(Minghui.org) During Fa-study and group sharing, practitioners frequently bring up family issues, especially interference and tribulations due to children who have “let us down,” and I’m one of them.
1. My Hopeless Son
I only have one son, born in the mid 70s. While he was in primary school, influenced by society's young rascals, he formed many bad habits, such as fighting, swearing, smoking, and playing truant, and he often stayed out all night. He would spend every cent he obtained by whatever means. He stopped attending school before he even graduated from middle school. Having no other options, we paid so he could learn some technical skills, and at last he got a job.
However, after he started working, he turned even worse in the current of everyday society. All day long, he would indulge himself in nefarious activities with his shady friends. He not only squandered his own salary but also frequently asked us for money. He turned a deaf ear to kind advice from us, other relatives, and friends, and resorted to stealing and was sentenced as a result. My wife and I did everything we could to try to talk him out of his misconduct and were worried sick about him all the time, fearful that he might get into even bigger trouble.
Later he got married and had a child. We thought this would help him grow up and finally become sensible. But his job, similar to that of a police assistant, and the corrupt environment further encouraged his bad habits. The people he mingled were all of low quality and lacked basic manners. Whenever they had time, they would indulge themselves in pubs and places of entertainment.
Every day he would come home drunk. He not only failed to bring home any money, but he also went around borrowing money. He lied to his family and even dared to embezzle public funds to satisfy his indulgences. He also sweet talked us into giving him all our savings of over 100,000 yuan. Consequently, he brought upon himself all kinds of illnesses. He lost his job and his wife left him.
I was totally heartbroken and lost hope at having such a son who had “let us down.” When I was in despair, I would think: “Maybe I owe him much from my previous life and he has now come to have me pay back the debts in this lifetime, so I should just keep 'repaying the debts.'”
2. My Son's Miraculous Experience Changed My Attitude
Last year, several things happened to him that caused me to consider if my attitude towards him was wrong.
Once, he was taking a medicated bath for his skin disease. While he dosed off, he saw Master’s image, Falun, and Lunyu a few times. He thought they were just illusions, but when he opened his eyes, he knew he was clearheaded and conscious. When he closed his eyes, he clearly saw the same images again.
After the bath, he immediately came to me and asked for Zhuan Falun. He said that Master’s picture he saw was a different one (the copy I showed him had a picture of Master in a Western suit). So I showed him the new edition of Zhuan Falun, which had a picture of Master in a Buddhist robe. He flipped through a few pages and said yes, that was the image he saw.
I was really surprised and encouraged him to read the book through. Unfortunately he only read Lecture One, then he stopped and continued to muddle through life with his friends.
One evening while our Fa-study group was studying the Fa, my son came home. Suddenly he asked, “When do you study from the beginning again? I want to study with you.” I was totally surprised and said immediately, “We’ll start from the beginning tomorrow.”
Indeed, he was already waiting there when we were ready to start. Before we started, I gave him a copy of Zhuan Falun. He opened it and suddenly said in surprise, “How come this sentence is here?” I asked him which sentence he meant. He then told us what had happened earlier:
Over the last few days he was drinking and indulging himself with his friends as usual. He got tired and fell asleep. In his dream he saw a man trying to push him through a door. It looked like a bottomless pit inside the door, very scary. He tried his utmost not to be pushed through the door. While he was struggling, he heard a voice, “You are such a fool!...” There was another sentence, but he could not remember it clearly. It was something like “It will be too late…” He woke up and felt it really strange. Then he had the same dream again when he dozed off.
Upon hearing his explanation, we told him that it was Master dropping him a hint. We said, “You may have quite good inborn quality, but you are not taking the right path and have come to a dangerous precipice. Once the Fa-rectification is finished and starts to eliminate people doing bad deeds, it will be too late for you. Aren’t you a big fool?” My son was deeply moved and from then on he studied the Fa with us every day and changed greatly.
When we were studying Lecture Two the second time around, I had to leave home for a while because someone reported me for passing out truth clarifying materials. I left everything for him to take care of at home.
More than a dozen people from the police station and the neighborhood committee came to my house, but I had already left. They asked my son where I was. My son was not a bit afraid and said to them, “My dad practices Falun Gong. What’s wrong with that? You go and ask anyone who knows my dad. I bet none of them would say anything bad about him. Why do you keep bothering good people?” He asked those people to leave.
Later he asked someone to tell me what had happened and encouraged me to cultivate well. He even wrote a poem to encourage me, but regrettably I cannot remember it now.
3. My New Understanding of How to Treat My Son
While I was hiding out, I studied the Fa attentively, reflected on myself, and looked within. While I was checking for any loopholes or attachments I still had, I had a new understanding about how to treat my son who has “let me down.”
When talking about how to save people with compassion, Master told us,
“How I look at things is different from how you or the world's people do. When a human being sees someone make a mistake he finds it almost unforgivable. But I don't look at things that way. I look at an entire being overall, and even when there's just one thread of hope, I'll give him hope.” (“Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Chicago Conference”)
Master also said,
“The mistakes that beings made in history are not counted against them. No matter how large of a crime you committed or mistake you made in history, none of it is held against you: Only your attitude towards Fa-rectification today and your understanding of Dafa matter. That's the only thing that counts.” (“Teaching the Fa in Canada, 2006”)
Recalling and reflecting on Master's teachings enabled me to seriously and rationally recall my son's attitude towards Dafa ever since I obtained the Fa in 1996, as well as the miracles that happened to him.
A. My Son's Positive Attitude toward Dafa
Although he still had a lot of shortcomings, he was never against my practicing Dafa, even after July 20, 1999, when the persecution started. He never interfered with my practicing Dafa. Instead, he often read the informational materials and agreed with what they said.
He was particularly impressed with the miraculous healing power of Dafa he witnessed manifested in me and with practitioners' tolerance towards others and their efforts to be good people. All this left a deep impression on him. That is why he helped practitioners whenever he could, taking advantage of his position, even during the time when the CCP persecuted Dafa practitioners most viciously.
He always helped senior practitioners distribute flyers, and whenever he came across situations when they were bothered by people who did not know the facts due to the CCP's lies, he would intervene and help them out; when he was transferring detained practitioners as part of his job, he would do his best to ease the situation and lend them his mobile phone to send messages home.
B. Blessings Brought to My Son
His good deeds also brought him blessings, and many times he was spared in dangerous situations.
Once, he was speeding on a motorbike, carrying two of his drinking buddies. When he ran into a car coming from the opposite direction, his buddies were thrown onto the pavement and could not stand up. He did not know how he ended up with the motorbike on the line in the middle of the road.
When he came around from the shock, he realized that he was not injured at all. After he took care of his mates, the motorbike would not start, so he had to find an acquaintance nearby to help with his bike. Surprisingly, when the acquaintance tried to start the motorbike, it worked, and he rode it away without a problem. My son was really surprised by what happened.
There was another miracle that happened to him. My son suffered from the skin disease psoriasis. After years of treatment, it became even worse. It was serious and chronic. He could not sleep at night and it was really painful for him.
One morning in 2006, after he got up, he felt his whole body was light and relaxed and he saw that the psoriasis all over his body had disappeared completely overnight. He knew it was Dafa that had helped him, and he was very excited.
It's a pity that at that time he was still attached to the bad habits he had acquired in everyday people's society and missed a precious opportunity to come into Dafa. He was still doing things as before and wanted to be an everyday person. So, a few months later, he suffered a relapse of the skin disease.
He had many other similar amazing experiences. How could they have been accidental?
C. My New Understanding
I have come to the understanding that we must follow the Fa principle that “Zhen-Shan-Ren is the sole criterion to discern good and bad people” (Zhuan Falun) and view our children with this yardstick in mind.
These children are able to go along with Dafa and support Dafa practitioners to validate the Fa. This is their fundamental nature and they are good people in the truest sense. We must never judge them by everyday people's criteria. If we do, we will not be able to realize what they truly are and will ruin them.
Besides, even if these children still lack righteous thoughts for the time being and have certain shortcomings, we as Dafa disciples only have the obligation to save people, and we must not lose hope or give up on them.
Despite their problems, we should look within and check our xinxing, because that is where the root of the problem lies. These children were born into our families, so they must have a deep affinity with us, and it could also be a special mission assigned to us by Master.
If we treat them just like children in everyday people's society, then we will only see things from everyday people's point of view and will be trapped in the sentiments of everyday people, which in turn will prevent our children from changing for the better.
Everyday people's minds are very unstable. When our children achieve something or are praised, we may have a sense of satisfaction and pride and tend to show off; when our children make mistakes or are criticized in everyday society, we may feel a sense of shame, of disappointment, and blame them for not living up to our expectations. Our hearts are moved and controlled by human sentiments.
As cultivators, if we cannot let go of human sentiments, how can we let go of these attachments? The reason that some practitioners have long been trapped in tribulations regarding children who have “let them down” is because our own human attachments (sentiments) have caused them in the first place.
We must follow Master's teaching and treat our children from a higher standpoint with a compassionate heart to save people. We must help these children who have “let us down” know the truth so that they can be saved. This is our duty-bound obligation as Dafa disciples and the standard we should reach in our cultivation.
Master said,
“Some children have extraordinary backgrounds—they have come to obtain the Fa.” (“Explaining the Fa for Falun Dafa Assistants in Changchun”)
Those children who have good inborn quality and enlightenment quality may also take the path of cultivation and become our fellow practitioners. So we should help them even more, unconditionally.
The above is just a bit of my understanding. Please kindly point out anything improper.
