By a practitioner in China

(Clearwisdom.net) A few days ago, I met a couple who are also Falun Gong practitioners. They told me that their 22 year-old daughter hadn't seriously studied the Fa for a long period of time. She hardly sent forth righteous thoughts and almost didn't do any of the three things Teacher requested. They said that she needed to be woken up; otherwise, she might end up acting just like an ordinary person instead of a practitioner. As her parents and also as practitioners, they were extremely anxious for their daughter and hoped I could come over to their home to help their daughter when I had time.

After hearing of their story, I told them some my family's stories. Usually I didn't get angry with people at all, but with my son, it was a different story. If my son couldn't do things as I wanted him to do, I would easily get angry. If my son didn't obey me further, I would even spank him. Although he was only six years old, he was still not willing to admit his fault. Sometimes I even got very angry and lost my temper.

One day, I had a dream. In my dream, a person told me that I should not treat my son so harshly because he was too young to defend himself. I didn't look inward to see my own mistakes and I talked endlessly to defend myself. The person in my dream saw that I was being perverse, and he slapped my face real hard. I immediately woke up, although I still felt pain on the side of my face.

After waking up, I calmly thought it over. I realized that recently I had treated my son unreasonably, so I decided to change myself. After looking inward to find my attachments, I found out that many of my thoughts and behaviors didn't meet the standard of Dafa. When I lost my temper, I acted as a demon with anger. However, when a conflict occurred between my son and me, I always demanded my son to change his behavior instead of looking inward to find my own problems. It was because I thought that I was his parent and he should listen to me, and behave according to my request. When facing a difficulty and a conflict, I didn't look inward to find my own problems, so I didn't handle my son's matters well. What bad mistakes I had made!

Teacher said:

"In every situation we should be good to others and be kind to people, let alone your family members. We should treat everyone the same, be good to our parents and our kids, and always be considerate of others. Then your heart isn't a selfish one when you do that, but a compassionate one--it's compassion."(Zhuan Falun)

I should be good to everyone and not only should I conduct myself well outside my home, but I should also conduct myself well inside my home. I should have the same kind heart. It was wrong for me to get mad with him at will just because he was my son. I should eliminate my demonic temper.

I knew that it was my fault. Next day, I sincerely told my son: "It was my fault that I spanked you yesterday. I should not treat you like that although you are a child. We cultivators should treat everyone the same. From now on I will never spank you anymore. If I lose control of myself again, you must remind me. We should all be good persons, alright? Can you forgive mom?" After my son listened to me, he was delighted and said: "Alright!" Let's move forward as if what happened yesterday never occurred. Moreover, my son also admitted his own mistakes. He said that he should not make me angry and would never do it again.

My son's changes made me feel ashamed. During my child's changes, I found the shortcomings in my cultivation. A child's actions are just like a mirror that reflects our behavior. I realized that I should improve myself. From that time on, whenever my son behaved badly, I would check myself to find out if my own actions were forcing him to behave that way. I found out that when I changed and corrected my behavior, my son also immediately improved his behavior as well.

Posting date: 5/26/2006
Original article date: 5/25/2006
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Translated on 5/15/2006
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/5/11/127361.html

 Yearly Archive  Printer Version