(Minghui.org)
After I set my basic viewpoint right, I felt the magnificence and beauty of dignity. If I didn't have human attachment, Fa power would show up when I did everything. I set the requirements for my daughter: first she had to put Fa study as the first priority and had to find time to study the Fa every day. Second, she had to do the study well and measure her behavior according to the Fa principles and take every opportunity to validate the Fa and save sentient beings.
If my daughter put forward unreasonable requirements, I would refuse them in a dignified way. If she did something wrong, I would criticize her seriously. Before in order to avoid any conflict, I didn't dare to discipline her. Now she was ready to accept my instructions and knew how to look within. She was improving. One day I looked within and said to her: “You dad is a new practitioner and you are a little practitioner. If you two don't do well, it is all right. But for me as a veteran Dafa disciple, if I don't keep up my xinxing, it will not be forgivable.” My daughter corrected me immediately: “No, it is my fault. I am a veteran practitioner, too.”
– By the author
Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
I have been practicing Falun Dafa for more than ten years. Compared with diligent practitioners who have been doing the three things well, I still have a long way to catch up. Some veteran practitioners encouraged me to write an experience sharing article. I realized that the process of writing a sharing article was a process of finding out my attachments and getting rid of them. It would be a process for cultivation. I take this opportunity of the 9th China Fahui on Minghui.org to share with practitioners cultivation stories about me and my daughter. Please point out anything inappropriate.
My Predestined Relationship with My Daughter
I obtained the Fa in 1996 when my daughter was only eight months old. She has loved to smile from the time she was born. Especially in her sleep, she smiled and laughed until she woke up. I wondered what made her so happy.
When she was five or six years old, she woke up crying one morning. She said she saw in a dream I was dead. In her dream she was a maid in a wealthy family, and she was forced to tend fires, fetch water, and chop wood. She was beaten and her clothes were ragged. She asked me to rescue her, but I couldn't and was beaten to death.
While in primary school, she had a dream in which we lived on a mountain and I was her mother. She was 16 or 17 then. We lived in a shabby, thatched cottage and were very poor and dressed in rags. She said I was very sick, and she had to go up the mountain to chop and collect firewood. She slipped and fell into a great pit, and a group of monkeys surrounded her and tore at her. She waved her arms to drive them away and woke up.
I had a dream when my daughter was in high school. In my dream I was a girl of seven or eight playing with my neighbor's girls in a big house. I saw a black leopard running towards us. There was a hole in the wall and I was afraid that the leopard would come in through the hole. I saw a spade near the wall just as the leopard got to the hole. I picked up the spade and shoved it hard against the hole. The scene changed to my daughter in a black T-shirt falling down in a pool of blood with both arms broken at the shoulders. She said to me crying, “I just want to come see you.” I pressed her arms against her shoulders and was heartbroken. I cried and said to her, “I will do cultivation because of you. I will diligently cultivate for you.”
My Little Fellow Practitioner
I started to teach my daughter to do the exercises when she was only one year old. She could hardly talk. When I taught her to rotate the Falun four times, I asked her to count. She said, “One, one, one; one, one, one.” When she did the sitting meditation for the first time, she sat on a sofa for 45 minutes. She didn't enter into tranquility. She only conjoined her hands. When she finished the meditation, her legs were numb and painful, and she cried her heart out.
When Hong Yin was published, I taught her to recite Master's poems. She couldn't read at the time, so I read and she followed. After reading after me for three or five times, she could remember it. When we had almost finished the whole book, she dreamed that Master took her little hand and called her nickname and both of them flew to a vast place. Master gave her fruit from the heavens.
We couldn't practice the exercises outside after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started to persecute Falun Gong. In 2000, five practitioners from our Fa study group went to see our local officials and clarified the truth to them. We demanded the right to practice the exercises in public. But they turned us down. We decided that we would do the exercises in the pavilion in our residential compound. My husband was at the hospital looking after his brother who had been hurt in a car accident, so I had to take my daughter with me to do the exercises. The night before I said to her, “Bad people cursed Master and Dafa. We are going to rectify the Fa and go to the pavilion to do the exercises. Tomorrow morning I have to get up early. Would you like to go with me?” She nodded. “Then you have to get up as soon as I call you.” She nodded again. The next day it was still dark when I got up. I called my daughter and she opened up her eyes (it was usually impossible that she would wake up at that time.) Hand in hand we went to the pavilion. Only three adults appeared. Soon the security guards came and tried to drive us away and pull down our arms. My daughter was frightened and pulled on my clothes. She told me later that Master took her to the heavens again that night.
At the end of 1999, I decided to go to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong by myself. My husband didn't practice Falun Gong, but he was not against me. He was afraid of the persecution and didn't agree that I should go. He knew that I was upset. He said that he would bring the computer from his workplace home and let me play games. At that time very few companies had computers. I told my daughter that I planned to go to Beijing. She was very attached to me because I had brought her up all by myself. She always followed me. Four years old at the time, she nodded her head, but tears ran down her cheeks. She pushed me outside and said to me, crying, “Mummy, you go quickly.” I didn't know what would be waiting for me if I went to Beijing. I didn't plan to come back right away, yet I was a bit concerned about my daughter. If she cried and didn't let me go, I might not have gone. When she pushed me outside, she gave me great courage. I felt that I had to be worthy of my daughter's encouragement. On the way to Beijing, I realized that it is a citizen's right to petition for Falun Gong. Several police officers stopped me at the Taoranting in Beijing. I cried and wrote down what I wanted to say on a piece of paper. They said they would give the paper to the petition office. So, with Master's help, I returned home safely.
A cultivator has to let go of attachments to fame, self-interest, and emotions. It was very painful when going through tests. We didn't have the environment of group Fa study or the exercises. Fellow practitioners were arrested and persecuted. I felt huge pressure. Due to the CCP's implication policy, my husband had to put up with great stress at work and was unable to get a promotion. He was not happy at home and lost his temper with me for no reason. When I was unable to bear this, I would talk to my daughter and cried while hugging her tightly. She often put my head on her chest and patted me, comforting me. She wiped away my tears and enlightened me with Fa principles. Every time, she would say something straight to the point. She was totally a little Dafa disciple. Looking back, I realized that our compassionate Master was trying to give hints to me through my daughter. Master is looking after me and guiding me every step of my cultivation way.
“If I Knew, I Would Not Have Come to Your Home.”
When my daughter was in high school and going through puberty, I was going through menopause. All of a sudden fights broke out any moment in the family. My now stubborn daughter seemed a changed person. She refused to accept any of my advice. She became rebellious, hot tempered, and jealous. She always had conflicts with her classmates. She was not satisfied with her teachers. She swore and ate at roadside food stalls. She was overly aware of her clothing. And she did worse and worse in her schoolwork. She started dating in middle school. At home she was never happy and broke this and that. I could hardly believe that she used to be a kind fellow practitioner who looked at everything from the perspective of the Fa. She was not a practitioner at all and she was sometimes worse than an everyday person. I was in despair and even didn't want to live after several clashes with her. She didn't give in at all. She said more than once that she would commit suicide by jumping off the building and then started to think of how to end her life in a less painful way. One day she was very upset and said to me in despair, “If I knew, I would not have come into this family.” She meant she would rather not be my daughter.
Fellow practitioners said that the problem was with me. I felt I was wronged. Why was I wrong to discipline her? In any case, I would not be worse than an everyday person. Many times I complained to Master: “I will not care for her anymore, and if she doesn't want to cultivate, let her be.” Every time I said this, in my dreams I would lose her when I went out. I knew that Master didn't agree that I should do this. I knelt down in front of Master's photo and asked why things were they way they were. I complained that Master had arranged for such a child to be in my family. She didn't listen to me. But Master didn't let me leave her. I bargained with Master and said in tears, “I didn't know the black leopard was a good thing. I didn't understand the animal because we spoke different languages. How can I be blamed when she was hurt? How can I be her mother?”
“Mum, I Am So Lucky to Be in This Family”
My husband knows that Falun Dafa is good but didn't believe in gods or Buddhas. He got very sick twice in 2010 and started to practice Falun Gong. Master purified him and took out a living spirit from his body. Master kept giving me hints and showed me my predestined relationships with my husband life after life. I felt that Master was right beside me. During that period, I didn't have time to do the exercises or send forth righteous thoughts. I didn't study the Fa much either. I did find the time to read Master's articles “Be More Diligent” and “Fa Teaching Given at the 2010 New York Fa Conference” and to read Minghui Weekly beside his hospital bed. Whenever anything came up, poems from Hong Yin would appear in my mind. The little monk Master mentioned in Zhuan Falun who “always works hard and tirelessly. It is quicker for him to repay his karma and become enlightened.” would appear and stay in my mind. I could only sleep two or three hours each day and this situation lasted for nearly two months. My colleagues praised me as “remarkable and great” after my husband was discharged from the hospital. In fact Master had done everything for me but gave mighty virtue to me instead. I knew it was the best reward Master could have given me. I had been in a slack state for ten years. How worried our compassionate Master must have been, waiting for me!
My husband and I diligently studied the Fa and practiced the exercises after he came home. With our minds full of the Fa, we understood the inner meaning of the Fa more and more. We felt that the meaning of every sentence of the Fa was different from when we had read it before. Master has repeatedly emphasized that we should study the Fa well, clarify the truth, and save sentient beings. (I didn't think I had much to do with these three things before. I was numb.) When I did the exercises, I could clearly feel something rotating above my head. The mechanism Master placed in my body must have been rotating in vain for a long time. I felt my gong increasing quickly. My third eye could see more and more clearly. Whenever there was a conflict, I looked inward instantly. I would look at my daughter's problems from a different perspective now.
Two incidents happened later that woke my daughter up. One day she had terrible menstrual cramps. Her feet and hands were cold, and she broke out in a cold sweat. It was so painful that she couldn't hold still. My heart wasn't moved, and I reminded her to look inward and to ask Master for help. Yet the pain got so bad that she couldn't speak. I sat down and sent forth righteous thoughts but the results were minimal. I read articles from Essentials for Further Advancement to her. I was very tired and couldn't keep my eyes open. She asked me helplessly, “Mum, will I die?” I replied instantly, “Are you afraid? Do not be afraid. Even if you die, Master will still look after you and arrange a good place for you to go. But not being afraid of death doesn't mean you will die.” After lunch I put her to bed. After she woke up from the nap she was just fine. She said, “I wanted you to read the Fa to me. But you were sound asleep and I didn't have the strength to call you. How could you possibly sleep in such a situation!” I enlightened that on the one hand, I let the evil keep me from helping a fellow practitioner. On the other hand, cultivation is serious. As a cultivator, she had to face the tribulation herself and to cultivate herself and to enlighten herself. She shouldn't rely on anybody. Her xinxing had to be meet the standard.
One day she came home from school and asked me in tears, “Mum, can I get back on track?” She felt she was not normal because her classmate sitting beside her was a lesbian. She knew that homosexuality was wrong and would be eliminated first. I talked with her from the perspective of the Fa. First, she didn't study the Fa as often and was not strict with herself at school. She was competitive, jealous, and had a show-off mentality. She was polluted and had loopholes. Second, the old forces interfered with and persecuted her. That was a hard lesson. I saw the intent of the old forces and the rotten demons. When they see any practitioner with any attachments, they reinforce them and enlarge them until the loopholes in practitioners' dimension become larger and larger. Then they have the “excuses” they need to push practitioners to the brink of elimination. After that she listened to Master's Fa every night and to Shen Yun chorus CDs before she went to sleep. She became better and better in cultivation. One interesting thing was that when she was in a good cultivation state, in my dream I would be with her going to the university or while traveling but she did not appear with me when she didn't do well. When I asked her, she said she didn't study the Fa because of exams. I know Master doesn't want any practitioner to be left behind.
I came to the enlightenment that Master had arranged that my daughter and I have a predestined relationship again and again, and in this lifetime we are mother and daughter. It was not important that we resented each other or did great favors for each other in history. The important thing was that we made vows before Master before we reincarnated. We had promised each other that if one fell asleep, the other had to wake her up. Master would not show up as a Buddha and tell my daughter where she didn't do well. Master arranged for me to take good care of the little disciple. It is also a social norm that a child has to listen to her parents. If we didn't do well, “Buddha's Fa is boundless,” and Master would have his way to wake this being up. But if I didn't do well, did I deny Master's expectation and arrangement? I knelt down in front of Master's photo and said to Master in tears, “Master, I will try my best.”
I also enlightened that Dafa disciples are a special group of people that Master created, and in the long process of history, Master has led us and protected us so that we would help Master to rectify the Fa and save sentient beings in the last moment.
The so-called “puberty” and “menopause” were a demonstration of demonic behaviors of deviated people. Cultivators have not cultivated themselves well if they have negative behavior associated with these changes. My daughter's behavior was a reflection of my cultivation state and my attachments that I would not let go of. Over the past ten years, I didn't cultivate diligently and didn't do well. I hadn't let go of many attachments and I had the attachment of fear. I had especially strong qing and lived an everyday person's life. I didn't do the exercises much after 1999. Though I studied the Fa, I rarely saw the inner meaning of the Fa principles. I didn't dare talk too much when clarifying the truth and saving sentient beings. If I summoned up my courage to talk, then the other party still didn't want to withdraw from the CCP. My cultivation state was reflected in my daughter. She was the same as me. We didn't look like practitioners.
Anything that happens to a cultivator is not accidental. My daughter did wrong in many things. Her bad behaviors were for me to look within and find out what I didn't do well and cultivate them away. Any attachment we have will hinder us from completing our cultivation.
I worried that she could not return to her own heavenly kingdom if she didn't cultivate well. I required her to behave strictly according to the Fa criteria and study the Fa more and look within during conflicts. But I forgot that we cultivate in ordinary society and in a complicated environment. Children have to cultivate in such an environment as well. I required her to accomplish this, while I myself didn't achieve it. Isn't it the old forces' way of changing others while not changing themselves?
I myself had the attachments of showing off, competitiveness, complacency, vanity, and hatred towards the evil people who persecute practitioners. I required my daughter to do well in her studies, behave well, play the piano well, and get into a famous university so that she could validate the Fa in this way. I had such black substances. How could she bear it? We were born to this world not for fame, self-interest, or qing.
I had hoped that my daughter could accomplish what I hadn't and put my ambition onto her. I said to her that it was for her benefit. I had the heart of her paying me back. I had sacrificed so much for her so she should pay me back, respect me, and always be thankful. But Master requires us to do everything for others and to save sentient beings without any pre-conditions or rewards.
In Zhuan Falun 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?”
My daughter had her own fate, and I couldn't control it. Let alone that since she started to practice Falun Dafa, Master had re-arranged her life. Although she didn't do well at a certain time and in a certain situation, I couldn't say she couldn't cultivate. As long as she wanted to cultivate, Master would look after her. She was Master's little disciple and Master would not give up on her. I was not qualified to say that she was no longer able to cultivate, was I?
All along I had not been doing well. Master showed me my predestined relationship with my daughter. For some time I was attached to paying back my karma with my daughter. I shouldn't go on like that. I studied the Fa, memorized the Fa, and hand copied the Fa. My xinxing improved and my mindset was fundamentally changed. I sent forth righteous thoughts to get rid of the interference of qing. I studied the Fa with her and guided her from the perspective of the Fa. I showed her the way to handle things. I didn't scold her when we had conflicts. I was not moved by her behavior. I believed in Master and the Fa. Master is looking after everything and everything will be resolved in a benevolent way.
After I corrected my basic viewpoint, I felt the magnificence and beauty of dignity. If I didn't have human attachments, the power of the Fa would show up in everything I did. I set the requirements for my daughter: First, she had to put Fa study as the top priority and had to find time to study the Fa every day. Second, she had to study well and measure her behavior according to the Fa principles and take every opportunity to validate the Fa and save sentient beings.
If my daughter made unreasonable demands, I would refuse them in a dignified way. If she did something wrong, I would bring it to her attention with compassion. Before, in order to avoid any conflict, I didn't dare to discipline her. Now she was ready to accept my instructions and knew how to look within. She was improving. One day I looked within and said to her, “Your dad is a new practitioner and you are a little practitioner. If you two don't do well, it is all right. But for me as a veteran Dafa disciple, if I don't keep up my xinxing, it will be unforgivable.” My daughter corrected me immediately: “No, it is my fault. I am a veteran practitioner as well.”
During school holidays, my daughter and I went out to clarify the truth together. The first person we came across didn't listen. My daughter was very upset. I comforted her and said that it didn't matter. Master said that we should not be too attached to the result. On the surface we do things with compassion. It is Master who saves people. We give every being a chance but it is their own choice whether they accept it or not. In the process of clarifying the truth, we should look within, as well and cultivate ourselves. On another occasion when we were visiting relatives, she started to clarify the truth by herself while I was still busy with work. One day I sent messages with my mobile phone while my daughter was sending forth righteous thoughts all the way. We cooperated well, and the messages went out without a hitch.
One day after Fa study, my daughter stood next to me and said, “Mum, I feel very fortunate to have come into our family.” I was surprised and asked, “Can you tell me why?”
She smiled and said, “I don't want to tell you.” I smiled as she walked away.
Thank you, Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners!
