(Clearwisdom.net) I am an elderly practitioner living in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province. I would like to share my cultivation experience concerning the elimination of my long term "sickness karma."
Not Knowing to Look inward, I Often Encountered Problems
During the years 2008 - 2009, my whole body became edematous and I suffered from urinary retention and shortness of breath. The sickness was so severe that I could not handle my personal affairs any longer. I did not put down the fear of death and did not have enough righteous thoughts. I took the actions of an everyday person and checked into the hospital for treatment many times.
The hospital diagnosed me with a stroke and recommended that I undergo heart bypass surgery. I was informed that my condition was life threatening. In the beginning, I was very confused and did not consider that this was elimination of karma or the old forces persecuting me. I started to develop a depressed attitude. Later, I sent forth righteous thoughts just to get rid of the sickness karma, but did not deny the arrangement set by the old forces. I recalled thinking that all of the arrangements were coming from the old forces and that the evil wanted to trap me. I had so many attachments and shortcomings that for a long time I did not know how to look inward. With all of these problems piled up inside me, this became a big tribulation. Therefore, the old forces were sneaking in to persecute me. During the period of these huge tribulations, I walked down the path of life in a most irregular and crooked manner and I encountered many problems. However, I never lost hope because I felt that Master and Dafa were with me.
In 2008, I heard that the price of rice and cooking oil would go up, so I stocked up and bought lots of it. Even today, I have still not finished using it all up. At that time, Master gave me a hint, but I did not enlighten to it, and my attachments grew. I found that I had the attachment of suspicion. Whenever I could not find my Dafa books and materials I thought that it was my husband's fault. I always thought I had a kind heart, but I harbored a show-off mentality. One of my obvious shortcomings was that I seemed unable to get up at midnight to send righteous thoughts. Sometimes I got up at the right time, but I fell back asleep. Now I realize that this was evil interference that I could not get through and so I was always interfered with. Each time I was regretful, but I felt helpless to change. Although I identified some of my shortcomings, I did not eliminate them right away and so my unhealthy state did not improve.
Learn to Look Inward and Walk the Path Arranged by Master
In 2009, I visited my hometown. I did not want my relatives to worry about me while I was there, so I took my medicine all the time. Two days after I returned home, I found that my body had begun to swell again. I realized that taking the medicine all the time was apparently quite useless. So, if it seemed useless, why did I continue to take it? Therefore, I stopped taking the medicines. I contacted my fellow practitioners and together we went out to clarify the truth to save sentient beings.
One of the practitioners suggested that we join a group Fa study. Sometime later, only a fellow practitioner and I were still studying together, but we achieved good results nonetheless. We both experienced some improvements. Initially, we went out together to clarify the truth, but soon we were able to go out separately and had good results with this plan too. I knew that studying the Fa together had helped us both. Since Master himself asked that we study the Fa together, we felt that it was what we should do. Of course, I clarified the truth and studied the Fa with others to do the things that I should do rather than to resolve my karma. Since it was Master's requirement for us to do this, no matter if there were tribulations or not, we still needed to do so.
For years, when any bad thoughts came into my mind, I just knew to eliminate them. I would not think about where the bad thoughts came from. I did not want to use my mind and that was also a form of laziness. I started to think about where these bad thoughts came from and why they came into my mind. One day, in July of this year, I was practicing exercises on the balcony and I was afraid of being seen by others. I thought that the evil was allowing me to practice at home, but then considered that this was in reality an acknowledgment of the evil. I knew that the evil did not want Dafa practitioners coming out to validate Fa. I started to deny it, but about half an hour later, another thought came into my mind. Was the arrangement set by the old forces able to lift me up to a certain degree in the aspect of my cultivation? Soon, I realized that was not right and I should seriously eliminate these thoughts. These thoughts did not conform to the Fa and were caused by the old forces and I should not acknowledge them. Without Master, I could not have lived until today and I would have been destroyed by the old forces long ago. Only Master and only Fa could save me. If I deviated from the Fa, there was only the path of death waiting for me. With my righteous thoughts strengthened, I got rid of my attachment to fear.
Attachments of not allowing criticism or directions from others were not easy to identify and thus, not removed. Whenever criticized by others, I would be as mad as a firecracker and as easily set off. Whenever a conflict surfaced, I would use everyday people's principles to judge right and wrong. I always thought I was right and so I would not accept the other person's ideas. To the contrary, I would magnify the other person's faults. During that time I failed to look inward for the attachments that I saw in others. Later, more articles talking about this issue were published on the Minghui Weekly, and by receiving the hint from Master, I learned to look inward on my own accord.
Recently, a fellow practitioner suggested we have one certain practitioner be our project coordinator. I felt it was very sudden, but due to the attachment of sentimentality (afraid of upsetting others), I agreed with the practitioner right on the spot. When I was back home, I started to feel uneasy and was concerned that this practitioner had cultivated so badly and that she would lead everyone down the wrong path. My emotion of competitiveness came out. Finally, I started to become angry. I was upset that a fellow practitioner set this up without consulting with everyone. I even had a feeling of disgust. While I studied the Fa, I read this paragraph:
"But this problem also shows up among true cultivators who don't admit that other people are good and don't get rid of their competitiveness. They're likely to get jealous." (Zhuan Falun, 2003 edition)
Thus, I became aware of this jealous mind with which I could not achieve Consummation.
Based on this, nearly every day I was able to identify my shortcomings and attachments. Without looking inward, I would not know. Upon starting to look inward, I was surprised to find that there were many, many shortcomings, attachments, and human concepts hiding in me. This year I did better than ever before at identifying all my attachments and asking for help to remove them.
With Strong Righteous Thoughts, I Eliminated My Sickness Karma
During my "sickness karma" period, I wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. In the beginning, I tried not to think about my "sickness." That was easier said than done because it seemed as if it were always present. The old forces persecuted me physically while pushing bad thoughts into my mind. Sometimes, when I came out to clarify the truth or meet with fellow practitioners, interference such as having no energy to walk, shortness of breath, dizziness and shoulder pain appeared. I knew these symptoms should be recognized as false and eliminated with righteous thoughts. Once, after experiencing symptoms, I remembered that while walking on the path to becoming an enlightened being, nothing could block me. I then sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate them. Since I did not acknowledge the “sickness,” and the symptoms vanished quickly.
While I was writing this cultivation sharing article, I experienced major interference. I saw shiny dots the size of ball point pen tips floating before my eyes. I started to eliminate this dark phenomena and interference from the Chinese Communist Party's evil things. My body still had some edema and appeared quite swollen. That night, my husband asked me, "Are you fat or swollen?" I said,"Fat or swollen, it does not matter." I decided to put down all of these worries completely. When I attempted to check if my body was still swollen or not, I also thought that I must let go of this whole idea of symptoms and sickness and not accept it at all. Whenever the thought of "sickness karma" came out, I immediately thought of what Master said:
"That's why they taught about "body, mouth, mind."They talked about minding the body, which meant that a person shouldn't do bad things; by minding the mouth, they meant that you should be silent; and by minding the mind, they meant that you shouldn't even think about something." (Zhuan Falun, 2003 edition)
After repeating these words of Master’s several times, I no longer thought about any negative things. Whenever my body experienced a bad state I recited Master's words:
"We'd say that a good or bad outcome comes from one thought. The difference in one thought leads to different results." (Zhuan Falun, 2003 edition)
At that time I knew that I would be OK, and then the sickness symptoms would vanish. That was the result of the mighty power of the Fa.
Overall, I believe that "sickness karma" occurred as a result of not being able to cast off my fear of death. If I could have let go of the fear of death, I would not have had the issues of “sickness symptoms.” I experienced difficulties on my path because I myself did not meet that standard of the Fa. However, I did not lose confidence and realized that all these evil things would eventually be eliminated through the Fa-rectification of the universe. As Master said in Greetings:
"Fa-rectification is sure to succeed, and Dafa disciples are sure to achieve Consummation." (“Greetings”, February 6, 2008)