PureInsight | September 4, 2013
[PureInsight.org] A fellow Dafa practitioner from our local area passed away recently and we went to visit her family. Her husband received us and briefly told us what had happened right before she died. Her illness had deteriorated very quickly before her death. Her husband stayed by her side all night long the night that she passed away. At 2:00 that morning, she seemed to be very agitated. Her hands and feet were stretched out from under the quilt waving irregularly in the air. Apparently, she was in great agony. Her husband immediately fetched a pill for her to ease the pain. She was obviously irritated by her husband’s request and refused right away to take the medicine. Her husband then got her son from the next room and asked him to persuade his mom to take the pill. The son knelt close to his mom’s head, patiently whispering in his mom’s ears begging her to take the medicine. At the beginning, she refused to take it; however, because of her son’s persistent persuasion, she finally took the pill, but she still died before daybreak.
Every one of us felt terribly sorry for the practitioner’s death. We tried to figure out what had gone wrong, but of course, there were many reasons and it was a very complicated matter. Our local group had exhibited personal reasons, as well as shortcomings. I don’t want to list all such reasons here. I’d just like to share my thoughts and discuss what the practitioner had done during the very brief moment before she passed away. She had obviously changed her attitude towards the medicine, from refusal to acceptance, which revealed some of her attachments. Those attachments could’ve been the main reasons for her death.
First of all, during the period when this practitioner was practicing Falun Dafa, her husband had an affair with another woman. He also had some other extramarital issues. When she learned of her husband’s infidelity, she was outraged and started a huge fight with him. In the end, she divorced him, though they re-married a couple of years ago. However, she simply could not forgive her husband for his misdeeds during their previous marriage, even though he showed great remorse. Her animosity towards her husband never went away. She would slight her husband whenever possible, sometimes insulting him right away.
When we held group Fa studies with all the local practitioners, we would discuss this issue with this practitioner, asking her to get rid of her hatred. She would accept our requests after she understood the Fa principles behind it. Nonetheless, after a few days, she would again show her displeasure towards her husband. She would still keep complaining about her husband and start a fight for no reason. So, before she passed away that night, she was still harboring hatred for her husband. When her husband asked her to take the medicine, she refused. She refused not because she knew the Fa principles, but because she still didn’t want to listen to her husband. Her husband was not a Dafa practitioner. He didn’t know the Fa principles for taking medicine, so it was understandable that he would give his wife the medicine to try to help her ease her pain. She could have kindly refused her husband’s help, but she forcefully and coldly said ‘no’ with some irrationality and extreme impatience. It was obvious that she was still not happy with her husband. Her refusal was more from displeasure, rather than from her understanding of the Fa principles. She could have treated her husband’s extramarital affair as a tribulation to overcome.
She could have kindly and rationally dealt with this tribulation and gotten over it along the way. If she had dealt with this issue properly, she could have improved her xinxing and ascended to a higher cultivation level. Unfortunately, she didn’t pass this tribulation.
Secondly, her attachment to her son was extremely strong. She seemed to live only for her son, thinking about him day in and day out and trying to accommodate his every need. She would try very hard to cook different foods for him almost every day. Even when she was showing signs of serious illness karma, she would still venture out to buy fresh food from the market to make a delicious meal when he returned home from work in the evening. At home, she would take care of his every need. On the other hand, she didn’t want to take care of her husband, nor herself, at all. She should have realized her strong attachment to her son a long time ago and should have tried to get rid of it. But this didn’t happen. When she was about to die that night, her initial refusal to take the medicine was eventually persuaded over by her son’s persistence. It was her attachment that made her listen and decide to take the medicine.
Finally, this practitioner didn’t seem to have a strong faith in the Fa, nor in Master. When a practitioner is experiencing some symptoms of illness, it is usually due to the practitioner’s own karma or certain strong attachments. If the practitioner doesn’t try hard to get rid of such attachments, the evil forces will take advantage and attack the practitioner. So, such an illness is simply not possible to be completely cured by modern medicine. We have to improve our xinxing from the bottom of our hearts. Only by cultivating ourselves can we turn the tables around. This practitioner understood all these principles, but her faith in the Fa and in Master was not firm enough.
This practitioner always had trouble managing her sickness karma. When persuaded by her family, she would go to the hospital for surgery, to get shots, or to get medicine. She would also keep visiting the hospital for recovery check-ups. She had mentioned several times that she was not following the correct path with regard to dealing with illness karma. She said she had decided to listen to the Fa from Master later on. However, when problems appeared, she would slide downwards.
Before she passed away, she was having a difficult time deciding not to take the pill that both her husband and son were asking her to swallow. Her hesitation and wavering attitude revealed a weak faith in the Fa and in Master. If she had a very strong mind and a strong belief in the Fa and in Master, like many other practitioners in similar situations, she could have made up her mind at that very moment and turned away the pill. She could have asked for help from Master and put her fate in his hands. In this way, her fate could have changed.
This practitioner’s attitude towards taking medicine right before her death revealed three attachments that she had not completely gotten rid of in her self-cultivation. We also need to take some lessons from this and never make the same mistakes. Especially for those older practitioners who still have very strong attachments, they really should start to pay attention. Looking deeply inwards, we should ask ourselves: “Do we still harbor certain attachments right now?” If we are still attached to certain things and we think that nobody knows about them and we do not want to detach from them, we really should be on alert. We should not fool ourselves, or try to fool others.
We must realize that cultivation is solely for oneself. Cultivation is not to show off for others to admire. Fellow practitioners, we have to develop a sense of urgency. We need to make a strong commitment and make every effort to eliminate all those dirty attachments of ours. Furthermore, we need to cultivate seriously. How do we cultivate seriously? In my opinion, we need to study the Fa more, to understand its essence, and to make ourselves part of the Fa. In this way, our faith in the Fa and in Master will be enormously strengthened. By then, we will be able to realize that it is simply not lip service when we refer to having faith in the Fa and in Master. We will apply the Fa to our daily life, our speech, and actions. We will practice what the Fa teaches us in this ordinary society. We should genuinely follow the path that Master mentions in the poem, “Solid Cultivation,” from Hong Yin: “Study Fa, obtain Fa; Compare in studying, compare in cultivating; Examine each and every deed; Accomplishing is cultivating.”
Only when we are following such a solid path can we come to appreciate the true meaning of the Fa. We should then be able to get rid of all kinds of attachments and fulfil the “three things” properly. We can then ascertain that we are genuinely helping Master rectify the Fa.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/node/118928
