(Minghui.org) My wife and I both practice Falun Dafa. Once, she had a painful pimple on her nose, so she began to ask me to send forth righteous thoughts to help her eliminate it. I disagreed with her request and told her that she should take care of it herself. However, she continued to ask me to send righteous thoughts, so I became impatient and started criticizing her for failing to live up to the standard of a practitioner. I then left home and went to work. When I arrived at my workplace, I received a text from my wife saying the pimple was growing bigger and she needed me to send righteous thoughts.
Why was my wife so dependent on me and always asking for help? When I studied the Fa today, I suddenly realized that I have been looking outward all this time. I always complain about her dependence and never considered whether it was caused by my own shortcoming. I always talk about looking inward, but never put it into practice. In reality, I would only point out other people's shortcomings. When fellow practitioners share their understandings, they'd often say that we must have attachments or incorrect notions that need to be eliminated or we wouldn't be hearing about a certain issue. Practitioners would then comment on the changes that the other person should make instead of looking inward first to see if they had any shortcomings to correct.
My wife depended on me for many things, so I thought I was more diligent, had a better understanding of the Fa and thus, had more wisdom than her. At times, I'd show off in front of her or acted as though I was her teacher. I'd also judge and even laughed at her. I feel truly ashamed that I had completely disregarded Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance when it came to her. Her dependence on me was actually hinting to me that I wasn't aligning myself with the Fa. Instead, I ignored it for a very long time. Now I understand that Teacher had arranged those opportunities to wake me up, but I had missed them.
Fellow practitioners have shared that we should not depend on others. However, the person who is being depended upon may also have shortcomings that need to be improved. It is likely the practitioner may have a lot of pride and believe that he/she is better than others. I feel this frame of mind can bring demonic interference to one's own mind and affect their surroundings as well.
This is just my personal understanding. Please point out anything that is improper.
Category: Improving Oneself
