(Minghui.org) Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
As I humbly stand before you today, I am forever grateful to Master and Dafa for showing me the way and guiding me to truly understand myself. When or how my journey began many, many lifetimes ago, I do not know, at least not yet. But, I will always remember the exact moment in which I consciously reclaimed my path in this lifetime.
It was the summer of 2010, I was watching a movie about two dying men. For some reason, as I was sitting on my living room floor, I started to think about my mortality and what it is that I would wish for if I were on my death bed. First, I thought about what other people would wish for: “Wishing they spent more time with family, that they traveled more, worked less, enjoyed more things in life.” Then, I looked deep into my heart and asked myself what I would say. I recall vividly that one wish, which was: “During my lifetime, I wish I did not hurt anyone. Even if I lived the rest of my life with no travel or material wealth, as long as I can die knowing that I did not hurt anyone, then I will have died happy.”
However, because I had so many shortcomings, the wish was more of just that, a wish rather than a reality. I thought to myself, “With such serious character flaws, how is it possible for me to go through life not hurting anyone?” I was quickly saddened by this realization. But I was also determined to overcome these flaws which prevented me from achieving my wish. I decided the best way to get rid of them was to acknowledge them, so I wrote down all the things I did not like about myself in a notebook: being judgmental, my insensitivity, my intolerance, my obsessiveness, and my anger. By the time I finished, there were 12 things listed altogether. For a moment, I stared at the list and memorized it so that at any time in the future when my emotions arose, and before I lashed out at others, I would think back to my list to see if it was caused by any one of these character flaws. Over time, I found some of these manageable; but still, for the most part, the days went on where I found my shortcomings absolutely impossible to overcome.
Then one autumn day I had a phone conversation with my brother, who told me he was reading Zhuan Falun and practicing Falun Gong. He shared with me some of the teachings and principles, and instantly I knew it was a book worth reading. As soon as I got my hands on Zhuan Falun that following Christmas, I quickly finished it and discovered this was exactly what I have been unknowingly searching for. Through revelations of the truths of the universe, Master gave me the way to relinquish my shortcomings, or what I soon came to know as my attachments. With Master’s teachings as the fundamental basis, and keeping in mind my dying wish as motivation, I finally was able to truly begin crossing off the things on my list. Over the coming months, my wish became less and less of a wish and more and more of a reality.
Since I’ve joined the local Fa study group, I’ve been able to learn and grow in so many ways. Being out in Chinatown, clarifying the truth helped me cultivate and realize my attachments to fear and anxiety from people staring, smirking, and cursing at me. In the beginning, the thought of going to Chinatown would send all sorts of excuses running rampant in my mind. Basically, these excuses were telling me not to go to Chinatown even after I had already made up my mind to go. The anxiety of going to Chinatown came in the form of many excuses, some of which were, “I need to go home and study the Fa; I have to do the exercises; I barely speak any Chinese, so others who speak Chinese should go instead. And how do I know this isn’t something the coordinators have made up for us to do, instead of it being Master’s wishes?”
However, even with the intensity in which these excuses inundated my mind, I started to question my own thinking. Were my excuses really justified? So I used the Fa to guide me in thinking rationally. First, I thought, “Isn’t what the coordinator is asking of me conforming to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance? If Master had to directly tell us what to do every step of the way, would that be considered enlightening on one's own?” In regards to not speaking Chinese, well the answer was pretty obvious: all I had to do was learn. I just needed to know a few phrases that I could repeat over and over again. Continuing with this approach, I discovered I had an answer for every excuse I had concocted in my mind. In the end, there really was no good reason whatsoever for not going to Chinatown.
I later came to understand that those excuses were my human notions at play and not my true self speaking. And these were exactly the ordinary human mindset and postnatal notions that I need to eliminate as part of my cultivation.
However, eliminating these attachments was not a matter of one simple step. It took a process, and I was tested over and over again. I remember the very first time I was yelled at by a passerby when I was distributing the Chinese Epoch Times. The elderly lady called me a "traitor" and cursed me as she briskly walked by. At first I tried to ignore it, but it really did bother me, and I kept dwelling on it. My thoughts were not very righteous that day. I thought, "What's the use of me standing out here when nobody even cares?"
After that instance, the thought of going to Chinatown caused a lot of anxiety to rise within me each time. This continued on for a period of weeks. Then one day at work, I started to reflect on my attitude about going to Chinatown and why I was so unsuccessful at passing out flyers. I started to recall the stories told by Dafa practitioners and their experiences. Through all the stories, I found one common theme that made each and every one of them successful, and that was having righteous thoughts. Like a light bulb going off, I finally realized what having righteous thoughts actually meant. So I started to change my perspective and my attitude towards being out there. I decided to go to Chinatown after work that day and that I would repel any and all excuses preventing me from going. To ensure that I couldn’t back out, I intentionally sent out an email to my local Fa study group letting them know that I would be going to Chinatown and asked if anyone wanted to join me. Since what we cultivate is Truthfulness, I knew that after clicking that send button, there was no turning back, even if no one responded to the email.
When 4:30 p.m. hit that day, off I went with an air of confidence to save sentient beings. Whether it was arranged by the old forces or by Master, I do not know, but as soon as I got there my resolve was instantly put to the test. I was told by one of the Dafa practitioners already in Chinatown to go to Stockton street to distribute flyers. Before I even made it half way up the hill, I already encountered a lady who cursed Falun Gong. This time, however, I was prepared. I told myself, "I am here on a mission, and I must have righteous thoughts. I can't let my encounter with this one person deter me from finding others who can be saved." So I made my way up to the corner full of confidence that I CAN save sentient beings. With righteous thoughts, I started to pass out the flyers. Before I knew it, people were openly accepting material as if it were candy. In less than two hours time, I distributed almost 200 flyers.
This experience was a major turning point for me in my cultivation; it taught me how important a role righteous thoughts play in everything we do. It taught me that I really do have the power to repel negative thoughts. As long as I don't allow something to take root in my heart, then it can never do so. The choice was up to me whether I let other people’s words disturb my inner peace. Thereafter, anytime a negative comment was made towards me, I reminded myself to quickly discard what that person said and did not dwell on it even for one split second. By doing so, I prevented any postnatal notions from forming within me and taking root. Since then, I’ve not only successfully applied this understanding to my clarifying the truth in Chinatown, but also in my everyday life with friends, family, and coworkers.
Being out in Chinatown and doing other Dafa related projects, I started to slack off on doing the exercises. I once thought to myself, “How is it possible to study the Fa, do the exercises, clarify the truth in Chinatown, promote Shen Yun, be involved with The Epoch Times, and have a full-time job?” It all seemed so hard. I didn’t realize it then, but Master has indeed been watching over me the whole time and giving me hints. One of the hints came in the middle of the night. For a period of time, while I was sleeping, I would suddenly be awakened by the jerking of my arms. At first, I wasn’t sure what was happening because I was still groggy and half asleep; but then, to my amazement, I realized my hands were moving by themselves. And not only were they moving by themselves, but they were mimicking the movements of the exercises.
I started to wonder: does this mean I should be getting out of bed to do the exercises? Being so tired, I kept telling myself, “I can’t do that; otherwise I would be too tired for work in the morning.” This happened every so often for a period of weeks. Then one night, after being awakened by the movements of my arms, I asked in a groggy state, “Master, does this mean I should be getting up to do the exercises?” I also had a mental image of Master in my head. At that moment, my body automatically bolted right up into a sitting position. But, being so tired I just laid back down in bed. Shortly after, my hands started moving again. And again I asked, “Master, am I supposed to get up and do the exercises?” Again, my body automatically shot up. But this time, it continued to propel itself to the opposite side of my bed and then got me out of bed, where I wound up standing and staring down at my cell phone. (I always use my cell phone to play the music for the exercises.) So upon squarely facing my phone, I finally “enlightened” to what I was supposed to do, which was to do the exercises. So I did exercises 1-4 for an entire hour. After going back to bed, I had no problems waking up just a few hours later to get ready for work. As a matter of fact, I woke up a few minutes before my alarm went off. Throughout my day at work, I did not feel tired, nor was I yawning. After that experience, I realized that if I adjusted my sleep schedule and slept a little bit less, I can actually do my exercises in the morning, which is what I have been doing since then. I laughed when thinking back on how I was given so many obvious hints and did not get it. I truly do thank Master for not giving up on this stubborn disciple who loves to sleep so much.
It turns out that going to clarify the truth in Chinatown was one of the best things that I could have done for my cultivation. All my feelings of anxiety came out of my own imagination. I no longer have these feelings after I did not allow these thoughts to develop in me.
Being out there allowed me to realize the effects that clarifying the truth had on me, and I was enlightened to what it means when Master said in “Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference”:
“…for those Dafa disciples who obtained the Fa after July 20, 1999, your process of cultivation and your validating the Fa have been merged together…”
What I’ve learned and understood, at least at my cultivation level is this: When it comes to cultivating and validating the Fa, it’s almost impossible to have one without the other. That is why everyday people who do not cultivate do not have the power to clarify the truth and save sentient beings. Likewise, for a Dafa disciple, one’s cultivation cannot truly be complete if one does not successfully do truth clarification and validate the Fa. While stepping forward to clarify the truth, Master has set forth a path for us to eliminate our attachments. If we refuse to step forward, then we are no longer walking the cultivation path that Master has meticulously designed for us. When we give our hearts to truly cultivating, and yet are struggling when we find ourselves in interpersonal conflicts that we just can’t seem to resolve, or when our lives just seem too busy, Master really does show us the way and guides us. We just need to pay attention to it more. Oftentimes, the answer lies right before our very noses, but due to our attachment of self and refusal to let go of that self, we foolishly cast aside the opportunities Master has strategically planted for us to reach Consummation.
Thank you Master. Thank you fellow practitioners.
