Changing My Notions by Holding Myself to the Fa Standards and Truly and Diligently Cultivating

(Minghui.org) I began practicing Falun Dafa prior to 1999. I often felt regret whenever someone talked about the timing of obtaining the Fa. Even though I have cultivated for nearly 30 years and have done the three things and can recite Zhuan Falun, I lacked solid cultivation, and my xinxing improvement was slow. Only during recent years did I feel that I made some breakthroughs in my cultivation.

Solving My Grievance With My Husband

My husband and I met in 2000. He is also a practitioner. Back then, I didn’t know much about cultivating xinxing. I believed that my education, appearance, family financial conditions, and so on were all superior to his, and I couldn’t stand his indecisiveness. But he was very tolerant with me. At that time, we were both practitioners and understood each other. So I agreed to marry him.

My family and I did not ask for anything when we got married. I did not wear a wedding dress or jewelery at the wedding. I thought I did very well, but on the night of the wedding, my husband became upset with my father for something that he did wrong. I was so upset that I cried. Such conflicts in our family kept coming for more than 20 years.

Two years after we got married, he was laid off from work. In the following 20 years, he found only a few jobs, and spent most of his time at home. Although he hardly had any income, I never asked much from him. However, he not only kept finding fault with me and my family, but also found ways to point out how we treated him unfairly.

When he criticized me, I could not remember how to act based on the Fa, and I became upset and indignant. I was caught up in arguing about who was right or wrong. Sometimes I argued for two or three hours. Upon seeing practitioners, I couldn’t help but tell them about my grievances. They tried to talk to me about using the Fa principles, and reminded me to look inward. Every time I shared with them, I felt relaxed.

When conflicts occurred, however, that uncomfortable feeling surrounded me, and the thought that it was he who was in the wrong overwhelmed me. I got stuck in endless contradictions, and was feeling miserable.

He was arrested without apparent cause by police in 2011. He was then illegally taken to a forced labor camp, where he was held for a year. After his term was up, he was transferred to a brainwashing center where he was illegally held for three months. Over the years, other practitioners and I had been working as one body running between the police, the procuratorate, the courts, the labor camp, and the brainwashing center, trying to rescue him. After he returned home, he still complained about me as before, and never said a word of gratitude.

More than ten years ago, my niece, whose celestial eye was open, told me that she saw that I was an old businessman in one of my previous lives, and my husband was a small businessman in that life. I had apparently cheated him out of everything, and he came to collect the debt in this life. I suddenly realized that his hatred of me and my family was as deep as the sea, and I could not resolve his imbalanced heart.

One practitioner said that I lacked the knowledge of the Fa deep down, but I felt it was hard to hold myself against the Fa‘s standards. I felt it was things such as karma created lifetime after lifetime, and notions, that came between me and the Fa.

Two years ago, my husband suddenly felt unwell. He was always thirsty, and tired after a night’s sleep. A few days later, he asked for leave to rest at home. On the second day, he was too weak to get up. In the middle of the night, he called me every ten minutes or so. I wiped his arm with a wet towel, saying that it would make him feel better.

Seeing his helplessness, I suddenly realized that his life was in danger. Around us, a few practitioners had passed away during illness karma tribulations. Thinking of the danger he faced, I suddenly felt it would be very sad if his life were to end like this. In the face of life and death, our previous conflicts seemed unimportant.

I couldn’t hold back my tears. Echoing in my mind the conflicts we had over the past more than 20 years, I thought of Master deep down: Master, your disciple didn’t do well. I wished that I had done well and could always be in compliance with the Fa, as I would have changed him so that he wouldn’t be dragged down by the old forces and always get mired in resentment. Then the old forces wouldn’t be able to take advantage of him to make him leave early. Master, please give your disciple a chance to do better this time. I cried and begged for Master’s help a few times deep down.

When it was time to do the exercises in the morning, he stopped calling me. I thought he was asleep, but then I found out that he was unconscious, breathing heavily. I talked to him, but he didn’t respond. After that, I took him to the hospital for emergency treatment. The examination results showed that he had life-threatening symptoms of ketoacidosis and extremely high blood sugar. However, his heart, kidneys, and other organs were fine. I knew that Master had saved him.

I then began reciting Zhuan Falun. I tried to put my heart into reading it, and use the Fa to measure myself. I gradually learned how to look inward in certain situations.

One day, when I came across the passage in Zhuan Falun:

“...for instance, when someone swears at you among everyday people, you do not say a word and feel very calm; or when someone throws a fist at you, you do not say a word and let it go with a smile...” (Lecture One, Zhuan Falun)

I felt a bit ashamed, as I couldn’t even do this. The gap between me and the Fa’s requirements was so big. How could I achieve this state? I felt that this was so difficult to achieve.

When I thought about what Master said in the video to the Australian practitioners, I realized that my “own ego” was too strong. I have been married to my husband for more than 20 years, and the conflicts between us were always like this. Yet I just protected my ego, didn’t let it go, and couldn’t bear to touch it either. How could I achieve not being tempted by the conflict? I knew that I needed to pay attention to clearing this selfish false self.

One day, my husband told me that I was being unfair to him regarding money. It was about 6 p.m. and I was ready to send forth righteous thoughts. As I sat there, the thought, “Why is he still so calculating?” came to me.

Then I immediately thought of looking inward, “Am I also like this in terms of self-interest?” Looking at myself, I really had this problem. I attached great importance to my self-interest.

After I finished sending forth righteous thoughts, my husband said that he felt that a large obstacle between us had disappeared. It is so powerful to look inward!

With the changes in my notions, and after looking inward a few times, my state of mind when facing conflicts had changed in small increments. My resentment and competitive mentality had subsided.

A classmate from another city, who is also a practitioner, called me one day and told me about the various ways her father-in-law had mistreated her. After hanging up the phone I knew that she had not let go of her resentment. But why did she complain to me? Did I have this problem too?

Upon looking inward, it seemed that my resentment of my husband had faded. However, I still wanted to talk to other practitioners about his behavior. Then didn’t I still attach importance to it? At that time, Master’s Fa appeared in my mind. At that moment, my heart was filled with warmth and kindness, and I forgave in my heart all those who I thought had done me wrong. From then on, I stopped talking about my husband’s shortcomings in front of other practitioners.

Master has repeatedly talked about negating the old forces. I have also realized this through the conflicts and entanglements with my husband over the years. The old forces had taken advantage of the historical grievances between us to strengthen his resentment, and trap us in conflicts and destroy him, and drag me down at the same time. So while I cultivated myself to have my heart unmoved and let go of my resentment, I also needed to send forth righteous thoughts to clean up the factors that were meddling with us. I often reminded my husband to remove his resentment and attachment to self-interest, and not to be taken advantage of by the old forces.

My husband also realized his issue and began to look inward. He then strengthened sending forth righteous thoughts so he could eliminate those attachments.

Letting Go of My Attachment to Lust

I have loved watching TV dramas since I was a child, especially romantic dramas. I attached great importance to the relationship between men and women, which has formed a perverted concept. I regarded meeting a caring partner as the biggest goal in life. Although I never even had a boyfriend in real life, I often fantasized about how someone was considerate to me, and a lot of erotic substances accumulated in my mind.

I felt lost after I married my husband, because he did not meet my requirements in many aspects. The endless conflicts shattered my fantasy of a happy marriage. My husband’s lack of understanding made me more eager to get other people’s input.

I liked to wear beautiful clothes, liked others to praise my good looks, and I was always willing to watch movies and TV series with good-looking protagonists. I like good-looking male and female stars, and I couldn’t help but listen to the gossip about their love lives. I had accumulated a lot of concepts and mental karma that valued appearance.

A young man came to our office a few years ago. He was enthusiastic and handsome. I developed lustful thoughts but did not know to eliminate them. The boss assigned us many tasks to work on together. We ended up being together day and night. In addition, I did not know how to eliminate this attachment, and instead made it grow bigger and bigger. At that time, I felt that I only had this factor in my mind, but since I did not do anything inappropriate, I didn’t realize that I was trapped in a tribulation.

One day, a few of us practitioners went out to clarify the facts to people. When I was arrested and handcuffed, I suddenly realized that my attachment was being exploited. I knew that this problem could easily lead to being imprisoned, but I just didn’t know how to correct it. I was illegally detained in the police station and detention center for more than 50 days before being released. The lesson was really profound!

Only through this persecution was I prompted to pay more attention to eliminating this attachment. At that time, I said to a practitioner that we should spend an hour to send forth righteous thoughts to remove this attachment. It turns out that lustful thoughts are the thoughts of people in delusion. Our nature does not have such things. The nature of human beings is to return to the original nature. The idea of wanting to find a perfect husband is definitely not the right one. Therefore, I sent forth righteous thoughts and paid attention to rejecting the idea of valuing love between men and women and pursuing a happy marriage.

One day, one of Mater’s teachings suddenly flashed in my mind:

“...should especially reject those thoughts. They are harming you, they are asking you to do things that aren’t human, and they are dragging you toward hell. Yet people with warped mindsets still believe that it’s part of themselves. As soon as that thought comes up, telling you to like someone of the same sex, you must remember that it is not you and is here to harm you again...” (Teachings at the Conference in the Western U.S.)

As soon as I realized that lust is something that harms us, I was in a shock. Master has explained it so clearly, so why was I still often confused by it? Especially since it has been a pursuit for most of my life. Several female practitioners around me have also been troubled by this for a long time.

I now realize that when someone of the opposite sex is kind to me, I feel warm in my heart, but this feeling deceives me. This feeling is false, as it is the feeling of lust, not our true self, which is what we need to cultivate away. This feeling of lust is like honey mixed with poison, which makes you feel sweet, and you ignore that it can poison you to death. From this I also realized that many people’s feelings are the feelings of the false self, which are traps to tempt us, and we must be particularly careful!

For the whole day, when I read the article “A Wake-Up Call,” I felt the good thoughts flowing into my heart like a warm current, washing away all the lustful, selfish, and distracting thoughts that had emerged in my heart during the past few days! As for someone like me who has practiced for more than a few decades, but felt I just started, I particularly want to walk a bit faster on the path of assisting Master in Fa-rectification, and reach what Master said “...To be able to regard anyone and everyone with compassion, to have love for all people...” (“A Wake-Up Call”) as soon as possible.