(Clearwisdom.net)
The Honor of Practicing Falun Gong
My oldest sister started to practice Falun Gong in 1996 and told me that Falun Gong is the great Buddha Law of the universe. She promised me that Falun Gong was quite different from qigong she had practiced before and encouraged me to practice Falun Gong, too. I told her I would give it a try, but I was actually mocking her at heart. I thought, "Now you are unemployed and trying to find something to fill the void in your soul." One day she brought me a copy of Zhuan Falun and told me to read it from cover to cover at least once so that I would understand what kind of book this is. I took her advice and studied it once from cover to cover. It answered many questions I had about life and taught me that a person could leave the cycle of repeated reincarnations through cultivation practice. Zhuan Falun is a ladder to Heaven. Thus I started to practice Falun Gong at the end of 1997.
I have always been very healthy and had no illness before I started to practice Falun Gong. In other words, I was attracted to Falun Gong because I wanted to return to my true self. I didn't have any attachment to having my illness treated, so I made very quick progress and was very diligent. Except for my daytime job, housework, and family time, I devoted all my free time to studying the Fa and practicing the Falun Gong exercises. I practiced the five exercises once in the morning and once at night. Every week I went to a public plaza in my area to do the exercises and to promote Falun Gong. In my daily life, I required myself to follow Falun Gong's principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance. Despite tribulations and hardships, I felt blessed because Falun Gong miraculously soothed my soul and enriched my spirit.
In the early stages of my cultivation, my Primordial Spirit could leave my body. I often had out-of-body experiences and traveled to many different places in other dimensions. It was a wonderful feeling to fly in the air. One day I traveled to an ocean. There was a towering cliff in the midst of the wide open blue ocean. The cliff stuck out of the ocean like a thumb. On top of the cliff there was a serene and ethereal place with a beautiful landscape, small bridge, clear brook, and chirping birds. There was also a pond filled with lotus flowers moving in the breeze. Fireflies were resting on lotus pedals. Beside the lotus flower pond, a father was giving his son a lesson while a mother was weaving fabric. It was like a Xanadu. I stood on the shore longing to go to this place, but there was no boat in sight. Even if I could reach the cliff by boat, it would be impossible to climb up to the top of the cliff. It was a paradise to be seen and not to be reached. I have learned from this experience that cultivation practice is a very solemn matter and that I will reach and be allowed to live in such a beautiful paradise only by continuously eliminating my attachments, cultivating diligently, continuously elevating, and achieving higher realms.
One night I saw in a dream that Teacher's Fashen came to my home. Standing before me, Teacher was very tall and wearing a kesaya. The moment I saw Teacher, I felt warm at heart and called out, "Teacher!" with tears in my eyes. I opened my arms and hugged Teacher, overwhelmed with joy as though I were reuniting with Teacher. I felt enveloped by Teacher's enormous compassion. Next I felt a powerful force lifting me up in the air as though a space shuttle was about to be launched. I thought, "I must have reached Consummation and that's why Teacher is picking me up. But who is going to look after my child?" (At the time my child was only five years old.) The minute I had that thought, I fell to the ground. After I woke up, I enlightened to the fact that Teacher was hinting that I had a strong attachment to my child.
Teacher said,
"Those who are attached to affection for family will definitely be burned, entangled, and tormented by it. Pulled by the threads of affection and plagued by them throughout their lives, they will find it too late to regret at the end of their lives." ("Cultivators' Avoidances" in Essentials for Further Advancement)
Even the slightest attachment can hamper a cultivator in reaching Consummation. As I studied the Fa more, I learned that human society and everyday people are soaked in sentimentality. A cultivator must surpass the level of everyday people by replacing sentimentality with compassion.
Falun Gong Gave Me Strength to Face Tribulations
I felt terribly sad when Jiang Zemin and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to suppress Falun Gong on July 20, 1999. At the time, all the TV networks, newspapers, and radios in China repeatedly published fictitious stories and hate propaganda against Falun Gong to instigate people's hatred against Falun Gong and to justify the CCP's unlawful suppression of it. Later, many things happened in my family. My non-practitioner husband couldn't endure the torment of illness and killed himself by jumping off a building. He was only 36 when he died. However, these tribulations did not affect my will to practice Falun Gong. Instead, I witnessed that life is transient, which made me all the more determined to cultivate. I was very confident that nothing should affect my will to remain diligent. My oldest sister has exclaimed that tribulations have only made me stronger and more determined in practicing Falun Gong. I told her that it is all because of Teacher's help.
Financial problems had no effect on me, but heartache was almost unbearable. Many people would agree that it is the greatest misfortune for a middle-aged woman to lose her husband. If I had not been a Falun Gong practitioner, I don't know how I would have managed. It was Falun Gong that gave me righteous thoughts and a strong will.
Teacher said,
"If you, having taken up cultivation or reached Consummation, were to leave or consummate and become a god and yet have not paid off any of your debt, who would pay it off? Even if the debt is owed to a Dafa disciple, that's still unacceptable." ("Teaching the Fa at the Western U.S. International Fa Conference")
I sold my house to pay off the debt because I, as a practitioner, must not cause others any trouble. I can endure financial tribulations in life. I have a very rich spiritual life because I am a Falun Gong practitioner who is saving sentient beings.
Validating Falun Gong and Saving Sentient Beings at Work
To make ends meet, I found a part-time job at a lumber factory. Once I was settled, I began to devote myself to saving sentient beings. Because I spent most of the day at the factory and interacted with coworkers all day long, they all knew that I practiced Falun Gong and they knew about the unfortunate events that had happened in my family. I started to clarify the truth about Falun Gong to them and persuade them to withdraw from the CCP, the Youth League and/or the Young Pioneers. Some coworkers were very receptive and said that Falun Gong is good. Then I would give such coworkers a Falun Gong amulet (1). The majority of my coworkers took my advice and withdrew from the CCP and/or its affiliated organizations. During the process, I met a particularly stubborn coworker. I told him how the CCP has persecuted Falun Gong practitioners and I advised him to withdraw from it and/or its affiliated organizations. He said that he insisted on being a good child of the CCP and attributed my behavior to the shock of the misfortune in my family. Apparently there were evil beings in other dimensions obstructing him from accepting the truth. In addition, the misfortune in my family has seriously undermined my truth-clarification work and affected sentient beings' opportunity to be saved. This was also a form of persecution caused by the evil beings from other dimensions. The evil beings take different forms to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. I began to send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil beings' interference before I clarified the truth to him again. The next time, he gladly accepted the truth and agreed to withdraw from the CCP and/or its two affiliated leagues.
After work, I distributed Falun Gong truth-clarification materials. At first, I was pretty nervous. Then I thought, "I am saving sentient beings. This is the most righteous and sacred matter in the universe. I should not have any fear." As my righteous thoughts become increasingly stronger, I also became calmer. I put truth-clarification materials on supermarket shelves, into bicycle baskets, on door handles, through door slots, into milk boxes, and into mailboxes. I pasted them on store windows, put them on car seats, and much more. One day I took a taxi and decided this was a good opportunity to clarify the truth. I sent forth righteous thoughts before I spoke up. The taxi driver started to make casual conversation. He said, "The world is now a different place. I drive around all day, but I make very little money. I have to pay all kinds of taxes, and nearly all my monthly income goes to the taxes. How am I going to survive?" I took the opportunity to tell him about the CCP's corruption, about the CCP persecution of Falun Gong, and about the inevitability of the CCP meeting with heavenly retribution for its wicked deeds. Next I told him about withdrawing from the CCP and its associated organizations in order to erase the mark of the beast for the sake of his personal safety. He replied, "I should have done it a long time ago. How do I withdraw from the CCP's Youth League or Young Pioneers?" I explained, "I can publish a statement on your behalf on The Epoch Times' website announcing your withdrawal from the CCP organizations. You can use a pseudonym to withdraw." Actually, it is not as difficult as one might think to persuade people to withdraw from the CCP. As long as you put your mind to it, you will see incredible results. The sentient beings are waiting for the truth and Teacher's salvation.
I work with a paper-gluing machine at work. There is a glue roller on top and another glue roller on the bottom. There is a space of about three to five centimeters between the two rollers for the paper to pass through. When the rollers start to roll, glue will be applied to the paper between the rollers. It is an electric machine. One day I accidentally put one of my hands between the two rollers, which crushed and rolled my fingers. My mind instantly went blank. When I realized what had happened, I immediately turned off the machine. By the time I managed to pull my hand out of the machine, it had been over 10 seconds already. My coworkers shrieked in fear and surrounded me. The factory manager came to check on me and asked, "Are you all right?" I said, "I am a Falun Gong practitioner. I will be all right." Then I raised my hand in the air. I stretch my hand and made a fist for a few times. My hand was unharmed. The manager said, "You gave me a fright. This has happened before, but the worker's skin and flesh were peeled off by the rollers. Her finger bones were crushed to bits. She spent more than 50,000 yuan on medical treatments, but the hospital could not save her hand, and they had to cut it off. But your hand is not even bleeding. It is truly a miracle." I told the manager, "Every Falun Gong practitioner is watched over by our Teacher. I am perfectly all right."
Afterwards, the manager was afraid that I might sue the factory, so he bought medicine for me and asked to take me to a hospital. I said, "Don't worry. We Falun Gong practitioners will never take advantage of anyone. Please remember that Falun Gong is good."
Teacher said,
"We have said that good or evil comes from a person's spontaneous thought, and the thought at that moment can bring about different consequences." ("Upgrading Xinxing" in Lecture Four of Zhuan Falun)
If I thought of taking advantage of the manager or the factory, it would be unthinkable what might have happened to my hand. Again I witnessed Falun Gong's greatness.
As a cultivator, I must base all my words, actions, and thoughts when I face a problem on the Fa. I must check my words and actions against the Fa at all times, and respond to every situation with righteous thoughts. This is a state that a cultivator should have.
Note:
(1) Amulet - In China, practitioners sometimes clarify the truth by giving people something small to wear or cherish, bearing a few words reminding them of the goodness of Dafa.
