(Minghui.org)
1. I Start to Practice Dafa
I used to do Taichi before I started practicing Falun Dafa. A young man, Xiao Qiang, practiced martial arts not far from where we practiced Taichi in the park. We liked watching him practice. One day, Xiao Qiang stopped coming. We thought he probably went back to his hometown.
I was at work one day in 1993, when Xiao Qiang came looking for me. Xiao Qiang told me he'd started to practice Falun Gong, and that Falun Gong practitioners cultivate their xinxing and live up to the standards of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Along with five sets of exercises, these principles enable one to reach very high levels. He also said that the martial arts we were doing couldn't compare to Falun Gong. Xiao Qiang tried persuading to practice Falun Gong. He almost convinced me. He then said I must stop doing Taichi. I changed my mind immediately; I told him I would never give up Taichi. I did not understand the meaning of high level cultivation, nor could I understand his giving up martial arts.
Xiao Qiang visited me again in July that same year, telling me about Master Li coming to our city to give lectures. He encouraged me to go. I thought: I don't want to give up Taichi, so what's the use of going to the lectures. Xiao Qiang was very disappointed. A few days later, he visited me again at work and brought Falun Gong reading materials. I invited him to come in, and my colleagues listened to Xiao Qiang, who hoped all of us would go to Master Li's lectures. My colleagues laughed about him after Xiao Qiang left, calling him superstitious. I felt really bad about that, because Xiao Qiang had good intentions. I still remember his face as he was leaving.
I missed my chance to listen to Master Li in person. Thinking back, I will regret this for the rest of my life. That was the last time I saw Xiao Qiang.
There were two people practicing martial arts that liked watching us practice Taichi at the park, though they never said anything to us. Then one day, they said to me, “You practice very hard, but you are not doing it right, you need pointers from someone of a high level.” I asked them where could I find such a person. They said that their master was high level, and that their master looks ordinary but has supernatural powers, but he would not see a commoner like me unless I reached a certain level, since their school of practice had strict rules.
After that, I practiced even harder. One day, however, they told me they had started practicing Falun Gong. I was greatly surprised—how come they gave up their own martial arts and began practicing qigong? I remembered Xiao Qiang again. When they said that their master also started to practice Falun Gong, I was even more shocked. Is Falun Gong really that good? I asked them what had happened.
One night, one of the students did not attend their practice. Their master sent someone to get him and questioned him. He said he went to practice Falun Gong. The master scolded the student. The student brought a copy of Zhuan Falun that evening. The master opened the book and was stunned for a moment. Then he said, “We are not going to practice today. You guys go home. Lend this book to me tonight.” He finished reading the book that night. The next day, he told his students solemnly, “From now on, don't follow my teachings any more. Forget what you've learned before. Let's all practice Falun Gong. This is the genuine Supreme Law.” The master and his students all started practicing Dafa that way.
Upon hearing this, I told them I wanted to read Zhuan Falun too. They immediately lent me a copy. I took the book and went to work. The first moment I saw Master's photo, Master looked very familiar, yet I could not remember where I'd met Master. After I read Lunyu on the opening page, I realized that this book is not an ordinary book. I called over my colleagues and showed them the book, but maybe because I was too excited at the time and acted a little abnormal, my colleagues could not understand what was so special about the book. I then tried to make them read the book but they all shied away. I was disappointed, thinking: why don't you take a look at this book, you would know everything and might not want to put it down in the future. It is all about predestination!
I understood the true meaning of life and how precious lives are. I then saw cultivating Dafa as my life's purpose. It was 1996.
2. Witnessing Miracles
On my first day participating in the group exercises, I felt my whole body pulsing. I could feel my circulation, and even the peripheral blood flow was clearly felt, since when practicing Dafa, all of our meridians are open. When I was holding the wheel in the second exercise, I clearly felt the turning of Falun. Those feelings stopped after a few days. I think Master was encouraging me. The organizers of the practice site scheduled a showing of Master's lecture video recordings. Many fellow practitioners' third eye were opened—they saw Master's Fa body, like the image of a Buddha, wearing a yellow robe and with curly blue hair. My mind was pure without distraction when I was watching the video. Even though my third eye did not see anything, I had no doubt about Master's Fa. I felt that Master's Fa was so good. Within a few days, all my illnesses were gone, and all of my confusion in regards to life disappeared. The huge change in my body and mind made me feel like a different person. I regret that I missed listening to Master's lectures in person, but on the other hand, I felt lucky, because if I cultivated genuinely, Master would treat me like his disciple. To cultivate within the Great Law of the universe made me feel like the happiest person in the world!
One day, when I was getting air for my bike tires, I overheard the bike mechanic saying that he saw a car accident. A cyclist was hit by a car, and the bike was wrecked, but the cyclist was fine. The cyclist said that she is a Falun Gong practitioner and that Master protected her. The mechanic commended Falun Gong, believing it has magical properties. I told him that I practiced Falun Gong too, and that Master protects us in those kinds of accidents, so there would be no danger.
At our practice site, miracles happened frequently. There was a seventy-year-old woman who could not even read her own name, but she could read Zhuan Falun. However, when she picked up a newspaper, she could not read a word. I would not have believed it if I did not see it with my own eyes.
One night, when we were reading the Fa, a sixty-year-old woman came in, asking, “Do you practice Falun Gong?” This woman was a lay Buddhist. A Falun had been spinning at her home for a few days. By the third day, she started to understand the reason. She said to the Falun, “You want me to do something; then lead me. I will go where you lead me.” The Falun then started to fly outside, and she followed it all the way to our practice site. Then the Falun disappeared. After that, she went to the practice site every day. A few days later, this woman had a dream. She dreamed about Dafa disciples reaching enlightenment. Master was sitting on a lotus flower, and Dafa disciples sat behind Master; they also sat on lotus flowers but their flowers were smaller than Master's.
Many Dafa practitioners had illnesses prior to cultivation. Falun Gong has unprecedented healing power. One morning, I heard someone crying when we were doing the sitting meditation. It was a forty-year-old man. He had necrosis of his hip bone and had to walk with a cane, so he could not sit in the lotus position. That day, he suddenly was able to easily sit cross-legged. He was so excited that he started to cry. We all felt happy for him. Since that day, he was able to walk like a healthy person.
One day, an elderly woman came to our practice site. Her complexion had a dark undertone and she was very hard of hearing. Though our practice site assistant put her right in front of the stereo, she still could not hear, and she had to look at the assistant to follow along with the exercises. As she started to practice, she started to mumble, “You still practice. I finally get settled down in you, but you want to get rid of me, so I don't practice anymore!” It was this elderly woman's animal possession talking. The assistant encouraged her to continue the practice and not to be afraid. On the second day, she stopped mumbling—the animal possession was cleaned by Master's Fashen. A few days later, her face started to glow with a healthy appearance. One day during the Holding the Wheel exercise, she suddenly started shouting: “I heard it! I heard it!” She could hear the exercise music.
3. Transforming My Human Heart
What's even more amazing about Dafa is that Dafa can quickly transform a human heart. Dafa practitioners cultivate their hearts—they are good people in society, at home, and at work. During this time when morality is sliding downward rapidly, Falun Gong practitioners have opened a pure field. They have brought back morality, helping people be more compassionate. As a result, society has become more stable and people see some hope as well.
At the beginning of my cultivation, my superiors and colleagues did not understand me. They are the so-called educated crowd, deeply affected by the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) atheistic teachings. They saw me as a new person after I started to practice Falun Gong, with my spirits high and very forgiving. I did not care even when I was wronged, where I would have acted differently before. Another event changed their view about Falun Gong.
Our library is open to the public, and books were often stolen. Many people do not consider taking books as stealing. The librarians were angry, but they could not do much because they were too busy trying to monitor the visitors. One day, I heard my colleagues talking about a woman who returned a large bundle of books to the library. This person had started to practice Falun Gong. She wanted to live up to the standard of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, so she returned all the books she had stolen and asked to be punished. This shocked my supervisors and colleagues—they admired this woman's courage and complimented the quality of Falun Gong practitioners. Many of my colleagues started reading Zhuan Falun and started cultivating Dafa themselves.
Dafa practitioners at work are just like what Master said,
“Since studying Falun Dafa, these workers have been coming to work early and going home late. They work very diligently and will do any assignment the boss gives. They also no longer compete for personal gain.” (Zhuan Falun)
After the devastating flood in China in 1998, Dafa practitioners at my workplace enthusiastically donated money. Later on, when the CCP fabricated rumors about Master not allowing Dafa practitioners to donate money, all my colleagues questioned that rumor because Dafa practitioners at my workplace donated the most money. The majority of the supervisors and colleagues secretly protect Dafa practitioners. They have chosen the right path for their own future.
We rented a hall at a culture center to use as a practice site. There were always some practitioners volunteering, cleaning the place—they not only cleaned the hall, but also the windows and other rooms. The supervisor at the culture center became very pleased with us and was very happy to lend us the facility. Our practice site is now the biggest site in our city. Several hundred practitioners come to our site. We do the exercises together and separate into small groups when we study the Fa. Practitioners come in and out of the hall quietly and in an orderly manner. Several hundred practitioners give off very strong energy when we read Lunyu together.
A young man at my practice site who has a scar on his face used to get in a lot of fights; he'd gotten the scar on his face from a violent fight. After cultivating Falun Gong, he stopped fighting even if others picked on him. He shared that Dafa practitioners do not fight back nor shout back. He used to hit other people and created a lot of karma, but now he let them hit him and return the karma. Nobody looked to fight him after that.
There was a practitioner who had conflicts with her family prior to cultivation, including not talking to her sister-in-law for six years. After practicing Dafa, she knew the relationships among people were all predestined, so she resolved the conflicts with her sister-in-law and the family was harmonized. Her mother-in-law told everyone that Dafa is good.
In addition, there were stories of teachers offering free tutoring to students, tax agency workers refusing bribes from business owners, doctors refusing tips from patients, and officials returning public funds they took out for personal use while asking to be punished. There were so many examples like these.
Several major factories were on the brink of collapse, with the workers not receiving their pay for a very long time. As a result, some workers organized strikes in front of government buildings and major intersections. They wanted their pay. Some of them asked Dafa practitioners to join them. However, not a single Dafa practitioner join the strike.
There were even more examples of returning lost valuables. My mother picked up a gold watch on the street. She could not find the owner and thus returned it to the police station. The policeman on duty said, “We often have Falun Gong practitioners bringing in lost things – money, gold chains, you name it. Falun Gong practitioners are really good; if everyone practiced Falun Gong, our job would be so much easier.”
One time I went to the supermarket, and after coming back home, I noticed the cashier put other people's goods in my bag. I imagined whoever noticed missing goods in her bag would go back to the supermarket to look for them, so I went back to the supermarket right away and told the cashier what had happened. The cashiers were touched. They were surprised that there are still good people in society nowadays. I told them that I practice Falun Gong, that we are good people who follow the principle of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and we would not take advantage of others. I told them that the self-immolation at Tiananmen Square was fake (we had not started to talk about withdrawing from the CCP yet at that time). I always returned the money if the cashier gave me too much change. These kinds of things are very ordinary for Dafa practitioners, but many people marvel, “There are so few good people like them nowadays.”
After over ten years of cultivation, I personally witnessed Master's compassion and Dafa's greatness. The above are just a small portion of my experiences. I wrote them out to provide validation that Dafa is the genuine science, not superstitious and idealistic. Dafa teaches people compassion. Master came here to save people. It is not easy to gain a human body, yet the opportunity of learning the Fa is priceless. I hope that all of my fellow practitioners cultivate diligently and complete their cultivation soon; I also hope that ordinary human beings can learn the truth about the persecution and enter a beautiful future.
From the Call for Submissions to Commemorate the Twentieth Anniversary of Falun Dafa’s Introduction
