(Minghui.org) A 70-year-old Falun Gong practitioner in our area had been a very diligent cultivator since she began practicing Falun Gong in 1996. Family pressure however, brought out her emotions and sentimentality and she did not balance these issues well. Her situation underscored how important it is to let go of attachments to emotion and to truly cultivate instead.
Succumbing to Pressure
This elderly practitioner's grandson found a job recently. The company required a reference concerning the family's political background from the local police department. This lead to the company discovering that the grandmother was a Falun Gong practitioner. Therefore they requested proof that she has stopped practicing Falun Gong, otherwise, the company wouldn't hire her grandson. Therefore, the local police put pressure on her and demanded she write a guarantee statement, which states that she renounced the practice. But, she refused.
The police then put pressure on her children and demanded that her family get her to sign the guarantee statement. As she refused, her daughter-in-law threw a temper tantrum and said, “You aren't compassionate at all, you are selfish. Don't you want to live longer yourself? You don't even care about the future of your grandson?” Her daughter-in-law also said something disrespectful about the founder of the practice and Falun Dafa.
In the end, the grandmother wrote something against her will in order to appease her grandson. It didn't end there, as her family forced her to cancel her Fa study group and close the truth-clarification materials production site she was operating. Also, her daughter-in-law monitored her when she went out.
Dealing with Similar Pressure
I also went through a similar experience. My son was going to be promoted to a supervisory position. But the company's human resource department discovered that I practice Falun Gong and had been arrested. Therefore, they didn't promote my son, so he resigned from his job.
He blamed me and was quite vocal about it. He complained that I didn't love him, and so on. He told me that although Falun Gong is good, I had better stay at home to practice and not go out to talk to people about Falun Gong and the persecution. He even asked me to make a choice between Falun Gong and him and threatened to no longer associate with me if I didn't choose him.
I also had to face attacks from my siblings. All of my relatives were against Falun Dafa because I distributed Falun Dafa truth-clarification materials and had been arrested. What it boiled down to was because of China's incriminating policy, my son was not promoted. I was also told that I undermined Dafa. I felt awful and cried bitterly because of these words. I thought that cultivation was too hard for me.
I later realized that crying doesn't help anything, but only by studying the Fa more and looking inward could I pass this test.
Master said:
“If you don’t sever emotion, you won’t be able to cultivate. But if you do break out of emotion, nobody can affect you, and ordinary attachments won’t be able to sway you. What replaces it is compassion, which is more noble.” (Zhuan Falun)
My attachment of emotion to my son was much too strong. It can be said that I lived my life for my son before I cultivated. Also, an ulterior motive was hidden in my mind when I started cultivating. That was the thought, “If I cultivate, my son will benefit.” My son did benefit from my cultivation. His marks in school rose sharply, and he passed the exam which allowed him to attend one of the best universities. In the end, he found a job in the big city and was promoted to be a director when he was 26 years old.
However, cultivation is very serious. If humans want to become divine beings through cultivation, it is just as Master said, “Cultivate, my disciples, ‘til no single omission is found.” (“Cultivating Amidst the Delusion” in Hong Yin)
Fa-rectification is close to the end, and Master is shouldering a lot of his disciples' and sentient beings' karma.
However, I wept because of my emotions. I reasoned, “If my cultivation failed, what kind of miserable condition would my child, relatives and sentient beings have to face? How can I be worthy of Master's compassionate salvation?”
Master also said:
“For every one of you who makes up his mind to cultivate, you will be able to endure things, and when your personal welfare is on the line, you will be able to let go of your attachments, and you will be able to take those things lightly. As long as you can do that it’s not hard, in fact. Now those people who say it’s hard, it turns out, they just can’t let go of those things. Doing the exercises isn’t hard in its own right, and there’s nothing hard about raising your level in and of itself. They only say it’s hard because they can’t let go of their human thoughts.” (Zhuan Falun)
I vowed in front of Master's picture, “I must let go of my human emotions and remove all of my attachments. I must be kind to my relatives and all sentient beings.”
I suddenly felt relieved and it seemed like a big burden had been removed.
Emotion for grandchildren can be the biggest attachment for elderly people. The old forces will take advantage of this loophole to create tribulations for us. So we must steel our will and let go of this emotion.
I passed this tribulation. Just a few days ago, my son called his dad and told him that he had found a better job.
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Category: Improving Oneself
