(Minghui.org) My husband used to profess his love for me, and would say to others, “No matter how bad of a day I’ve had, I am a happy man as soon as I see my wife.” But when I started practicing Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) in 2011 he would not allow me to practice, as he was afraid of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP started the persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, which continues to this day.
His love for me started to fade.
I knew from the beginning how good and righteous Falun Gong was. Giving it up would be like severing my only hope in life, so I stayed firm in my belief.
My husband started to stay out late and drink alcohol. When he did come home he beat me and said that he wanted a divorce. This happened repeatedly over the past six years.
My Abusive Husband
When my husband came home one night, he accused me of not treating his mother well. I disagreed with him because I gave his mother and my mother money every month for the first three years of our marriage. I also visit both of them on the holidays. I always treated his mother and my mother equally.
Master said:
“...when a problem arises, if it does not irritate a person psychologically, it does not count or is useless and cannot make him or her improve.” (Zhuan Falun)
My husband continually threw his sharp words at me. He punched me in the chest with such force one time that I nearly fell down onto the bed. My chest was bruised the next day, but I did not feel any pain.
I felt bad when I thought that Master, the founder of Falun Gong, had borne the pain for me.
On another occasion, my husband grabbed my neck and said that he would kill me. His eyes appeared red, and I suddenly realized that it was the old forces in another dimension controlling him. I shouted, “Master, save me!” My husband immediately loosened his grip.
I can't remember how many times he has asked me for a divorce. I kept clarifying the facts about Falun Gong to him during these six years, but he still kept asking for a divorce.
As I rode the bus home one day, I had a thought that if my husband still refused to accept Falun Gong then there's nothing I could do, and we should get a divorce.
A voice from far away sounded in my ear: “Dafa disciple! Dafa disciple!” Tears streamed down my face as righteous thoughts arose in my mind. I am a Dafa disciple. I need to cultivate and help people, including my husband, understand that Falun Gong good!
A Special Dream
How could I tell my husband know about Dafa when he strongly opposes Dafa as soon as I mention it. I had an idea: Let Master give him hints in his dream, so he will know that Dafa is good.
My husband did have a “special” dream, and he told me about it.
In the dream, he saw a couple in a truck towing a mobile home. He and I asked for a ride. There was a typhoon and it was raining hard. Many areas were flooded and cars were being swept away. But as soon as my husband said, “Falun Dafa is good,” the flood waters subsided and only our car passed through.
He stopped mentioning divorce for a while after he had that dream, but that peaceful time didn't last long and he again started asking for a divorce.
While I was doing the sitting meditation one time, I felt that I was standing on a mountain cliff with a sheer vertical drop below. I asked Master in my mind: “Please hold my hand tightly; don’t release it.” Master replied in a strong tone: “Yes!”
My husband and I soon began divorce proceedings.
As I was about to go and look for an apartment to rent the next day, he said, “You don’t need to move out.”
But he mentioned divorce again recently. He said that he would pay me a large sum of money to move out. This time I didn't care. I told myself, “Nothing could block me from my practice, even if I have to let go of everything that I have in this world.”
My husband has never mentioned getting a divorce again.
I realized that if I can let go of everything, nothing can interfere with my cultivation.
Learning about Myself
After I came to understand more about my cultivation process over the past six years with my husband, I told him what I had learned about myself through our conflicts.
I had treated each conflict of ours as a tribulation instead of opportunities that could help me improve my xinxing. Sometimes I could not think about Master and the Fa, and instead used human notions to handle the situation.
I had not truly looked within or identified my attachments, nor did I want to. Getting rid of my emotions and not fighting back seemed too hard to do. Many times when I superficially looked within, my purpose was to just enlighten to something. I had no real desire to target a particular human notion.
Master said:
“If you truly take these things that seriously, you will be able to restrain them. Then you will be able to weaken them and gradually get rid of them completely. If it's a case where you are aware of it and feel anxious about it, but in practice you don't truly restrain and suppress it, then in reality you are just stopping at this mental activity of seeing and feeling something, but you haven't taken any action to suppress that thing. In other words, you have only thought about it but not actually cultivated and put it into practice.” (“Teaching the Fa in San Francisco, 2005”)
I told my husband that I had a strong feeling of sentimentality towards him. I tried to remove it, but since I did not take this emotion seriously, Master could not help me.
My husband thought I was cold towards him. He said that he didn't want to live with me because he could not feel any warmth from me. That was why he always wanted to get a divorce.
I did not know how to generate compassion.
Master said:
“Under all circumstances, we must be good and kind to others, not to mention to our family members. We should treat everyone in the same way. We must be good to our parents and children and be considerate of others in all respects. Such a heart is thus unselfish, and it is a heart of kindness and benevolence.” (Zhuan Falun)
Sharing experiences with fellow practitioners made me realize that to remove sentimentality towards my husband, I had to treat him nicely, truly care about him, look at things from his perspective, and let him feel his wife’s caring and warmth. By extending this kindness to people unconditionally, compassion will naturally be generated.
Compassion is to be kind to sentient beings unconditionally. If I were able to achieve this, I would not be stuck in sentimentality as I was with my husband.
Category: Improving Oneself
