(Minghui.org) I’m 69 years old, and I started Falun Gong practice in August 1997.
Ya, my next-door neighbor, is now 86. She and her husband began to practice a year after I did.
Every morning, the three of us would go to the nearby practice site to do the exercises.
Unfortunately, soon after Jiang Zemin launched the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, the police went to their house to harass them several times, making the couple so anxious and afraid that they stopped practicing altogether.
A year later, her husband died of cancer. Ya was devastated, and her daughter moved in with her for about a year.
During that year, I tried several times to bring Ya back to Falun Gong practice, but she couldn’t be persuaded. A young practitioner handcopied Master’s most recent article at the time, “A Suggestion,” and asked me to give it to her. Ya read what Master wrote and finally decided to return.
Overcoming the Attachment to Sentimentality
Although Ya returned to Falun Gong practice, her attachment to fear was very strong. She was afraid to let anyone, including her children, know she was a practitioner. She would even hide her Dafa books when her children came to visit.
She was 73 then, but with the power of Dafa, she was capable of doing everything herself and living independently.
The way I looked at my relationship with Ya was, as practitioners, we should not depend on others when we could do things on our own. Our relationship was not one of family, friends, or neighbors but of fellow practitioners.
Sentimentality is a feeling that ordinary people have. As cultivators, we need to cultivate that away. It is predestined relationships that bring us together as fellow practitioners. We need to cherish that relationship and not be held captive by human emotions as that will interfere with our cultivation and elevation.
I did the exercises with Ya, and we frequently studied the Fa together. I often took her with me to distribute Dafa materials. She was soon able to hand out Dafa flyers and booklets by herself.
In 2003 when I was arrested and sent to the brainwashing center, Ya continued to do Dafa work with other practitioners and even travel by herself sometimes to where I was locked up to send righteous thoughts nearby on my behalf.
In April 2009, Ya was 80 years old when a Dafa materials production site set up in my house went into full operation.
Once or twice a week, Ya would go to the neighboring residential buildings to distribute booklets, weeklies, and other Dafa materials produced at the site. She would cover two buildings, climbing up six flights of stairs in each building to drop the materials off to every household without fail.
Every morning from 8 to 11, Ya and I would study the Fa together. The two of us would study one lecture in Zhuan Falun and the rest of the time we would read Master’s other writings. Sometimes, one to four other practitioners might join us.
Stay with the Whole Body and Dismiss the Notion of Old Age
When Ya turned 81, her children worried about her living alone, and she herself also felt the Northeast winters were a bit too cold, so it was decided she would stay with her daughter six to seven months of the year.
For two winters, Ya was able to connect with local practitioners, join their group Fa study, distribute Dafa materials, and even go out to clarify the truth.
Three years later, her daughter moved and she lost touch with other practitioners. Without the group environment, she found it hard to do the three things by herself.
When sickness symptoms showed up, she allowed her daughter to persuade her to take medication and get an injection. She felt ashamed for giving in, so when she returned home, she didn’t show up to study the Fa with me for several days.
But Master did not give up on her. One day, I was out and happened to run into her. I noticed that her face looked pale and grey, and she seemed to have aged a lot.
I took her home with me. When I found out what had happened, I encouraged her, ensuring her that Master would not give up on her just because she made a mistake so long as she tried to make amends. I invited her to join me in Fa study.
At that time, there were two study groups that met at my house: one group of seven or eight practitioners who met once a week to read Master’s recent writings and another group of two or three who studied Zhuan Falun every morning.
I asked Ya to join both groups. By so doing, she quickly returned to the state she was before. She also resumed distributing Dafa materials every week to 18 households without complaining her feet hurt, which she did often before.
I said to her, “Master extends our life so we can save more sentient beings. Distributing Dafa materials is saving people. Master will bless and take care of us.”
She told me, “From now on, I won’t stay away for months at a time anymore. I need to be with other practitioners. This environment helps me stay diligent.”
Ya is now 86. She takes care of herself, and she continues to distribute Dafa materials to save people. The only thing is, she can’t walk too far.
She hasn’t gone to stay with her daughter for two years. Her children worry, though, so they take turns visiting and checking on her.
When she occasionally has mild illness symptoms, her daughter will encourage her to take medicine, but Ya now says firmly, “I will be fine in a couple of days.”
And, sure enough, she always is, so her daughter has stopped nagging her.
I often remind her that we are cultivators and don’t think and act like ordinary people, so the word “old” should not be in our vocabulary or in our thoughts.
Using Ya As My Mirror
When Ya and I studied the Fa together, it had been my habit to call the shots. I decided what to study and where to stop, but never thought about getting Ya’s input.
As time went by, I began to sense she was unhappy with me about something.
At first, I couldn’t figure out why, but from looking inward and taking careful note of Ya’s occasional remarks, I realized what was bothering her.
Without my being aware of it, years of working and trying to get ahead had turned me consciously and unconsciously into somebody with strong opinions, a desire to be listened to, and an attitude of superiority.
Having uncovered those deep down attachments, the next step was to make a strong resolve to cultivate them away. So I apologized to Ya and to all I might have likewise offended. I also humbly asked that, if in the future I inadvertently made the same mistakes, to please point them out to me promptly.
From then on, I tried my best to use a calm and peaceful tone of voice with Ya and everybody else and to pay attention to their wishes instead of to mine.
Ya read the Fa very fluently, but sometimes she would miss a word here or add a word there. When I pointed out the mistakes to her, she would be offended or get nervous, and might even declare she couldn’t continue because I was picking on her.
I was aware of her attachments to losing face and unwillingness to accept criticism and tried my best to practice Forbearance.
Ya and I had both saved our Dafa books published before July 20, 1999. When some of the words in the books needed to be corrected, Ya and I worked together for hours on end, until Ya decided to quit because she was way too tired and sore.
I realized I had not been considerate of her advanced age. So, when next we got together to work on the project again, I let her set her own pace. By then Ya also understood that the word correction project was also a process of cultivation.
Sometimes Ya would complain to me about her children, blaming them for this and that with anger and even with tears. I realized those were manifestations of her attachment to sentimentality. I also realized I needed to rise above that same attachment myself so as not to be adversely affected when I listened to her stories.
I was aware it was Master who was providing us with opportunities to test our xinxing and raise our levels. Master also tells us that we are all part of the whole body, and that another practitioner’s affairs are our own affairs.
So I would say, “Aren’t all these to improve your xinxing? Doesn’t Master require us to be good to everybody, including our children? As cultivators, we have to use the standards of the Fa, not of ordinary people, to measure things, but we cannot use the standards of the Fa to measure ordinary people.
“Now that the entire human race had been corrupt, if we didn’t have Dafa, aren’t we the same as ordinary people? So, no matter how unsatisfactory their behavior, we have to understand, tolerate, and treat them with kindness.
“We have to use Forbearance and Compassion to resolve all conflicts that arise. When conflicts surface, we have to look inward to see where we haven’t cultivated well enough. If we discover any attachment to selfishness, to resentment, or to seeking fame and recognition, we need to cultivate that attachment away.”
Sometimes when Ya would say to me, "I haven’t reached your high level of understanding," I had to make sure I wasn’t affected by her remark.
One time Ya told me about her conflicts with her daughter and her daughter’s own conflicts at home, I helped her analyze the two situations.
I said, “You haven’t tried to put yourself in your daughter’s shoes and see things from her perspective. You also failed to look inward. You were thinking like a mother and not a cultivator.
I recommended to Ya that she go to her daughter and, forgeting her role as a parent, sincerely apologize as a cultivator would and should.
“As to your daughter, perhaps you can persuade her to look at and treat her husband with more kindness and gentleness.”
Ya commented, “Why didn’t I see things this way before? You are right.”
She did apologize to her daughter, which resolved the conflict between them and simultaneously elevated her xinxing.
Sometimes I would say to Ya, “In ordinary society, you and your daughter belong to the same family, but you and I are in the same family of cultivators. We must help each other.
“What I share with you may not be correct and we might not be at the same level of understanding. But we just have to remember what Master requires of us. We must look to Dafa as our teacher and guide. If we cultivate well, our neighbors will benefit and we can save them.
“If we keep Master and Dafa in sight at all times, we need not be concerned about anything, no matter how old we are…”
Every time after I speak with Ya, I check to see if what I said met the mentality of a cultivator, if my words and notions were in line with the Fa. Or was I validating myself, believing I was superior or entertaining the notion that I was able to see things more clearly and to solve problems?
If I discover I am straying even the slightest from the Fa, I will quickly make the necessary adjustments, using the opportunity to cultivate and elevate myself, and not seeing it as a chance to help out in some family conflicts.
I realize that, as practitioners, we have to do well the three things. But doing anything or working on a project is not cultivation. We need to remember we are cultivators in every situation, with whatever we do and wherever we are.
We have to cultivate from the heart and from our basic nature. Whatever we hear and whatever we see--nothing is accidental. They are all opportunities for us to elevate our xinxing.
While we work on cultivating ourselves, we also need to be watchful of fellow practitioners, to check out their state of cultivation so that we can help each other on our different cultivation paths, and to give each other a hand when necessary so that we can all advance together.
Category: Improving Oneself
