Looking Within During My Wife's Sickness Karma

(Clearwisdom.net) Both my wife and I are Dafa practitioners. One recent incident reminded me of the real benefits--for both mind and body--of looking within. Here I would like to share my experience with everyone.

In order to help our son, my wife and I went to the city to take care of our grandchild. We took all of Master's writings, including Hong Yin and Zhuan Falun, with us. We also brought our MP3 players with us for the exercises. We used to join the group Fa-study in our hometown. In the new environment, the two of us is a small Fa-study group.

In addition to taking care of the child, doing household chores including cooking, every day we steadfastly study the Fa, do the exercises, and send forth righteous thoughts. Since I haven't been able to get in touch with local practitioners here, I still go back to my hometown regularly to get copies of Minghui Weekly.

On January 15, 2010, five days after I came back to my hometown, when talking with my wife over the phone, I learned that her situation was not good. She had two blisters on her fingers after burning them while cooking. She was also sneezing, had a running nose, and had other symptoms of a cold. This looked like a karma-related tribulation. In addition, due to strong human notions, the environment around her also changed. After hearing that, I asked how was it when she was getting up in the morning--meaning doing the exercises in the morning. She said that she still got up early every day. I then asked how her Fa-study was. She said that it was not very good. I then suggested that we both look within for reasons for her tribulation.

After hanging up the phone, I began to look within. Every day, I have been squeezing out time for Fa-study. Sometimes when I started doing the exercises late and missed one set, I often made it up during the day. I often send forth righteous thoughts four times a day. What loophole did we have?

Then it was time to send forth righteous thoughts. I began to send forth righteous thoughts, and added one thought, "Both my wife and I are Dafa practitioners. We do not allow the old forces to interfere and persecute us with any excuse. Master is taking care of us." I also sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate all the bad elements and to strengthen her righteous thoughts.

After sending forth righteous thoughts, I continued to look within and was surprised by what I found. I used to consider myself to be diligent concerning Fa-study and doing the exercises, while in fact I was doing them due to strong selfish motivations. Because my starting point was not right, it was no wonder that I was sleepy when studying the Fa and had pains in my lower back or stomach while doing the exercises. I only considered myself when doing Fa-study and the exercises, and did not care about my wife's Fa-study. Sometimes when changing a diaper for the child, my wife was very busy and she asked me to help get baby wipes or a diaper, I complained, using my Fa-study and doing exercises as an excuse. There were also occasions where I shouted at my wife and there was no compassion in my words. Without considering other people's feelings, I was doing things that a practitioner should not do. In fact I was walking on a path arranged by the old forces. Wasn't this dangerous?

In addition to these selfish thoughts, I also found my attachments to showing-off and competition. My wife did not receive much education. When studying the Fa together, sometimes she wanted to share her understanding to improve herself. Instead of supporting her, I stopped her, using "not interrupting reading the Fa" as an excuse. I also often showed off that I was reading faster and better than her. Because of this, sometimes it even led to an argument. As a result, we had to study separately, which made it difficult for us to share with each other and improve together. This was not following the Fa that Master taught us.

In Zhuan Falun, Master said,

"You should always be benevolent and kind to others, and consider others when doing anything. Whenever you encounter a problem, you should first consider whether others can put up with this matter or if it will hurt anyone. In doing so, there will not be any problems."

When we don't follow the Fa, how can we not encounter problems? I had pushed all the chores onto my wife and, out of attachments of selfishness and showing-off, I maximized the time for my own Fa-study. She hardly had time to study the Fa, let alone calming down when studying the Fa. The old forces were actually taking advantage of the barrier between us to persecute her, a fellow practitioner.

When noticing these attachments of mine, I suddenly remembered Master's words,

"Even now, in fact, there are some students who are doing very poorly with Fa-study. Being able to study the Fa well is the fundamental guarantee that you can head towards Consummation, it's the fundamental guarantee that you can emerge from here." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Atlanta Fa Conference")

In these past several years, I did study the Fa; however, I did not study well, nor did I follow the Fa when doing things.

Through the process of examining myself, I dug out many attachments that had been deeply hidden for a long time, including showing off, competition, making a name for myself, and fame, personal interests, and desire. I then decided to let go of these attachments and share the workload with my wife so that she could have more time to study the Fa and improve together with me. By then, the understanding of selflessness, Fa-principles of the new cosmos, flowed throughout my body like a warm current. The feeling of being clear, heart lightened and capacity increased was beyond description.

By the time for sending forth righteous thoughts came the next morning, the pain that I had been experiencing in my legs and lower back, as well as the sleepiness, were all gone. Feeling energetic and relaxed, I truly understood the benefits of looking within. When I asked her how she felt, my wife said that all her illness symptoms were gone.

Through this incident, I came to understand that, whenever we hear that other practitioners have tribulations or are stuck during a karma-related tribulation, we should not forget to look within ourselves. We need to find our own attachments and get rid of them. With compassion and consideration towards fellow practitioners, all these problems will be resolved.