(Clearwisdom.net) Recently I have read many experience sharing articles. The understanding of improving as a whole expressed in the articles is especially enlightening to me. I feel profound meaning in "improving as whole." "Improving as a whole" manifests itself everywhere in Master's Fa-rectification process, including with study groups and individual practitioners. I came to realize that family-based Fa-study group is something one cannot neglect.
In my opinion, as we know, Dafa is disseminated mainly through family members and friends, having us see many families where almost everyone practices Dafa. My own family is one example.
There was not much conflict among family members prior to the onset of the persecution, as everyone attended group practice and Fa-study, together with others. Oftentimes, such cultivation groups had about 20-30 people each. It was a great and peaceful period.
After the persecution began in July 1999, things changed a lot. Everyone in a cultivating family had a different cultivation state and comprehension of Fa principles. Truth-clarification activities and the degree of persecution suffered were also different.
I read about Chen Yuanchuan, a practitioner in Huailai County, Hebei Province. Effects of the persecution had reduced his family of seven to two. Certain families established small-scale information sites. Others had different family members do different things: distributing flyers, others clarifying the truth face to face, or writing letters.
Each individual family member's cultivation state will affect the whole family's cultivation, and family members need to overcome the emotions they hold for each other. To maintain righteous thoughts and shed the human shell, one must study the Fa very well, with a good family environment for Fa-study a priority. No matter what conflict we're encountering, my personal experience tells me that emotions must not bind us, and we must look at current issues based on the Fa.
I feel the most prominent problem interfering with cultivating in a family to be the hard-to-let-go-of emotions.
Master said in Zhuan Falun, "Our school of practice directly targets one's mind. The key issue is whether you can take lightly and care less about the issues of individual gain and interpersonal conflicts."
Even though everyone in the family is a practitioner, they still have attachments to relinquish. The old forces are also interfering with our cultivation, making it easy to forget we're practitioners when sudden conflicts among family members arise.
About a year ago, my husband seemly depressed for a long time and lacked a good spirit. He simply idled his days away. He didn't want to study the Fa or practice the exercises, complaining all day long that he was tired. He lost weight and his hair turned gray. He didn't tell me what was wrong when I asked him. Eventually our children talked to him. He revealed that his bad mood dated back to a conflict with my parents about twenty years ago. He was very upset and also held grudges against me. He recognized his attachment but couldn't let it go. He didn't want to talk to me about it, so he simply remained in that state of feeling down and unhappy. After learning his thoughts from our children I thought I couldn't hinder his cultivation because I didn't do well before. I found an opportunity to apologize to him and take blame for the past conflict. I figured he would forgive me that way and then move on with his cultivation. And, if he could cultivate well, his state of mind and health would improve.
Later on when I looked back, I realized my thoughts didn't reflect those of a cultivator at all. All I cared about was my husband's health. What I did was nothing like cultivators looking within. I was buried in ordinary emotion. I confused looking within with a non-practitioners' self-reflection.
The process of cultivating oneself and looking inside should identify and abandon human notions that interfere with one's cultivation, removing them and gradually reaching the new universe's standard of becoming an unselfish and compassionate being. Non-practitioners' self-reflection, however, is based on emotions and is often done to protect one's own interest. How could I mix cultivators' looking inside with non-practitioners' self-reflection?
Having improved my understanding, my husband soon passed this tribulation and caught up with cultivation. This incident made me realize that the cultivation is serious and has strict requirements for cultivators.
In my view, it is important for cultivators within the same family to study the Fa together and share experiences with each other. Thus we can remind each other that we are cultivators and must deal with everything from the perspective of the Fa. We can encourage each other to walk well on our cultivation paths and better understand the social relationships among family members while at the same time conforming to ordinary society without going to extremes.
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