(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings Master! Greetings fellow practitioners!
Today, I would like to share with you my cultivation experience from recent years. The title of my paper is, "Going beyond Affection, Saving a Predestined Family Member."
Regarding the topic of affection among family members, I would like to first introduce my family's background. I came to the United States in 1996 to start my graduate school education. At that time, I was already married to my husband whom I met at home in China. He was my college classmate and also my best friend. Our marriage was like tying the nuptial knot. In 2000 and 2002, our son and daughter were born, and now we are a family of four.
It was at the end of 1996 that I obtained the Fa in the United States. The first person that I wanted to share the Fa with was my husband. I really wanted him to study the Fa and do the exercises with me, so that we could search for the true meaning of life together. However, he was not able to obtain the Fa. It might have been caused by his lack of predestined relationship with Dafa, or caused by my strong attachments.
Before July 20, 1999, he sometimes did the exercises with me or participated in the Dafa activities; after July 20, however, he went the opposite way from me. Interested in searching for news, he got a lot of reports and stories from the Internet and mainland China that slandered Dafa and also caused him to turn against my cultivation.
At first, I was not clear on why the persecution was happening from the standpoint of Dafa. But I knew in my heart that I did not want to give up Dafa and my cultivation. So at the beginning of the Fa-rectification, as I was following in Teacher's footsteps, I observed that my husband's temper toward me was becoming worse and worse. He was changing from arguing with me using impertinent remarks to treating me with violence. During that period, I always thought the reason for his disrespectful behavior toward me was because I did not do well in the housework, or did not balance well the relationship among cultivation, Dafa activities and family. Therefore, facing his unreasonableness, I often tolerated silently, and moreover, I purposely avoided any topic related to Dafa. I was trying hard to keep him from losing his temper so we could all have some good time together. Slowly, we tended not to touch the other's territory.
In June 2004, the Chicago experience-sharing conference and the second court hearing of bringing Jiang Zemin to justice were both scheduled for the same week. I wanted to participate in both activities, which meant that I needed to drive eight hours after the conference to get home, then work for three days before driving back to Chicago on Wednesday night to support the court hearing event on Thursday. The plan was thought out, I went to the weekend conference smoothly, came back to work on Monday through Wednesday. Everything was fine. At noon on Wednesday, I thought it was time to let my husband know about my trip for that night. In order to avoid conflict, I always waited until the last minute to notify my husband about my plans. I called him up and soon after I started my first sentence informing him of my trip on that night, he lost his temper and told me that I wasn't a good person; then he hung up the phone. As I expected, I knew the tribulation was coming. After work, I picked up the kids, came home, prepared dumpling fillings, and took out the frozen dumpling skins. I made two plates of dumplings and decided to use family harmony to dissolve his anger. However, when my husband came back, his first words were, "You can't go to Chicago tonight, did you hear me?" I did not answer him and said, "Let us boil the dumplings first." Upon hearing that, he lost his temper again. His face changed. He said, "You must not go to Chicago!" This time, I answered him, I said, "The court hearing is very important and I must go to support it." Before I could finish my sentence, the two plates full of dumplings with flour powder were all dumped on my head. My kids were scared and cried, I was looking into his eyes and my mind was sending forth righteous thoughts. Soon he went upstairs and fell asleep. I took care of the kids, boiled the dumplings and ate dinner. At about 9:00 p.m., my husband was still sleeping; I took the kids and drove to my fellow practitioners' home for the Chicago trip.
Surprisingly at 10:00 p.m., when all fellow practitioners were ready to leave, my husband drove up. I hurried out to welcome him, but without any words, he threw a fist in my face, followed by his threats, "If you are leaving, I will kill you and the kids, I have smelled the blood," he said. I could not believe his demon nature. I had never seen him like this. At that time, a fellow practitioner came to clarify the truth to him, but he threatened to kill her as well. As soon as I opened my mouth to talk, he hit me with his fist. My glasses had flown off; my kids were lying in my arms and did not dare to cry. I was sending forth righteous thoughts and tears came down from my eyes... My fellow practitioners were leaving, I felt like they were going toward consummation and they would not come back. I wanted to go with them and felt like if I could break out from this tribulation, it would be my consummation. But facing my out-of-control husband, I asked myself, "Should I leave him behind? Why am I unable to save him while I am saving other sentient beings? I must save him." With this thought, I told fellow practitioners, "You go now; I will stay." I sat down in sitting mediation while seeing off fellow practitioners with tears on my face.
After the incident, I thought about reporting it to the police and divorce, but with practitioners' help, I got rid of these thoughts. My husband apologized to me afterward and told me that he was totally out of control that night. He said he was under a huge invisible pressure that he could not bear so he was afraid to let me take that trip. Through Fa study, I gradually enlightened that I should not have let the attachment to affection to my husband cause me to avoid clarifying the truth to him. I should not have been attached to an easy life so that I strove for family harmony on the surface. Participating in Dafa events or projects were to clarify the truth and save sentient beings, and I should not have had the attachment to reaching consummation. My family should be my cultivation environment and I should not have seen it as my cultivation obstacle. Each time when I saw my husband saying nonsense because of his lack of knowing the truth, I should not have kept silent. The only way to save him was to clarify the truth to him and let go of my human affection and treat him as one particle of sentient beings. He needed to have a correct viewpoint toward Dafa and Dafa practitioners. Upon understanding this, I asked my husband to drive the family to attend the 2004 Washington DC International Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference, and after that, to drive to Boston to clarify the truth before the Democratic National Convention. He agreed.
Two years ago when we both came to this conference, I gave my main conference room ticket to my husband to let him listen to your sharing and to see our Teacher. When I saw him going into the main conference room, I had tears in my eyes, I knew that fellow practitioners' sharing could help him to know the truth; I knew our Teacher could save him. As expected, my husband saw Teacher for the first time at the conference and listened to the fellow practitioners' sharing. He participated in the Boston event when practitioners were doing the Fa-rectification as a whole body. I could see him changing; he was much clearer in his mind. I changed too. I was no longer afraid of clarifying the truth to him, sometimes, I would ask for his opinions when I was doing Dafa projects to observe his reaction so I could adjust my thought on certain things. When Dafa events were coming, I would not wait until the last minutes to let him know, I would let him know ahead of time so that we could plan our schedules. In addition, I also shared my point of view on participating in the events. Since we started to coordinate, our family chores became smoother and I had more opportunities to participate in Dafa events.
At the end of 2004, the Nine Commentary on the Communist Party was published on the Epoch Times. Practitioners started to lead the effort of publishing their three-withdrawal announcements. I did it but I also wanted my husband to quit the CCP as well. I knew this would be hard for him to do. My husband was born into a family of a worker and a military doctor, under the evil party's control. They belonged to the worker class so he had been taking sweets from the evil party since he was born. Besides, from elementary school through college, he was always the first one to be recruited into CCP organizations. No wonder he became so against the Fa when the persecution started. After reading the Nine Commentaries, I realized that even though he did not like the party, his evil mark would not be small, and that it was the evil mark that has blocked his way to obtaining Dafa. After I realized this, I sent forth righteous thoughts to have him quit the CCP. Furthermore, I began clarifying the truth to him. I told him my story of growing up, carrying my father's capitalism cap on one side and my mother's landlord cap on the other side. Before I was six years old, I was raised at different friends or relatives' homes. I told him how my grandfather was sent to a detention camp and my parents were sent to a farm for "labor re-education". I told him that during the cultural revolution, my mother's coworker was forced to jump from the chimney to commit suicide. I reminded him about the Tiananmen Square Massacre. I also shared with him the means that the evil party has used to torture Falun Gong practitioners. Although he knew the evil party was bad, when he was asked to quit the CCP, he was still using different excuses to pass it on.
At the beginning of 2005, his parents came to the United States to visit us. I used this opportunity to install an NTDTV dish. At that time, the Nine Commentaries were on the air every day. At the beginning, my husband and my father-in-law did not like the Nine Commentaries and they almost took down the dish. But, attracted by NTDTV's entertainment programs, they started to watch the Nine Commentaries now and then. Gradually, they changed from switching off the discussion program to dialing in the hotline to ask questions from Wei Shi and Xin Haonian on the World War II China-Japan war strategy concept. My husband changed again, his evil party's mark was becoming smaller, and he could accept the Nine Commentaries. I took the opportunity to ask him to withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations. He told me to wait until my parents came to visit.
In September 2005, my parents came to visit us after 8 years of separation. My parents-in-law worried whether we could all live together peacefully under the same roof. With their anxiety in mind, I made my decision, as long as I could do a good job as a cooking monk, and clarify the truth to them, I didn't believe that they wouldn't listen, and would withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations. As I planned, during the time when the four parents were at my house, I took every opportunity to clarify the truth to them, I shared with them my cultivation experience; told them about the Nine Commentaries, brought them the Epoch Times newspaper and watched NTDTV programs with them. When I was taking my parents on vacation, I let them listen to teacher's Fa in the car while I was driving. I took them to the locations where I knew practitioners were clarifying the truth or doing the exercises. My effort was rewarded, as soon after my parents went back home, my husband came to talk to me. "I have seen you working hard at home. I agree to withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations. you can use my real name to send the announcement and you can add our parents too," he said. My husband's change made me really happy. I was proud for his life and his future.
At the beginning of this year, the organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China was exposed. In order to set up more local activities to clarify the truth, our local Dafa group altered the group study time and location. I took this opportunity to ask my husband to see if he would like to come to one of our weekly reading groups. Maybe his predestined relationship with the Fa had arrived. Since then, my husband has been going to the weekly Fa study at the library on every Wednesday. Now he has started attending the group practice as well. I understood that this happened because the unseen evil factors that were controlling him had been destroyed. Without the evil controlling him, he chose the path of returning to his original true self. Now, our family is not only my cultivation environment, it is becoming the cultivation environment for my husband and my kids. During this change, it will be my next challenge to figure out how to do things better, and how to make our environment purer and more righteous.
Recollecting my memories on the path that I have walked, although there were a lot of things that happened, when looking back, they were like mountains and hills that I have climbed over. Some were high, some were low. They witnessed each attachment that I have had and witnessed each test and each tribulation. The path that I have gone down manifested the principles that I have enlightened to from Teacher's Fa. With this opportunity, I wrote out my experiences to share with fellow practitioners.
Thank you Master! Thank you fellow practitioners!
