(Minghui.org) When we lose our financial security as a result of the persecution, securing a source of income easily becomes a priority over doing the three things. Or we naturally think that if our kids go to a good school, they will have a good career so we will have less worries and be able to devote more of our time and effort to clarifying the truth and saving sentient beings.
There doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with this logic. But Master said:
“You are unable to interfere with the lives of others, and neither can you control others’ fates, including those of your wife, sons, daughters, parents, or brothers. Can you decide those things? Furthermore, how will you cultivate if you do not have any worries or troubles? How can you do the exercises comfortably and restfully? How can there be such a thing? That is what you think from the perspective of everyday people. (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)
When we are oblivious to our mistakes, the troubles we encounter may just be Master’s way of helping us get rid of a particular attachment. Here, I would like to share with you some experiences in my own cultivation.
I used to have the kind of mindset described above and thought that my son wouldn’t have a good career because he didn’t get into a prestigious university. Nevertheless, my son wanted to make something of himself so he went to Beijing after finishing his university studies and started his own company.
While the performance of his own business was lackluster, he was offered a departmental head role at a hi-tech state-owned enterprise. It’s a listed company with highly qualified staff, people who are much more qualified than him. He didn’t have any experience working for a large company. Nevertheless, the boss there insisted on appointing him as head of a department.
My son got into a prestigious high school; I hoped that he’d get a great job if he did well in school. What I had expected to be an easy, smooth passage – a promising career for my son and more time for me to do Dafa-related activities – turned out to be full of twists and turns. I had this ingrained belief that the only way to get a good job was to go to a good university, and that was also the only way to validate Dafa. However, subsequent events made me realize how rigid and wrong my thinking was.
My son left the state-owned enterprise after two years even though he excelled in his role and made money for the company. He told me the two years working there was like a dream, implying that it was a strange and surreal experience. He also said he went there feeling he had something to prove; perhaps it was to prove that one can still be successful without going to a good university. Now that he did it, it was time to leave. Furthermore, he had this feeling that he was in this world for a reason but was unclear what it was.
I laughed off what he said and did not think much of it at the time. Later when I came across the words “validating what?” on the Minghui website, all of a sudden it became clear to me: what my son said or felt didn’t come from out of the blue.
He has read some Dafa books and in the first few years of the persecution he helped me a great deal with our activities to let people know about the persecution. He did not hesitate to join our efforts to help people quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and file criminal complaints against former CCP head Jiang Zemin for initiating the persecution of Falun Gong.
I realized that while Dafa practitioners’ children may not have become practitioners themselves, they also have their own missions in this grand Fa-rectification period. Whatever their roles may be, they have all been pre-arranged by Master. Coming to this understanding made me realize that my initial way of looking at the situation was not correct. My mindset of not attending a good university equating to not being able to get a good job was formed based on a conventional and scientific understanding of the world. On the other hand, Master’s arrangements are beyond any human logic. If we play the roles arranged by Master, we will truly be validating Dafa rather than science.
After my son left his job, business at his own company suddenly took off; everything seemed to be aligning as the cosmic climate changed in his favor. I could not help but wonder what Master had in store for us next. Signs of the Chinese economy struggling under the CCP’s rule are evidence to me that Master’s grand plan is quietly playing out in the human world. I found my way of thinking was taken to another level where I no longer thought in terms of my own situation, but that of the whole cultivation environment. I was able to see the bigger plan, Master’s grand plan, and everything seemed to be falling into place.
In the past, I used to view Master’s arrangements through my own selfish lens and all I could see was how I could improve my own situation via Dafa. Now I can see that when I tried to eliminate the financial difficulties imposed on me by the old forces, I was merely battling for my own selfish reasons.
At the time, I was considering the amount of wealth I should aim to accumulate. I could not do without money, but I also did not want too much of it as I would have to exchange my virtue. However, my own wild ride through extreme ups and downs has taught me to take to heart these words from Master:
“Only in terms of personal, vested interests, would he be like this. He believed in following the course of nature.” (Lecture Nine, Zhuan Falun)
All we need to do is to focus on our cultivation and everything else should take care of itself. Personal interests should not be our primary concern.
It’s important for us to play our roles in Master’s grand Fa-rectification. Once I enlightened to that, my situation started to change because the tribulation itself was an opportunity for me to improve my xinxing.
I’d like to share another experience in my cultivation. I was thinking to myself: I have been stressing myself out by striving to achieve my many goals in life but in the end what I have in my possession is some old furniture and clothes. Now that I have let go of many human attachments, I feel free and happy as long as I am able to do the three things. I don’t really need much to live on; the few material things I own are sufficient. As I was thinking these thoughts, I felt as if I was floating in the air, still holding on to my possessions. I tried to come down but could not find a place to land.
I took that to mean I was not rooted to the human world and neither were the few possessions I had. Another interpretation of my feeling of floating off the ground was: I used to think that as a human, I need to have a foothold in this human world which I translated to mean owning a home. But I lost my home as a result of the persecution which symbolized that I lost my place and have been uprooted from this human world. It also signified that I have freed myself of attachments to material things and have become light enough to float.
To me, it’s important that we do not let our desire for a bright future for our children or other similar expectations mire us in this human world. Even if our children do well, our reason for being doesn’t reside in this human world. We are only here for a short stay. To avoid being trapped here we must fundamentally change our human ways of thinking.
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Category: Improving Oneself
