By a Falun Gong practitioner in Taiwan

(Clearwisdom.net) There are two young Falun Gong practitioners in my family. They have practiced Falun Gong with me for four years. They can both study the Fa and practice the exercises by themselves. Generally, their cultivation statuses were okay, but since they lacked a group cultivation environment, their attachments to comfort sometimes appeared. My older daughter is gentle. I do not need to pay extra attention to her, however my younger daughter is quite stubborn in her thinking, and this worried me.

After understanding the deeper meanings of Fa, I used "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance" to guide them. Especially most recently, I seldom blamed or spanked them, and tried to communicate with them as much as possible. However, my younger daughter did not appreciate the kindness. She became more unreasonable, and often opposed anything I said. I wondered how I should handle her behavior.

It was my understanding that I should not spank my children in anger. We cultivate "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance". Our words and behaviors should match "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance". Hitting children in anger did not seem to match the requirements of the Fa.

I asked myself why she sometimes became so unreasonable, and where were my loopholes in cultivation that would lead her to treat me like this. Several days ago, I thought that the reason was because her attachment to stubbornness needed to be removed. Therefore, I tried to appeal to her positive side. I told her not to team up with the evil, and to clearly understand the attachment to being stubborn was not her true self, to not accept it, and to deny it.

She behaved better the next day. However, yesterday, she did not listen to me again. I felt that I had no choice but to use physical punishment to warn her to not behave negatively. I always felt that spanking was not a good method, and that it was not a fundamental solution. Therefore, I knew that there must be some attachment that I had to get rid of. However, I did not know where the root of the problem was. Why did my daughter always get mad at me but not my husband?

I understood that nothing that happened to a practitioner was coincidental. I should not interpret her problem of crankiness and irritation from an ordinary person's point of view. I should understand it from the viewpoint of the Fa. Probably because I always had the habit to look inward, suddenly, an image showed up in my mind. In my childhood, I always saw my mother arguing with my grandmother. I learned from that example and also had quarrels with my mother often. My daughter repeatedly saw the example I was setting for her and learned about it as well. This thinking was from the perspective of everyday people. From the viewpoint of Fa, I understood that everything has its cause; otherwise, it would not be an obstacle I would have to overcome.

Master mentioned in "A Person's Base" from a chapter in Zhuan Falun (2003 version),

"And you generate the black matter when you do bad things, or things that aren't good, and that's karma. So there's a transformation process. And it can also be inherited. They're carried along directly with your master soul, so they aren't just related to one lifetime of yours, but are accumulated over the ages. That's why people talk about accumulating karma and accumulating virtue. And they can be passed down from a person's ancestors. Sometimes I think of what ancient Chinese people said or what older people say: they say that somebody's ancestors "accumulated virtue," or that a person has "accumulated virtue" or "lacks virtue." How true their words are. They really are right on."

I remembered, before I started to cultivate, I not only argued with my mother, but also with my mother-in-law. After starting cultivation, I needed to return all the karmic debts. In addition, I felt that the behavior of my daughter was related to the karma accumulated by her ancestors. In simple words, my daughter was helping to improve my character and reduce my karma.

Master said in Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Singapore,

"If you can examine yourselves with every thing you come across, then I'd say you are really remarkable, and nothing can block you on your path to Consummation. Yet when we run into problems, we often look outwards--"Why are you treating me like that?"--and feel that we've been treated unfairly, instead of examining ourselves. That's the greatest and most fatal obstacle for all living beings. In the past, some people said that it was impossible to succeed in cultivation. How could one succeed in cultivation? [They couldn't succeed] because that was the biggest obstacle, and nobody was willing to find faults in himself amidst problems. When a person feels hurt, or when he encounters misfortune, it's really difficult for him to still examine himself and see if he's done something wrong. If a person can do that, then I'd say that on this path, on this path of cultivation, and for the eternity of his existence, nothing can stop him. It's truly the case."

Of course, there probably are some other factors also causing her lack of restraint. Maybe we need to improve ourselves while doing the three things that Master asked us to do, such as studying the Fa together, clarifying the truth to people, and sending forth the righteous thoughts to clear the interference from other dimensions.

Posting date: 1/21/2006
Original article date: 1/21/2006
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Translated on 1/14/2006
Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/1/9/118299.html

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