Experience Sharing by Peta Evans (Melbourne)
I have been actively involved in Fa projects since I began cultivating in Falun Dafa
less than 2 years ago, and have been a co-
But it was not until today, the day I started to write this sharing, and while changing my bed covers, that I realised that I need to talk about my recent understanding of how I have neglected many things in my everyday life, impacting on the way my family, friends, neighbours and all those in my environment may view me, and consequently what thoughts they may have about Falun Dafa.
I came accross the Fa when I was about 4 months pregnant, about 20 months ago, after I had just walked away from my relationship with the father to be. I caught up to the other practitioners as best I could, by studying intensely and doing the exercises everyday. I immediately started participating in Fa projects, and put a lot of time and effort into truth clarification.
At the time my baby was due, the first organ harvesting report had just been released, and I was busy gathering names and addresses of VIP’s to send the organ harvesting report and other supporting documents to. I had to stop the day I gave birth, and was also dissapointed that I could not take part in the July 20 Fa activities, as I went into labour that day. Only a few days after my son was born, I was already back into it, doing all I could from home on the computer and on the phone. And when he was only 3 weeks old, I organised with another practitioner for us to go to most of the universities in Melbourne to hand deliver the organ harvesting report to over one hundred university professors. I took the baby with me and carried him in a sling. When the the baby was 1 week old, I took him to my regular Saturday morning practice site, catching the train into the city with him in his pram as I did not have a car.
My son and I hardly ever missed our Saturday morning practice. We also went to most Saturday night Fa studies, getting there by catching two trains, and walking a fair distance at both ends. We spent most our Saturdays travelling, my son and I, just to be able to be at the practice site, and the Fa study. All together, we needed to catch six trains to make that possible. Sometimes we did not get home until close to midnight after all the transport and walking with the pram, which was quite testing in the winter.
However, I knew deep in my heart that the Fa is all I came for, and I did not think twice about it. I also clarified the truth to many people on the trains and the platforms, sometimes just one or two, and sometimes to a whole group. Sitting in the back carraige with the pram enabled me to talk to everyone in that open area at once, always striking up a conversation, and waiting for my cue to relate what they are talking about to Dafa or the persecution. My baby and I also needed to catch transport to our local evening practice site, and our local evening Fa study during the week, and any Fa project meetings I was part of, so clarifying the truth on the train became a regular thing for me, the baby playing his part well, often being the reason for the beginning of conversation.
It all sounds good – that I was dilgent in Fa study and truth clarification,. But I had let go of many necessary everyday areas of my life. I have only recently realised that I had withdrawn from the ways of everyday society and gone to an extreme in many areas of my life.
Just before I wrote this sharing, I changed my bed covers, because I had not changed them for months. It was just one of the things I had ignored while being so busy with Fa projects. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, and on its own, it’s not. But it made me look back to all the things I had neglected in my everyday life since I started cultivation practice.
It’s very important that we cultivate in the environment Master and the Fa provides
for each of us. But looking back, I can see that I was often not conforming to the
environment I had been placed in due to my being over-
Master says in Zhuan Falun, Lecture 8: “I will address an issue that belongs to the attachment of zealotry. Many people have practised qigong for a very long time. There are also people who have never practised it, but who have pursued and pondered the truth and the meaning of human life. Once they learn our Falun Dafa, they will understand at once many questions in life that they have wished to understand but could not answer. Perhaps along with their minds being elevated, they will become very excited – this is for sure. I know that a genuine practitioner will know its weight and cherish it. Yet this problem often occurs: Due to human excitement, one will develop unnecessary zealotry. It causes one to behave abnormally in one’s form of doing things, in interacting with others in ordinary human society, or in the environment of ordinary human society. I say this is unacceptable.”
Just a few weeks ago, a fellow practitioner said something at my local Fa study group, and I realised it was for me to hear. He said something along the lines of: “We can’t do things like not take the bin out on bin night, or what will our neighbours think of us? Don’t be lazy, man, take the bin out.”
Not only do I usually leave it to my housemate to have to take the bin out, but I also realised the weeds and grass had gotten out of control in the front and back yards. Luckily, my housemate is a practitioner, but our landlord who lives in the house behind us on the same block is not. In fact, he is Chinese, and so far has not shown much interest in knowing about Dafa or the persecution. So my demeanor may be one of the best ways to impact his view of Dafa. Won’t my neglecting to take care of the house and surrounds adversely impact his view of Falun Dafa practitioners? One day he might say: “Oh, I knew a Falun Dafa practitioner once. She was my tenant. She was untidy and never cared about the lawns or weeds, and I had to take care of it myself.”
How could I have allowed myself to ignore these important tasks? I used Dafa and cultivation as an excuse to become lazy about such everyday duties. I covered up my laziness by convincing myself that I only had time for Fa projects, Fa study and the exercises. If I had no time for my everyday duties, then that was OK, because the task of saving sentient beings is what I came for.
But that is an incorrect understanding and state to be in. Because my conduct may be the only thing my landlord will use to make a judgment on Dafa and whether he thinks Falun Dafa is good. Also, I had not let go of my attachment to zealotry and laziness, so how could I cultivate to consumation if I am covering up those attachments.
For the first 5 months after I had my baby, I was living with my parents. They saw
a drastic change in me, but what they saw, in their minds, on the surface, was not
a change for the better. What they saw was their daughter neglecting her duties as
a mother, and caring only about the Fa projects I was doing. Perhaps, because I was
one of those who came into the Fa after the persecution began, and at such a late
stage, and when there’s so many projects needing our help, I did not have that time
of soley concentraing on personal cultivation, and being a good person in society.
My personal cultivation was mixed in with the progressive Fa-
I remember one day I was given a hint about this. I was still living at my parents house, and I was on the phone clarifying the truth to someone, saying: “We practice Ttruthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance.” When I got off the phone, I had a disagreement with my mum about something, and she said: “You tell people Falun Gong practitioners are truthful, compassionate, and tolerant, but you’re not like that.” She said it mainly because I was ignoring my duties at home, and had withdrawn myself from a normal life.
Once, my parents restricted my Internet access on their computer, because they had
dial-
I can remember many times my dad saying things like: “You need to tell Falun Dafa that you have a baby to take care of,” and “Falun Dafa should have more consideration for little bubba’s.” I realised I was tarneshing Dafa’s image. He was not only highlighting for me my attachment of zealotry and my neglect of my responsibilities to my son, but he was reflecting my own incorrect thoughts. That is, instead of rectifying myself, and conforming to the cultivation environment Master had provided me, I just kept on going, working against my circumstances while blaming other practitioners in my mind who had asked me to do the work, or who I thought were not doing their fair share. I was looking outward, not inward like a Dafa disciple should.
Day after day, my son was left crying too long on the floor needing me to tend to him, but I did not know when to stop. I just wanted to finish whatever Fa project I was doing, and thought if I did not, it would not get done. But I was just not paying enough attention to Master’s teaching us to balance well our everyday things with our Fa work. Many times, I’d look at the clock after Ruben had been crying for some time, and see that it would be something like 8pm, and I had not given him any dinner yet. I would look in the pantry to see what I could give him, to find I didn’t have anything for him, because I had not bothered to go shopping. Once, after being on the computer all day as often I was, I realised I had not changed his nappy for a long time. When I did, I found he had soiled his nappy many hours ago, and he was so red and sore. I suddenly broke down in tears then, as I realised there was something wrong, and I was not behaving like a practitioner should. I wasn’t even being compassionate to my own son. I wasn’t even treating him like a human, let alone a little Dafa disciple. I had gotten into a state of mind where I was treating him like a task I had to take care of everyday, and one that was a hinderance to the Fa projects I had to complete. I was actually ignoring him and his human needs.
One day recently while working all day and much of the night for many weeks on planning and making contacts for the Human Rights Torch Relay (and ignoring my son for much of this time), I received a call from a practitioner who was also working all day every day on this project. She called me from her workplace, and said: “I’ve spent all day on this, and haven’t done any of my work.” She was coughing, and she said she knew the reason she was coughing was because she should not be working on the Fa project while getting paid to do a job she was not doing. I thought to myself that was not good at all, and not in line with the Fa. Then I realised I had done exactly the same. I get a single mothers’ pension since I do not work, and have chosen to stay home and care for my son in his early years. But on the days I spent all day on Fa projects, I was not caring for him.
There were many things I showed extreme behaviour in. Before I was a practitioner, I was into healthy food, and tried to eat well and as natural as I could. But when I became a practitioner, I thought it didn’t matter what I ate. “We’re practitioners, we can eat anything and it won’t affect us,” I would think. I became lazy with cooking, and began to eat quick and ready meals. My family noticed this, and thought it was quite strange, and could not understand why all of a sudden, I didn’t care about what I ate.
A few days ago, I went to the country to visit an old friend. She was very busy with
the new farm as they had just moved there a few months prior, and she had a 6-
As well as being a healthy eater, I also used to be an environmentally conscious
person, but when I realised the Fa would rectify the cosmos, I acted like it didn’t
matter if I didn’t care as much about the environment. I didn’t pay as much attention
to recycling, and though I told everyone I was going to use cloth nappies to impact
less on the environment, I ended up using disposables because my care for the environment
had vanished. This was noticed by those like-
I also thought I didn’t need to participate in things like mothers’ groups and play groups, because I was too busy doing Fa projects, and those things were going to be a waste of time.
Basically, anything that was going to take time away from Fa projects, Fa study and doing the exercises, I didn’t do. How did I expect to save sentient beings in my environment, if I became estranged from them. How did I expect my community to come to know me and that Dafa is good if I did not get involved and active in my community, in a community Master and the Fa has placed me in?
How can I consumate if I don’t walk straight my path? How can I validate the Fa if I invalidate the environment the Fa provided me with to cultivate myself?
Master said in Teaching the Fa in the City of Los Angeles, 2006: “What gods want are not the formats that mankind uses, but for you to utilise the formats here and ascend. When you elevate by making use of these formats, you are validating the Fa, validating gods, and saving sentient beings, right? Dafa disciples’ cultivating in the diverse occupations is acknowledging the beings in those systems, and it is saving all those lives.”
What I have only just recently enlightened to is that my occupation since my son
was born has been a full-
I have recently began to re-
Although this sharing may be something a lot of practitioners have gone through in
the beginning of their cultivation years ago, that is, being a good person in ordinary
human society, I have found it not so easy, and I think it’s because I kind of did
things back-
Thank-