(Clearwisdom.net) In December 2008, my son brought home three live crabs from southern China. I thought to myself, "I am a practitioner. I cannot kill." But because I am his stepmother and we had some conflicts in the past, and our relationship was just starting to improve, I said nothing.

The next day, I thought about the crabs and asked my husband, "Where are the crabs?" He said, "I put them in the refrigerator." I told him, "Teacher said in Zhuan Falun that as practitioners we cannot kill." He asked, "What can we do? He already bought them. We won't do it again."

During the meal, my son gave me a crab tail. I refused it. But after he insisted, I had to take it. As a result, even before we had finished the meal, my stomach was upset and I went to bathroom three times. Our guests had not left yet and it was very embarrassing.

After the guests left, I calmed down and studied the Fa. Teacher said, " The issue of killing is very sensitive. For practitioners, we have set the strict requirement that they cannot kill lives." Teacher said explicitly in the book Zhuan Falun that practitioners can't kill. However, I had only thought of myself, that I must not kill, but failed to remind fellow practitioners not to kill. I truly regretted it.

The next day, my husband also felt uncomfortable. He sneezed and had flu-like symptoms. In the afternoon, a practitioner came over. I told her what had happened. She said, "This is actually a very serious matter." She then told me about a holiday when her whole family had come together, and her sister-in-law bought a big fish. She took a look at the fish. Its bones stuck out and it looked almost dead. Seeing that the guests were in the other room, she took a big container and filled it with water. She gingerly placed the fish in the water and said to it, "If you come alive by tomorrow morning, I will let you go." The next morning, she found that the fish had indeed come alive, so she set it free into a river. Her sister-in-law got up and asked her to cook the fish. She said, "I put it back in the river. It will be good for you. We can cook something else." She believed that her sister-in-law did not say anything because she was truly thinking of others by releasing the fish.

She also told us of some instances of practitioners eating live things. She said, "One practitioner went to Dalian with a friend. On their way there, they had live crabs. She consequently had red bumps all over and they grew bigger and bigger; their shape resembled the crabs. Her friend sent her home and she lay in bed and could not move."

I also remembered an article published on Clearwisdom about a lesson learned from two practitioners who wanted to buy a pig to kill. I was awakened. My husband also realized that he had been wrong. We said to Teacher, "Teacher, we were wrong. Please solve this matter for us compassionately. We will certainly learn from this lesson."

I remember that some practitioners with their third eyes open said that Teacher endured suffering for practitioners. Every time Teacher eliminated karma for us, it was as if he was fed a bowl of poison. I truly felt sorry. Teacher has suffered so much for me and saved my life several times. However, I am still troubling Teacher. I have not been strict with myself and now I find I have fallen short in so many ways.

Looking inside, I thought about how practitioners cannot kill. However, I chose to avoid facing it because I cared about my relationship with my stepson. This is a selfish human notion. When facing such a serious issue as killing, I did not evaluate it with the standard of the Fa and only chose to avoid it. I was not responsible to the Fa or to my husband (who had started practicing Falun Gong relatively recently). It is more than selfishness. My first thought was to protect myself. Teacher has let us cultivate to righteous, selfless gods. But I am so selfish. The distance is far between me and Teacher's requirement.

I wrote this to expose and disintegrate the bad things. I also want to remind fellow practitioners to learn from my lesson and to strictly follow Teacher's words. We certainly can't kill. If our family insists on buying live things to eat, we can send forth righteous thoughts to stop them. We are in the period of Fa-rectification. Every minute, every second has been extended by Teacher to save sentient beings. Practitioners came to assist Teacher to rectify the Fa. We should put saving sentient beings as our priority. In everything we do in our daily lives, we need to be responsible to sentient beings.

January 21, 2009