(Minghui.org) Greetings Master! Greetings fellow practitioners!
I started practicing Falun Dafa at the end of 2019, months before the start of the pandemic. Looking back it seems like I always walked close to Falun Dafa but it wasn’t my time to step in. I realize now that everything was arranged seamlessly by Master Li (Dafa’s founder) since I was a child.
Starting the Journey of Cultivation
Since I was a little girl, I remember wanting to bring together all the good people I knew and take them to an island and build our own world. After I started practicing and understood the deeper meanings of Falun Dafa, while reading the Fa, these words touched me deeply:
Master said, “The universe is by nature good and kind, and so when a person is first born he shares in its defining qualities: zhen, shan, ren.” (The First Talk, Zhuan Falun) This brought me back to my childhood thoughts and there was this deep sense of calm that I now carry with me since I know that the universe is benevolent.
Since I was a little girl, I wanted all the world to do something at the very same time and see what a powerful effect it would produce in the world. When I first learned to send forth righteous thoughts, I could actually feel that strong field of all practitioners as they cleansed the bad elements from the world.
When I learned to do the fifth exercise, I remembered what Master said, “If you aren’t having good thoughts as you practice, at least you shouldn’t have bad thoughts. Having no thoughts at all is best, ...” (The Fifth Talk, Zhuan Falun). It often reconnects me to that little girl and it brings me a warm feeling of connection to Master since I was a child.
When I came to the U.S. from Russia in 2007, one of the first landmarks I visited was Boston Common. I remember that as soon as I entered it, I decided right away that I wanted to stay in the U.S. I didn’t see the practitioners there. But after so many years now I know that it was probably the strong field that practitioners create that just drew me in.
We finally found Falun Dafa in 2017 in London when I got a flyer about organ harvesting near the Chinese Embassy. Although I forgot about it later, it came back vividly when I watched the movie, Candlelight Across the Street. That day when I got the flyer, my husband, my 7-month-old son Adrian, my husband’s sister and I was heading to the British Museum. Just before we crossed the street, we passed by a yellow booth and practitioners gave us a flyer. When I learned about organ harvesting, I briefly shared it with my husband and his sister. We didn’t learn about Falun Dafa that day. Eighteen months later my husband’s sister started practicing in Argentina and then taught it to my husband. I then finally started practicing at the end of 2019 as well, when my sister-in-law told me that the practice would help me with the health problem that I had as a postpartum complication. No doctor could treat it since no one could find the cause. I vividly remember her words: “Falun Dafa can help you.”
Now when I tell people about the practice, I know that although a person may not start practicing right away, every word, every flyer we share, every lotus flower we give, and every exercise we do outside, is part of a future cultivator’s path who someday will be looking back at each step, word, lotus flower which led him or her towards Dafa. And we shouldn’t underestimate their power.
Letting Go of an Attachment to Illness
Although it was an illness that initially prompted me to practice, I quickly saw a much broader meaning of Falun Dafa that deeply touched me. But after almost a year of reading the Fa and doing the exercises, my condition did not go away, I kept thinking that I wasn’t doing something right.
One day I was shocked to suddenly realize that the reason my medical condition wasn’t resolved was because I hadn’t even started cultivating! When I read the part on the “Issue of Pursuit,” Master said, “There are many who come to the practice with intentions. We see all sorts of motives, from wanting psychic powers to hoping to hear new theories, to getting healed, or getting a falun.” (The Second Talk, Zhuan Falun)
I realized how in the back of my mind I’d been measuring the “success” of my cultivation by such a low standard of simply getting rid of my illness and by doing so I actually wasn’t even cultivating. Instead, I was trying to eliminate illness and keep fit. Then I understood that I had to choose to either keep believing in the existence of my illness or genuinely believe in cultivating my xinxing.
Only when I started focusing on following Zhen-Shan-Ren, truly improving myself, and stopped thinking about my “illness,” did I fully recover. Miraculously our baby daughter came to the world and our family. Just one year before this was deemed impossible by all the doctors and specialists I consulted.
Letting Go of an Attachment to Fear
When I started practicing Falun Dafa, I was on medical leave from my teaching job at a college. It was Friday night. Almost everyone left home for the weekend. I wondered why I couldn’t cherish my family more than my work. When I worked on an important project and my mom called I never give preference to her.
Deep inside I always envied those who sincerely treasured their family more than their work, but whatever I did I could not change my approach to life. I was convinced that there was no way for one to change and that we were tied to our personalities. What I really didn’t know is how fast one’s perspective can actually change when you genuinely practice Falun Dafa.
I officially left my full-time teaching job a year after I started practicing and the very next day my illness was resolved. Since then I’ve stayed home and taken care of our two children and worked from home. Although I’m used to working a lot and sleeping little because of the busy work and study schedule that I had while finishing my education, the hardest thing for me now is balancing the tasks of caring for my family, working, studying the Fa, doing the exercises and clarifying the truth. Although I haven’t found the perfect balance yet, several realizations helped me to make major breakthroughs in my cultivation while looking for this balance.
The first one was discovering the attachment to fear. Before our baby daughter was born, I used to wake up early in the morning to do the fifth exercise. I knew that I was lighter and kinder the whole day and was able to maintain my xinxing better. My husband and I (and occasionally our son) read the Falun Dafa teachings with the group online. We tried to maintain the same routine after our daughter was born, but however hard I tried, I could not go back to the old schedule. Actually, that pursuit of what I thought was diligence, was producing the opposite effect. I got upset with my son if he made noise and woke up the baby when I tried to do the fifth exercise in the morning; or when he woke me up at night asking for something or just cried for no reason. I would be so exhausted in the morning that I wouldn’t be able to wake up early to meditate. I would then again be upset with him.
I eventually realized that I actually did the exercises out of fear of failing xinxing tests during the day. I realized that this was a trap for me that didn’t let me genuinely cultivate: When something didn’t go the way I wanted it to, or when the situation became difficult, instead of maintaining my xinxing or looking inward, I immediately blamed anything or anyone that prevented me from doing the exercises in the morning.
At night it was the same thing: If I didn’t get to read the whole chapter, I would always see it as a reason for not being able to behave as a practitioner. But the more I was trying to organize my schedule to continue with the exercises and reading, the worse the situation became. My daughter would cry non-stop and right at the beginning of the study and my son would wake up more and more at night and behave more and more like a baby. I realized then that I was using reading the teachings and the exercises as a way of keeping the old forces’ interference away but I did not actually try to cultivate myself.
After studying the Fa, I felt ashamed that I was using the power of Dafa to simply avoid tribulations and live comfortably.
After realizing this, I stopped looking for ways to better organize my day to not have tribulations. Instead, I simply read and practiced whenever there was a chance. Whenever possible I read or practiced the exercises with my husband and children. That is usually the time when I’m most calm and focused since I know that I’m not escaping from any responsibility or doing it out of fear. Thus, even if it wasn’t the entire chapter or an entire hour of exercise, my calm state allowed me to comprehend the Fa even deeper in these short instances of studying and exercising throughout the day.
Another understanding of the Fa that helped me to improve was the realization that tribulations don’t indicate the level of my karma, but my ability to go through tribulations with a calm and compassionate mind and heart is the indicator of my progress in cultivation.
We try to read the Fa on the phone almost every morning with my husband, my son, and my sister-in-law for about 30 minutes before my husband goes to work. Many times my daughter starts crying because something bothers her or we all feel tired because there was some kind of tribulation at night with kids not feeling well or my son waking our daughter up.
Whenever this happened before and we couldn’t continue studying or we had to wait while I calmed her down, I would feel ashamed thinking that my husband and his sister would definitely think that my daughter’s crying is a reflection of my poor cultivation state and that I have a lot of karma. But one morning I was so upset not only because once again we couldn’t read for just half an hour, but also because I didn’t let my husband and my sister-in-law continue reading without me. So I started to search inside and suddenly realized that tribulations don’t indicate my cultivation state, but the way I handle them does represent how well I’m cultivating.
Through studying the Fa, I understood that I should focus not on what kind of tribulation is given to me, but rather on how I deal with it.
And looking a little bit deeper, I found that behind my behavior was my fear of losing face. I realized that I did most things out of fear: I was afraid of making a mistake, of people criticizing me, of cultivating slower than others, or of not achieving perfection. It wasn’t out of benevolence, but out of fear—which was not right, When, for the first time, I looked at the world without fear, I felt that my body was made of air, everything became brighter and I became very happy and light and all my negative feelings immediately went away.
Motherhood Is a Sacred Responsibility
Understanding my responsibilities is another important realization that led me to deepen my understanding of the Fa and advance my cultivation. The first thing that attracted my attention when I started memorizing the Fa was the fact that Master starts the first chapter by talking about responsibility. Master said, “From the start, I have been teaching in a way that’s responsible both to those who want to learn our practice and society.” (The First Talk, Zhuan Falun)
I think many of the tribulations I couldn’t overcome as a practitioner were because of my lack of responsibility. The way today’s society functions looks like we always have a choice and if something goes wrong, it’s because we didn’t make the right choice. So whenever it gets too hard for me to handle children, work, home, meals, and my Fa study and exercises, I get angry. I think that I probably made the wrong choice, that I should get more help or I should split the work more efficiently with my husband, etc. But the more I thought of the word responsibility, the more I recalled that whenever something got difficult, I tried to evade responsibility and put the blame on something external.
Through studying the Fa, I realized that I should be responsible for what is happening not by trying to prevent it, but rather by cultivating my xinxing in any tribulation. So, now when trouble comes, I try to stop looking at what I did wrong in terms of organization. Instead, I focus on expanding my benevolence and tolerance. That is my responsibility as a practitioner.
Speaking about truthfulness, one crucial moment in improving my xinxing at home was when after several sleepless nights and a lot of work, my daughter wept in frustration about something she couldn’t do herself, but she didn’t want me to help her. After several useless attempts to calm her down, I just gave up. I thought that all I had to do was to calmly tolerate it. But looking at a tiny girl crying all by herself, I realized that as a mother, I was the only one that could calm her down by simply hugging her just a little more compassionately, by simply staying by her side several moments longer.
I was not only the only one who could do it, but actually, the only one who was supposed to do it and wasn’t doing it. The thought terrified me. The universe gave me the responsibility of taking care of this little human being and helping her learn the Fa, all with Zhen-Shan-Zen. Instead, I was sitting helplessly questioning why I had to bear all this. This image comes to my mind often since then and whenever I face situations when I’m simply physically tired from long sleepless nights. I try not to think if it’s fair or not or if I am not a good mother by today’s standards, but rather, am I fulfilling my responsibility by taking care of my children?
This sense of constant responsibility when two little children with a predestined relationship with Dafa who depend on me 24/7 has made me realize that the unselfish heart that is developed during our cultivation is not for us to just achieve and then one day enjoy freedom without any responsibility. Instead, it is actually to develop infinite compassion, always have it, and treat the world with compassion for the rest of eternity, just the way Master constantly takes care of us. And that is our constant responsibility - both now and after we reach Consummation - to maintain our thoughts, our hearts, and our xinxing in line with Dafa and take care of the world around us.
As soon as I accepted the fact that I handled house chores, work, and caring for my children as my sacred responsibility as a mother of young practitioners and accepted my family life as my cultivation environment, I immediately felt a great calm and realized that the three cultivators that I have by my side are the ones that should receive the most Shan (Compassion) and Ren (Forbearance) that I could give. I started to see that our family is a little universe and a small example of society and that all that Master says about social relationships should be applied to our family.
Through reading the Fa, I immediately thought that I raise my son by establishing rules and trying to make sure he follows them. But, sometimes it feels like we are enemies whenever he doesn’t follow them. Now whenever I remember to treat him as another practitioner that also needs to be saved with me by following Zhen-Shan-Ren and when I remember to look inside, everything changes.
It recently occurred to me that whenever I made an origami lotus flower to take with us when we go for a walk, my son asks if this one was for him and I always felt that with so little time I had, I couldn’t keep one flower at home when we could save somebody we meet. But this time I asked myself how I could save someone without showing the boundless Shan (Compassion) of Dafa to my children first. The lotus flower I made that day was especially for him and in the colors that he kept asking for. When I finished it and said that this one was for him, he had the biggest smile on his face. He kept saying, “I have my own lotus flower. I have my own lotus flower.” I then felt that only now can I step outside to save others.
I want to thank Master for letting me cultivate with my family. Watching children who more often than us act in accordance with Zhen-Shan-Ren, actually helps me get closer to the universe’s characteristics and learn to distinguish what is truly good from evil. By watching them and truly accepting the responsibility of helping them on their cultivation path, I can sometimes better comprehend the way Master wants us to succeed in cultivation. It’s similar to the way we parents want to give our children an infinite number of chances to improve until they succeed. The responsibility I now feel towards them helps me to see my own cultivation process with filial responsibility since Master is watching over us as the ultimate father.
Conclusion
All my life I wondered if one can change. The longer I practice Falun Dafa, the closer I get to that little girl who believed in goodness, in non-thinking, and in making a change by doing something good with others. The more I practice Falun Dafa, the lighter my mind becomes. The more I practice Falun Dafa, the brighter my world, and consequently, our world, becomes. I’m forever grateful to Master for letting me see the miracles of being a Falun Dafa practitioner.
Thank you! Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners!
(Presented at the 2023 New England Falun Dafa Cultivation Experience Sharing Conference)
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