(Clearwisdom.net) Many fellow practitioners have been interfered with and obstructed by their family members at different levels in their cultivation and when doing the three things. Some practitioners have said that, while they are usually quite successful when advising other people to quit the Chinese Communist Party and its affiliated organizations, when it comes to their own family members, they are hardly ever successful. Some of the family members couldn't tolerate having other practitioners in their home and they often shouted and quarreled loudly and threatened to call the police. Whether we can harmonize with our family members well has become an important element of doing the three things well. Harmonizing with family members well cannot only save them, but also turn interference into assistance.

I found the reason that my family members didn't accept what I said when I clarified the facts to them was because of the following reasons. (The main reason was because I used sentimentality when talking to them.)

First, when I had just obtained the Fa, I wanted very much for my wife and children to practice cultivation also. I felt that Falun Dafa was very precious and it would be such a pity if my family didn't obtain it. So, out of selfishness, I tried to persuade them to learn Dafa. I kept telling my wife over and over how good Falun Gong was and that I wished that she would also learn it But the more I talked about it the more she was averse to what I said. Now, when I look back, I see that I had a strong sentimentality. Human sentimentality is selfish, and this selfishness will naturally be restricted by the the characteristic of the universe "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance." It will have no power to move people's hearts.

Second, I didn't use an effective way to help my family members recognize the goodness of Dafa. Instead, I tried to win them over with words. To argue with words, even though I silenced others successfully, only proved that I could win with words. I still could not make others recognize the truth in their hearts. When they didn't respect Dafa enough, I was very angry and even banged the table. My purpose was to safeguard the dignity of Dafa, but my actions deviated from "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance" and couldn't safeguard Dafa. My showing off and competitive mentality and my eagerness to outshine others caused me to protect myself. I was only damaging Dafa, instead of safeguarding it.

Master said in "Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference:"

"Your intention to safeguard Dafa's dignity is correct, but how do you safeguard it? Do you shut their mouths? Do you debate with them? I'm telling you, just treat all beings with compassion, and just clarify the facts to people with compassion, and you will be safeguarding Dafa's dignity, and you'll be able to safeguard Dafa's dignity."

"Dafa's dignity can't be safeguarded with the means of everyday people. It's brought about by each of our Dafa disciples exhibiting true compassion and kindness. It's not created, it's not created by human conduct or human means. It's born out of compassion and it's manifest in saving sentient beings and in your cultivation. When you cultivate well as a whole, the world's people will say that Dafa is good and will all respect Dafa. I said this to our persons in charge before: in Dafa the persons in charge don't rely on the ways everyday people use to manage things. Things rely on your heart toward Dafa and your sense of responsibility toward cultivation. You achieved it by cultivating yourself well, and people will admire and respect you. If you don't admit it when you're wrong, and act like you're not wrong in order to have people think that you're not wrong, then no one will respect you, because that's an everyday person's approach. The same goes for how the world's people view our Dafa. If someone says that it's not good and you debate with him in everyday people's ways, or you try to silence him or the like, that will worsen the disagreement. We should just conduct ourselves well and handle everything with compassion. You don't need to argue or debate with them. People have a side of them that's aware, and they'll be moved on the human surface too. They'll naturally say that you're good."

I feel that these words were said especially for me. Whether family members can accept Dafa or not, depends on whether we can cultivate ourselves well. If we cultivate ourselves well, without saying anything, our family members can feel the goodness of Dafa. If we don't cultivate ourselves well, they will not accept Dafa. For example, I gave in when I suffered persecution, and my family knew about this. This gave them a negative example. In their hearts they could say, "You are not firm in your beliefs yourself, how can you ask me to believe?" My words and actions affect them. They also came to this life for the Fa, and their true natures will be happy when we cultivate well and look down upon us when we do not cultivate that well. Because we will not have mighty virtue when we don't cultivate well, we thus can't have an effect on them. That is why we say that family members are like a mirror reflecting our cultivation status. How can we complain when they do not believe in Dafa when we ourselves haven't cultivated well?

I also noticed when my daughter was arguing with me, her expression and her sharp, mean words were almost all learned from me. I was really shocked, so I decided to change myself. The first thing that I did was to write a letter to my son, telling him that my sharp words, when arguing with him about Falun Gong in the past, were caused by my being self-opinionated. It sometimes hurts people more than a knife or a gun. I would like to apologize for what I did. He didn't greet me when I was released from the prison in 2005, but the situation changed after I wrote this letter to him.

After I had the above understanding, I noticed that things started to change in my family. For instance, my daughter always disliked any Falun Gong informational materials, but recently when I showed her the video of the NTDTV Gala, she said that it was very good. She said that the background of the show on the stage was more traditional Chinese than those performances in China. She said that the painting of the background was really good, and the performances went so well, probably due to the participation of many outstanding artists. She said that the artists in China must have all gone to New York, and the host and hostess were both sincere and humorous. She couldn't stop laughing.

From the experience of my family members, I realized the miraculous effect of cultivation. In order to change others, I needed to change myself first--to become truly compassionate to save sentient beings. It is not just to prevent my family from being eliminated. I am still quite far from helping them totally assimilate to a right understanding. My family members also came for the Fa, and it is Dafa that made the arrangements for them to be the part of my cultivation. I can do no less than to regard them as a reflection of my cultivation and to improve myself.

Posting date: 6/25/2007
Original article date: 6/24/2007
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Translated on 6/9/2007
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/6/6/156293.html

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