(Minghui.org) Families are the building blocks of a stable and harmonious society. Before the Chinese Communist Party ordered the persecution of Falun Dafa, a spiritual discipline centered on Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, in 1999, many families on the verge of breaking up were reunited when one or more family members began to practice Falun Dafa and took the initiative to resolve the conflicts.
But after the persecution, in order to force Falun Dafa practitioners to renounce their faith, the authorities used housing, jobs, promotions and their children’s education as conditions to lure the practitioners’ families to turn against them.
Some of the family members, while fully aware of how great Falun Dafa is, helped the authorities to persecute the practitioners to protect themselves. Some beat and verbally abused their spouses. In an extreme case, the husband of Ms. Yang Lirong, 34, of Baoding City, Hebei Province, strangled her to death with his bare hands because he could no longer stand the pressure of police harassment and his loss of employment due to his wife’s faith.
When practitioners were forced to divorce, most of them weren’t given a share of their joint assets. The husbands of some practitioners did not divorce, but they had affairs with other women and beat their wives at home. Many of these practitioners passively bear the tribulation for many years and make no breakthroughs. Even if they manage to do the three things, they do them with enormous difficulties.
But, of course, there are also many family members who support the practitioners in upholding their faith and protect them when they are in danger.
In recent years, I’ve heard of many ex-husbands asking their former wives who are practitioners to remarry them.
Most of these ex-husbands betrayed their wives by having extramarital affairs or squandering their money. Now, when they are plagued with diseases and poverty and their mistresses have deserted them, they beg their ex-wives to remarry them.
Dafa practitioners are very kind. When facing their ex-husbands, many couldn’t let go of their qing (sentimentality) and ended up forgiving them. They thought that their ex-husbands were also precious lives to be saved. With that notion, many of them agreed to remarry, only to find that what awaited them were conflicts one after another to temper their xinxing and challenge their stable cultivation environment.
Those husbands might support the practitioners because of their good health and good temper (thanks to their practice of Falun Dafa), but they may not tolerate it when their wives want to print truth-clarification materials at home or go out to talk to people about the persecution.
If that happens, it will take a long time and tremendous effort for the woman to re-balance family and cultivation. In my mind, they might bring many unnecessary tribulations upon themselves. If they struggle to do well the three things Master requires of us, I’m not sure if that’s the cultivation path Master has arranged for us.
In terms of Dafa practitioners marrying non-practitioners, Master has taught the Fa very clearly:
“You are a Dafa disciple, after all, so you have to be responsible to your cultivation, and you have to be responsible to the environment Dafa disciples have. So, I think that if you can manage to consider things on that basis, you will know whether certain things should be done, and, if so, how they should be done. If you put yourself first, it’s likely many things will not go well, and problems will arise. If you truly want to be responsible to Dafa and to your own cultivation, you will do things well.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2007 New York Fa Conference,” Collected Teachings Given Around the World Volume VIII)
In a sharing article I read, the author’s ex-husband's mistress dumped him after taking away all his savings. He became bedridden and had no one to take care of him. When the practitioner heard about it, she found him and asked to remarry him so that she could care for him. Maybe most people would think she was doing a great thing and that she had superb compassion and forbearance. But in my opinion, for Fa-rectification period Dafa practitioners who shoulder great responsibilities, this might not be such a good thing to do.
Master said,
“The ailments and miseries that people experience result from their karma, and karma is the product of past wrongdoings. So the ordeals that people face are how they pay for their karma.” (The First Talk, Zhuan Falun)
My understanding is that those ex-husbands’ tribulations are likely the result of their karma for turning against Dafa and betraying their wives. When the practitioners remarry them and take good care of them, they will lose the opportunity to repay their karma, so where will they go after they die?
When we save people, we should focus on letting people know that Dafa is good and persuade them to quit the CCP. We don’t have to marry someone and spend all of our time and effort caring for him in order to save him. If, because of the time spent on him, we fail to fulfill our historic vow and greater responsibilities, what do we do about our own cultivation?
In a strict sense, the husband in the aforementioned article also bears certain responsibilities for the failure of the practitioner, because she spent her time caring for him and couldn’t do the things she was supposed to do. So it wouldn’t be good for either of them.
I know of a couple who both practiced Dafa. Both of them were arrested many times but remained firm in Dafa. However, due to the wife’s strong competitive mentality and other attachments, she suffered a stroke and became a vegetable. Her husband spent five years caring for her day and night, talking to her and reading the Fa to her, hoping that she would wake up one day. Because of that, he had almost no time to study the Fa, do the exercises, or clarify the truth himself. Not long ago, he died of a heart attack.
A year before he died, I had tried to urge him to overcome his sentimentality for his wife and step forward. I also told him about my father. But he didn’t take it seriously—until tragedy struck and he died.
Speaking of my father, after he suffered a stroke at the age of 78, we didn’t spend all of our time caring for him as he could still live on his own. A year later, his condition began to decline. In his last month, our entire family, who all practiced Dafa and were doing many things to raise awareness about the persecution, couldn’t do anything else but stay with him to care for him.
We all realized that the old forces were interfering with us and we sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the interference. We also asked for Master’s help and let Master decide my father’s fate. A month later, my father passed away.
After my father’s passing, my daughter had a dream in which my father was tied by the old forces and couldn’t move. In this dimension, the manifestation was that he began to have mobility issues after he had a stroke. He told my daughter in the dream that one month before his death, Master came, freed him, and took him to a beautiful place. That is to say, during his last month, his body was no longer controlled by his main consciousness, which also explained the dramatic change in his temperament that turned him into a totally different person.
Master 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,” Essentials for Further Advancement)
Human sentimentality is the obstacle blocking us on our cultivation path. While we need to fulfill our family responsibilities and take good care of our family members, it doesn’t mean we have to give or sacrifice without end. We need to know what’s most important for us and let go of the attachments that are holding us back. Only when we fulfill our responsibilities can we repay Master’s grace and only that is the best outcome for our family members, because they contribute to our success.
The above is just my personal understanding. Please point out anything that is not in line with the Fa.
Editor’s note: This article only represents the author’s understanding in their current cultivation state meant for sharing among practitioners so that we can “Compare in studying, compare in cultivating.” (“Solid Cultivation,” Hong Yin)