(Minghui.org) After I was imprisoned for clarifying the facts about Falun Dafa, another practitioner in the same prison was persecuted so badly that he was taken to a hospital. He was diagnosed with uremia, which normally requires dialysis or a kidney transplant, and had to stay in the hospital for almost nine months. This practitioner broke through this life-and-death tribulation by studying the Fa intensively and reciting the Fa. He was imprisoned for 14 years but was still in good health after he was released.
Master has told us as early as 2001,
“Let me tell you, all those who remain and that can persecute Dafa and Dafa disciples are due to our students themselves.” (“Fa-Lecture at the Conference in Florida, U.S.A.” from Teaching the Fa at the Conference II)
I visited my hometown on Chinese New Year and noticed some fellow practitioners appeared to be seriously ill. Some even had trouble walking. Why do they linger in tribulations? How can we help them?
Some other practitioners had helped them send forth righteous thoughts. Some had spoken with them in person and helped them look within. Some had studied the Fa with them. These are all the right things to do, but the effect wasn't great. Some of these practitioners still passed away.
In order to help our fellow practitioners completely turn things around, we need to above all analyze the cause of the sickness karma tribulation. Based on the principles of Dafa, Master purified our bodies soon after we started our cultivation. We have been free of illness since then. However, symptoms of illness truly exist in the bodies of our fellow practitioners. We held many discussions on this topic, and fellow practitioners came up with many reasons why practitioners may fall into sickness karma tribulations. I will just speak about two causes.
First, we have to think back and ask if these fellow practitioners have made any fundamental mistakes and if they have made up for the losses caused by these mistakes. For example, spreading false scriptures, giving speeches to groups of fellow practitioners, getting involved in the persecution of practitioners, embezzling money from truth-clarification material production sites, mistakes regarding sexual relationships, etc. All of these things could result in a life-and-death tribulation. Some fellow practitioners in these tribulations are too embarrassed to admit to having made these mistakes, but other practitioners don't know about their past mistakes.
Fellow practitioners in a tribulation, if you still want to cultivate yourself, you really have to be determined to make up for your losses. It's the only way to break through these life-and-death tribulations.
The second reason is failing to eliminate fundamental attachments. Failing small tests will eventually lead to their buildup into huge tests. For example, Master warned Dafa disciples during his lecture in Los Angeles 12 years ago about how any criticism would set some practitioners off. We have to ask ourselves if we have met Dafa's requirements. Some fellow practitioners don't realize how much emphasis they have put on themselves and have inflated egos, yet they are unable to sense it. Some couldn't eliminate lust for a long time. Seeing beautiful women or handsome men, their minds would go wild. Some spent a long time on pornography websites. The old forces keep a record of everything. How could these practitioners pass the ultimate life-and-death tribulation?
It's okay to make a mistake, but the key is whether we have a strong will to break through. The evil cannot use the entire state apparatus to rampantly persecute Dafa practitioners like before, so this leads to an impression that our local situation is more relaxed than before. However, we have to keep in mind that the requirements for Dafa disciples haven’t been lowered. On the contrary, it's more serious in the final stage of cultivation, when the persecution is well-hidden and seems less noticeable. This kind of persecution is formless and can be solved by looking for our own problems at a deeper level and correcting them.
Master has told us,
“The old forces wouldn’t venture to directly persecute Dafa disciples at present—none of the larger beings that assume a form would venture to do that. Then what sorts of things are doing that now? Things like worms, bugs, bacteria, and all kinds of foul things like that. Sending righteous thoughts is extremely effective in these cases! They are annihilated in large batches. But there are a lot of them, given how big this cosmos is; and the cosmos consists of many layers. So after you have wiped these things out, shortly after, before long, they might infiltrate again, and you need to eliminate them again. So you need to keep sending righteous thoughts like this, and persist with it for some time, before you will see obvious results. Don’t lose confidence just because, after feeling good following a while of sending righteous thoughts, things don’t seem to go well again. I can tell you that they are using this approach to wear you down—to whittle away at your strong sense of conviction. So you need to be alert to these things.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2015 West Coast Fa Conference”)
The ultimate goal of the persecution is to ruin Dafa disciples' willpower. We have to summon strong willpower to correct our own behavior in order to break through any well-hidden persecution. Fellow practitioners' assistance, such as sending forth righteous thoughts, studying the Fa together, and encouragement with looking within, are all helpful. However, the more effective way is for the practitioners in a tribulation to persist in memorizing the Fa every day.
I would like to share my experience of how I have memorized the Fa. I memorize two pages of Zhuan Falun every day, no matter what happens. It takes about half an hour a day. On Sundays, I review the 12 pages I have memorized from Monday through Saturday. After memorizing two pages each day, I use miscellaneous time around noon and before bedtime to review for about 30 times. During my Fa study, I only move on to the next paragraph after getting familiar with the current one. If I study Zhuan Falun 10 times a month, it's equivalent to reviewing what I had memorized 10 times.
The goal is not to be able to recite Zhuan Falun, but it's the only way for the main consciousness to highly concentrate on it. I experienced occasional interference while memorizing the Fa, but as long as I continued, I would experience melting into the Fa and entering tranquility like in meditation. The only thing in my mind was the Fa.
Master has told us,
“Those of us who have the ability, who are in their prime, excepting people who are older or who have poor memory, should try to memorize the book.” (“Comments Regarding the Fa-Rectification Made at the Falun Dafa Assistants Meeting in Beijing from Explaining the Content of Falun Dafa” from Explaining the Content of Falun Dafa)
Fellow practitioners who are suffering in a tribulation of sickness karma and fellow practitioners who are helping them, let's work on memorizing the Fa. It's better to set up a time every day to memorize a paragraph, no matter what happens. If you have to miss one day, you can make it up the next day. It takes strong willpower to persevere. It may appear to be natural when someone gives up. However, it's due to the interference of the remaining factors of the old forces, which attempt to destroy our willpower.
If our mind is filled with the Fa every day, how could the evil dare get close, and how could the false appearance of sickness exist in us?
Category: Improving Oneself
