A Dafa Practitioner's Position at Home

Practitioner A obtained the Fa after the persecution began on July 20, 1999. He experienced many hardships at home because of the persecution. His wife always prevented him from studying the Fa, doing the exercises, sending forth righteous thoughts, and clarifying the truth about the persecution in mainland China. She even hid his Dafa books on several occasions. Practitioner A once had a big argument with his wife. He said "I will do whatever you want me to do. But I will never accept your attempt to stop me from studying Dafa! You must allow me to openly and nobly study the Fa and do the exercises at home!" However, his wife still did not support him. Therefore their conflicts continued. Practitioner A felt very upset. He told me several times, "I must rectify the environment at home and give Dafa a righteous position."

At first, I thought Practitioner A's wife's strong temper was being used by the old force to test Dafa practitioners. Therefore, we helped him to send forth righteous thoughts and eliminate all evil factors behind his wife. However, we noticed that his wife's evil temper became worse and worse. His family conflicts became severe. Recently, after an argument between this couple, his wife even ran away from home. Although she returned home a few days later, she set up a rule for Practitioner A: "I can allow you to do the exercises at home or do whatever you want at home. But I will not allow you to contact other practitioners. Otherwise, either I will divorce you or I will die in front of you...." Since then, Practitioner A dared not get in touch with other practitioners. Although we sometimes met by chance, I could feel he had a very heavy burden in his heart. I could sense his pressure and helplessness. That reminded me about what I experienced before. I want to share what I experienced and hope it will provide some help to my fellow practitioners.

A few years ago, I had serious hardship at home. My wife gave me even worse interference: sometimes when I was doing the exercises, she would suddenly push me very hard from behind. Or when I was doing the sitting meditation, she would keep talking in front of me. Sometimes she would shake my head. Sometimes when I just began to read a Dafa book, she would ask me to do some housework. Or, when I was sending forth righteous thoughts by holding up my palm, she would shout very loud and ask me to do some housework. I held my anger in my heart and quickly finished doing the work. When I returned to send forth righteous thoughts, it had already passed the time [referring to the global times for practitioners around the world to send forth righteous thoughts]. Sometimes at night, when I was studying the Fa, she would ask me to turn off the light and said she wanted to go to sleep. In the morning, sometimes when I was doing the sitting meditation, she would suddenly push me. At that time, I felt that the family environment was a huge hardship.

How could I break through such a family environment and give Dafa a righteous position? I began to fight for it and sent forth righteous thoughts to clean out the bad things behind my wife. Later I gradually improved my xinxing (character) and clearly realized that the key issue was to cultivate myself well. I should not have any thought of looking outward. "Not striking back when beaten, Not swearing back when sworn at" is Master's basic requirement for practitioners. Breaking through problems in our family environment does not require us to "fight", nor will they be solved by using "force". Instead we should use kindness and benevolence, which can melt steel and iron. Every test or hardship contains high level requirement for our practitioner's xinxing. Why does the other person want to stop you or curse you? It is because you still have a bad field formed by all kinds of human mentalities and attachments. It is this bad field that has caused the other person to attack you. If your field is very pure, and you always maintain a kind and calm attitude, that field, or "The Buddha-light illuminates everywhere and rectifies all abnormalities," will very easily melt all bad things that the other person has.
From this I understood that the family environment is the best cultivation environment. It allows practitioners to quickly improve and upgrade. Because in this environment, all of your attachments such as the competitive mentality, begrudging others, lust, selfishness, etc. are more easily manifested and cause frequent conflicts with your cultivation. As long as you constantly look inward, you will naturally advance rapidly! Do not simply consider the other person as your relative, nor should you view the other person as the "enemy". You should view it as a test that helps you step away from the "human" towards the "divine". For some daily household duties, personal benefits, behaving in a "low position" relative to your wife (or husband) is not really lowering your position to "human". On the contrary, it is a breakthrough from one's own human mentality. What you have let go of is "humanness". Only by letting go of human things will you then have things of divine beings.

Thinking this way, I felt my mind nature improve very quickly. I began to voluntarily do some household work instead of being passive. At that time, I firmly told myself: I will not argue with my wife (or try my best not to argue with her). No matter how the old forces originally arranged for her to come here to create hardships for me, after all, she had such a great predestined relationship with me. While I was clearing out the evil interfering factors behind her, most of my concerns were for her. Sometimes when I just picked up a Dafa book to read, she would ask me to do this or that. I would reply to her, "Okay, I am coming." After I finished that household work, I would ask her "Is there anything else I should do?" She replied, "Go away!" Therefore I continued reading my Dafa book. Sometimes when I just raised my palm to send forth righteous thoughts, she would shout at me, "Go, mop the floor!" I would then say, "Sure!" After I mopped the floor, she said it was not clean enough. I would then mop the floor again. Sometimes she bought some very expensive clothes home and asked me, "Are you mad at me for spending too much money?" I replied, "No. As long as you are happy, I will be happy."
Gradually, I noticed that my mind became calmer than before. I did not have that intention to argue with my wife any more. Sometimes for a small event when she shouted at me, I would think to myself "Is it worth it to get mad?" It seemed that she was very far away from me. At that moment, after she shouted at me, she would also say she was sorry to me for having done that.

Later on, when she saw me studying the Fa, or doing the exercises, or sending forth righteous thoughts, she would not ask me to do housework any more. Instead, she would silently do it by herself.

When I was in a bad mood and became upset, she would imitate me and tell our child, "Let's send forth righteous thoughts and eliminate the evil behind your daddy."

When I was clarifying the truth and persuading my relatives and friends to withdraw from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations, she would add "Quit the CCP. What is the good side of the CCP? It only has a group of corrupted leaders..." I told her, "You did really good." She replied, "I know you are a good person. That's why I want to help you. Otherwise, I would not bother to care about you."

Sometimes in the evening when she was watching TV and I entered the room, she would tell me, "We are ordinary people watching TV. You should go study your Dafa book or do your exercises." Whenever I heard that, I felt really grateful!

This is a Dafa practitioner's "position" at home. Not only does he receive respect and support from his family members, the most important point is that because you have been doing well, your spouse will also feel the good part of Falun Dafa. Thus it validates the beauty of Dafa and also give them a beautiful future. However one cannot obtain such a "position" at home by "fighting for it". Instead, it is cultivated from silently looking inward and considering others first. There were a lot of hardships involved in going through all these tests. But each step left a footprint of improvement. Each step was one step forward from the human towards the divine.