(Minghui.org) It must be for predestined reasons that my husband and I met during this turbulent era. We hurt each other and accumulated deep resentment during our 50 years of marriage.
Although I cultivated Dafa for more than 20 years, that resentment remained deeply embedded in my heart. Because I could not let go of such resentment, I developed many other attachments, such as jealousy, a fighting spirit, a showoff mentality, all of which grew and occupied my mind. I got angry when I saw my husband. I couldn’t eat well, my stomach was bulging, and I couldn’t stay straight when I walked. I had pain in my abdomen, back, and legs. I was out of breath when I walked. I blamed all these issues on my husband because he was the one who made me so angry.
From studying the Fa in depth, I understood the Fa principles better and identified the loopholes in my cultivation. I would not have found these attachments if I did not cultivate my xinxing and look inward. I understand that complaints come from a person’s selfishness. Resentment happens everywhere in families and in social life. I was driven by my strong self-interest to look outward and see the shortcomings in others instead of looking inward for my own shortcomings. As a result, when I saw my husband, I recalled the bad things he did to me, and I became angry. Although I didn’t say anything to him, I couldn’t let my anger go. After a few days of working on myself, my health improved. But I still thought about it, and the issue tortured me repeatedly. At times, I forgot I was a practitioner. I knew I really needed to cultivate myself.
One day I read the following teaching of Master’s:
“Going through hardship and suffering is an outstanding opportunity to remove karma, be cleansed of sin, purify the body, elevate your plane of thought, and rise in level—it’s an extraordinarily good thing. This is a correct and upright Fa-truth.” (“The Closer to the End, the More Diligent You Should Be,” The Essentials of Diligent Progress III)
It seemed that I had not seen this passage before. I was suddenly awakened, and it changed my thoughts completely. I understood that my husband was helping me to improve in cultivation. He might have suffered so much and created a lot of karma. He was also a sentient being that Master wanted to save. I should treat him with compassion rather than destroy him.
After that, I treated my husband as a sentient being that I should save. I took good care of him during our daily life. He also changed and started reciting, “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” He tried to eliminate many bad habits. I was so very happy to see those changes in him and wished that he could start to practice Falun Dafa one day. However, he told me that he could be a friend of Falun Dafa, and he would support my cultivation. He frequently brought offerings of fruit for Master.
My husband also benefited from Dafa. He has not even caught a cold in more than 10 years, and he did not get infected during the pandemic. I have been more focused on cultivating myself and saving more sentient beings.