(Minghui.org) When I was only three months old, my mother began to practice Falun Gong. Soon after, several of my relatives also took up the practice.
After that, I was always in a good environment to cultivate. Even when my mother was persecuted and imprisoned for more than a decade, I was always a little Falun Gong practitioner who would study the Fa teachings and do the exercises with my family.
But after I left school and entered the world of work, I did not study the Fa for several years. This past Chinese New Year, I returned to Dafa.
I really appreciate the mercy of Master Li, who's never given up on me as a Dafa disciple.
I was only three years old when my mother was arrested. By the time she left prison 12 years later, I was a teenager.
While my mother was in prison, my father left us, so I grew up in the family of my grandma on my mother's side. Because my grandma was also a practitioner, I still had a good environment in which to cultivate. But because my mother was severely persecuted in prison, my grandmother later died of grief. After that, several of my aunts took care of me in turn. Later, as I left to study and work elsewhere, I lost that environment and drifted away from Dafa.
After I left Dafa, I dreamed more than once that my world was decaying, like a dilapidated factory or an uninhabited building. It seemed that my world was falling apart. But when I got a job, my desire to make money grew stronger and stronger, and I was able to ignore Master's compassionate hints. These dreams grew fewer and fewer as a result.
In December 2019, due to a change in my job, I went home to prepare for the Chinese New Year. Although fellow practitioners often came to my family home to study the Fa, I did not join them. Instead, I played computer games every day. But when it was almost time for the actual Chinese New Year celebration, I felt that I could not go on like that.
When I watched them study the Fa, I couldn't help but also want to study the Fa myself. I secretly made a decision, a commitment to myself, that I wanted to be just like them. But I had not studied the Fa for a long time, and there always seemed to be a barrier in my mind that kept me from going back. A version of myself that was not the real me always wanted to play more games.
One of my friends, whose parents are also Dafa practitioners, had also strayed from cultivation for a long time. But she didn't fall behind that much, even though her father was also imprisoned twice for practicing Falun Gong.
I wondered why our relatives would put their lives at risk to practice Dafa, suffering so many years of persecution. And even while they were suffering, they never said a single bad word about Falun Dafa!
I wanted to return to practicing Dafa to see what made them do this. When I was a child, I would just read the Fa with the adults. Now I could look at the book and find out for myself what it meant. I really wanted to read this book Zhuan Falun.
Three days after I told myself I wanted to read the book, I had a dream in which I took a bus to a desolate city with abandoned buildings. My identity card was torn into two pieces, then four pieces, then eight pieces. When I woke up, I told my mother about the dream.
“If you do not come back, you will have no identity!” she said.
I suddenly understood, and I told her I wanted to read the book. She was very happy because she had been trying to get me to practice again for years, but I ignored her efforts.
Before I picked up the book, I made a condition with my mother –“I am just going to study however much I want—you should not force me to study!”
She agreed. I studied Lecture One of Zhuan Falun on the first day and Lecture Two on the second day. On the third day, I read,
“After the connection, it was a little unbearable for me because no matter how high or how low my level is, I am among everyday people and still doing something purposeful—that is, saving people—and my heart is devoted to saving people.” (Lecture Three, Zhuan Falun)
When I read this, I could not stop crying. I felt how magnanimous Master is.
After that, I read two or three lectures a day, finishing Zhuan Falun once in five days. I returned to Dafa.
My heart was filled with joy, and my family and local practitioners were very happy. I’ve never played computer games since. I have now finished reading Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. X by myself and have started to do the three thing a practitioner should do as well as hold myself to the standards of Dafa.
I am grateful for Master's great compassion. I will do my best in cultivation so that the sentient beings in my world can be proud of me.
I also want to say a few words to other young practitioners like me who grew up with Dafa but left Dafa. To practice this Dafa, our families are persecuted; they have borne so much with no regrets. We really need to read this Fa thoroughly to figure out what this book really talks about.
Because we are now adults, we are able to distinguish good from bad for ourselves.
I hope that you don't let Dafa pass you by just for a moment of comfort and enjoyment! You should get rid of your bad thoughts, break out of the illusion of ease, and come back to Dafa cultivation. Live up to Master’s mercy and live up to the expectations of the sentient beings in your world! Come back and find the true purpose of life!
