By a Falun Dafa practitioner from China

I started practicing Falun Gong with the help of my mother; however, I did not get along with her. Thinking about this has revealed my many attachments to sentimentality. Because I have so many attachments to get rid of, I was taken advantage of by the evil. They capitalized on my attachments to interfere with me so that I couldn't do the Three Things well, and now I understand that I was in a dangerous state.

Before my mom and I began to practice, I always considered her to be a selfish person, who did not consider others. After we both started cultivating, I still thought of her the same way. I thought that, even though she had been practicing for three years, she had not changed even a little bit, and that she was not up to par compared with me, who only started cultivating six months ago. Recently, I started to notice more and more of her shortcomings. I also felt that she had become even more selfish. For instance, there is a small Fa-study group near her home, but she didn't want to go there. Instead, she goes to a Fa-study group which is almost two miles away from her and is near my home. I believed the reason she came all that way to our Fa-study group was to have meals at our house, and sometimes she ended up staying at our home for a few days. When I was cooking, she didn't bother helping me, but instead read Zhuan Falun. She only seemed to care about whether she could study the Fa or not, and she did not seem to care whether I had some time to study the Fa, considering that I was new practitioner. She also likes wearing expensive clothes, whereas, as Dafa practitioners, I believe that we should be more frugal. In addition, she went to the countryside many times, but only to visit her relatives.

I understood that my mindset was not correct for a cultivator and I was very worried. Teacher pointed out in many of his lectures that we need to look within and cultivate ourselves, so I tried to look within and found some problems. However, when I was trying to eliminate these problems, because my xinxing level was not high enough, I couldn't eliminate them completely, so they still kept popping up, and even more strongly than before.

Teacher has mentioned that we should always conduct ourselves as practitioners and when a problem arises, it's an opportunity to cultivate ourselves. Additionally, when a third person observes two people in a conflict, this person also needs to look within. However, I always focused on the shortcomings of others instead of cultivating myself. Teacher also mentioned that the part of us that has completed its cultivation has been separated, and only the part that hasn't cultivated well still manifests to be cultivated. Teacher also mentioned that everything that happens today in ordinary society is the result of Dafa disciples' thoughts.

Because of my biased view towards my mom, she appeared to be in that state. A human being's thoughts are matter, and I had been forcing those dark substances onto my mom, so how could I possibly see her good points? This time, I made up my mind to dig out the root cause and look inside. Teacher said in Zhuan Falun:

"We should respect parents and educate our children. Under all circumstances, we must be good and kind to others, not to mention to our family members. We should treat everyone in the same way. We must be good to our parents and children and be considerate of others in all respects. Such a heart is thus unselfish, and it is a heart of kindness and benevolence."

I discovered that I had a lot of notions about my mom, such as selfishness, pursuit of self-interest, jealousy, resentment, being critical, the mentality of showing off, and a heart of looking outward as opposed to looking within.

While I was writing this sharing, I thought about my mom again, and I realized that, in fact, she is a diligent practitioner. She studies two to three Fa lectures every day, and sometimes she recites Teacher's Fa lectures even in her dreams. For the past few years, she has been making financial contributions for the production of truth-clarification materials. She also does the exercises early every morning and keeps sending forth righteous thoughts. Her xinxing has improved a lot, but I had been turning a blind eye to all these changes. The true reason why my mom studies the Fa with us is because she likes the way we study the Fa in our group. She has been to the countryside many times to painstakingly clarify the facts to the people there, and she managed to help many people quit the Chinese Communist Party. As to the reason why she often comes to my home and stays with us, I now realize that it was the arrangement of Teacher, so that between my mother and me, we could have a cultivation environment where we can improve and elevate our xinxing together.

Through looking within, I came to realize that, in many aspects, my mother cultivates better than I do. When I thought about some of the areas that she has been doing very well, I was even touched. I thus relaxed and cheered up.

Teacher said in "To the France Fa Conference:" "All that Dafa disciples do at present is for the purpose of clarifying the truth and saving the world's people." However, I have been at this level far too long. I will let go of my selfishness, make good use of the predestined relationship between my mother and me, work well with her and participate in the Fa-rectification process, save more sentient beings, and make Fa-study the first priority.

Posting date: 2/19/2008
Original article date: 2/19/2008
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/1/24/170876.html

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