(Clearwisdom.net) It was early 2007 when I bought a copy of Zhuan Falun in Singapore. I felt so good after reading it. The book talked about so many things I did not understand before: Why human beings live in this world; a person must not do bad deeds because there are next lives, and the retributions generated by bad deeds could be carried into next lives; etc. I started to reflect on the bad things I had done before. I had always believed in the existence of gods and Buddha since I was little, but due to being exposed to many years of atheist education under the evil Chinese Communist Party (CCP), knowingly and unknowingly I was following others and doubting myself - does God really exist? After reading Zhuan Falun I realized that what I used to believe was all true and could be explained. My lifestyle and behavior started to change without my noticing.

My family was relatively well off in China. I had almost never been refused anything since I was young--my parents had tried their best to satisfy all of my material needs. Partly due to their divorce when I was very young, they tried to compensate me in other ways. Mother and Father were both busy with businesses, and my childhood years were spent with my grandmother, who was very kind and loving but could not replace my parents. Due to my parents' divorce, I lacked a sense of security and had become very selfish and possessive, to a rebellious degree, so that no one in the family could manage me. I always grabbed what I wanted and never cared how others might feel. After reading Zhuan Falun I corrected myself little by little in daily life, no longer haggling with others, and I tried to see things from others' perspective. Gradually I lost my bad habit of losing my temper when annoyed. I tried my best to do well in everything I did.

A few months later, my boyfriend of ten years left me. I discovered that he had been cheating on me for almost five years, having a secret relationship with a girl in another city. I handled the matter rationally and swiftly severed all connections with him. In the following six months I was so busy both with my studies and also hanging around with new pursuers that I overlooked Fa study. My life took a downturn, and I failed three subjects out of four, each by just two or three points. I couldn't believe what was happening.

I re-read Zhuan Falun from the beginning, and my heart was immediately at ease. My seven-year long smoking and drinking habits and the insomnia problem that had accompanied me since childhood all left me. When I returned home at the end of that year, I was a completely different person. I stayed home for a whole week, watching Jinan and Dalian Lecture videos and learning the five exercises. I felt like I was being reborn. The way I looked at things and people and my views were all different from before, like shedding a layer of something. I was also more resolute with the path that I had chosen.

I ran into my former boyfriend during the Chinese New Year. To my surprise I had not one bit of hatred for him. I only felt pity for him. Dafa had dissolved the hatred in my heart, and I truly experienced the beauty brought by tolerance and forbearance. I helped him withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations and gave him and the girl next to him my blessings.

I really wished that more people would know about the beauty of Dafa, so I started to get involved in presenting information about Dafa to others. In the beginning my heart would pound when I distributed materials on my own. Later we formed a cooperative group to distribute materials on the buses and clarify the facts in taxis. Although I made only a limited number of trips, the experience showed me clearly the difficulties and dangers that practitioners face in saving sentient beings. I also felt the pressure and hindrances coming from everywhere--from friends' suspicious looks to resistance from my most loved ones. Although I could feel the grievances of being wronged, I could no longer put down Dafa.

1. Cultivation is more difficult than I had imagined. With reference to the Fa, I have too many attachments that I need to let go of.

In early 2008 I had to make a decision between two choices. One was to do further study in Australia, the other was to stay in the mainland to develop the family business. The business needed me at the time and my new boyfriend was proposing to me daily. Since I had decided to cultivate in Dafa, this decision had become rather difficult. In Australia there would be a safe environment for cultivation, but I was also conscious of the implication that, once I went, it would be impossible for me to return home in the near future. Thus, I had to let go of many things: I have relatives and friends in China, a nice and comfortable home and car, and my own business; a suitable person wanted to marry me; and I was at the prime of life. A life that would be everyone's envy was within my easy reach, and these were things that had seemed so important to me before I started to cultivate. Just at that point in time, I watched Master's lecture to Australian practitioners on DVD and heard Master mention that Australia needs practitioners to clarify the truth. I thought I should obey Master. Since I had the opportunity to go to Australia, I should go there to validate the Fa, and I must not be burdened by my own selfish desires. After all, cultivation is a process of letting go of attachments. Dafa disciples are on a divine path, things that are desirable to everyday people are not our pursuits. I ignored the strong objections of my boyfriend and decided to go to Australia.

2. Walking my cultivation path well in the free land of Australia

I arrived in Melbourne in April 2008. Apart from my studies I immersed myself among local Dafa practitioners very quickly. This gave me the sense of a fulfilling and meaningful life. Although such participation required much time and energy, plus I was putting Dafa related work before everything else and there was no material reward, I felt uplifted spiritually. I was no longer confined in my own world, no longer losing sleep over personal loss and gain. I felt a simplistic kind of happiness that I had never experienced before. At the time I did not know about "unconditional cooperation." My only thought was that I would do anything Dafa needed, that the Fa has priority above everything. When this thought emerged, my meditation time in the full lotus position improved with a quantum leap. The pain used to become unbearable after just three to five minutes in this position. Now, all a sudden, I could do double-crossed for half an hour. I felt Master's compassion. It was Master who endured for me.

3. Family

By end of 2008, my father learned that I was practicing Falun Gong. With negative notions instilled by the evil CCP, he tried to "educate" me over the phone. Because of my competitive sentiments, I argued with him, arousing his resistance. He said that if I continued with my cultivation he would no longer accept me as his daughter. Putting down the phone I felt terribly wronged. I had changed so much for the better compared to myself before. I took on the care of my younger brother on my own initiative, quit smoking and alcohol, no longer threw tantrums when I liked, and even got rid of my irrational spending habit. I was trying so hard to be a good person, why should he be blind to all these improvements and be so horrid to me?

After I calmed down, I started to look inwards: Why did I feel I was being wronged? It was because I had a strong attachment to loss and again, expecting that, whenever I did anything, others had to acknowledge me. Also, Father's misunderstanding of Dafa was due to my fear and therefore my failure to clarify the truth to him well. I had absolutely no reason to feel wronged. The more vigorous his objection in this human realm, the stronger his knowing side in another dimension wishes to know the truth and yearn for salvation. It was, in fact, my fault. I started to write to my father. I wrote over 10 pages, about how I had changed, about the CCP's evildoings, and about Dafa's beauty. I hurried to drop the letter into the mailbox when I finished and only realized afterwards that I had not put any stamps on it. The post office said that I could only wait at home for the letter to return. Many days passed, but there was no sign of the letter. It would not be easy to rewrite such a long letter, so I begged Master for help, that the letter wouldn't be lost, because it was for saving a sentient being. A few days later Father rang me, saying he had received the letter. I almost started to cry--I knew that Master must have helped me--how could it be that an international letter without stamps reached its destination? After reading my letter, Father is no longer opposed to my cultivation.

4. I am a Dafa disciple

I am a Dafa disciple. Dafa is the Fa that creates the universe, so Dafa disciples are capable of anything. With this mindset I entered the "Han Couture Competition." I hadn't done any drawing for more than ten years and did not have tailoring or sewing skills. In three months' time I learned a number of Han Couture patterns and, with the help of fellow practitioners, I made three Han Couture suites. Although they did not win an award, the production process was, for me, so precious, because I had the opportunity to experience practitioners' pure hearts without pursuit and their selfless cooperation. An elderly practitioner in her 70s was always there to help if I ran into any problems, even in the late hours of the night. Her motto is: "We must do well what Master asked of us." Another lady practitioner said to me when I gave her some very tedious tasks, "It doesn't matter. What's most important is that we must do it well. Let us know how it will look good, and we will do it that way." I think only Dafa practitioners could have such big hearts and be so tolerant. These ladies themselves are good examples for new practitioners like me.

5. Omissions

During my two years of cultivation there were many xinxing tests that I had to pass, and sometimes I did not do well. For example, because I used to be domineering from the time I was young, wherever we go, people always gave way to me and I used to take it for granted. So when my opinion was not accepted, I would feel discomfort, always regarding my opinion as the best. When this happened I was not trying to be a selfless being according to Master's requirements, not validating the Fa, but trying to validate the impure human-self. Once I had an argument with a fellow practitioner. During the argument I thought to myself, "What a so-called veteran, acting so horrid without any bit of shan (benevolence)." When I got home I felt something was wrong, so I looked inward. I discovered sentimentalities of jealousy, feeling disdainful of others, and judging people by appearances. When I saw this practitioner the next time, I smiled to her first. Surprisingly, her attitude towards me turned around 180 degrees. Whenever I met her later, she always had a smile on her face. I enlightened to the principle of "Xiang-you-xin-sheng" (The face is the index of the mind). It was because of the rudeness in my heart that I saw the manifestation of rudeness in her expression. When I let go of this heart, the fellow practitioner became lovely to look at.

I still have many attachments, the most obvious ones being lust, jealousy, and attachment to comfort. Master said lust is the first trial in cultivation, but I am still getting interferences. When I looked inward, I discovered other attachments behind lust, like vanity and an inferiority complex, as I enjoy the feeling of being praised. The evil long ago made arrangements for my attachments, so there are always different members of the opposite sex appearing in my life acting to please me, trying to drag me down using my sentiments. But their efforts will be in vain. Master has told us that "everything encountered by a cultivator is a good thing." I understand that the evil beings are exposed when these things happen, so it will also be the best opportunity for me to clean them up, as well as to purify and rectify myself.

I would like to end with a bit of my enlightenment in cultivation. I think the most important thing in cultivation is to obey Master. Regardless of whether it is Fa study, Dafa projects, or doing the exercises, we must always listen to Master's guidance. Many times I have heard our photographer practitioners talk about their difficulty in not being able to take a good shot with the group doing the exercises uniformly, especially exercises three and four. Yet Taiwan practitioners do them uniformly. Later I observed that everybody says, "Listen to Master," but when Master gives instructions on the exercise tape, everybody does not listen, doing "guan" when Master says "chong" and "chong" when Master says "guan." Won't that upset the qi mechanism Master has installed for us? My understanding is that when Master says "chong-guan" (the hand movement in the third exercise) he is indeed helping practitioners do "chong-guan." If we do not listen to Master in cultivation and do not do the exercises following the qi-ji given to us by Master, won't that be a kind of attachment to one's own "self?" If we could always obey Master no matter when, where, or in what we do, maybe Fa rectification would be completed very soon.

One more thing is to study the Fa well. Master has emphasized Fa study to us again and again. In his message to the First Fa Conference in India, Master again told us to "study the Fa well and abundantly--and do so frequently." I have experienced more interference in clarifying the truth when I have not studied the Fa enough, even becoming speechless or saying things that are not on the Fa. Not studying the Fa well means not assimilating to the Fa, so the Fa's power will not be there. I see some veteran practitioners around me shouldering so much Dafa work, sleeping only two or three hours a night but still able to keep up with daily Fa study and the exercises. I wish I could be as diligent and sever all my attachments to comfort. I should not allow this rotten matter to interfere with me on my journey home, following Master.

Above is my limited understanding in cultivation. I sincerely hope fellow practitioners will kindly point out any insufficiency. Heshi