(Minghui.org) I experienced nearly two years of physical tribulations. During that time I walked my cultivation path staggering along, as compassionate Master took me back from the old forces' arrangements time after time. I wrote this article to share my experiences with fellow practitioners. Only with firm belief in Master and Dafa and only by truly cultivating oneself, can one walk correctly one's cultivation path, reject the old forces' arrangements, and be worthy of compassionate Master's salvation.

1. Tribulations

I started practicing Falun Gong near the end of 1997. After the evil Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started persecuting Falun Gong, I gradually became less and less diligent, and I was attracted to everyday people's desires, becoming trapped deeper and deeper in them. In March of 2007, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, which had already spread to the lymphatic system and the chest muscles.

By then I realized what I had lost! Master does not want to leave any disciple behind and seeing that I still had the determination to cultivate, changed my my environment. The doctor checked my blood and said that my test result indicated that I was not a good candidate for treatment with chemotherapy and radiation. I then explained to my husband that I needed to follow the principles of the Fa. Since my husband had also seen the miraculous effects of Dafa in improving my physical fitness and healing my illness, he agreed with my giving up treatment in the hospital and supported my return to cultivation practice.

I became diligent again. Every day I read the Fa, memorized the Fa, and sent forth righteous thoughts. I set up a truth-clarification materials production center at home, went out to distribute them, and told people the truth about Falun Gong face to face. I slept for only 3+ hours daily, but I was still full of vigor.

In 2010 I started experiencing a temperature. Soon after that I started having chest pain and then a backache. Not long after that, I could not move my back. My body weight quickly fell from 160 to 115 pounds. In October, 2010 I started having serious headaches and lost vision in my right eye. I could not sleep. My breastbone and vertebrae became seriously distorted, and my height shrunk from 5' 8” to 5' 5”. I could not take care of myself. In January, 2011 my nose bled two times, each time for more than one hour. My family members were scared. I got weaker after that; I often felt dizzy and vomited frequently.

My fellow practitioners gave me a lot of help. Every day two fellow practitioners came to my home; we read the Fa, shared our thoughts, and sent righteous thoughts together.

My headache got worse, and I reached my limit to tolerate it. I started to take pain-killers, but later they did not have any effect. In March, 2011 I had an extreme headache. It was like someone was splitting my head with a kitchen knife. My spirit collapsed, and I went to the hospital. I told my husband, “I feel very glorified that I could start cultivating Dafa in this lifetime. Without Master's protection I would have already left this world long ago. It is I who did not treasure this cultivation opportunity and brought this tribulation onto myself. If I cannot pass this test, it would be I who did not understand the principles of the Fa with a clear mind and did not have enough righteous thoughts. Today I am going to the hospital, not because I believe the hospital can change something, it is because I cannot bear the suffering anymore. It would be enough for me if they could stop my headache.” The doctor at the hospital said, “If she cannot take the chemotherapy, she does not need to come.”

Master said,

"In such cases there are only two choices: You either go to the hospital and thus give up on trying to overcome the test, or you completely let go of everything, behave like an upstanding and noble Dafa disciple who has no resentment or attachments, and leave it to Master to arrange whether you stay or go. When you are able to do that, you are a god." ("Teaching the Fa in the City of Los Angeles")

I felt very ashamed over my not being able to pass the test.

In September, 2011 the pain I felt made it very difficult for me to walk even a step. The prolonged tribulation weakened my righteous thoughts, and I again decided to go to the hospital. In the hospital the director of the cancer treatment department read the MRI that I had taken in March. He was surprised and told my husband that no one in my situation had lived for more than three months. He could not understand why I was still alive. The doctor said that I would not live for another month, and then released me. At that time I weighed only 99+ pounds.

2. I Was Reborn after I Started Looking Within for the Cause

A fellow practitioner came to see me and told me that Master had published a new article, “What is a Dafa Disciple.” In order to be able to read the article in the sitting position, I took a pain-killer. It took me from morning until 8:00 p.m. to finish reading the article.

I felt shocked! Master said,

“Dafa disciples go about their lives alongside ordinary people as part of the illusory ordinary society, and are really susceptible to drifting along with the tide in their way of thinking, at least in some regards. If you can’t manage to conduct yourselves according to Dafa when you do things, can’t manage to think things over with righteous thoughts, or are not on the Fa in dealing with problems, then you are an ordinary person. There isn’t any difference, then. Your appearance is ordinary, the setting in which you lead your life is ordinary, and your job is ordinary. Even if you are involved in Dafa disciples’ projects, in the heavens above there are no such things as television stations, nor do gods have newspapers. Those are forms in ordinary human society. If you don’t use righteous thoughts to guide yourself, and if you cannot manage to conduct yourself and look at the world and others according to the standard of a cultivator, like a Dafa disciple does, then you are the same as an ordinary person.” (“What is a Dafa Disciple”)

Looking back on my cultivation, I did not study the Fa with a focused mind, and I only pursued the amount of Fa I read. I did not really absorb the Fa into my mind and did not gain the Fa. Without cultivating in the Fa, no matter how many things I did for Dafa, it was an ordinary person doing things, and it was not cultivation. I did not know how to look within myself for the reason why I was experiencing tribulations. I had strong jealousy, a show-off mentality, the attachment of zealotry, attachment of lust, and a competitive mentality. Master kept giving me hints; whenever my righteous thoughts were strong, miracles occurred. For example, when I could not get out of bed, if I recited over and over Master's poem,

“A Great Enlightened One fears no hardship
Having forged an adamantine will
Free of attachment to living or dying
He walks the path of Fa-rectification confident and poised”
(“Righteous Thoughts and Righteous Actions”, Hong Yin)

I would then be able to get out of bed. If I could not walk to the bathroom, I would recite the poem while trying to walk by supporting myself with a chair and pushing the chair along with me; gradually I was able to walk. When my righteous thoughts were not strong, my physical condition would not be good, and I would relapse. I continued looking inside for the reason all one day and through the night until I fell asleep at about 5:00 a.m. After I fell asleep, in another dimension there occurred a soul-stirring war between the righteous and the evil.

Here is what I experienced: It was in a very big classroom. During recess, I suddenly fell on the ground and lost consciousness. A voice appeared and told me, “It is the time for you to go!” I became alert and said that I can't go. In my mind I kept calling Master for help and kept reciting the Fa-rectification verses. Then a Taoist priest appeared and asked me to go with him. I told him, “I have my Master, and I am not going with you!” I saw that he was not willing to leave, so I told him again, “I am a disciple of Master Li Hongzhi. You can go now.” I then kept reciting the Fa-rectification verses and calling Master for help. It took quite a while before the Taoist priest vanished. Then, a group of boys and girls aged 15 and 16 appeared, and they asked me to go with them. I again called Master for help and recited the Fa-rectification verses. They quickly disappeared. After that I noticed that I was on a beach, then suddenly I was in the ocean. There was water all around me, and the water reached above my chest. I called Master again for help and recited the Fa-rectification verses. I was then instantly on the shore again. At that moment I woke up.

These soul-stirring scenes startled me. If I had not read the Fa and looked inside for the reason during the daytime, would I have had righteous thought? With a slight difference in my thought I would have already been gone. Cultivation is really serious! Master said,

“To tell you the truth, the entire cultivation process for a practitioner is one of constantly giving up human attachments.” (“Lecture One” in Zhuan Falun)
"Once you upgrade your xinxing, your body will undergo a great change. Upon xinxing improvement, the matter in your body is guaranteed to transform." (“Lecture One” in Zhuan Falun)

From that day on, as I learned to look inside for reasons, everything changed, and I started improving every day. Now I have basically recovered!

In January of this year, when my colleagues saw that I drove to work by myself, they all cheered, jumping for joy. It was really beyond their expectation that I was not only still alive, but I was so energetic! Everybody witnessed the miracle and the supernormal power of Dafa.

3. The Lessons I Learned

This was a significant detour on my cultivation path, and I learned profound lessons.

The first lesson I learned was to study the Fa and gain the Fa. Master said,

“Study the Fa and gain the Fa,
Focus on how you study and cultivate,
Let each and every thing be measured against the Fa.
Only then, with that, is it actually cultivation.” (“Solid Cultivation” in Hong Yin)

I came to understand that if one cannot study the Fa sincerely and only focuses on reading a specific quantity to satisfy Master's requirement to study the Fa, he will not be able to gain the Fa. Without a clear understanding of the principles of the Fa and without firm belief in Master and the Fa, one will not be able to achieve solid cultivation, and one will not be able to completely reject the old forces' arrangements.

The second lesson I learned is to truly cultivate. I came to understand that a practitioner must look inside for the cause when encountering difficulties. He must look within for the reason whenever he encounters anything that does not comply with the Fa. Those things that happen in his dimensional field do so because he has those substances in his field. I was able to recognize some of my attachments, but I was not able to see all of my attachments. Therefore one must be humble and willing to listen to others' opinions with an open mind.

The third lesson I learned is to discard ordinary notions and look at things with righteous thoughts. Master said,

“Speaking of the Celestial Eye, we will first talk about this pair of physical human eyes. Nowadays, some people think that this pair of eyes can see any matter or object in this world. Therefore, some people have developed the stubborn notion that only what one can see through the eyes is real and concrete. They do not believe what they cannot see. In the past, such people were considered to have poor enlightenment quality, though some people could not explain clearly why these people’s enlightenment quality was poor. No seeing, no believing. That may sound quite reasonable. Yet from the perspective of a slightly higher level, it is not reasonable.” (“Lecture Two” in Zhuan Falun)

I came to understand that since all the naked eye sees are illusions, a practitioner should not be confused by the illusions in ordinary society. Regardless of whether it is cancer or some other tribulation, they are illusions created by the old forces. If the person is attached to ordinary people's notions, the illusions will develop and weaken his righteous thoughts. He will then be moved by the illusions and finally ruined by the old forces. Therefore a practitioner must discard ordinary people's notions and look at things with righteous thoughts. Master said,

“If you do not change the human logic that you, as an ordinary human, have formed deep in your bones over thousands of years, you will be unable to break away from this superficial human shell and reach Consummation.” ("Cautionary Advice" in Essentials for Further Advancement)

I came to understand that anything that happens in cultivation is a good thing. If you regard it with ordinary notions, it will become big and you will become small yourself. Since you have already given yourself to Master, then let everything follow Master's arrangement and allow nature to take its course.

Please point out any mistakes in my limited understanding.