Do Not Be Influenced by Ordinary People’s Distorted Concepts

(Minghui.org) Master’s article “A Wake-Up Call” really caught my attention. I usually have enough righteous thoughts when I clarify the truth to save people. I treat everyone with compassion and do well.

However, there have been times when I was lax in my cultivation and didn’t treat my family and friends with sufficient kind thoughts and compassion. I did not balance well my relationships with them as a Falun Dafa practitioner should, and they did not see a practitioner’s compassion. After reading the article “The Ordeals Our Spiritual Discipline Faces,” I realized that, because of practitioners not doing well in many respects, Master has had to bear many tribulations for us as well as a lot of karma for many beings. I was deeply pained.

Recognize Incorrect Social Concepts

My daughter had to take her high school entrance exam last year. She was slow to react from the time she was a child and had difficulty studying. Her grades were not that good. She later studied fine arts, which could earn her extra points on the high school entrance exam. After she finished the fine arts exam in May, she started to focus on studying the basic courses. Many parents enrolled their children in cram schools, which could cost over 10,000 yuan a month. I thought that was useless, so I didn’t enroll her. I had her study the Fa after school every day, and then she did her homework.

My younger sister later insisted that I send my daughter to a cram school, saying that her coworkers’ children were all taking classes at those schools and that, whatever the cost, our children had to be accepted by a good high school. I disagreed, so my sister asked me to send my daughter to her home after school and she would tutor her.

Every day after my sister came home from work, my daughter went to her home to study until after 11 p.m.. Because my daughter was slow and had a poor academic foundation, my sister often got angry and yelled at her. During the day when she went to work, she would call to mock me, ridicule me, belittle me, and get angry at me. I knew she was hard-working and under great pressure. I comforted her but it didn’t change her attitude towards me.

She said that I was irresponsible when it came to my daughter and didn’t push her hard enough to do well in school. She said that others were trying their best to cover all the topics their children had to know and were competing with each other to give the teacher gifts and money for special treatment and that I did not understand what had to be done to ensure a successful outcome.

I said that this wasn’t the right way to go about it, that a cultivator lets things take their own course and doesn’t fight or compete for gains, and that children have their own blessings. She disagreed with me and kept cursing me. After two weeks of this, I started to get emotional, feeling dissatisfied and resenting her. I also started to doubt that my way of educating my child was right. I shared my thoughts with another practitioner, who said I was right and that those were things that ordinary people pursued.

I looked within and found my attachments to fame and gain, relying on others, the competitive mentality, and resentment, all of which I had to let go of. Although my sister had worked hard, my daughter’s grades did not improve much. I faced it calmly and no longer worried about my sister’s attitude toward me. My daughter also resisted my sister’s influence and stopped going to study at my sister’s.

So I had my daughter read Zhuan Falun right after she came home from school every day and then do her school work. She became lighthearted and happy and was willing to study. In the end, she was admitted to a good art middle school with free tuition. This was Master’s arrangement. As long as we walk straight on our paths of cultivation, Master will arrange the best for us. Thank you, Master.

Many of today’s ideas about education are unprincipled and unhealthy, and parents and children are under too much pressure, which has led to many social problems. As practitioners, we must not be influenced by the base concepts of ordinary people; we must correct the incorrect states based on the Fa.

Enlighten and Improve in Family Life

My heart was heavy after reading Master’s new articles “The Ordeals Our Spiritual Discipline Faces” and “A Wake-Up Call.” Looking back on my journey of cultivation of many years, I always feel that I have not been diligent even though I have persevered in studying the Fa, sending forth righteous thoughts, and saving sentient beings. When I look within, I find many of my human attachments, ideas, and emotions that have not fundamentally changed. Sometimes I treat family and friends just like an ordinary person would because I have not given up my attachments.

Sons are favored over daughters in my family, whereas, in the eyes of my parents-in-law, daughters are preferred to sons. My mother-in-law favors my eldest sister-in-law and keeps all the good food at home for her. My eldest sister-in-law has been married for over 20 years, but she still likes to get money and things from her parents. My mother-in-law gives her things on the sly.

Taking advantage of that favoritism, hat sister-in-law gossips and stirs up conflicts in my parents-in-law’s home. I looked down on their behavior and thought that my mother-in-law wasn’t thinking clearly. Sometimes I couldn’t help but quarrel with them, and we ended up resenting each other. I regretted afterwards that I did not handle it well. Those conflicts were meant for me to upgrade my character, yet I didn’t pass the test. Everything happens because of karmic reasons.

I found many of my attachments, such as to jealousy, being competitive, gain, resentment, and defending myself. Plus, I wasn’t very kind or tolerant. When I looked at those conflict from the perspective of the Fa, our relationships later improved, and there were no more quarrels. But I still didn’t think well of them in my heart, and I did not feel very compassionate towards them.

Master’s “A Wake-Up Call” improved my understanding. I must listen to Master’s words; completely change my concepts; let go of human attachments, ideas, and emotions; position myself correctly; treat my family members with kindness and love; and save more people.