PureInsight | March 25, 2002
At the 2000 Washington DC Dafa Conference, I ran into a practitioner whose baby is only a month older than mine. I was shocked to find out that her baby was already able to recite a number of poems from Hongyin. The initial shock was quickly replaced by my determination to teach my own then 18-month old daughter to memorize poems from Hongyin as well.
Since then, I have tried to read my daughter selected texts from Master Li’s books everyday, including poems from Hongyin. On the surface, it seemed that she might not understand what I was reading to her. In reality, she actually did understand them. For instance, at that time, everyday before she went to sleep, she wanted me to stay with her. So I recited Lunyu to her every night. Soon the reciting of Lunyu before her sleep became an enjoyable routine that she often requested herself. By the end of year 2000, she could recite the first two paragraphs of Lunyu, even though I never deliberately tried to teach it to her. She was also able to recite more than ten poems from Hongyin.
Last year, I happened to meet anther fellow practitioner whose child is three months younger than mine and yet was already able to recognize more than 200 Chinese characters. Her story once again struck me with a sudden realization of my own myopia and its impact on my daughter’s progress in Fa study. I began to search available visual aids to teach my daughter Chinese characters. I was not very happy with the off-the-shelf illustrated reading cards, so I put them aside and made my own. I carefully chose characters of fewer strokes from Master Li’s books, printed each of them on a piece of paper, and laminated the paper so my daughter would not damage it. Since the first day of our Chinese home school, my husband and I have continued to be amazed by our daughter’s speed of progress. It took her far less time than what we had imagined to recognize all the characters on the first card that we gave her. We then printed more and more cards, and she kept on learning additional characters from one card to another. These homemade reading cards have become her favorite toy. And may I add that she looks most adorable when she points to the characters with her chubby little fingers! Here I’d like to share with you the benefits of reading cards with no illustration. Many parents believe that illustrated reading cards help children associate pictures with the words, and thus help them remember new words. But in my opinion, I think the children end up remembering the illustrations and often fail to recognize the characters without the illustrations. The reading cards I had made carried no illustration to remember the characters by. When I taught my daughter the characters, I tried to describe the meaning of each character and its associated phrases. For instance, I would describe a mental picture of a rainy day when reading the Chinese character for “rain.” Or upon reading the Chinese character of “Ming”, meaning “understanding”, or “clear”, she would recall “Ming” from lines of Hongyin. With this approach, she learned to read characters and associated phrases at the same time. Soon she could build phrases and sentences out of these characters.
After only two months of home schooling, she picked up over 100 Chinese characters. I felt that I should start adding reading comprehension in the program of study so I started to look for short sentences for her to read in Falun Dafa publications. I would sometimes pick up an issue of Stream of Conscience and find a story with a title that she could read by herself. She was so thrilled the first time she was able to read a whole sentence in the newspaper without any prompting or hints. During the next few days, she would celebrate her triumph by reading us sentences off small Dafa pamphlets such as “Stories of Cultivation” or “Cultivation Despite the Thunderstorm of Persecution.” It wasn’t until November 2001 that I was inspired to go directly for Zhuan Falun instead of hunting for articles in Dafa publications for her to read. I still recall that it was November 20, 2001 (a day to be remembered) that she began to read Zhuan Falun. I had printed Lunyu on two sheets of paper, laminated them, and gave my daughter as a gift for her to treasure. On the first day, I decided that reading one paragraph of Lunyu a day would be more than enough for a small baby like her. I was amazed when she asked me to teach her read an entire page. She has shown a keen interest in reading Lunyu from the beginning. She would read Lunyu on her own and paused only when she encountered a new character which I would then read out for her. She read a page per day for several days. Then she started to get a little lazy and it would take her two days to finish reading one page. I began to be alerted by the possibility of demonic interference. She also told us that there were demons that lingered from far away trying to hinder her from studying the Fa. One night she kept on screaming, “I won’t study the Fa no matter what!” Instead of reprimanding her for her behavior, I pulled her gently into my arms and asked if she had been asked by demons to say those words. After a moment of silence, she admitted she had given into demons and asked my help in cleansing the demons in the area. Immediately after I sent out forth righteous thoughts, she returned to her true self. She sat on my lap and began to read Lunyu again. The rest of that evening she concentrated remarkably well and interrupted a lot less during Fa study. She even requested to send forth righteous thoughts with us afterwards.
Since she started to study Zhuan Falun I no longer taught her Chinese characters with the reading cards. She would learn a new character in Zhuan Falun by asking me how to read the character a couple times. When she ran across the the new character the next time, she would proudly read it out loud. She was able to learn characters of various levels of complexity, from which I concluded that the idea of “level of complexity” was invented by us grown-ups with conventional thinking. When she studied Zhuan Falun she thought of the Fa, not of various levels of difficulty in the words, characters, or phrases. Every once in a while, I would collect the new characters she encountered in Zhuan Falun, and build interesting sentences with these characters to reinforce her memory. My daughter thought it was fun reading these sentences containing the new characters she had learned in Zhuan Falun.
With the increase in her vocabulary, she began to pick up poems in Hongyin at an accelerated rate. By the end of January 2002, she was able to recite all seventy two poems in Hongyin. At this time, my daughter is reading one page of Zhuan Falun per day. She has finished reading the first chapter of Zhuan Falun and is now about ten pages into the second chapter. She can often read two lines of Zhuan Falun without any help because she keeps on expanding her vocabulary. I am so happy that I can study the Fa with her before she even turned three years old.
Many fellow Dafa practitioners in DC thought that my daughter has changed a lot since she began studying the Fa. And I noticed that she no longer bursts into tears without any valid reason. I am not really sure, but it seems that she understands a lot of things in her heart. No matter what she actually knows, I know that more and more Fa has been planted into her head. When we took her to the Trade and Scholastic Exchange Conference of Overseas Chinese in North America at the end of last December, and she started demonstrating Falun Gong exercises when I tried to take a picture of her. That night we attended a banquet at the Chinese Embassy where my daughter began to send out forth righteous thoughts while reading the Fa-rectification verses out loud. Sometimes I would bring my daughter with me when I went out distributing truth-clarification flyers. She would look toward my direction in her stroller from a distance with a serious look on my face while I clarified the truth to the passers-by. Upon my return I would ask if she had enjoyed accompanying me on the trip of truth clarification, she would smile and nod to me. I do not know if she has been sending out forth righteous thoughts in her stroller while I clarify the truth to the passer-by, but I know for certain that even as a 3-year-old baby my daughter understands the significance of clarifying the truth for Chinese people.
I began to see that my daughter’s studying Chinese characters and the Fa has brought me opportunities to fundamentally change my conventional thinking. Preventing children from studying the Fa at early ages is, in my opinion, a manifestation of conventional thinking. I would encourage those parents who are Dafa disciples to assist their kids in studying the Fa, and to educate the next generations of Dafa disciples with wisdom that we have acquired from the Fa. I also have come to feel the sense of freedom that a cultivator has. I would often teach and review with her new characters that she learned in Zhuan Falun between activities, such as the time during the metro commute, or during the ride to the playground. We would often recite poems from Hongyin together during subway rides. In each Dafa activity and event, my daughter would read out loud every Chinese character she saw, including the words on Dafa T-shirts. I really take the time and effort to assist her in studying the Fa. Although I cannot measure how much she has learned from studying the Fa, I feel that she has become wiser and wiser each day. She has learned to sing many Dafa songs on her own and can recite the verses of the songs. She is very logical in her thinking and can discern good from bad on her own. She never displays any show off mentality, nor does she lift a finger against children who are younger than she is. Of course she is not always perfect. She can be selfish and mischievous at times. However, I think that as parents, we should assist our children in obtaining the Fa as early as possible, for obtaining the Fa is far more critical for them than for us to correct each and every one of their flaws. This way, we will not let down the trust that Master Li has placed upon us when he placed the children into our care, since these children have come to assimilate to Dafa.
I’d also like to offer a piece of advice to fellow practitioners with young children: do not assume that your children are too young to understand the Fa. I have regarded my child as a friend and a fellow practitioner since the day she was born. I never lied to her in order to trick her into doing what I wanted her to the way that many Chinese parents do. I always reason with her and explain to her the reason why I ask her to do certain things. Sometimes she would nod in agreement. So you see, children do understand our explanations. It’s the grown-ups who do not understand children enough because we often crawl within the boundary delimited by our own ignorance.
I often feel inadequate in my own cultivation of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, compared with that of my baby daughter. For instance, she is very truthful in showing herself as she is. She is so true to herself that she rarely tries to coat her words with flowery languages, which sometimes upsets those who have not been around children much. She is compassionate toward other children and often provides them with unsolicited tutoring. She also practices forbearance, although, of course, not at all times. For example, she often impresses us with her quiet tolerance of long trips, being ignored when we are busy preparing for Dafa events, or placed in other less comfortable surroundings.
I am reaching thirty as my daughter is now reaching the age of three. I hope that we will continue to advance together not only as a mother and a daughter but as fellow Dafa practitioners. I also hope that parents around the world will share their joy in studying the Fa with their children like I have shared with mine. Those non-practitioner friends of mine might wonder why I have not brought up my plan for my daughter’s future. But I have been preparing my daughter for her future. There is no greater joy or no better future awaiting the children who are cultivated by Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.
Translated from:
http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2002/2/13/13770.html
