(Clearwisdom.net)
I began practicing Falun Dafa in 2002. Master had arranged for a man to come to a remote town in Western Australia to teach the Falun Dafa exercises. He was a martial arts instructor and he thought the exercises were powerful but was not interested in cultivation. I did not know about Zhuan Falun or that Falun Gong was being persecuted at that time.
Nevertheless, in the first weeks of practicing the exercises, I knew in my heart that this was something I would do right up until the end and I surrendered myself to the practice. I had problems with drinking alcohol and I had a deep wish to give it up but just could not. During the 3rd week of practicing, without even having read the book Zhuan Falun, I could not drink another sip of alcohol as it made me nauseous.
I knew Falun Dafa was special so I searched the web and found Zhuan Falun and photocopied it for me to read. As I read the book, all the supernatural phenomena that Master teaches us during In Triple World Fa cultivation happened to me over a few weeks. I floated up one day with the blanket also floating above me. I could see from the back of my head and I saw my big eye looking in at me when my third eye was about to open, I could read others thoughts and see some scenes in other dimensions. I know now that Master was encouraging me to keep cultivating in Dafa as there were no other practitioners in the southwest and Perth practitioners were 500 km away.
One day I was sent a video from Perth practitioners of Master showing us the big hand signs. I asked my husband to copy the video for me. He hooked up 2 video players to copy them and the TV was right next to them. When Master began his big hand signs I knew what he was saying even though there were no words. I cried deep tears of joy in remembering my vow and being so grateful to Master for finding me again.
My husband told me that neither video machines were connected, yet Masters video was playing on the TV. He was very excited. I told him that this miracle was for him and that I had already had my miracle in Master waking me up to return home.
Several years later, in 2005, I passed the test of life and death through sickness karma when I found a large lump on my arm and assumed it was cancer. I realized that I had not let go of my fundamental attachment and I was using the Fa to escape the cycle of samsara. When I finally enlightened to our great mission to put first saving sentient beings and help to rectify the cosmos, the lump disappeared.
Over the next few years I immersed myself into all Fa Rectification projects. Some were successful, others not. I read all of Master lectures from beginning to end many times and even though he tirelessly asked us to cooperate with each other and let go of our attachments to self. I found in April 2010 that I had not done very well in those areas. I thought I had, but the reality was in the proof of our failed recent projects.
I found that when working on the projects, many things I experienced were not addressed in our small group. I stayed silent to protect my job, my status and my untrue self. After one project failed to succeed, without any real sharing except to express disappointment, we went on to another. I realise now that I had never looked inwards even once while working on those projects. I just did not know how to.
I pondered why I could not look inwards. The basis of cultivating is doing the three things well. My righteous thoughts were not strong and my Fa study was not deep. I wasn’t doing the exercises every day either. I was reading quickly with my eyes and not my heart. I still had not been able to accomplish full lotus that involved my inability to forbear.
I was disillusioned about myself and our group of practitioners as is seemed no one wanted to or could share on the Fa. I realized that protecting self was damaging my cultivation and our one body. But I just did not know how to let go.How could I speak out if I did not have true compassion?
A chain of events occurred involving our whole group; misunderstandings, gossip and untrue thoughts and actions - all very human. I caused a lot of pain to a few practitioners and to our one body.
It all came to a head last April. We all decided to have a Fa study and sharing and the practitioners who I had hurt deeply came into the room. I was shocked seeing their pain so visible through what I had done. We discussed things for an hour or so and still there was no breakthrough. I saw one practitioner crying and the other looked like he had gone grey overnight. It seemed no was willing to let go.
Through experiencing true compassion in that moment, I looked inwards unconditionally for the first time and saw the hurt I had caused through my inability to cultivate well.
So with Masters help and a deep wish in my heart to let go of self, compassion emerged and I apologized to my fellow practitioners and vowed I would never talk or gossip about any practitioner again. Once practitioners saw I was my true self we hugged each other and I apologized to each of them.
That night Master cleared out some very selfish and bad things from me. When I went to sleep that night at a fellow practitioner’s house and I had to rush to the toilet and was like this for the next 48 hours non-stop. I remember going home 2 days later and I was incredibly light and simple minded. My thoughts were compassionate and I was very peaceful and we talked on the Fa all the way home.
From that time on if any problems came up then I would look inwards, and I could easily find the attachments now. Then I’d send forth righteous thoughts and then see what would happen and repeat the process over again as many times as was needed to eliminate the attachment .I could also finally sit in full lotus for the sitting meditation.
I began to polish articles for a Dafa-related website and in that environment reading the sharing’s from Chinese practitioners I learned so much. Living away from the larger body of practitioners in Australia this Fa rectification project became my environment over the winter months.
I learned how the practitioners in China study and improve together, helping each other and kindly pointing out one another’s attachments to be responsible to the main body. No one seemed to be hurt or insulted or aggrieved by this and I was encouraged by the elevation their groups all experienced especially in the face of a violent persecution.
I came to understand that not being responsible to our one body is the exact gap the old forces will use to try to destroy us. Being responsible to our one body includes believing in Master by really listening to and applying his Fa especially when he has written a new Fa article for us. We have to take it seriously and leave no loopholes.
I realized that studying the Fa everyday with my heart instead of my eyes is essential. If we have the Fa in our heart then Master can help us all the way. Monitoring our thoughts all day every day is essential to distinguish what is our true self and what is not which can then be eliminated.
I found when I said, “I walk the path that Master has arranged for me and deny all old force arrangements” sometimes I would have to say it a few times until the notion had been dispersed. Sometimes I could even offer benevolent solutions and after a few days the interference would be gone.
Looking inwards and checking our minds and hearts at all times is essential. By being selfless enough to share and recognize our untrue selves and to expose them for what these notions are - “not us” - is also an integral element of cultivation in Dafa.
I believe that everything Master says is true. Trusting in our Falun Dafa association and to coordinate well and improve on the Fa is essential to our cultivation in this stage otherwise Master would not have taught the Fa on this matter. We are all still cultivating so we are bound to make mistakes. How we handle them is a measure of our levels in cultivation. Instead of looking at what others are doing lets all look inwards first. All the keys to our knots are in our selves. Human beings look outwards and hurt each other by never accepting the truth of the situation. We are cultivators going home to our realms. How will we reach or govern our realms if we do not let go of self?
Master said,
"Actually, though, as a Dafa disciple, if in such cases your thoughts are righteous, and what you are thinking about is cultivation, about being responsible, and about how it's something that should be done well, then you should quietly take whatever it is that you feel is lacking and do it well. That is in fact how a Dafa disciple should handle it. If all Dafa disciples could manage to handle things in this manner, everything out there would go extremely well, for sure." ("Be More Diligent")
I study the Fa online four nights a week with a fellow practitioner in another city. We have learned to share our true selves and expose our untrue selves with each other. We are confident whatever needs to be let go of will come up in the Fa article that we are reading that night. It has become an essential to our path of cultivation now.
I have seen the change in my study group here in my hometown. We are benefiting from a compassionate sharing group with relatively new practitioners. They say the environment is just so pure that this is nowhere to be found in the world.
My area is a tourist attraction. We had many tests this year hosting the Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance exhibition but through rationality, cooperation and a deep trust in the Fa to save sentient beings, this year we had 1,398 sentient beings come through. We are booked in again for this year as it has become a tourist “must see” now in the southwest.
We were in the Perth Xmas Pageant 2010 after missing out the previous year due to our lack of cooperation. On the last stretch holding the banner I turned around to see my fellow practitioners performing and saw a Falun in cloud formation in the sky. At that moment the Pageant Announcer shouted out “Falun Dafa is good” for thousands of Chinese people to hear.
I am thankful to all I have experienced in cultivation of Dafa with my fellow practitioners all over the world. I am thankful I was finally able to let go of self and trust practitioners without question and know that whatever happens it will always be the best solution and there is nothing that we cannot improve on or rectify.
