clearwisdom.net) My name is Gao Jing. I began Fa study in 2002. My son is now six years old. I have had problems guiding him to cultivate and have gone to extremes. At one time I thought that I needed to force him to cultivate, and at another time, I thought that I should let him cultivate naturally. Finally, with Master's help and guidance I have a good understanding of how to guide him to cultivate.
I had thought initially that cultivation is one's own business. I thought that the Fa would guide my son to cultivate, and Master would arrange his cultivation path. So, I just played Master's lectures and recited Hong Yin to him. I didn't think that I had any responsibility for his cultivation.
One day I had a dream in which I was going to play the waist drum in a parade, but I forgot my drum and costume at home. When I was about to cry, my son brought me the drum and costume. I really appreciated this in the dream. Later, I told fellow practitioners about this dream and my son heard it. He said, "Mom, I came here to help you go back to Master's place." He was only three then. I had never told him anything about the Fa, or where we would go after consummation.
His words startled me.
Later, when I was doing the fifth exercise, I saw with my celestial eye that Master was teaching my son the exercises. I suddenly realized that I had not done what I should have. Master was doing what I should do, so I felt guilty. Looking inward I realized that the reason I didn't teach my son the exercises was attachments I had developed in ordinary people's society: selfishness, laziness and being irresponsible. So I decided to lead my son to cultivation.
But since I didn't have a good understanding of the Fa, I went to another extreme. I forced him to study the Fa and do the exercises with me every day. He was only four. I didn't carefully explain some terminology in the Fa, so he didn't understand what the Fa was. For a time he always ran away from me when I tried to push him to study the Fa with me. I asked him why he ran. He said that he needed to use the bathroom or finish his food, and I had to wait for him to finish those things. He purposely did those things slowly. I wasted a lot of time in order to "improve as whole body" with him.
I asked myself if perhaps I should not guide him to cultivate. My answer was "Yes, I should." So what was the problem then? I looked inward again and found that although I tried to guide him to cultivate I had only focused on the surface level things, but ignored his cultivation of xinxing. I realized that it was still my problem, because my ego got in the way, because I didn't want to put too much time and energy into this effort. I made up my mind to completely get rid of my attachments to laziness, selfishness and being irresponsible. Later I no longer forced him. Instead, I patiently talked to him and answered his questions, and I found that I could answer all of his questions relating to the Fa.
He once asked me how he came out from my belly. I answered, "The doctor cut my belly open and took you out." I felt lucky that I had a C-section. Otherwise I would not have known how to answer him. Then he asked another question, which I would not have been able to answer if I didn't cultivate Dafa. He asked, "How did I enter your belly?" I answered, "You came into my belly from another dimension." He didn't understand, so I said, "Didn't Master say that we are all from heaven? Heaven means other dimensions. It is not the sky that we can see now. You were in the heavens and saw that Gao Jing was about to obtain the Fa, so you said to yourself, "I want to be her son, so that she will guide me to cultivate Falun Dafa." Just like that, you came into my belly from the heavens. Once you came in I gave you a physical body, and you grew bigger and bigger in my belly." He was very satisfied with my answer and nodded at me. Just like this, I told him the meaning of his life.
Once when my son had a fever my non-practitioner husband insisted on taking him to the hospital and bought some medicine for him. Then my husband went to work. I asked my son if he wanted to take the medicine. He said no. Then I said, "It has been quite a long time since you studied the Fa and did the exercises. You have been an everyday person. Master said that an everyday person should have illnesses. When you are old, you will be like your grandfather, who cannot move his arms and legs, and when you are older, you will have to lie on the bed, waiting for death." He said, "I don't want to be an everyday person. I want to study the Fa and do the exercises." He then wanted to read the Fa.
By answering his daily questions, I taught him how a cultivator should behave and think and also many cultivation concepts at my level of comprehension that he at this young age could understand.
Master gave me many hints. For example, one time in the street I held his hand while walking, but he fell down, and a while later he bumped his head on a big pillar in the mall and later on a big tree. I was a little nervous. Then I realized that it was Master's hint. The fact that he fell and hit a tree when I was holding his hand reflects the fact that I have not done well in guiding him on the path of cultivation. And the parents have the responsibility towards their children's cultivation.
I started paying attention to his cultivation, using the Fa principles to guide him, telling him to cultivate xinxing, and requiring him to maintain a cultivator's standard. At the same time I paid attention to my own cultivation. I found that he knew that attachments are bad, but he didn't know what kind of attachments he had.
For example, I once praised another child and he was obviously unhappy. I told him that he was jealous. He almost cried and said, "No, I don't have the attachment to jealousy." I asked him, "Do you know what jealousy is then?" He said, "No, I don't." Then I told him, "You are jealous if you are unhappy when you see other people are praised and you are not." I asked him, "Weren't you unhappy when I praised that child?" He nodded. I said, "What will you do in the future when the same thing happens?" He said, "Mom, I understand now. I will get rid of my jealousy." After that, I didn't see him being jealous of anyone. In a similar way I pointed out the mindset of zealotry, showing off and other attachments for him.
I found that he is able to eliminate his attachments very quickly. He could do it as soon as I pointed the attachments out to him. He would not be unhappy when his attachment was pointed out, and he didn't repeat the same mistake twice. Perhaps it is because a young child's attachments and notions have not yet been completely formed.
Although he spent less time reading the Fa and doing the exercises, his xinxing improved over time. I realized that for a child, merely reading the Fa is not enough, because he doesn't understand many concepts and the deeper meaning of cultivation.
It is difficult for a child to understand the Fa. I understand from Master's Fa that the human culture and history exist for teaching the Fa. We can comprehend the Fa from the standpoint of traditional culture. The reason we can comprehend the Fa is because prior to beginning Fa study we had already learned many things about traditional culture. But a child doesn't have this foundation. My son didn't even know much Chinese vocabulary to help understand the Fa.
At the very beginning, I only asked him to memorize Hong Yin. The first poem he tried to memorize was "An Upright Person." One day he asked me, "Are all the beans bitter?" (Translator's note: In "An Upright Person," the fourth line is "Bitter, fighting away" and the words "fighting" and "bean" have the same pronunciation in Chinese.) At that moment I felt that I didn't deserve to be this young practitioner's mother. So I taught him the meaning of many words in the Fa, such as "gain," "loss," "everyday person," "cultivation" and "Sakyamuni."
As my understanding of the Fa got better and better, and I kept looking inward and cultivating myself on the issue of guiding a child to cultivate. I am finally able to guide him to steadily progress on the path of cultivation. I started comprehensively adjusting the way to guide him:
1. Encourage him to listen to Master's lectures in addition to reading the Fa. I also explained the surface level meaning of the words in the Fa. I skipped some sections in Zhuan Falun at the beginning, such as the history of Buddhism, qigong treating illness and animal possession, for he could not understand those. I explained the meaning of those sections to him later, and gradually we finished the whole Zhuan Falun book. I taught him Hong Yin the same way.
2. I tried to enhance his main consciousness. I didn't force him to do the exercises, but I explained to him why we should do the exercises. Kids don't have as strong a self-discipline as adults do. Although he understands why we should do the exercises, he still has an attachment to TV and games. Master said, "...without mi xin in their parents, children would not be brought up well-mannered." ("What is Mi Xin" from Essentials for Further Advancement) So, I used his mi xin in me and his attachment to me to guide him to do the exercises. I told him, "You don't do the exercises and I don't force you to do them. I will do the exercises by myself, and I will fly to heaven to be a Buddha, and you will stay here with you father." He said immediately, "I don't want to stay here. I will go with you." I said, "If you want to go with me to the heavens to be a Buddha you must have a Buddha body, and doing the exercises helps you to transform your body to a Buddha body." Since then, he does the exercises with me every time. As his understanding of the Fa gets better and better, I no longer have to convince him to do the exercises.
Also at the beginning, he could not calm down to listen to the Fa or do the exercises. He always moved around. So I said to him, "Master wants us to fly to heaven and be Buddhas. But the evils try to interfere with us. They don't want you to listen to the Fa or do the exercises. When you are studying the Fa, the evils will say, 'Go play. Don't study the Fa.' When you are doing the exercises, the evils also try to interfere with you. They make your body itch or make you want to use the bathroom, and so on. The evils want you to stay here to suffer. But the evils are afraid of your strong will. If you don't listen to them, and calmly study the Fa and do the exercises, they will be scared. Then they will go away." My son said, "OK, mom. I understand." The next day after work I asked him, "Who won today? You or the evils?" He didn't dare to look at me. I didn't blame him and said, "It doesn't matter. You are just a beginning cultivator. You will beat the evils tomorrow." When I returned from work the third day he looked at me, smiling. I knew he had improved.
After that, I often saw him listening to the Fa and do the exercises by himself. One year ago (he was five then) I was giving him a bath. He suddenly held my arms and said, "Mom, you are so nice." "Why?" "Because you guided me to study the Fa and do the exercises." I was very touched. Perhaps his enlightened side was grateful to me, or it was Master encouraging me to do better.
Now he can behave himself according to the standards of a cultivator, and he also seemly caught up with the process of Fa-rectification.
3. I didn't think that kids would understand what the Fa-rectification is. I thought that for him, personal cultivation was enough. With this notion I never read Teacher's new lectures to him. He often asked, "Mom, can you read aloud so that I can hear it too?" I only read aloud if he asks, because I didn't think he would understand. A few months ago he said to me unexpectedly, "Mom, how come I feel that time goes by so fast? I have not done anything before it gets dark again." I was surprised. It is not surprising for an adult to have this feeling, because an adult knows how time was before. But my son, a child, doesn't have any comparison. I realized that I have underestimated him. I read Master's teaching about time a few days before this and I read it to him again. He totally understood it and shared his understanding with me. He also said that he would cherish his opportunity and time to cultivate. After this, I read and explained Hong Yin II to him.
He is also active in clarifying the truth. One time when we sent forth righteous thoughts in a public place he asked me why I didn't erect my hand. I said, "Because everyday people would not understand." He was worried, "How can we save those everyday people?" I answered, "We should let them know that Falun Dafa is good. To do that, we should always be nice to them. Then they will think, 'Falun Dafa practitioners are so nice.' Then they would be saved."
After this conversation he always asked me to put on the T-shirt that says "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance" for him. He said, "I want everybody to see this." Sometimes, he murmurs to himself, "how come I forgot to tell so and so Falun Dafa is good." He also asked me how to teach Westerners to do exercises, and if I have an English version of the exercise instructions.
I would like to further share some of my understanding with practitioners who have children. Nothing that a cultivator encounters is coincidental, including your life, work, and family. We should look inward when our children have problems. We will often see that our own problems, such as impatience, and so on, are having an effect. The deep reason is that we are not compassionate enough. When Master was saving us at the beginning, he was facing a group of people who had a lot of karma and didn't know themselves what they were doing and saying. Some even cursed Master while listening to Master's lecture. Were we really much better than our children? I think that we were actually much worse than our children, for at least our children don't have human notions or thought karma formed in the human world. Master said, "I don't mind. I just want to save you." ("Fa-Lecture During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference") Shouldn't we follow Master and try to have the immense benevolence he has?
We are cultivating the Buddha Fa. What does Buddha emphasize in cultivation? Doesn't Buddha emphasize the cultivation of compassion? Do we have compassion? If we are able to rescue sentient beings, why can we not be compassionate to our children?
Master said,
"Under all circumstances, we must be good and kind to others, not to mention to our family members." ("Lecture Six" from Zhuan Falun, March 2000 translation version)
Master taught us,
"You should always maintain a heart of benevolence and a mind of kindness. If you suddenly bump into a problem, you will be able to take care of it properly." ("Lecture Four" from Zhuan Falun)
"You should not be that way in disciplining children, and neither should you, yourselves get really upset. You should educate children with reason so that you can really teach them well." ("Lecture Four" from Zhuan Falun)
We don't need special time-slots to educate children, for they live with us. We could have been guiding them by example of our speech and behavior. Compassion is a habit, one doesn't need to act to be compassionate. And also, have we thought it? Our children truly come here to help us cultivate. How can we reach consummation with impatience? Aren't our children helping us to eliminate these attachments? They are like a piece of white paper. If the picture on the white paper is ugly, is it the painter's fault or the paper's fault?
There must be a reason that our children reincarnated into our families. We must have a unshakable responsibility toward them. No matter what kind of predestined relationship we have with our children, one thing is for sure - they came to us because they saw us obtain the Fa, so we should be responsible. Only if we cultivate ourselves well can we educate them well. It would be the most regrettable thing if we could not rescue our own children because we are not fully responsible to them when we cultivate ourselves in this human world.
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