(Minghui.org) The once-youngest group of Dafa practitioners has grown into becoming teenagers and young adults, yet many of them are still counting on their parents when it comes to advice relating to their cultivation.
Instead of following the Fa, they look to their mother and father for direction. Their immaturity feeds into their parents’ continued desire to make decisions for them, which further deepens the reliance on their parents.
How to break this vicious cycle?
As a young adult myself, I think the key is for both parents and children to realize that each of us is an individual being, who has our own cultivation path to walk, and our own sentient beings to save. One person's cultivation efforts and achievements cannot be counted as the other person's.
As such, the older generation should treat their children as fellow practitioners and encourage them to study the Fa more often and participate more in truth-clarification activities. On the other hand, the younger generation should become more proactive in their cultivation, taking the initiative to do well the three things required of Dafa disciples.
With a deeper understanding of the Fa, young practitioners will know how to think for themselves and make decisions from the perspective of the Fa. As they mature, their parents will feel more comfortable relinquishing parental control, and will thus have more time to devote to their own cultivation and truth-clarification efforts.
This, as I see it, is a virtuous cycle from which we can all benefit.
I'd like to share how I came to the above understanding.
Thanks to Master, My Mother and I Both Firmed Up Our Faith in Dafa
When my mother enlightened along an evil path and renounced Dafa under pressure a few years back, I was still a middle school student, and too young to reason with her.
I had to admit that I dreaded her release, though I missed her dearly. Many young practitioners around me followed their parents and gave up cultivation. I was afraid of the same fate, but I also knew clearly that I’d never want to deviate from this wonderful practice.
My mother had scheduled a checkup at a mental hospital on the day of her release, but strangely, I fell ill and lay bedridden that day. As a result, she had to stay home and take care of me.
My symptoms reminded my mother of my childhood when I was always sick. She looked everywhere for a cure, but to no avail. She was heartbroken to learn from a fortune-teller that I was meant to suffer greatly in my life. However, our fortune changed after she and I began practicing Dafa together. I became perfectly healthy and she knew it was Dafa that saved me.
Now that I appeared sick again, my mother suddenly remembered that only Dafa could help me. She began to read Zhuan Falun to me and I became much better after she finished just one chapter.
I was overjoyed to see my mother resume cultivation.
I knew that Master saw my heart to help my mother, so He used my sickness karma attack as a wake-up call for her.
Why Did Other Young Practitioners Follow Their Parents to Give up Cultivation?
But why couldn’t other young practitioners in my area do the same? I felt so sad that many of them gave up cultivation along with their parents.
I thought long and hard, and finally came to the conclusion that many young practitioners followed suit simply because they were too passive in their cultivation. Instead of following the Fa, they took their parents’ word for it. When the older practitioners went astray in cultivation, the younger ones did too.
Unfortunately, similar scenes are still playing out in my local area and in many other places.
Overcome by Sentimentality, Parents Want Only Comfort for Their Children
During the past few years, I’ve seen many parents in my local area overcome by love for their children, totally forgetting about the fact that their children are also fellow practitioners. When their sentimentality takes over their rationality, they seek only comfort in the human world for their children.
In the early years of their cultivation, these parents’ sentimentality mainly manifested in their attitudes towards their children’s sickness karma. Every time their children displayed certain symptoms, they rushed to get medication.
Fortunately many of the children knew it was just sickness karma. With a firm faith in Dafa, their symptoms usually subsided without the need for medical intervention.
After the persecution started in July 1999 however, these parents’ sentimentality caused big trouble for both themselves and their children. In order to protect their children from persecution, many parents used human methods to keep their children safe, but the end result was that both they and their children fell behind in cultivation, or even deviated from Dafa.
Some parents don’t dare to bring their children to group Fa-study, and the younger ones are left out of the Fa-rectification process. Without doing the three things, many young practitioners gradually drifted away from Dafa and got mired in the human world’s temptations.
When the police threatened to expel their children from school or work, several local parents could no longer stand strong, and gave up cultivation.
One parent was determined to never renounce his faith in Dafa, but he permitted his child to write statements promising to give up cultivation. The younger one did what he said, and is no longer a practitioner.
I also knew a couple of parents who had trouble doing the three things because they were always worrying about their children’s safety.
One other parent even urged his daughter to date and get married so she would have someone to care for her when he reached consummation and left this human world. Guess what happened next? Both father and daughter gave up their Dafa cultivation.
Heavily Reliant, Children Lack Incentive to Take Responsibility for Their Cultivation
When many young practitioners my age began practicing Dafa, we were still small children, so it made perfect sense for our parents to tell us what to do.
As we grew older however, I found that some of my peers had become so reliant on their parents that they had no incentive at all to become independent in their cultivation.
Such dependence and immaturity only makes it harder for the parents to give up their sentimentality toward their children.
Build a Virtuous Cycle for the Two Generations to Advance Together in Cultivation
Parents are also cultivators and they still harbor various attachments. Their sentimentality alone not only prevents them from doing their best in the three things, but also hinders their children’s cultivation.
When a child isn't cultivating well, it in turn affects the parents.
In my opinion, both parents and children should treat each other as fellow practitioners in order to advance together in cultivation.
It's advisable for parents to worry less about their children getting persecuted. After all, the safest way is to look at everything from the perspective of the Fa.
I knew of one practitioner who refused to give in when the police threatened to get her son fired. This mother maintained firm righteous thoughts and her son got a better-paying job.
I urge all practitioners who are parents to take their children to group Fa-study so they can catch up with the Fa-rectification process. Don’t stop your children from taking part in truth-clarification activities, since they also have their own sentient beings to save.
Don’t underestimate the role of young practitioners. Just take a look at the young performers in Shen Yun. They are so young yet they have played a significant role in saving sentient beings.
As for us young practitioners, now that we are more mature, we should really take the initiative to do the three things.
We should study the Fa more and read more of the articles published on the Minghui website. As we mature in cultivation, we will naturally know how to measure everything according to Dafa. Our parents will in turn feel comfortable letting us take responsibility for our own cultivation.
Please point out anything inappropriate.
