Validating Dafa and Resolving Grudges With My Son

(Minghui.org) The following are my cultivation experiences about how I resolved grudges toward my son by following the principles of Falun Dafa. 

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) illegally sentenced me to prison for practicing Falun Dafa. So, I was not around to care for my son when he needed me most. As a result, after I was released, my son, who used to support Dafa, harbored resentment toward me and Dafa. Especially in the past year or so, due to my attachments and human notions, my son strongly opposed my clarifying the truth to save people. As soon as I mentioned Dafa, he started swearing at me. I felt sad, and I worried about him. I was even thinking that if I had obtained the Fa earlier, I wouldn’t have gotten married and wouldn’t have this problem with my child now. 

As time went by, I started to let go of the pain, bitterness, and resentment I harbored and realized that the problem lay in me. For a long time, I didn’t follow the standards for a Dafa cultivator, and my dimensional field was filled with lust, resentment, a competitive mentality, impatience, self-interest, attachments to fame and gain, a strong ego, and many other degenerated elements of the old universe. As a result, what I said was far from pure, had little effect, and was totally incapable of dissolving the evil elements behind sentient beings. I was cultivating poorly. However, I started paying more attention to cleaning up my dimension with righteous thoughts, but from time to time, I still couldn’t control my actions and words. 

About a month before the Chinese New Year in 2024, my son’s wife became pregnant and experienced a lot of morning sickness. My son asked me to come to their home in another city to help out. I thought to myself, I will do well this time by cultivating myself solidly and will save them. 

In the past, my son criticized my cooking, so I searched for good recipes and cooked each meal carefully. I also took care of the household chores, such as grocery shopping, laundry, and general cleaning. My son was happy with the arrangement, and said my cooking tasted much better than it had before. 

One day, when my son was not home, I talked with my daughter-in-law about Falun Dafa. She excused herself to use the toilet and text messaged my son, complaining about me. My son called me straight away, scolded me, and said many disrespectful things about Dafa. I tried to keep calm and reason with him, but he wouldn’t listen. I also texted him saying he shouldn’t say anything disrespectful about Dafa. He cursed me again in his reply. In the evening, when he came home from work, he scolded me again. I felt sad and worried about my son and his wife’s future. 

I started studying the Fa more, listened to practitioners’ experience sharing articles, and looked inward. I realized that I had a strong attachment to quick success without considering the effect on others. I realized I was trying to impose what I thought was right upon others without using rationality and wisdom. I asked myself, would I be so upset if other people’s children refused to listen to me talk about Falun Dafa? The answer was no. Then why was I so uptight and worried? Clearly, I had a lot of human sentiment. How could my words be effective when they come from so much sentiment?

I let go of any bad feelings I had toward my daughter-in-law, as well as the mother-son sentiment I felt. My son said, “Please don’t say anything; just do what a mom needs to do, and then all will be fine.” His words reminded me to let go of my human attachments. I started sending righteous thoughts more often to clean up the unrighteous elements in my dimensional field, as well as all evil elements that prevented my son and his wife from listening to the truth. 

During this time, my son experienced a number of tribulations: He hit a tree while driving, his chopstick broke while he was eating, he had a fever and a bad cough, etc. I knew that all these were consequences of him being disrespectful toward Dafa. However, instead of immediately pointing this out, I kept sending righteous thoughts to eliminate his bad thinking. 

He seemed to realize that what he did was wrong. He said to me one day, “Mom, your people [Dafa practitioners] never steal when they work in other people’s homes, and they always work hard.” I knew that in his heart, he knew that Dafa is good. My not doing well triggered the negative elements in him, making him say things against Dafa. His actions were my fault.

Digging deeper, I realized that I held resentment toward my mother, who is also a practitioner. For a long time, I thought that she was not being rational and often did inappropriate things, such as dozing off while meditating or sending righteous thoughts, and her table manners were lacking. When my dimensional field was filled with such unkind thoughts and resentment, like the old universe’s garbage, it triggered strong resentment in my son. 

My son is, in fact, a mirror for me, and his behavior was actually a cry for help. He wanted me to rectify my notions and let go of my attachments so I could smash the shackles that prevented him from being saved. I kept sending righteous thoughts to eliminate the degenerated elements and the arrangements that aimed to destroy lives. 

One day, the bowl my son was eating from broke. I used the incident to explain to him the consequences of being disrespectful toward Dafa. He seemed to understand and agreed to let me help him make a solemn statement online to declare all his disrespectful words null and void, provided that I stopped talking about Falun Dafa.

I knew I hadn’t reached the standard required at this level. The whole process was trying for me, but I knew it was part of my cultivation, and that I must keep cultivating myself. 

It was truly a battle between my human side and my divine side. When using human notions, the days felt long and tiring. Yet my divine side felt that the tribulations were an opportunity to cultivate my xinxing, validate the Fa, and save sentient beings. In the end, my divine side won, and I was able to calm down and do what a Dafa practitioner should do. 

In addition to doing the household chores, I used any spare time I had to memorize and recite the Fa and send righteous thoughts. If my son and daughter-in-law liked the dishes I cooked, I ate little or nothing; when they were at work, I ate the leftovers from the day before. When there were few leftovers, I just ate some pickles and used the spare time to do what I should do. By and by, I felt that my ego and selfish pursuits were diminishing, and I only thought about the benefits of others. I had never experienced such a peaceful feeling of simplicity and ease before.

The new year was approaching, and my daughter-in-law was vomiting less often. So, I told my son that I would return home in the next couple of days.

On my last day there, I thoroughly cleaned their house and washed everything that needed washing. I also tidied up the clutter here and there. In the evening, I cooked three dishes for them and heated a leftover leg of lamb – my son’s favorite food. However, when he sat at the table for dinner, he was outraged: “I asked you to come here and help out, but you just feed me leftovers every day!”

His wife interrupted him and tried to get him to be quiet. That was the first time she spoke up for me. In the past, whenever my son and I had a conflict, she kept out of it or looked on with total indifference. 

I didn’t say anything. I quietly sent righteous thoughts. I knew his outburst was actually helping me improve in cultivation. My son became even more angry and put down his chopsticks, pushed away his bowl, and put the leg of lamb in a garbage bag. He threw it outside the door, saying, “This is what happens when you give me leftovers!”

After my daughter-in-law finished eating, I did the dishes. My son came into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and said, “The fruits have been in the fridge for a few days now, and you didn’t bother to wash them for us to eat.” 

I couldn’t hold it in and burst out laughing. In the past, whenever there were conflicts between us, I would argue with him, and in the end, we would go to our rooms in anger. 

This time, my response took a complete turn, and he was confused. “Are you mad?” he asked me. I laughed so much that I was gasping for air, “I have been busy all day, and my back hurts, and all I get is a scolding.” Upon hearing this, my son started laughing, too, and then we were laughing together.

Suddenly, he stopped laughing and emotionally said, “Mom, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get angry with you. I know you have been working very hard.” He didn’t know what to say next. So, I hugged and comforted him, saying, “Don’t worry. When I haven’t done well in any way, just let me know, and I will try to amend myself.” He hugged me and said, “No, Mom. You are doing very well.” 

That evening, we sat in the lounge room and chatted companionably for over an hour. It was the first time we had chatted since I came to his house. My son didn’t even have his phone with him as he listened quietly when I talked about how Dafa practitioners try to be considerate of others and help each other unselfishly, and described how family members of practitioners who protected them from police harassment were blessed for their kind deeds. I also talked about the importance of returning to traditional culture and values. I spoke without any pursuit for immediate acceptance or forcing my ideas on my son. I spoke to him in a way he could understand. From time to time, my son commented on the things I was saying. I could see that he was deeply moved. In the end, he said, “Your people [Dafa practitioners] are very honest and pure.”

My son has changed a lot since then. He has become less cynical and more rational. He has also learned to think from other people’s perspectives. When talking about me with his grandfather on the phone he said, “People with faith are better.” His wife also said to him, “Let Mom practice Falun Dafa. It’s good.” What seemed like a stormy relationship with my son turned into something like a beautiful rainbow when I assimilated to the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. 

My heart was filled with emotion when I reflected on the experiences of that month at my son’s place. I’m very grateful to my son and all the tribulations I experienced that helped me realize where I had fallen short in cultivation so that I could further enlighten to the Fa principles. 

For many years, I didn’t truly cultivate my xinxing according to the Fa principles. I always looked outward when in conflict with others and argued about who was right and who was wrong using everyday people’s principles and logic. As a result, I failed to clean up the degenerated elements in my dimensional field, which, in turn, gave rise to various human attachments. I wasted so much of the precious time Master extended for us while Master endured enormous and painful hardships. My poor cultivation also hindered the salvation of sentient beings.

I now realize that looking inward and assimilating to the Fa enables us to pull through tribulations and save more sentient beings. Only by cultivating ourselves well can we effectively save more people. Every conflict and every tribulation we experience is an opportunity and encouragement for us to help sentient beings break through hurdles layer by layer and return to our true homes.