(Clearwisdom.net)
Cultivate away fame, material interest, and emotion;
Reach Consummation, ascending the firmament;
With compassion, looking at the world;
Only then, awakening from confusion.
("Reaching Consummation, Completing Gong," Hong Yin)
I feel that in cultivation, the attachment most difficult to eliminate is that of qing. I want to talk about my experiences of eliminating interference from conflicts at home and doing the three things that a practitioner needs to do well.
I am forty-two years old and used to get sick easily. But since I began my cultivation, my health improved gradually. I began to do all of the homemaking work and my husband and I no longer fought over things at home.
I went to Beijing by myself to appeal for Falun Gong in June 2000 and was arrested, brought back, and put in jail. After my release, all of my colleagues knew about my going to Beijing to appeal and no one mentioned Falun Gong in front of me. Later, I told many of them the truth of Dafa. Because my understanding of Dafa was not that deep and I viewed many things from a human point of view, I did not do too well when faced with obstacles and tests. But my desire to cultivate steadfastly never wavered.
At home, my husband wanted me to give up cultivation, but I did not listen and he did not force me. But soon thereafter he was conned out of over a hundred thousand yuan in a business transaction and was asked to reimburse the company. He was later laid off by the company, and he was totally depressed. It was right before the Chinese New Year. On the one hand I was being harassed by my company and the local neighborhood association because they were afraid that I might go to appeal in Beijing again. On the other hand, I needed to console my husband. I was afraid that he would be unable to withstand the pressure from the huge debt and commit suicide. I urged him to learn Falun Gong and he refused. Instead, he thought he could go abroad and make money, so he began to study English and prepare for going abroad. But the travel agent that was helping him with travel arrangements got into financial trouble and he lost the ten thousand yuan that he had borrowed. These types of troubles kept coming and caused me a lot of difficulty, but I always took care of my responsibilities and never complained, and always behaved like a practitioner.
My attachment to fear was pretty bad at the time. Sometimes, my heart would pound when I heard sirens or saw a police car. Around October 2001, a practitioner began to give me Dafa truth clarification materials, starting with only a few copies. After I went home I wondered how I could distribute them and was quite nervous. Finally, I overcame my fear and went out one night and put them in peoples' mailboxes. But I felt very fearful afterwards.
Through continuously studying the Fa and Teacher's new articles, I realized that getting out to validate Dafa and save sentient beings was the responsibility of every Fa-rectification period practitioner. I needed to overcome my fear. But often my heart began to pound as soon as I thought of going out to spread the truth about Dafa, and when I talked to people face to face about Dafa I often could not make sense with my speech because I was too nervous.
The amount of truth clarification materials increased gradually. I stuck to it and distributed fliers, posters, pictures, pamphlets, and DVDs. I distributed whatever my fellow practitioners handed me. I distributed a few fliers on my lunch break during the day and went out and distributed flyers when my husband was not home during the night. I always kept a few sets of materials with me and gave one to whomever I met and knew. I also told people the truth about Dafa during get-togethers with friends or classmates. Sometimes, I did not get enough truth clarification materials and I let my fellow practitioners take them first while I kept the rest. Once, we got over a hundred copies of "Nine-Commentaries on the Communist Party." Fellow practitioners did not take any, so I distributed them all. I felt that it did not matter who did the job. We are an integral unit and the goal is to save sentient beings. Sometimes, there was a shortage of truth-clarification materials so my fellow practitioners and I created them by ourselves.
As we distributed more and more materials, our fears were also gradually reduced. One night, I was on my way home after distributing materials, when suddenly the following quote appeared in my mind and I could appreciate the meaning of these sentences.
"The Fa principles spread everywhere and every way in the human world
Fully loaded with living beings, the Fa boat sails"
("Tathagata" from Hongyin II, provisional translation)
I knew that Teacher would take care of all of his disciples and I became totally relaxed and content with no more fear. I realized that only through continuously doing the work can one eliminate the fear. In the meantime, one accumulates experiences and does the work better and better. Now, when I go out to distribute materials, I will always send forth righteous thoughts first. Thinking that I am saving sentient beings, and with the presence of Teacher and Dafa and all of the immortals that uphold the Fa, I have little fear.
I am an emotionally frail and sentimental person. Sentimentality has always been an important part of me. My husband was appointed the president of a branch company in June 2002. Soon after, he began to go to nightclubs and massage parlors and come home late. He also became colder and colder toward me. I found, by accident, a love letter he wrote to his girlfriend. I tried to talk with him about moral principles through mail and phone calls. He told me that the girl had gone to Canada to study and gave me her phone number. I called her and told her about Dafa and hoped she could learn it in a free country.
I felt that since I was a practitioner I needed to look inward. I felt that I had paid too much attention to my husband's behavior. Indeed, I was immersed in qing. I tried to not think about him, but I could not totally let go. In August 2004, on a company-organized trip, I stood next to him as he turned on the digital camera. I saw the ugly picture when the camera was turned on and I almost fainted. I told myself repeatedly that I was a practitioner and I gradually calmed down. I looked inward and felt that I was still too attached to qing and the old forces were utilizing this loophole. I refused to recognize the old forces' arrangements and I believed that Dafa would rectify my husband. It was so painful at the time to look inward. I talked a lot with my husband and told him that I would forgive him for what he had done, and that I hoped that he would do well in the future. He promised he would. I told my mother-in-law about the incident. She had given up cultivation after July 20, 1999. She said, "Dafa is just wonderful. It saved this family." From then on, she began to cultivate in Dafa again.
I took the Nine Commentaries home when it came out. My husband read it on his own and then he quit the Communist Party. He also helped me when I told my family and friends about Dafa, and he did not object when I cleared away all his materials relating to the Communist Party. But when I found that he still had contact with the girl who went to Canada to study, I felt upset again and could not stop crying. I felt so miserable because I lowered myself to the level of an ordinary person and worried about my own losses and gains. Aren't they just matters of ordinary people? I would no longer worry about my husband. I can no longer describe the deeply felt experiences at the time. I was deeply moved when I saw the article on the web by a fellow practitioner entitled "Resolving Family Conflicts with Pure Kindness" (http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2005/11/8/66662.html).
Teacher said, "Mercy can dissolve heaven and earth, bringing about Spring" ("Fa Rectifies the Cosmos" from Hongyin II, provisional translation)
I wonder how well I have done this. In the past three years, when faced with conflicts, I was not able to be completely nice, let alone benevolent. I often did not truly understand when reading Teacher's articles during Fa studies. I always wanted to change others and not myself. Holding tightly to my own attachments, and caring a great deal about my husband's attitude, together with my resentment and demands, how was I able to resolve the conflicts? When I found and eliminated these attachments, my mind became truly calm.
My path of cultivation has been like that of a child learning to walk; I fell and stood up again, getting rid of interference in the meantime and continuously surpassing myself. With Teacher's kind guidance, I progressed step by step and gradually matured as Teacher said in "Zhuan Falun." "The whole process of cultivation is a process of constantly getting rid of human attachments."
There are many things that I did not do well. I still have attachments to emotion and laziness, among others. Compared to those practitioners who have strong righteous thoughts and always behave righteously, I am still quite far behind. I will in the future study harder and do well in Dafa, making sure that every single thought of mine is righteous. I will make good use of the precious time left to do well the three things that practitioners need to do and become a qualified Fa-rectification period Dafa disciple.
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