(Minghui.org) Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
I really appreciate this opportunity given by Master, to share with you my cultivation experiences in the United States.
Since I first arrived in America from China, I yearned to return to my hometown. Owing to fellow practitioners and my family members in America, who kept calling police officers in China for several years, I was able to leave China and embrace the freedom of the states.
I was a sick old man with a variety of illnesses, and almost died. Although I took medicine, it didn't help. New symptoms added to the old ones, and my health worsened. I was so desperate. A day felt like a year to me.
Luckily, I attended Master’s Nine-Day lectures in 1993, in Wuhan. My life has since turned a completely new page. All my illnesses disappeared shortly after I started doing the exercises, and I regained my health.
Before I started practicing Dafa, I often slept for 20 hours, but still felt tired. After I began practicing Dafa, I needed only four hours of sleep, and was still energetic. Dafa adjusted my body and put me on a very bright path.
I am now 70, but I feel like I have endless strength, and have become younger and younger. This is definitely a miracle of Dafa, which can hardly be explained by science. Similar miracles happened a couple of times after I came to the United States.
Several years ago, I was hit by a truck, which ran a red light. I lost consciousness for seven days.
When police took me to the hospital, the doctors told them that I had bleeding in my brain. Even with successful surgery, it was expected that I would stay in a vegetative state. However, with Master’s help, I miraculously recovered.
When I woke up from my coma, my first words were “I want to go home.” The doctor tried to make sure of my state and asked me to do a ten-digit multiplication without using a calculator. I gave the right answer immediately.
I could also recite the whole book of Zhuan Falun. This amazed the hospital staff. I understood it very well that this was the demonstration of Dafa's extraordinary powers.
Over the past more than ten years of cultivation, I have maintained an emphasis on Fa study, and I have already recited Zhuan Falun many times, and still do so every day. I know that even though I have recited it many times, I still miss words or add words, and repeat or reverse the sentences.
At first, I would forget the words immediately after I finished reciting the book. I couldn't see any of Master’s hints or the meaning behind the words.
Sometimes I felt that I had let down Master’s compassion and arduous salvation. Master saved me from hell and cleansed me many times, but I still could not catch up with the rapid pace of Fa-rectification.
Many times, I did not even dare to look at Master’s photo, as I felt that I had not lived up to his expectations. I blamed myself a lot because of this.
From the Fa given by Master, whatever the mind carries, the behavior aligns with the mind, and I tried to remind myself to come by the Fa naturally. So I studied it more, and tried to catch up with Fa-rectification. My cultivation path hasn't always been smooth. But I keep reminding myself that I should immediately stand up from where I fall.
During the past years of delivering the Shen Yun Performing Arts flyers and putting up posters, I experienced quite a few accidents.
With righteous thoughts and believing in Master and Dafa, I got out of those tribulations, some of which I have not mentioned to anyone else. I know that Master has been constantly looking after me and strengthening my righteous thoughts. It is also clear to me that I should look inward.
How can the evil impose this interference on me? Is it because I have human attachments for them to latch on to? Once after I had a car accident, my chest was in pain, and it was difficult to breathe. However, so many things needed to be done, including wrapping materials with plastic covers.
At the time, I was determined to keep doing the things I needed to do. From morning until night, I kept wrapping materials while sitting on the floor, with no time even for meals.
At the end of the day, I needed help to stand up. I did not take this pain seriously, and did not tell my children. I am old and cannot speak English. I can only join a few Fa-rectification projects, and I will never lose the chance to devote my efforts on the things I can do. Honestly speaking, what can I do? Isn’t everything done by the Master? It’s all done by Master.
Master says:
“Master affirms what Dafa disciples have done. As long as you are doing things out of a wish to validate the Fa and save sentient beings, I will affirm all that you do. And when you go do those things, there will be my Law Bodies or gods there to amplify it and make what you do yet more magnificent and extraordinary, and they will assist you.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2008 New York Conference”)
Whenever I read the Fa, I can always feel the immeasurable compassion and Master’s gracious blessings. Oftentimes I cannot hold back my tears. How time flies. It’s already been twenty years of cultivation for me. Though I have done things in the past years, I feel I can do more. I can only be counted as a veteran disciple, but not a truly diligent disciple.
The current time should be used into saving more sentient beings. Whenever I think of this, I just feel time is running out. Cultivators should hold ourselves to high standards.
Master says in Zhuan Falun:
“If you always keep a compassionate heart, and a peaceful state of mind, when you run into problems you’ll handle them well because it will give you space as a buffer. If you are always compassionate and friendly to others, if you always consider other people when you do things, and whenever you have issues with other people you first think about whether they can take it or whether it will cause them harm, then you won’t have any problem. So, when you cultivate you should follow high and even higher standards.”
Every time when I recite this paragraph, I feel that I am far behind the requirement of “high and even higher standards,” because I have not reached the requirement of “you always consider other people when you do things.” When I look inward, I find I still have selfishness when cooperating with my family.
For example, I am sometimes not satisfied with my son. One day he took my grandson to deliver the flyers and my grandson got bitten by a dog.
Another day, he took my grandson to collect signatures requesting a local congressman to co-sponsor House Resolution 281, condemning organ harvesting. I felt it a little bit unfair, “Why didn’t you ask your grandson to take along his grandma? Can’t we save more sentient beings in this way?”
Though I have plenty of free time living in a senior living center, I still feel the time is short and not enough for me to fulfill my cultivation and saving sentient beings. Then what will happen to the younger practitioners? They need to work every day and do it well.
After they come back home, they need to take care of the children, cook, clean, and do housework. But they still need to place Fa rectification as the most important thing, and do it well. Then how should they arrange their time?
At home, our three generation families all practice Dafa. It is really a good environment to learn from one another. However, after I moved out, my son and daughter-in-law needed to deal with more housework. For example, my grand-daughter, age 5, got a fever. The ten-year-old brother was taking care of her at home. He only knew that he should keep giving water to his sister.
At the end of the day, the younger sister’s shirt was wet by the water. Actually I am the person who should have been taking care of my granddaughter, but my son and daughter-in-law did not even tell me, because they did not want to worry me and occupy my time, that I spent for truth-clarification. They treat cultivation and truth-clarification as the most important.
From an ordinary person’s viewpoint, they are showing their care for me, and from the cultivation aspect, they are selfless. They were making time for me to do more truth clarification, yet I was still complaining about them.
In another way, all the elderly practitioners living at the senior center feel anxious to join in some truth clarification events. There are comparatively fewer Dafa disciples living in Mid-US, but there are thousands of Chinese who have not learned the truth, or been saved.
Master says in “Fa Teaching at the 2013 Western U.S. Fa Conference:”
“I wouldn’t be able to put my mind at ease if I hadn’t said these words to you. Everything is about to reach the end, and you’ve seen it. What is on Earth is a corresponding reflection of the cosmos. Increasingly, the upright and the just are prevailing, whereas the evil things are going down. It’s even to the point that those who have directly taken part in the persecution of Dafa disciples are living in a state of constant fear and anxiety. Before, they made Dafa disciples live in constant fear. Now it’s their turn to suffer for it. So, having come to this point, just think about it: how much is left on the journey? There really isn’t long left on the road of Dafa disciples saving sentient beings and fulfilling their missions.”
After reading this, I always feel time is really tight now and Dafa Disciples’ responsibilities are huge. Luckily everything is controlled by Master. It does not matter when it is going to end, we only need to eliminate our attachments and cherish every minute to fulfill the last part of our cultivation paths.
I recently collected petition signatures with other practitioners. After a day's work, I had 180 signatures. I found an excuse that my shoes did not fit well and my feet hurt. Another elderly practitioner obtained 315 signatures. I could clearly see the gap between my cultivation level and that of my fellow practitioner.
Sentient beings who have not been saved will be in great danger. We should save them by cherishing the time we have. Therefore, I sincerely hope that young practitioners can help us as much as possible to save sentient beings until the last minute. Then one more person will be saved, or one more large group of sentient beings will be saved.
When the young practitioners walk in the front, we elderly practitioners can do some helpful work from behind. When young practitioners don't mind the inconvenience brought about by elderly practitioners, and work together with us, we sincerely appreciate it. In the recent days, when I was reciting the Fa, the tears kept coming.
I realized I should write out my past years’ cultivation experiences and share them with you. This is just my understanding of Dafa. If there is anything inappropriate, please kindly point it out.
Thank you Master! Thank you practitioners!
(Shared at the 2014 Mid-USA Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference)