(Minghui.org) My family of three began practicing Falun Dafa in 2011. Thanks to Master Li’s protection and blessings, we have cultivated for seven years.
During the past two years, I fell into the emotional trap of passionate love for my husband several times, and I was barely able to pull myself out of it. It was very painful. But finally I passed the tribulation by remaining firm and believing in Master and the Fa. In the following, I hope to offer help to fellow practitioners who are feeling trapped in emotion (qing).
In May 1992, a few days after I married, I dreamed about a past life with my husband. It was like watching a movie. He had several wives and I was the youngest. But then I ran away, causing him extreme pain, and I believe it led to our marriage in this life.
After I started to practice Falun Dafa, I realized that Master had given me a hint, because he saw that I loved my husband too intensely. I suffered for two years trying to remove this sentimentality.
I began to suspect that my husband was having an affair in early October 2017. His words and deeds did not seem right to me, especially when he set up a password to lock his cell phone.
I often told him about the cautionary advice concerning emotion and lust from the perspective of Fa principles. Lust is a tool used by the old forces to destroy practitioners, and I pointed out some of the severe consequences in our area caused by lust that was not eliminated.
I knew I was not right. I also knew when the feeling of being hurt attached itself to me. I had to look within, but I could not find a way to get out of the emotional trap. So I spent more effort trying to clear out this emotion. Every day, I sent more righteous thoughts to eliminate the emotions and desires accumulated life after life with my husband and my daughter.
On the national holiday in October when I was alone, I was often hit by a burst of heartbreak that included extreme loneliness, general fearfulness, fear of death, humiliation, and depression. It all weighed heavily on my chest, making it hard to breathe.
When I was alone at home, all those emotional attachments came up and made me cry out. In my mind, I had never cried so hard; it seemed like I wanted to release all the sorrow and grievance in this life.
After crying for a while, I thought, “I will depart from my lover who accompanied me for many lifetimes. I need to thank my daughter who accompanied me life after life.” I was shocked by this thought and wondered, “Who wants to depart from them forever?
We are Dafa disciples protected by Master. How can we separate from our family members on just a whim? I became alert—the crying person was not me. It was the postnatal emotion’s fear of death, so it is fighting for life.
I held my tears and eliminated my false self, which generated the emotion. We are Master’s disciples; we only walk on the path arranged by Master. All other arrangements are void.
While I was in alignment with the Fa, I was able to be rational and keep looking within to remove the attachment of emotion. But when I was stuck in human notions, I was muddle-headed, and I sounded nasty and sarcastic. I was worse than an average person for two months. This negative emotion made my heart ache.
I repeatedly denied it and rejected it but was repeatedly hurt by emotion. This state affected my Fa-study and truth-clarification. During the meditation one day, I saw a depressed lion sitting in front of me, staring at me with dull eyes, until it was led away. I thought, “What does this mean?”
Master said, “In cultivation of the Buddha Fa, you should strive forward vigorously.” (Zhuan Falun)
To my understanding, it seemed that Master giving me a hint that I should not slack off in my cultivation; instead, I should strive forth diligently with great effort, like a true lion. Reflecting on my recent cultivation, I realized I had worried Master again. I shouldn’t be like that! I made up my mind: I had to move on and truly cultivate, for with Master and the Fa, there is nothing that cannot be overcome.
Master said,
“Cultivation practice must take place through tribulations so as to test whether you can part with and care less about different kinds of human sentimentality and desires. If you are attached to these things, you will not succeed in cultivation. Everything has its karmic relationship. 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. Of course, it is not easy to abandon this sentimentality right away. Cultivation practice is a long process and a process of gradually giving up one’s attachments. Nonetheless, you must be strict with yourself.” (Zhuan Falun)
I kept reciting this Fa until I felt my whole body assimilate to it. My body felt filled with energy. It was very relaxing for me to get up and walk, and the pain of heartbreak lessened gradually.
“I am so sorry,” I said to my husband. “I have not cultivated well, which affected your practice. I did not want that to happen. How wonderful it would be if I could overcome this emotion all at once! It hurts too much. Please be patient with me. I shall study the Fa more, look within more, and quickly let it go. Can you help?”
“Every time you said you were concerned for my sake, actually it was for yourself,” he said. “You are afraid to lose your self-interest. If you imagine yourself to be a grain of dust in the universe, you will not have any human notions.”
What he said made sense. I thought I was concerned for him, when actually it was for my own sake, which was selfish. After I had dug into the bull’s horn, I could not get out. I had to remove selfishness to reach Master’s requirements for us and become a person who could live for others unconditionally and without selfishness.
Once when I saw my husband enter the password on his cell phone, I memorized it.
“If you open the phone, you will complicate the issue and evil will sneak in. What you imaged will become true,” I thought.
Yes, doing that secretly was not right and not consistent with Dafa. It was not honest. I thus decided not to look at his phone. I told myself, “I won’t care about any of this. I have Master!” Instantly, my mind became calm. While sitting in meditation, I saw how my body parts, specifically my head, body, and crossed legs, formed the Chinese character for “Truthfulness.” I knew Master was encouraging me to be honest.
Looking inward, I saw that I still always wanted to control him, treating him as my private property. I thought that he should not have any secrets and should do what I told him, because I should decide everything. Only then would I be satisfied.
There was a cultivation sharing article about how an elderly practitioner respected Master and the Fa. She would sit with both legs crossed to study the Fa, and when she held the book, she would hold it up close to her heart with a respectful mindset.
I followed suit when studying Lecture Two of Zhuan Falun for nearly two hours. It was the first time I could cross both legs for such a long time. I thought about giving up midway but still endured. I then felt Master strengthen me, so the pain was not as bad. Once I kept it up, I could endure the pain and I felt that my body was surrounded by energy. I felt very warm and sacred.
When I did the five exercises the next morning, I saw a golden key hovering above my chest. It was visible intermittently, moving around by itself. Once I saw it clearly, I knew it was a key opening my locked heart. All my human notions were then dissolved instantly as they shot forth.
My body became tiny, and I felt that all the attachments existing in human beings were resolved. Looking at my husband, who crossed his legs in front of me, and at all our surroundings, everything felt so far, far away from me. It seemed like the entire world was unable to affect me, as if I were entirely free from all torment.
From now on, only Master and Dafa exist in my mind. I will assist Master to rectify the Fa and save sentient beings selflessly.