(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings Master! Greetings fellow Dafa disciples!
I would like to share some of the experiences I have had with family during my cultivation. I came to understand and accept the Fa gradually in the beginning. My wife and I found out about Dafa when we were given a flyer as we walked past a truth clarification activity in Melbourne, Australia, where we were living at the time. This was about three years ago now. As we passed by we saw that there was a group of people doing some exercises and then an elderly Chinese lady handed us a flyer. Initially I went to the practice site to support my wife as she wanted to go, and she had come with me to activities I wanted to do in the past. I thought that the exercises were simply a way to stay healthy and was still going to the gym and thinking about continuing my martial arts practice.
Slowly I started to see what Dafa and cultivation were really about. Before starting the practice I thought that we were quite good people, but later I could see that I had a long way to go to meet the standards of a practitioner. To say that Dafa overwhelmed me would be an understatement, and at the beginning I didn't know if I could make it and meet the requirements. But by then I felt that I couldn't stop. How could I just forget what I had learned, turn my back on it and return to ordinary human society? There was no unlearning Dafa, so I decided that the only thing to do was to continue wholeheartedly.
So many changes have happened since then and things went very quickly at the start. Being part of a large group of active practitioners I quickly learned about, and became involved with, many truth clarification activities. One thing that was on my mind was how to effectively clarify the truth to my family, who were mostly in the UK, while I was in Australia. Many opportunities have since arisen, and with hindsight I have been able to see Master's careful arrangements.
In 2005, a little over two weeks before an important truth clarification project that I was heavily involved with was due to be launched, I learned that my mother in England had died. She was not a Dafa practitioner, but did try to cultivate herself, and had been ill for a long time. It was not a shock that she died and so I was not upset. There was a sense of relief that her suffering, which had become quite great, was finally over. So I was not sad, but my initial thought was "why now?" At first I didn't know what to make of it, as the project still required a lot of work and I wondered if this was some kind of interference pulling me away from the project. Then my younger sister asked me if I could speak at the funeral, as neither her nor my older sister could do it and they said that one of us had to. I knew that I wanted to do this, so I told her that of course I would. I knew there would be a lot of people at the service and as I was thinking about what I would say it occurred to me that there is only one thing to say to a room full of people such as this, and that is to clarify the truth to them.
At this point my attitude regarding my mother's death changed completely, and I saw this as an opportunity to reach my entire family, many of my friends and a lot other people that I may not see again for a very long time, including some from overseas. As things quickly came together for my trip I thought that this could be part of Master's arrangement for me, something that I am now sure of. I had been thinking about how I was going to clarify the truth to the rest of my family in England, having spoken to my sisters a little, but not in any depth. The only person I had really reached was my mother who had shared the material I gave her with others and told some of her friends about Falun Dafa and that we practiced it in Australia. Now she had passed away, and I felt I had gone back to square one in this regard.
My wife and I had talked about my mother's circumstances and decided that it was not a bad thing that she had passed away when she did, as she had repaid a lot of karma through her suffering and knew that Dafa was good. After reading Compassion magazine she was moved to pray for the practitioners suffering in China. This was at a time when she could no longer walk properly.
I knew that I had to make the most of this short trip back to England, and after my thoughts about the whole thing changed, I had to remind myself not to appear too cheerful, as I told people I was going back to England for a funeral. I made sure that I studied and did the exercises as much as I could before I left Australia and during the short time the house in England wasn't full of people.
I finished writing my speech on the morning of the service and I know that I didn't write those words on my own, or at the very least they did not contain any sentiment. What I said had a profound effect on many people and led some people to come and ask me afterwards about the practice. This was the first time I really understood that when we are truly in the Fa and are only concerned with saving sentient beings, everything we do and say carries the power of Dafa and can show people the magnificence of Dafa. It also enabled me to better understand that the forms we take in clarifying the truth are not critical, as long as they are appropriate.
By remaining unmoved by the whole funeral, apart from one small moment when absolutely everyone around me was crying and I just couldn't help myself, and by speaking from my heart about Dafa at the service, I reached the rest of my family in a way I could never have achieved by talking to them individually about Dafa and giving them a brochure or something to read. I never would have imagined you could clarify the truth in such a way.
When I returned to Australia my wife's family were there on holiday and stayed with us for a while. Again, they knew we did the practice but not much more that that. So we clarified the truth to them in some more depth and taught them the exercises. Their stay coincided with the launch of the project I had been involved with and they took a day out of their holiday to help us get it all ready. They stayed for the whole event and got a lot out of hearing the speakers. My sister in law took all the materials she could collect afterwards and said she would see if her friends in England wanted to learn the practice.
Through their stay and my time in England I came to appreciate the cultivation environment that we created, as I found it quite hard being away from it and among everyday people for so long. At times I found myself doing superficial things to seem like a good person, yet not being truly compassionate towards others, especially when our small home was filled with my wife's family. Once I corrected my thoughts I saw how valuable this two-week period had been for my cultivation and that so-called problems are just opportunities to improve ourselves. These issues and attachments resurfaced when I returned to the UK in 2006 with my wife to live with her family in Cornwall.
More tests with family soon followed. After my mother's funeral I thought I would write to my Canadian godfather who was unable to attend the service. I sent him a copy of the speech I read, as I thought by doing this I could clarify the truth to him. A little while later I received a card from Canada which I thought would be a thank you note. Inside was a letter saying that he was not actually my godfather, but in fact my real biological father. I was somewhat surprised to read this, but not upset, as the more I thought about it the funnier I thought it was. I later learned that everyone else in my family knew of this situation and the secret had been kept from me for 30 years. My colleagues at work could not understand when I told them about all of this and that I did not mind, even though I tried to explain that this didn't change who I was or any part of my life up until then. In my heart I knew that this was Master telling me that I should not be complacent in thinking that I'd managed to clarify the truth to my family and just mentally tick this task off of my "to do list." Just as I thought I had done well, something else had come along and I realized that I had to go and clarify the truth to my long-lost Canadian relatives.
On the way back to Cornwall from Australia we visited my new relatives, including my biological father in Canada, and then after attending the 2006 Washington DC Fa Conference, we visited my English dad, who raised me and now lives in Florida. When my wife and I sat down with my Canadian father and his wife to talk about what had happened all those years ago I soon realized that my lack of being emotionally moved was actually upsetting them. They both have a background in psychology and my Canadian father is a social worker, so although they were trying to analyze what was being said, it was completely from within a framework of human thinking and qing. I explained that I was not in the least upset for myself, but that I was moved by the thought of what everyone else had borne for 30 years for the sake of my well-being. I explained that this compassion came from practicing Falun Dafa. Eventually when my heart was moved by the thought of the sacrifices these ordinary people had made for me in this life, I shed tears. They seemed satisfied and the matter was closed.
Before we left, there was a piece on the radio about the Kilgour-Matas report into the organ harvesting which provided a further opportunity to clarify the truth to them. I did tell them, and my English dad in Florida, about the activities we were involved with in Washington DC. Returning to the UK and living with my wife's family for a year has been another test of not only being considerate and thinking of others first, but also of being diligent and not slipping back into humanness. This is a continuing challenge that I have often not been able to handle particularly well.
I used to wonder why we had to go to Australia to find the Fa, but now I can see that the environment we were in quickly prepared us for participating during Fa-rectification. It has also allowed us to move forward quickly in coordinating with the other two practitioners in Cornwall in truth-clarification. When we first left Australia and returned to the UK I really felt that we had been forced to leave everything behind and wander around in everyday society. This was quite difficult after having been part of a large group of practitioners who had provided support every step of the way. It also revealed so many attachments that I had not seen in Australia.
I thank Master for his compassionate patience and for providing me with opportunities to improve myself. I will do my best to clarify the truth to the people of the Southwest.
Please correct me if I have said anything wrong.
