(Clearwisdom.net) My mother and I used to live together. Last year, my mother moved into my younger sister's home to help her take care of her children. Recently they had a lot of conflicts, and it also manifested in both the printer and the CD-ROM maker for preparing truth-clarifying materials being out of order. Every time I came to their home, my sister always complained about our mother's shortcomings. I discussed this with her from the viewpoint of the Fa, encouraged her to look inward and to upgrade her Xinxing. I thought that I was good in cultivation and was not affected by their conflicts. However, after reading an article from a fellow practitioner, I sensed that I also need to improve.
Master said,
"But that said, I'm also thinking about the people who, when problems arise, give no thought to their own cultivation state and focus solely on how bad this or that person is and who he or she might be. But in those instances, have you considered this: why does someone like that exist among Dafa disciples, and why would such a thing come about? Isn't that person's presence meant to target certain people, or certain human attachments? For sure. Nothing happens in cultivation without a reason. When incorrect states and bad human conduct surface among us, those things have come to target human attachments. We don't acknowledge the old forces' arrangements, but, when we fail to do well they will exploit our gaps. So, perhaps it was that a particular place needed to be targeted in that manner, and that was why an incident happened." ("Fa Teaching at the 2009 Washington DC International Fa Conference")
I started to search inward and immediately found my attachments. When my mother lived with me, we also had conflicts. My sister (not a practitioner back then) blamed me for not being respectful of my parent. However, I did not treat her blame of me with a practitioner's righteous thoughts. I understood that I was passing a tribulation, but just behaved the same as Master's words,
"To endure with anger, grievance, or tears is the forbearance of an everyday person who is attached to his concerns." ("What is Forbearance (Ren)?" in Essentials for Further Advancement )
I thought at that moment, "You will understand how difficult it is to live with an old person. It's not just a problem of whether I am respectful towards a parent or not." I did not realize that this thought was based on my attachment to selfishness, and I did not take the opportunity to get rid of it right away. Therefore this kind of impure element could still exist in my dimension. The year before last, my sister started to practice Falun Gong. After our mother moved in with her last year, the conflicts gradually emerged. As their fellow practitioner, I deeply understood the situation during the cultivation process. Sometimes we pass tribulations well, but other times we don't. Without conflicts, our attachments cannot be exposed and our Xinxing cannot be upgraded. Therefore, when they had conflicts, I tried to maintain a peaceful mind, to not blame any one of them, and to not be affected by emotion. However, these behaviors just covered up my attachments. It's not real cultivation without searching inward. I started to looking inward and found that in my subconscious I wished that some conflicts could happen between them, in order to let my sister feel the pain that I had experienced. How terrible a state of mind this was! I was shocked and sat down immediately to send forth righteous thoughts. I would not allow the evil forces to take advantages of our loopholes, separate us, and interfere with our work in validating Dafa and saving sentient beings.
I would like to thank Master's arrangements, in order to let me realize my own problems. I also greatly appreciate the fellow practitioner who wrote the article and provided a mirror for me to look at myself.
Heshi
August 17, 2009
