(Clearwisdom.net)
After studying Master's Teaching the Fa in Canada, 2006, I have many thoughts. Master said:
"Many students understand only that doing the exercises and studying the Fa are cultivation. Yes, with those you directly engage the Fa. But as you go about truly cultivating yourself in your day-to-day life, the society that you come into contact with is your cultivation environment. The work and family environments that you spend time in are both settings in which you are to cultivate yourselves, are part of the path you must walk, are what you must handle, and handle correctly at that. None of these should be glossed over."
I've understood that this paragraph of the Fa points out the area of my cultivation practice where I've been unable to break through.
It has been nearly five years since I obtained the Fa. I can feel myself melting into and refining within the Fa, and experienced obvious changes in my xinxing. My friends also said I had changed a lot, except for one thing - I didn't know how to deal with my child. Perhaps this seemed very simple to other people, but I just couldn't do it well.
My child was just one year old when I obtained the Fa. Soon after starting cultivation practice I joined others in following the Fa-rectification process. Therefore, during the first several years, I spent a lot of time studying Fa and doing truth clarification. Meanwhile, I was neglecting my son. Since he was too young to talk and could not express his dissatisfaction, I wasn't aware that I hadn't done well in caring for him or with my role as a housewife, until I received feedback from my husband and friends. When my son interrupted Dafa work I was doing, I felt especially impatient; and my everyday person's mentality come up. I was trying to change the situation, but when conflicts with my son arose, I was never able to upgrade my xinxing. Afterwards I was full of regret.
Several months ago, an accident happened while my child was playing with a schoolmate. He had a deep open wound on his face; and it needed several stitches. I told him not to blame the other child, and thought that this demonstrated the proper attitude. Later I thought about it further. For over four years, my child had passed through various other sickness karma episodes on his own. Why was he wounded so seriously this time? Was there any problem within myself? Later, I studied "Teaching the Fa in the City of Los Angeles" [4/1/2006], in which Master talked about the issue of disciples' paying back karmic debts. When I read that Master would protect disciples from danger though things might look dangerous, I became certain that it was because of my own shortcomings. Master was enlightening me with a heavy hammer that I had not done well with my child.
Where did the problem arise? While I had pondered for several months, I was stuck without progress. Not until I studied "Teaching the Fa in Canada, 2006" did I find the problem. It was because I had not recognized from my heart that the child was a part of my cultivation environment! Because I had not clearly recognized that he was an arrangement in my cultivation practice, I was only dealing with my child in a perfunctory manner and always felt tied up by the child and a loss of freedom. In essence this was caused by my "selfish" heart. Because my mind was not righteous, and I had not awakened within the Fa, so each time I encountered conflicts with my son, I would endure with a human heart. After I changed that notion and accepted the child as part of my cultivation environment that I "must" face, I felt the situation changing.
When I studied the Fa today, I had a thought: In the maze for generation after generation, so many attachments have formed within our bodies and minds, some of which we are not even aware of. It was no accident that I have this young disciple at my side, to help me expose my deeply concealed attachments. Thank you Master for your painstaking arrangement, and also thanks to my son for his tolerance for me all these years.
