(Clearwisdom.net) My husband and I are both over 50 years old. We started practicing Falun Dafa in March 1996. As practitioners during the Fa-rectification period in the past ten years, we have been quite determined in Dafa. We continued to do the three things, went to Beijing to validate the Fa, clarified the truth to people, and persuaded them to quit the Chinese Communist Party and its affiliated organizations. Even while faced with cruel persecution, such as being arrested, detained and sentenced to forced labor and having our home ransacked several times, we did not stop. We persevered through wind and rain, though we stumbled here and there. However, when encountering xinxing conflicts with relatives, we felt it very difficult to break through and were not confident and poised. Whenever we didn't pass a test well, we stood in front of Teacher's picture, telling Teacher about our painful experience with tears in our eyes: Dear Master, why is cultivation so difficult? We felt heart-broken.
My husband and I are both retired. Our son got married while we were detained in the labor camp. After we returned home, my son had a child, so we had a lovely granddaughter. At first, we always treated them and loved them with a guilty conscience. We simply believed that enduring pain could dissolve family conflicts, thus confused the concepts of sentimentality and compassion. We regarded sentimentality as compassion and took indulgence of desires as a mind of great forbearance. We wrongly interpreted the meaning of maximally conforming to the state of ordinary society and obeyed the younger generation in everything. Therefore, we couldn't get out of the state of being interfered with by the demon of qing. We did all of the housework, such as cleaning the house, washing the clothes and cooking. We bought cell phones and cars for our son and daughter-in-law. We even borrowed money to buy a house for them. Finally, my husband gave his bank book for his pension to our daughter-in-law, so as to satisfy their desires. We wrongly believed that we could help them and minimize conflicts by doing this, as we were not attached to fortune.
However, they were still not satisfied but complained that we were not doing enough. Finally, the conflicts intensified. This aroused our attention. We started to look within and reflect on what we had done to our younger generations during the past several years.
Teacher said,
"For a long period of time the sentient beings in Dafa, especially the disciples, have had a misunderstanding of the Fa at various levels regarding xinxing improvement. Whenever a tribulation comes, you do not see it with the side of your original nature but view it completely with your human side. Evil demons then capitalize on this point and inflict endless interference and damage, leaving students in long-term tribulations. As a matter of fact, this results from an inadequate understanding of the Fa by your human side. You have humanly restrained your divine side; in other words, you have restrained the parts that have been successfully cultivated and have prevented them from doing Fa-rectification. How can the uncultivated side restrain your main thoughts or the side that has already attained the Fa? Having humanly fostered the evil demons, you allow them to capitalize on the loopholes in the Fa. When a tribulation arrives, if you, a disciple, can truly maintain an unshakable calm or be determined to meet different requirements at different levels, this should be sufficient for you to pass the test. If it continues endlessly and if there do not exist other problems in your xinxing or conduct, it must be that the evil demons are capitalizing on the weak spots caused by your lack of control." ("Expounding on the Fa" from Essentials for Further Advancement)
Now we have realized that we came across our current tribulation because we were taken advantage of by the demon of qing. We wrongly believed that this is our cultivation environment. As a consequence, we couldn't get out of this long-term tribulation. Actually compassion goes beyond all sentimentality in this earthly world and can dissolve all unrighteous things. For over five thousand years, the Chinese people advocated traditional values and followed the moral principles of Confucius--Benevolence, Righteousness, Propriety, Wisdom and Trustworthiness. But the Chinese Communist Party overthrew these doctrines. In China today, the old and the young are reversed: Children are not obedient to their parents; the old celebrate birthdays for the young; the old do things following the will of the younger generation. An old man who lives close to me said, "I have a grandson, but I became a grandson."
As practitioners during the Fa-rectification period, it is part of our cultivation to return to the righteous way and rectify the moral standards of human beings. Everything that we are doing today will be passed on to the new era. Teacher said,
"Those who are attached to affection for family will definitely be burned, entangled, and tormented by it. Pulled by the threads of affection and plagued by them throughout their lives, they will find it too late to regret at the end of their lives." ("Cultivators' Avoidances" from Essentials for Further Advancement)
Only when we let go of our attachment to emotion will we not be "burned, entangled, and tormented by it." Actually the process of letting go of this attachment is the process of cultivation. As long as we gradually discard the attachment to emotion, we can transcend and reach the state of compassion. Nothing that happens to Dafa practitioners is accidental. It's all our doing if we let family conflicts develop to today's situation. We indulged the younger generation's desire of greed and therefore increased our tribulations.
As soon as we enlightened to this point, we took action and started from ourselves. We cared little for our emotions toward the younger generations. We rectified our unrighteous notions and practices in the family, and established the principle of respecting the old and loving the young. We advocated the practice of each doing his own business. We no longer took care of everything in the family, nor were we carried away by the emotions of the young. We will walk a path that is most righteous because we are Dafa disciples walking on the divine path.
The above is my shallow understanding about how to pass the test of family conflicts. If you find anything inappropriate, please point it out with compassion.
