Digging Out the Roots of My Modern Notions and Behavior amidst Family Conflicts

(Minghui.org) I grew up in a family of Falun Dafa practitioners. Both my parents, my father’s younger sister, and his brother’s wife all practiced. I had always believed that I had firm faith in Dafa, but after the persecution started in July 1999, I gave it up due to fear, though I still supported my family members who cultivated.

Family Members’ Tribulations

Death of My Father’s Brother’s Wife

Around 2005, my father’s brother’s wife had a heart attack. She didn’t go to the hospital and passed away. Because of this, her husband and their daughter developed bad thoughts about Dafa.

I later learned from my cousin that she had always held a grudge against her mother and it was never resolved. Before the persecution started, my aunt was very busy promoting the Fa and neglected her family responsibilities. She made my uncle sleep in a different room at night and forced my cousin to sit cross-legged and do the meditation. When my cousin didn’t want to do it, my aunt got very angry with her. As soon as my cousin got married, she stopped doing the meditation. She still doesn’t believe in Dafa and has turned to Christianity.

Death of My Mother

For the next over 10 years, my parents and my father’s younger sister continued to cultivate Dafa.

My father was illegally arrested nearly ten times, and my mother was also arrested a number of times. She was later forced to leave home and become destitute.

In 2016, my parents started to have unresolvable conflicts and they quarreled all day long. My mother started to suffer from poor health, but she refused to take any medication or see a doctor. She would not listen to anyone, and in the end she passed away. She was 64.

Her sister used to support Dafa and helped my parents clarify the truth to other relatives and friends and helped them quit the Chinese Community Party (CCP) organizations. After my mother’s death, she developed negative thoughts about Dafa and started badmouthing the practice. She even hit and berated my father, blaming him for my mother’s death and accusing him of failing to take my mother to the hospital when she was in critical condition. My aunt resented my father and has never forgiven him.

I was shocked to hear about my mother’s death and cried for a long time. I had already migrated to Canada by then, but I had not returned to Dafa cultivation.

Death of My Father’s Younger Sister

My nephew (my sister’s son) didn’t understand why my mother refused to seek treatment when she was ill. “Why does Falun Dafa forbid people from going to the hospital?” he asked me. I explained to him that Falun Dafa never forbids anyone from seeking medical help. Falun Dafa only explains why people get sick, and it is up to each individual how they handle their illnesses. I’m not sure if my nephew really understood what I said, but both he and my sister still believe Falun Dafa is good.

My father’s younger sister continued to practice Dafa during the persecution, but she was never able to help her husband have a righteous belief in Dafa and suffered a lot of tribulations at home.

For many years, she distributed truth-clarification materials. Two years ago, she was taken to a detention center. After her release, her conflicts with her family became even worse, and her husband made her leave. She was plagued with sickness karma and passed away. Her husband also harbored much hatred for Dafa. He hated my father for introducing his wife to Dafa in the first place.

My aunt’s family members seldom visited her before she passed away. My sister and my nephew went to see her before she died. My sister told me that our aunt had Herpes Zoster, very painful. She suffered a lot in her final days.

Paralysis of My Father’s Older Sister

My father’s older sister also practiced Dafa but wasn’t very serious about it. She is now paralyzed and bedridden.

Death of My Father’s Brother

My father didn’t care much about his extended family. His brother died recently and he didn’t even bother to send condolences. My cousin (the one mentioned earlier) hated my father and completely stopped contacting me now that both her parents are dead.

Because of all these things, my husband also wanted nothing to do with Dafa for many years.

My Own Family Tribulation

My father later came to Canada to visit me and I helped him to successfully apply for permanent resident status in Canada. My father is very self-centered and has trouble getting along with my husband. My husband looked down on my father, thinking that he never cared about his family, only himself. They couldn’t even talk to each other.

Over the past year, almost all of my father’s teeth have gone bad. He cannot chew anything and has to be on a liquid diet. My husband speculated that my father had developed diabetes, so he urged me to transfer all the assets under my father’s name to my name because he worried that my father would also refuse to go to the hospital like my mother and his younger sister and he would soon die.

It was under such circumstances that I started to seriously practice Falun Dafa. At first, my husband made strenuous efforts to stop me, but I kept on practicing regardless. The tribulation at home was enormous. I thought I could change his negative view of Dafa through my cultivation. But in his eyes, I was like my father and was abandoning the family.

He wanted to move out a number of times. I kept looking within to rectify myself. With the help of fellow practitioners, I pulled through, thinking I had passed the test of family conflicts. But I was wrong.

Just a couple of days ago, he suddenly wanted to move out again, saying that there was a barrier between us that he could not get past, which was that I had started practicing Falun Dafa. He complained about a few things. For example, he once sprained his leg, but I still went out to do Dafa things. He thought I had become very cold and heartless. He blamed Dafa for it and said he could not live with me anymore.

I clarified the truth to him, but he refused to listen, saying that he only looked at how my father and I had behaved and there was no point saying anything else. He believed that my father and I had abandoned the family.

I looked within but couldn’t find anything that I had done wrong. I felt I was doing so much for the family: cooking, looking after our two children, cleaning the house, accompanying them on outings, etc. I thought I was doing well at conforming to everyday society, and I never went to extremes like my parents and my father’s younger sister did.

I felt miserable as I couldn’t see what I had done wrong, even though I knew in my heart that it must be my fault because I understood that when conflicts arise between a Dafa practitioner and an everyday person, the Dafa practitioner must be in the wrong.

Still, I didn’t know what I had done wrong, thinking that my husband must have been affected by my family members, and there was nothing I could do to change him. I thought it was my father who caused him to think negatively about Dafa and there was nothing I could do to change my father, but my husband said, “I married you. It’s not your family, not your father, but you.”

I asked my children if they would be okay if their dad moved out: “If your dad moves out because I practice Dafa, would you blame me for it?” Both my children said that they wouldn’t blame me because they believe Falun Dafa is good.

“Mom, I don’t want Dad to move out, but I’m okay if he does,” my six-year-old daughter said. I felt a bit better that my children understood me at least. Still, I was rather confused: What was I being tested about? Where did I go wrong?

I didn’t want to leave any regret, and I couldn’t let my husband move out just like that. I shouldn’t feel helpless—I had to find the root of the problem.

On the one hand, I felt that if he moved out, I would be free to do whatever I wanted to do. However, deep in my heart, I felt it wasn’t the right thing to do. I shouldn’t allow my family to break up simply because I had chosen to cultivate Dafa. I shouldn’t let my children grow up without their dad, and I shouldn’t let my husband move out because he did not know the truth about Dafa, as this would really destroy him. This was not what I expected to happen when I took up the practice. I must not repeat the mistakes of my parents and other relatives. I wanted to save my husband and relatives.

I still couldn’t figure out where I went wrong, even though the conflicts in my family had been going on for three years. Fellow practitioners reminded me to show more kindness to my husband. I thought I was already doing that and I really didn’t know what more I could do, until one day when I read an article online that talked about how, in ancient times, women of virtue respected and treated their husbands.

In one part, it said that, if the husband was sick, the wife would worry about him all day long. She would search for medicines for him everywhere and beg for blessings from the divine. She would help him get all possible treatments and wish him to enjoy longevity. “Do not learn from the silly woman who doesn’t care at all,” the article said.

I remembered how my husband complained when I went out to do my own things when he had a sprained leg. Straightaway, I saw the gap between me and a virtuous wife in traditional culture. I realized my coldness and felt I was really wrong. All of a sudden, I realized my own problems. I was behaving like the silly woman and didn’t take my husband’s sickness to heart. How could I possibly win my husband’s heart when I was behaving this way? I felt very bad about my poor behavior.

I remembered a line in Master’s poem: “...Returning to tradition puts you on the path to Heaven...” (“Creating Anew,” Hong Yin V) I followed modern thought and ways in my cultivation, and this was the hurdle that I had not been able to overcome. I found the root cause of the conflicts between me and my husband. It was not because I practiced Falun Dafa, but because I had lost respect for my husband.

We used to have a very happy marriage because I always respected my husband. I loved him, understood him, and supported him. In my eyes, he was perfect in every way. Our marriage was a very happy one because it was based on healthy and stable ground and conformed to traditional values.

But after I started to practice Falun Dafa, he tried to stop me, so I lost respect for him from deep in my heart. Even though I didn’t show it on the surface, I was rejecting everything he was doing. I could not respect his way of thinking, and I judged him by my understanding, thinking that I was the one who was right and he was wrong.

Every sacrifice I made was based on a very selfish attachment: “I will make you change!” I now realized that this was a very aggressive and unkind attitude. It was opinionated on my part. I can’t change anyone but myself. When I came to this understanding and realized that the problem lay in my modern thought, I became very calm because I now knew where I went wrong.

That evening, I told my husband about my thoughts and apologized to him from the bottom of my heart. I also read the article to him and explained to him how it helped me realize my own problems. He listened very attentively. I then told him that I would respect his choice. In the end, he decided not to move out.

I realized profoundly that when I interacted with my husband based on modern thought such as men and women are equal, multiple conflicts arose. I didn’t show him caring and kindness in a humble manner and did not respect him as I should have. Of course he did not feel comfortable or happy. No matter what I did, he could not appreciate it, because my thoughts were warped. When I realized my thoughts were incorrect and started to rectify myself, I felt very good and calm.

I makes me sad when I recall the cultivation state of my family members when they were still around. Influenced by CCP culture, people in China have developed warped notions. Many practitioners also try to understand Dafa with modern thought and notions, and this creates insurmountable hurdles for them and has a negative impact on Dafa.

The above is only my personal understanding at my limited level. Please kindly point out anything improper.