Guiding Our Children in Cultivation is a Part of Our Own Cultivation
By Falun Dafa Practitioner Gao Jing from Canada
(Clearwisdom.net) My name is Gao Jing. I began Fa study in 2002. My son
is now six years old. I have had problems guiding him to cultivate and have gone
to extremes. At one time I thought that I needed to force him to cultivate, and
at another time, I thought that I should let him cultivate naturally. Finally,
with Master's help and guidance I have a good understanding of how to guide him
to cultivate. I had thought initially that cultivation is one's own business. I thought
that the Fa would guide my son to cultivate, and Master would arrange his
cultivation path. So, I just played Master's lectures and recited Hong
Yin to him. I didn't think that I had any responsibility for his
cultivation. One day I had a dream in which I was going to play the waist drum in a
parade, but I forgot my drum and costume at home. When I was about to cry, my
son brought me the drum and costume. I really appreciated this in the dream.
Later, I told fellow practitioners about this dream and my son heard it. He
said, "Mom, I came here to help you go back to Master's place." He was
only three then. I had never told him anything about the Fa, or where we would
go after consummation. His words startled me. Later, when I was doing the fifth exercise, I saw with my celestial eye that
Master was teaching my son the exercises. I suddenly realized that I had not
done what I should have. Master was doing what I should do, so I felt guilty.
Looking inward I realized that the reason I didn't teach my son the exercises
was attachments I had developed in ordinary people's society: selfishness,
laziness and being irresponsible. So I decided to lead my son to cultivation. But since I didn't have a good understanding of the Fa, I went to another
extreme. I forced him to study the Fa and do the exercises with me every day. He
was only four. I didn't carefully explain some terminology in the Fa, so he
didn't understand what the Fa was. For a time he always ran away from me when I
tried to push him to study the Fa with me. I asked him why he ran. He said that
he needed to use the bathroom or finish his food, and I had to wait for him to
finish those things. He purposely did those things slowly. I wasted a lot of
time in order to "improve as whole body" with him. I asked myself if perhaps I should not guide him to cultivate. My answer was
"Yes, I should." So what was the problem then? I looked inward again
and found that although I tried to guide him to cultivate I had only focused on
the surface level things, but ignored his cultivation of xinxing.
I realized that it was still my problem, because my ego got in the way, because
I didn't want to put too much time and energy into this effort. I made up my
mind to completely get rid of my attachments to laziness, selfishness and being
irresponsible. Later I no longer forced him. Instead, I patiently talked to him
and answered his questions, and I found that I could answer all of his questions
relating to the Fa. He once asked me how he came out from my belly. I answered, "The doctor
cut my belly open and took you out." I felt lucky that I had a C-section.
Otherwise I would not have known how to answer him. Then he asked another
question, which I would not have been able to answer if I didn't cultivate Dafa.
He asked, "How did I enter your belly?" I answered, "You came
into my belly from another dimension." He didn't understand, so I said,
"Didn't Master say that we are all from heaven? Heaven means other
dimensions. It is not the sky that we can see now. You were in the heavens and
saw that Gao Jing was about to obtain the Fa, so you said to yourself, "I
want to be her son, so that she will guide me to cultivate Falun Dafa."
Just like that, you came into my belly from the heavens. Once you came in I gave
you a physical body, and you grew bigger and bigger in my belly." He was
very satisfied with my answer and nodded at me. Just like this, I told him the
meaning of his life. Once when my son had a fever my non-practitioner husband insisted on taking
him to the hospital and bought some medicine for him. Then my husband went to
work. I asked my son if he wanted to take the medicine. He said no. Then I said,
"It has been quite a long time since you studied the Fa and did the
exercises. You have been an everyday person. Master said that an everyday person
should have illnesses. When you are old, you will be like your grandfather, who
cannot move his arms and legs, and when you are older, you will have to lie on
the bed, waiting for death." He said, "I don't want to be an everyday
person. I want to study the Fa and do the exercises." He then wanted to
read the Fa. By answering his daily questions, I taught him how a cultivator should behave
and think and also many cultivation concepts at my level of comprehension that
he at this young age could understand. Master gave me many hints. For example, one time in the street I held his
hand while walking, but he fell down, and a while later he bumped his head on a
big pillar in the mall and later on a big tree. I was a little nervous. Then I
realized that it was Master's hint. The fact that he fell and hit a tree when I
was holding his hand reflects the fact that I have not done well in guiding him
on the path of cultivation. And the parents have the responsibility towards
their children's cultivation. I started paying attention to his cultivation, using the Fa principles to
guide him, telling him to cultivate xinxing, and requiring him to
maintain a cultivator's standard. At the same time I paid attention to my own
cultivation. I found that he knew that attachments are bad, but he didn't know
what kind of attachments he had. For example, I once praised another child and he was obviously unhappy. I
told him that he was jealous. He almost cried and said, "No, I don't have
the attachment to jealousy." I asked him, "Do you know what jealousy
is then?" He said, "No, I don't." Then I told him, "You are
jealous if you are unhappy when you see other people are praised and you are
not." I asked him, "Weren't you unhappy when I praised that
child?" He nodded. I said, "What will you do in the future when the
same thing happens?" He said, "Mom, I understand now. I will get rid
of my jealousy." After that, I didn't see him being jealous of anyone. In a
similar way I pointed out the mindset of zealotry, showing off and other
attachments for him. I found that he is able to eliminate his attachments very quickly. He could
do it as soon as I pointed the attachments out to him. He would not be unhappy
when his attachment was pointed out, and he didn't repeat the same mistake
twice. Perhaps it is because a young child's attachments and notions have not
yet been completely formed. Although he spent less time reading the Fa and doing the exercises, his xinxing
improved over time. I realized that for a child, merely reading the Fa is not
enough, because he doesn't understand many concepts and the deeper meaning of
cultivation. It is difficult for a child to understand the Fa. I understand from Master's
Fa that the human culture and history exist for teaching the Fa. We can
comprehend the Fa from the standpoint of traditional culture. The reason we can
comprehend the Fa is because prior to beginning Fa study we had already learned
many things about traditional culture. But a child doesn't have this foundation.
My son didn't even know much Chinese vocabulary to help understand the Fa. At the very beginning, I only asked him to memorize Hong Yin. The
first poem he tried to memorize was "An Upright Person." One
day he asked me, "Are all the beans bitter?" (Translator's note: In
"An Upright Person," the fourth line is "Bitter, fighting
away" and the words "fighting" and "bean" have the same
pronunciation in Chinese.) At that moment I felt that I didn't deserve to be
this young practitioner's mother. So I taught him the meaning of many words in
the Fa, such as "gain," "loss," "everyday person,"
"cultivation" and "Sakyamuni." As my understanding of the Fa got better and better, and I kept looking
inward and cultivating myself on the issue of guiding a child to cultivate. I am
finally able to guide him to steadily progress on the path of cultivation. I
started comprehensively adjusting the way to guide him: 1. Encourage him to listen to Master's lectures in addition to reading the Fa.
I also explained the surface level meaning of the words in the Fa. I skipped
some sections in Zhuan Falun at the beginning, such as
the history of Buddhism, qigong treating illness and animal possession, for he
could not understand those. I explained the meaning of those sections to him
later, and gradually we finished the whole Zhuan Falun book. I taught him
Hong Yin the same way. 2. I tried to enhance his main consciousness. I didn't force him to do the
exercises, but I explained to him why we should do the exercises. Kids don't
have as strong a self-discipline as adults do. Although he understands why we
should do the exercises, he still has an attachment to TV and games. Master
said, "...without mi xin in their parents, children would not be
brought up well-mannered." ("What is Mi Xin" from Essentials
for Further Advancement) So, I used his mi xin in me and his
attachment to me to guide him to do the exercises. I told him, "You don't
do the exercises and I don't force you to do them. I will do the exercises by
myself, and I will fly to heaven to be a Buddha, and you will stay here with you
father." He said immediately, "I don't want to stay here. I will go
with you." I said, "If you want to go with me to the heavens to be a
Buddha you must have a Buddha body, and doing the exercises helps you to
transform your body to a Buddha body." Since then, he does the exercises
with me every time. As his understanding of the Fa gets better and better, I no
longer have to convince him to do the exercises. Also at the beginning, he could not calm down to listen to the Fa or do the
exercises. He always moved around. So I said to him, "Master wants us to
fly to heaven and be Buddhas. But the evils try to interfere with us. They don't
want you to listen to the Fa or do the exercises. When you are studying the Fa,
the evils will say, 'Go play. Don't study the Fa.' When you are doing the
exercises, the evils also try to interfere with you. They make your body itch or
make you want to use the bathroom, and so on. The evils want you to stay here to
suffer. But the evils are afraid of your strong will. If you don't listen to
them, and calmly study the Fa and do the exercises, they will be scared. Then
they will go away." My son said, "OK, mom. I understand." The
next day after work I asked him, "Who won today? You or the evils?" He
didn't dare to look at me. I didn't blame him and said, "It doesn't matter.
You are just a beginning cultivator. You will beat the evils tomorrow."
When I returned from work the third day he looked at me, smiling. I knew he had
improved. After that, I often saw him listening to the Fa and do the exercises by
himself. One year ago (he was five then) I was giving him a bath. He suddenly
held my arms and said, "Mom, you are so nice." "Why?"
"Because you guided me to study the Fa and do the exercises." I was
very touched. Perhaps his enlightened side was grateful to me, or it was Master
encouraging me to do better. Now he can behave himself according to the standards of a cultivator, and he
also seemly caught up with the process of Fa-rectification. 3. I didn't think that kids would understand what the Fa-rectification is. I
thought that for him, personal cultivation was enough. With this notion I never
read Teacher's new lectures to him. He often asked, "Mom, can you read
aloud so that I can hear it too?" I only read aloud if he asks, because I
didn't think he would understand. A few months ago he said to me unexpectedly,
"Mom, how come I feel that time goes by so fast? I have not done anything
before it gets dark again." I was surprised. It is not surprising for an
adult to have this feeling, because an adult knows how time was before. But my
son, a child, doesn't have any comparison. I realized that I have underestimated
him. I read Master's teaching about time a few days before this and I read it to
him again. He totally understood it and shared his understanding with me. He
also said that he would cherish his opportunity and time to cultivate. After
this, I read and explained Hong Yin II to him. He is also active in clarifying the truth. One time when we sent forth
righteous thoughts in a public place he asked me why I didn't erect my hand. I
said, "Because everyday people would not understand." He was worried,
"How can we save those everyday people?" I answered, "We should
let them know that Falun Dafa is good. To do that, we should always be nice to
them. Then they will think, 'Falun Dafa practitioners are so nice.' Then they
would be saved." After this conversation he always asked me to put on the T-shirt that says
"Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance" for him. He said, "I want
everybody to see this." Sometimes, he murmurs to himself, "how come I
forgot to tell so and so Falun Dafa is good." He also asked me how to teach
Westerners to do exercises, and if I have an English version of the exercise
instructions. I would like to further share some of my understanding with practitioners who
have children. Nothing that a cultivator encounters is coincidental, including
your life, work, and family. We should look inward when our children have
problems. We will often see that our own problems, such as impatience, and so
on, are having an effect. The deep reason is that we are not compassionate
enough. When Master was saving us at the beginning, he was facing a group of
people who had a lot of karma and didn't know themselves what they were doing
and saying. Some even cursed Master while listening to Master's lecture. Were we
really much better than our children? I think that we were actually much worse
than our children, for at least our children don't have human notions or thought
karma formed in the human world. Master said, "I don't mind. I just want to
save you." ("Fa-Lecture During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S.
West Fa Conference") Shouldn't we follow Master and try to have the immense
benevolence he has? We are cultivating the Buddha Fa. What does Buddha emphasize in cultivation?
Doesn't Buddha emphasize the cultivation of compassion? Do we have compassion?
If we are able to rescue sentient beings, why can we not be compassionate to our
children? Master said, "Under all circumstances, we must be good and kind to others, not to
mention to our family members." ("Lecture Six" from Zhuan
Falun, March 2000 translation version) Master taught us, "You should always maintain a heart of benevolence and a mind of
kindness. If you suddenly bump into a problem, you will be able to take care
of it properly." ("Lecture Four" from Zhuan Falun) "You should not be that way in disciplining children, and neither
should you, yourselves get really upset. You should educate children with
reason so that you can really teach them well." ("Lecture Four"
from Zhuan Falun) We don't need special time-slots to educate children, for they live with us.
We could have been guiding them by example of our speech and behavior.
Compassion is a habit, one doesn't need to act to be compassionate. And also,
have we thought it? Our children truly come here to help us cultivate. How can
we reach consummation with impatience? Aren't our children helping us to
eliminate these attachments? They are like a piece of white paper. If the
picture on the white paper is ugly, is it the painter's fault or the paper's
fault? There must be a reason that our children reincarnated into our families. We
must have a unshakable responsibility toward them. No matter what kind of
predestined relationship we have with our children, one thing is for sure - they
came to us because they saw us obtain the Fa, so we should be responsible. Only
if we cultivate ourselves well can we educate them well. It would be the most
regrettable thing if we could not rescue our own children because we are not
fully responsible to them when we cultivate ourselves in this human world.
Chinese version available at
http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/9/3/137015.html
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