(Minghui.org) As Dafa cultivators, we learn that cultivation is a process of constantly getting rid of attachments. Grief is a process that every human being goes through, but for a cultivator, when it becomes overwhelming, affects one’s normal way of living, and particularly affects one’s cultivation, then one needs to be on guard. Indulging such an attachment might cause obstacles on the path of cultivation.
Zhao’s Painful Experience
A fellow practitioner, Zhao, has been doing very well in raising awareness of the persecution and persuading people to quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations at the market in our area. When the policemen came to harass her for clarifying the truth, she would face them and persuade them not to participate in persecuting Falun Dafa.
Recently, Zhao had an accident. She and another fellow practitioner went to the market to clarify the truth to the public, and on the way back, their tricycle ran over a rock. The impact caused Zhao to fall off the back seat and she fractured her femur. She was admitted to the hospital and underwent surgery to set the bone. However after surgery, she was puzzled and depressed for a long time in the face of her injury.
Many practitioners went to visit Zhao and tried to help her get out of the tribulation. After sharing and discussing, we found out that she was very much attached to her deceased parents and husband. She often dreamed of her husband and expressed how good he was in many ways. We advised her that as a cultivator, she had to be careful on issues of sentimentality.
We shared a story about a “big bird.” A cultivator reached consummation and levitated in broad daylight, but her mother was not ready to let go and cried: “My dear daughter, how can you be so cruel? Can’t you look at me one more time?” The cultivator did not relinquish her sentimentality, turned her head, and fell. By then, her mother had turned into a giant bird and laughed: “Ha! You’ve fallen. I’ve been waiting for this day!” Her cultivation was in vain.
During the Qingming Festival (for remembrance of the deceased), Zhao went to visit the graves of her husband and her parents, burned papers and decorated them with flowers. On her way back, she developed generalized body pain and could hardly walk. She asked me what was going on. I told her it might be her attachment that caused this tribulation. I said that sending forth righteous thoughts might resolve the problem. She did and recovered in no time.
Zhao is doing better overall but still has her moments. She also realizes that the sentimentality is interference and she quickly begins sending forth righteous thoughts to clear the disturbance.
Benevolently Resolved the Entanglement
I had similar encounters and had attachments towards my parents. When my mother passed away in 1982, I visited her grave every year at the Qingming Festival. It is customary to visit graves and burn paper to make offerings to one’s deceased loved ones. I did not make it in 1996 and I got very sick, developed high a fever and could not go to work. I did not practice Falun Dafa then, but I realized it might be a way for the departed to ask me for the offerings.
My father was paralyzed after a motor vehicle accident in 1987. When I began practicing Falun Dafa in 1998, he could only move his right hand, and I made a reading stand so that he could use his right hand to read Zhuan Falun, the main book of Falun Dafa. He enjoyed reading the book very much. He passed away in 2003.
Since I began cultivation, I always wondered if I should still go to the family graves and make offerings to the deceased.
Master, the founder of Falun Dafa, taught us:
“I have repeatedly said that cultivation is a very serious matter. And yet you worry about this and worry about that, and you won’t break off this emotional tie and that emotional tie. What did “leaving home and becoming a monk” mean in the past?”
“Why would he be given a Buddhist name? It was to get rid of all of his worldly desires and free him of any concerns over and involvement with those things, so that he could calm his mind and cultivate. Cultivation is a serious matter.” (“Teaching the Fa and Answering Questions in Guangzhou,” Explaining the Teachings of Zhuan Falun)
So, four or five years ago, as a practitioner, I decided not to go to the graves of my parents and burn paper as offerings. One night, I fell asleep on the sofa; in my dream, my deceased father pulled me up from the couch. I suddenly woke up and realized it really did happen. At the time, Master’s teachings reached me,
“Mercy can melt heaven and earth into spring, Righteous thoughts can save people of the world” (“Fa Rectifies the Cosmos,” Hong Yin II)
So I meditated and held a big lotus mudra and followed Master’s teachings of benevolent resolution. I said in my head, “Are you my deceased father? I am a Dafa practitioner. You accumulated a great amount of virtue for giving me life and raising me; you will be blessed. I might have hurt you in past lives, but I will repay you when I reach consummation. Now that my mortal relationship with you is over, as a cultivator, I can no longer go to the grave to give offerings, and ask that you accept my decision. Please remember that ‘Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance is good,’ as this is the treasure that can bring salvation to all beings at the end times.”
After I benevolently reconciled with my deceased parents, there were no more disturbances. I want to share my experiences in this regard because I witness fellow practitioners’ struggles and difficulties with grieving and entanglement with their deceased relatives. I hope this will give them some insight and help them progress on their cultivation path.
Master said:
“Since one’s real life is one’s Original Soul, the one who gives birth to your Original Soul is your real mother. In the course of samsara, you have had mothers who were human and non-human, and there are too many of them to be numbered. It is also countless how many sons and daughters you have had throughout your different lifetimes. Who is your mother? Who is your son or daughter? No one recognizes one another after passing away. You must still pay for what you owe others.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)
Life is a drama, but we each play different roles in history. Who are you still attached to? We are passers-by, life after life. We come to obtain the Dafa in this life. The crucial matter is to cultivate ourselves and save all sentient beings. This is our historic vow; we must remember it.
Master is waiting for us to elevate our xinxing and catch up on the path of cultivation. Keep it up, my fellow practitioners!
This is my understanding at my current level; please kindly point out anything not in line with the Fa.
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Category: Improving Oneself
