(Clearwisdom.net) I have practiced cultivation for more than three years. I'm very happy to be here to share with you my cultivation experience. I'd like to thank Master and all my fellow practitioners for giving me this opportunity today. Next, I'll share with you some of the understandings I've gained in my cultivation practice.
At the very beginning, in order to seek a cure for my illnesses, I came to learn Falun Gong. When I first came to the practice site, I was the only person who spoke Cantonese. Everyone else spoke Mandarin. At the beginning, I had difficulty understanding Master's words in the exercise tapes, but veteran practitioners patiently taught me the exercises. I really felt that the Buddha light illuminates everywhere and the Fa saves people with predestined relationship. Everyday after the exercises, veteran practitioners would share experiences with me. Although I did not completely understand what they said, I enjoyed listening to them talk, so I went there everyday to practice with them. Soon I attended a nine-day seminar. Two months later, I was fortunate enough to see Teacher and listen to Teacher expound on the Fa and answer students' questions. Words cannot express what I felt at that moment. At the same time, I also felt sad because I obtained the Fa so late and so much time had been wasted. Through Fa-study, I've started to understand gradually things that I was never able to understand before. I realized that I could find answers to many questions that I had in mind from this heavenly book, Zhuan Falun.
1. Believe in Master and Cultivate Falun Dafa Steadfastly
Since April 25, 1999, Dafa has been persecuted in the human world. Our revered Master too has been attacked. However, I wasn't scared and I did my best to "Follow Teacher closely, steadfastly cultivating Dafa" (The Knowing Heart). I went to the practice site for the exercises everyday with determination. I said to other practitioners that our daily exercise was a form of validating the Fa. We were not frightened when we were being followed by special agents or misunderstood by other people. My family was concerned about my safety and asked me to practice at home instead of in public. One evening, it was quite hot. At around 8 p.m., I took a small cassette player with me and went to the Federal Courthouse near Columbus Park to practice and meditate. Many Chinese went there in the evenings to cool off. There were police officers guarding the gate. My husband was worried about my safety and came to take a look. When he saw the police officers standing at the gate as if they were protecting me, he went home without any worries.
Last March, a resolution sponsored by the United States condemning China's human rights abuses was to be voted on at an annual Human Rights session in Switzerland. Many practitioners went there to support local Falun Gong activities and to clarify the truth to various governments, so that the justice would be restored to Master and Dafa, and the current crisis in China could be resolved. I wanted more people in the world to know about and support Falun Gong. After I developed this thought, I deterred all interference and went on a week-long trip to play the role of a Dafa particle. After I returned, my husband told me, "I'll cultivate Falun Dafa with you. We'll go home together." I am so grateful for Master's benevolent salvation.
My mother-in-law started to experience fear when the evil was getting more and more reckless. One day, she brought a few Chinese newspapers full of false reports to my house. I explained to her the truth little by little by giving examples. She tried to stifle my opinions with her seniority, but when she saw that I was so calm and composed, she simply couldn't get angry. I talked about many things, from the changes in my mind and body after I started practicing Falun Gong to the facts about Falun Gong. I urged her not to believe in those lies. She seemed to have changed a bit.
In order to clarify the truth to people, we go to the subway entrances to distribute Dafa materials. We are there during the morning and evening peak hours or whenever we think would be the busiest time. We identify the busiest streets and hand out flyers there. On Sundays, we conduct photo exhibits and display related information in Chinatown, with a couple of practitioners demonstrating the exercises and another two distributing flyers. We take turns and hope that more people will come to learn about Falun Gong. We have persevered with this in the snow, wind or rain. Sometimes our fingers became so numb from the freezing cold that we dropped the flyers on the ground. It would then become a challenge trying to pick them up. When we handed out flyers politely, some kindhearted people looked at us sympathetically and admiringly. Of course, we also have encountered some very unkind people, but we all tried to explain the truth to them with compassion.
2. Clarifying the truth to my relatives and friends in China
In July 2000, our whole family went back to Hong Kong and Mainland China to visit, because I had thought of going to China to clarify the truth to my relatives and friends at the beginning of the year before. My husband felt the same way when I proposed the trip in May. Quietly we booked our airplane tickets and told family members about it afterwards. My brother, sister, parents, mother-in-law and even my son were all against it. They thought we were going to Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Actually I had lived in the US for twenty years, and my husband had no clue of what China was like and where his hometown was, because he left China when he was very young. It would be the first time back to Mainland for both of us. We only had one thought on our minds, which was to spread the Fa and to clarify the truth. I brought several copies of Zhuan Falun, two copies of the Great Perfection Way of Falun Buddha Fa, Explaining the Content of Falun Dafa, Essentials for Further Advancement, lectures given by Master in different regions plus a few copies of truth clarification materials and articles downloaded from Clearwisdom. I also brought with me 9 tapes of the seminar Master gave in Jinan, 2 tapes of the exercise music, a cassette player and other materials.
Our family of four arrived in China from Hong Kong on July 21, right after the first anniversary of the beginning of persecution. When going through customs, my husband and my son were standing together in one line, while my daughter and I were standing in a different line. When the person before me went up to the processing counter, two customs officers suddenly appeared about five or six meters away from me with a police dog. I immediately wondered if they came for me and had my pictures because our local newspaper published a picture of me practicing in front of the UN more than once. I was also wearing a necklace with the Falun emblem, and the necklace was in plain view. However, I suppressed my unrighteous thoughts right away and kept my heart unmoved. When it was my turn to go through customs, I passed by the two officers very calmly.
During the ten days we were in Mainland China, I talked about Falun Gong with my relatives and friends when I met with them. A son of our relative had his mind saturated with the official propaganda. Jiang is so evil. Every employee had to fill out a form promising that he would never practice Falun Gong; otherwise he would be fired. I told them about the true situation of Falun Gong overseas and my own experience. I gave them truth-clarifying stories and materials from Clearwisdom Net, hoping that they would have a correct understanding of Falun Gong. Three relatives learned the five sets of exercises from me at the first gathering. When one of them saw me again for the second time, she asked me to correct her movements. She said she knew this practice system must be very good as soon as she saw how healthy I looked. I gave away all the copies of Zhuan Falun and lectures given by Master in different regions. They said that they would read them carefully.
3. Clarifying the truth to overseas Chinese
On the first day of April last year, when I was clarifying the truth to Chinese people in Battery Park, six people from a Chinese delegation walked toward us. A practitioner handed them some Dafa materials, and they refused. They sat down at a place very far from us. "Validate the Fa with reason, clarify the truth with wisdom, spread the Fa and offer people salvation with benevolence." (Rationality) So, I went over to have a chat with them. When I handed them the flyers, one of them was quite nasty and said, "We don't want these. Go away!" I said, "Do you really know about Falun Gong?" "We know all about it. Go away!" They tried to make me go away again. I said, "We are all Chinese. Although living abroad, we feel close to people coming from China. I'd like very much to hear about what's going on in China." They got angry, "How can you be so shameless to say this? You've embarrassed the Chinese people. You are going against the country." I said, "You're wrong. I was born and educated in the new China. I also love my country. You see, I sent my two children to learn Chinese, and one of them had to go five days a week for that. They have to go to the Chinese school after their regular school for two hours of Chinese lessons. The older one has been learning Chinese for 12 years and the younger one for 9 years already. They were all born in America. But Chinese should understand Chinese language because we are of the same descent. " I turned around and saw a Westerner passing by, and I handed a flyer to him. That Chinese person continued, "You've been deceived. You don't know what's written in your English flyers." He also said many wrong things about Master. He also said that we don't eat or take care of our families. I said, "You are wrong. I cook two meals a day. In a little while, I am going home to cook." He said, "You go everywhere to distribute flyers and do not take care of your family. Your husband must be upset about it." I said, "On the contrary, after he saw I've become so good after practicing Falun Gong, he is now also practicing it." Seeing that they became speechless, I handed them Dafa flyers right away. Three of them accepted them. The side of them that understood was functioning.
One time, we were collecting signatures on the 42nd street when we ran into a young Chinese man who not only refused to sign but also uttered a few very bad words. I saw him talking loudly to a practitioner and at the same time translating the conversation to his Western friends. I went over and handed a set of Chinese materials to him. This young man said that he cannot read Chinese. I asked him, "You're so young. How come you resent Falun Gong so much?" He said he learned about Falun Gong from the Chinese newspaper his father bought. After we clarified the truth to them, he gained a positive understanding of Falun Gong. I gave each of them a set of English flyers and also one set of Chinese flyers for the young man to take home to his parents. He happily accepted and said "Thank you." Seeing two people who might be saved entering into the train station, I smiled.
One day in August, my husband and I were displaying some pictures and spreading the Fa in Chinatown. At around 6 p.m., a Caucasian man started looking at the pictures. When he was almost finished, I handed him some flyers. He asked for more copies so he could bring these back to his students -- he was a teacher in a high school in Long Island. There have been quite a few people like this man.
Master said at the Lecture on the Fa at the Washington, D.C. International Conference, "Clarifying the truth isn't a simple matter--it's not only a matter of exposing the evil. When we clarify the truth we are saving sentient beings..." During the last three years of cultivation, there are many things I could have done better. I must study the Fa more, "...full of great aspirations while minding minor details" (Sage) and be diligent. Finally I'd like to end my speech with Master's poem "Solid Cultivation" and let's all improve ourselves together.
Study the Fa and obtain the Fa,
Learning and cultivating under guidance,
Referring to the Fa in doing everything,
Compliance is cultivation.
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Thank you, Master! Thank you, everyone!