Dafa’s Principles Showed Me Why I Avoided Criticism

(Minghui.org) I’ve practiced Falun Dafa for more than 20 years and thought I cultivated pretty well and was tolerant. When others talk about me, I don’t usually take it to heart, but this could be due to the fact that I was often reprimanded as a child.

My mother had a bad temper and often vented her frustration and anger on the family, so I learned to lie in order to avoid trouble. After I grew up, I realized that she did this to take out her emotional anguish on us. I became used to this, and ignored whatever she said.

For a long time after I began practicing Falun Dafa, I seldom reacted to her nagging and lecturing, and thought I was doing pretty well with forbearance. After my father passed away, I took care of her, and she gradually got over her grief. I realized that I was the only one who was subjected to her constant nagging.

I found myself becoming more and more intolerant and argumentative with her. One day, she told me, “You just don’t like to be criticized.” I was a bit shocked to hear this and realized that I was moving further and further away from the state of a Dafa cultivator. I asked myself why I had become so intolerant of my mother.

Reflecting on the “forbearance” I had towards her in the past twenty years, was I truly forbearing at a level required of a Dafa practitioner? No. I didn’t react and kept quiet out of self-protection after weighing the pros and cons. I learned that if I said anything, it only made things worse.

Why could I no longer tolerate my mother? The reason was that my previous understanding of tolerance was based on human sentiment. When my father was still around, I didn’t want to make things harder for him, so I kept quiet. Now that my father is gone, that sentiment is gone too, and the peace I tried to maintain also ceased to exist. I could no longer control myself, either.

I suddenly realized that I failed to cultivate myself by the Fa principles in my relationship with my mother. The superficial tolerance I showed towards her in the past was based on my human thoughts and sentiments. Master talked about Han Xin in Zhuan Falun, but I never truly understood the Fa principle behind the story.

Han Xin was able to endure humiliation when accosted by thugs and bore that burden because he had lofty ambitions, so he did not take the humiliation to heart. However, his tolerance was still somewhat conditional and he would not ruin his future just for the sake of temporary anger. However, Dafa practitioners’ tolerance is unconditional, and free from human sentiments.

I also realized that I was using the same tactics I used with my mother in handling conflicts with other people. For example, I kept quiet during a conflict between me and another practitioner after I couldn’t convince her to agree with me. I tried to keep the peace to avoid trouble instead of looking within for my own shortcomings. As a result, I missed out on many precious opportunities to improve my xinxing.

When my mother called and made unreasonable accusations against me, I just offered a brief explanation, thinking that I was letting go of my attachment to being wronged.

One day, a practitioner blamed me for no reason. I couldn’t accept it and tried to explain and defend myself. She wouldn’t listen and continued ridiculing me. I suddenly realized: Master is giving me a cultivation opportunity and I stopped trying to explain myself.

However, I couldn’t calm down after she left. Why did I get so upset by her accusation? I looked within and realized that behind the fear of being wronged, there were the hidden attachments to saving face and fear of shame, which for many years, I thought I handled pretty well. In fact, they were strong attachments hidden under the excuse of my weighing pros and cons, and in many situations I dodged them to get what I wanted.

Only now do I realize just how strong my attachments are. At a family get-together, my mother suggested that we play a game. I didn’t participate because I was afraid she might criticize me. I realized that my attachments to saving face and fear of shame were emerging once again.

I’ve been through a lot on my path of cultivation. I now understand that only by cultivating myself based on the Fa and measuring everything I encounter in life with the Fa’s principles, I am truly practicing according to Falun Dafa’s principles.