(Minghui.org) Throughout my twenty-one years of practicing Dafa, it was Master’s compassionate care and salvation that enabled me to overcome a long-term family tribulation.
I would like to share the following story of how my son started practicing Dafa after years of xinxing conflicts between us. Fellow practitioners, please kindly point out anything that is inappropriate.
A Conflict Between Me and My Son
I divorced my husband in 2014 and at that time I was in debt. My son worked out of town so I had no choice but to live with my mother and sleep on her sofa.
My son had been unwilling to communicate with others since he was a child; he was simply indifferent to people. He refused to talk to me or call me “Mom” since graduating from middle school.
My son worked out of town and only came home once a year. He never called home, and every time I called him, he was impatient and would often hang up while I was still talking.
Nearly three years after the divorce, my son quit his job in Beijing and returned home. My ex-husband had a new family, so my son stayed at my mother's home with me.
Though we lived in the same house, our relationship was the same as before. He still did not call me Mom and did not talk to me.
One evening I tried to chat with him. I said, “We both live in grandmother's house now. It is very inconvenient. I divorced your father almost three years ago. Since then I've worked two jobs and saved some money, which is just enough to buy an apartment, but I'm still short of money to renovate the apartment.”
My son was playing with his cellphone and didn't reply for a long time, which made me sad. But after a while, he suddenly said to me calmly, “I have a deposit of 70,000 yuan. I will transfer the money to your account, and you can use the money any way you want.”
He didn't say anything else. When I received his deposit of nearly 70,000 yuan (around U.S.$10,000), I had mixed feelings. I never dreamed that he would give me so much money. I felt I was walking on air and my human attachments of being proud and elated were surfacing.
I thought, “My son has come back, and I can rely on him!” But in the following days, things took a turn for the worse. The distance between me and my son was still there, even though he gave his money to me.
He stopped talking to me, spent all his time watching TV or playing on his cellphone, slept late, and didn’t go out to find a job. He would also get angry if I criticized him.
I was really busy at that time. I took care of my mother and did the housework, and I also had to go to work. When I saw my son doing nothing, I felt great psychological pressure. If he continued behaving like this, we would have a problem supporting ourselves, not to mention buying a house.
Every day, I experienced mixed emotions and couldn't sleep well at night. I wanted to communicate well with my son but he refused to talk to me. One day, I calmly said to him, “There are jobs advertised everywhere; why don't you apply for them?”
He said that he didn't want to, so I went on, “Then you can't rely on me! You should go out and find a job, even a labor job is fine. You can't stay here at home!”
He suddenly shouted, “I will rely only on you! What are you going to do?!”
Things like this happened several times, and quarrels often erupted between us. I didn’t look within. I always tried to reason with him whenever I had a chance to talk to him.
However, one day during an argument my son broke things and pushed over the refrigerator. The dishes and bowls in the refrigerator went all over the floor.
When my mother saw this, she yelled at me, “You both get out, leave my house!” Later, my sister came and screamed abuses at me.
This event woke me up and I calmed down. I asked myself, “What happened to me? Am I still a practitioner? Didn't Master ask us to look within? Isn't it my own attachments that caused my son's problems?”
Looking Within Changed My Environment
Over the years, I had always quarreled with my ex-husband. Now I didn't even have a home to live in. Additionally, I hadn’t given my son the warmth of a family and parental love. I only criticized him and tried to control him.
Why couldn't I be like a practitioner and be compassionate to him? Instead, I was like an ordinary person who complained and nagged him. How could he not be irritated? This all related to my attachment to sentimentality.
After realizing these problems, I calmed down and studied the Fa. I looked inward, and little by little sought and eliminated attachments, constantly improving my cultivation state.
Master said:
“Cultivation practice must take place through tribulations so as to test whether you can part with and care less about different kinds of human sentimentality and desires. If you are attached to these things, you will not succeed in cultivation.”
“If you are free from this sentimentality, nobody can affect you. An everyday person’s mind will be unable to sway you. What takes over in its place is benevolence, which is something more noble.”(Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)
Master's Fa teaching helped me deeply understand that my attachments to fame, selfishness, seeking peace of mind, and resentment all came from sentimentality towards my son. Only if I let go of all these attachments could I reach enlightenment. If I hadn't let go of human notions and made fundamental changes, I would not have overcome this tribulation.
I also understood, from the Fa, that there is a predestined relationship between people and in society. Isn't a person's life pre-arranged? Why did I still insist on arranging my son's life like an ordinary person? Instantly I understood why he ignored me – it was due to my attachments.
Since then, no matter how much my son ignored me, I did not become angry. I just looked for my own problems, and cultivated myself. As I changed, the tension between me and my son began to gradually alleviate.
Under Master's compassionate care, I bought a satisfactory house at the end of 2016. After remodeling the house, my son and I finally moved in on New Year's Day, 2017.
My son was happy, and he stayed busy cleaning the home. We still didn't talk a lot, but the gap between us was getting smaller.
At the end of February 2017, he told me that he had found a job at a local five-star hotel. After hearing this news, I didn't show excitement but inside I wanted to cry with happiness.
My son only stayed at home for seven months, but it left with me a lot to think about and improve on.
My Son Obtained the Fa
Master said:
“I calculated their ages now, and from when I started to spread the Fa till now, they would be young people around twenty-five years old, many of whom really have not been saved. They were all Gods, coming down to Earth, and they scattered to all areas of the world. Some could not become humans, as there were not that many human skins, so they became animals or plants. Why does the current society have such a high requirement for animal and plant protection in recent years? There are reasons for sure, and it was arranged and led by Gods. No humans see these things clearly, but none of them are simple.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2016 New York Fa Conference”, Team Blue Translation)
Whenever I read or thought of this paragraph of Master's Fa teaching, my heart would be very heavy because my son was in the age range that Master spoke about.
My son chose to be born to me for the sake of obtaining Dafa. But it was concerning that our relationship was not harmonious and he didn't know the truth about Dafa even though I kept talking about it.
I exchanged thoughts with fellow practitioners on this matter. Many practitioners asked me to send forth righteous thoughts and balance my family relationships well.
From then on, I sent forth righteous thoughts every day to clear the evil factors that kept my son from learning the truth about Dafa. Sometimes I would ask him to watch New Tang Dynasty Television.
I would explain the truth about Dafa whenever I had a chance, but he still wouldn't respond. I was not discouraged, however, and kept doing the things I was supposed to do.
One evening just before New Year's Eve 2018, my son was very happy. He was standing in the living room and was very willing to talk to me about something that was going on at his workplace.
We talked a lot that day, and I took the opportunity to tell him some of the contents of Master's “Fa Teaching at the 2016 New York Fa Conference,” which touched him a lot.
Seeing that he was willing to listen, I said to him, “The New Year is coming, you can watch the Shen Yun DVD on New Year's Eve. Don't watch CCTV [state-controlled TV in China] again.” He said, “Okay!”
After watching the Shen Yun DVD on New Year's Eve, my son seemed to become a different person. He started being polite to people, and not as indifferent as before. The gap between us basically vanished; even my two elder sisters said that he had become a better person.
On the evening of May 10, 2018, I was in the living room watching the video of Master's Guangzhou Fa teaching. My son was taking an online accounting class in the study, when suddenly he came over and said to me: “I want to watch it with you tomorrow!”
Since then, he began to practice Dafa.
My Son's Mind and Body Changed
By the beginning of June, my son basically quit ordinary people's entertainment. He stopped watching TV and looking at ordinary websites, and did not play video games.
Every morning at 3:50 a.m., he would practice the five sets of exercises with me.And, after sending forth righteous thoughts, we would then study Master's Fa teachings until 7:00 in the morning.
After that, he would go to work. He also informed his colleagues about Falun Dafa.
Soon after my son started cultivation, his mind and body underwent great changes. His stomach discomfort and coughing disappeared, and his complexion changed from sallow to rosy.
He used to ignore people, was selfish and indifferent, and didn't like to receive guests. He didn't care for others. Now, he is always smiling. When guests arrive, he will take the initiative to welcome them.
He had not called me Mom for more than ten years, and I got used to that. But now he has started calling me Mom again, and I am very pleased to hear that long-lost word.
One night, my son recited Lunyu more than a dozen times and saw Master's Fa portrait in Zhuan Falun start to shine. It was red, blue, green, gold, and very bright.
Master demonstrated a dozen different hand signs (mudra) then faded away. My son thought, “Let me see it again!” Master let him see it one more time. He was overjoyed, and since then he has gained more confidence on the road of cultivation.
Thank you Master for giving my son and me everything! Only by cultivating diligently, can I repay Master's grace.
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Category: Improving Oneself
