(Clearwisdom.net) Many Falun Dafa practitioners in my county have a common key problem: significant domestic disputes, no matter whether the husband and wife are both practitioners, or only one practices Falun Gong. Master has frequently addressed the issue: when encountering conflicts, the practitioner needs to look inside and be kind to others. Although Minghui Weekly has also published many of these kinds of articles, the problem still exists, and the situation is still not resolved.
Many practitioners have not been able to overcome this and are still fettered with those ordinary people's issues. Right now there are still five arrested practitioners who are not being rescued. We have not been be able to form an integrated whole body. This has led to slow progress for the Fa rectification in our county and has hindered the overall progress of the Fa rectification.
My husband and I are practitioners, but we have not yet resolved our domestic disputes. The dispute has reached a point where neither side is willing to compromise! Each time I returned home I always lectured my husband, "Why can't you be more diligent? Others have been doing really well. If it were not for cultivation I would not speak to you for a long time." Afterwards I would stop talking to him. My husband, on the other hand, would retort, "You always leave when you want to go, and leave all the housework for me. You never think of anything for the family."
I am indeed the kind of person who does whatever she wants to do today and does not think about tomorrow. If I took care of all the housework, then how could I have the energy to do the three things well? For this I often felt wronged and sad. I did not look inside; instead, I thought that I was helping him. This intensified the disagreements, and I even entertained the thought of divorce.
One day another practitioner came to visit. She and her husband are both practitioners. We talked about this problem while exchanging ideas, and she spoke of her experiences. She used to be like me until conflicts occurred between them. As soon as she started getting angry, she realized that it was not right. She calmed down and started to send forth righteous thoughts, "Completely disintegrate all the arrangement imposed on me by the old forces. I only take the path arranged by Master." Then she picked up Zhuan Falun and started to read. When she came to the section,
"Why can human beings be human? It is because human beings have sentimentality. They live just for this sentimentality. Affection among family members, love between a man and a woman, love for parents, feelings, friendship, doing things for friendship, and everything else all relate to this sentimentality. Whether a person likes to do something or not, is happy or unhappy, loves or hates something, and everything in the entire human society comes from this sentimentality. If this sentimentality is not relinquished, you will be unable to practice cultivation. If you are free from this sentimentality, nobody can affect you. An everyday person’s mind will be unable to sway you. What takes over in its place is benevolence, which is something more noble." ("Lecture Four" in Zhuan Falun)
Her resentment disappeared. She became serene, and nothing bothered her anymore. Then she apologized to him. Since then she could get into a tranquil state when reads the Fa, does the exercises and sends forth righteous thoughts. Conflicts never happened between them again. They do the housework together, read the Fa together and do the exercises together.
Listening to her words awakened me suddenly. The reason I did not handle my family issue well before then was that I had not cultivated myself well. Master mentioned all of a Dafa practitioner's cultivation environment is due to a practitioner's mindset and comprehension of the Fa. This time I came to understand Master's Fa that a piece of sawdust when dropped into a furnace of molten steel does disappear in a flash. How enormous His compassion is. Only with enormous compassion for dealing with family members can we change them.
When we failed to deal well with family issues—for a couple or when both are practitioners—it was previously done because we treated them as our family members and we were not completely devoid of emotions. We did not treat them as fellow practitioners or lives to be saved. We should be patient with their shortcomings and be confident that their shortcomings can be changed. If we keep thinking that they should conform to our will and keep considering their shortcomings for our own advantages, we as a result become so angry that we forget we are practitioners. We may even adopt the tactic of treating them as they treat us. This can make it difficult for non-practitioner family members to understand us and cause interpersonal problems between the husband and wife practitioners, bringing unnecessary losses to Dafa.
Dear fellow practitioners: we cannot merely try to rescue lives outside the family clan. Those family members who do not cultivate are also lives waiting for salvation and we need to treat them with compassion. Since they have become our family members in this life through the reincarnation, they ought to have significant predestined relations with Dafa. If we can't even tolerate our own family members, then where will our Master place us?
The old forces are staring at us like animals eying their prey. We must do righteous things and maintain righteous thoughts. Only then we can eliminate our ordinary people's thoughts through cultivation and prevent the old forces from taking advantage of any of our thoughts, and only then can we correct ourselves in the Fa rectification process.