(Minghui.org) May 13th was World Falun Dafa Day and our compassionate Master’s birthday. Having practiced Falun Dafa for just one year, I am extremely grateful to Master and am very happy to wish Master a happy birthday and pay him my highest respects! Thank you, Master!
Tremendous Hardships before Practicing Falun Dafa
I used to be a primary school teacher. I was outspoken and didn’t agree with the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) tyranny. I often expressed my views, which were different from the CCP’s propaganda. As a result I was suppressed and persecuted by my school and the local government.
During the June 4 student democracy movement by the students, I took my students out onto the streets to support the students in Beijing and made donations to them. My school demoted me and made me a custodian. I felt lost and depressed, but the office director, a Falun Dafa practitioner, helped me. He told me the meaning and value of life and taught me the Falun Dafa exercises. Regretfully, I didn’t start to practice Falun Dafa straight away. But now, the wonderfulness of Falun Dafa is rooted in my heart.
I experienced tribulations due to the CCP’s persecution. I was forced to leave China and came to the free and peaceful land of Australia.
I hit rock bottom after I arrived in Australia. I often lost my temper and wept for no reason—and I couldn’t sleep. I came down with “trigeminal neuralgia pain,” the most excruciating pain known. The pain came with no warning and could return within minutes or even seconds. I felt as if I were being electrically shocked or stabbed with needles. I couldn’t speak loudly, couldn’t laugh, couldn’t eat hot or cold food, and couldn’t even wash my face. When it was the worst, I thought of ending my life.
The pain was triggered again when I was washing my hair in October 2019. I was hospitalized in a big hospital. The doctor said that I had to be on medication for the rest of my life. I had to increase the dose until it no longer helped. Then I would need surgery to sever the nerves. But the success rate of that surgery was very low, and I might end up with facial paralysis.
Because I was so tortured by the pain, I lost the courage to live and thought of suicide. I asked my daughter to take beautiful photos of me. I wrote a eulogy for myself and chose the best route for me to jump into the sea and die.
My daughter and friends were very worried about me. They asked me to go to a church to seek comfort. When I was in the church, I heard a familiar melody and tried to recall what it was. Finally I remembered that it was the Falun Dafa exercise music that I had heard many years before. So I started to look for Dafa. I went to the parks and libraries but I didn’t find it. But on a Saturday morning while I was on my way to the clinic, I heard the Dafa music outside a school. I saw a group of people doing the exercises. I joined them without hesitation.
Cultivating Diligently
From then on I’ve been a genuine Falun Dafa practitioner. Falun Dafa extended a pair of warm hands to me when I felt hopeless. It showed me that life was an opportunity and I was reborn. With the help of fellow practitioners, I now get up at five a.m every day. I study Zhuan Falun and Master’s other lectures and am reciting Hong Yin.
I put on my headphones and listen to Minghui Radio and to the phone calls practitioners make to people in China. I do the exercises after I come home from work. I am bathed in the light of the Fa every day.
My daughter said that I have become a different person since I’ve practiced Falun Dafa. I speak softly and no longer lose my temper. I am in good spirits. My boss said that I have changed fundamentally.
I walk briskly and hurry home after work so that I can have more time to do the exercises. I enjoy the feeling of doing the exercises. I don’t feel good if I don’t do them. I haven’t missed doing them for a single day.
I completely recovered from trigeminal nerve pain a month after I started to practice Falun Dafa. I didn’t take any medication that month. One day my family doctor called and asked why I had not been to his office. I told him that I had recovered and was no longer on any medication. He was surprised and said that he would tell his other patients.
I have been watchful of my words and deeds over the past year. I always remind myself that I am a Dafa practitioner now and have to look within in a conflict. I have witnessed the power of Dafa. My belief in Dafa is unwavering. Through studying Zhuan Falun, I realize that Falun Dafa helps every practitioner to assimilate to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and to elevate morally and character-wise.
With solid cultivation and my experience of being illness-free, my righteous thoughts are reinforced. I pledge that I will continue to cultivate until the end. I study the Fa more and practice the exercises more diligently. I read one lecture of Zhuan Falun as well as memorize and then recite from Zhuan Falun every day.
I am enlightening to the deeper meanings of Dafa. I memorize the poems in the book Hong Yin. When I memorized the 10th poem, I could not stop my tears. Before I practiced Falun Dafa, my memory was very poor, and I couldn’t remember anything. I lost things all the time. Now Master has given me wisdom.
Believing in Master and the Fa and Saving Sentient Beings
I remember that Dafa practitioners must do the three things well and save sentient beings. One day I spoke with a lady as we waited for the bus. She told me that she was a “Shanghai Orphan.” Due to the national famine from 1959 to 1961 (the CCP called it three years of “natural disasters”), parents from Jiangsu Province and Zhejiang Province dropped their children off in Shanghai, so they were called Shanghai Orphans. They were then sent to one of 20 provinces, such as Shanxi and Inner Mongolia. According to a conservative estimate, there were 50,000 of these orphans.
She said that she would like to thank the CCP or she would have starved to death. I realized this was an opportunity Master arranged for me to save her.
I asked Master to strengthen me. She said she had been in Melbourne for two years. I told her to learn more about the CCP, and what has happened since the CCP has been in power. I said, “These three years of famine were not caused by nature, they were man-made. The CCP launched a political campaign called the ‘Great Leap Forward,’ which caused the great famine. Thousands upon thousands of people starved to death. Your parents might have been among them. If it was not for the CCP’s tyranny, you might have lived happily with your parents. Your parents would not have dropped you off in Shanghai. How heart-wrenching that must have been for them! If you knew the facts, you wouldn’t want to thank the CCP. The CCP caused your parents’ death. The CCP has turned many kind-hearted people into their agents who become ‘useful idiots’ as Lenin put it.”
I realized that she was deeply poisoned by the CCP and needed time to change her thinking—I had to be patient. I said, “The CCP sent 3,000 Shanghai orphans to Inner Mongolia. You survived. But how did you survive? Do you miss your parents? Was it fair to you that you never saw your parents again?” She didn’t say anything and looked at me blankly.
The bus was approaching, so I asked for her phone number. We exchanged numbers. She looked at me for a bit and said, “I haven’t heard before much of what you’ve said. You are very kind. I think I will take the next bus. Is that OK with you?”
We continued to talk. We talked about the June 4th student democracy movement and about Falun Dafa. She said that Falun Dafa was good but the Tiananmen Square self-immolation was not good. I told her that was a hoax, that the CCP used it to frame Falun Dafa, incite hatred for Falun Dafa, and as an excuse to further persecute Falun Dafa practitioners. The CCP harvests organs from living Falun Dafa practitioners for profit. This is the evilest thing in the world. I told her that Falun Dafa has spread to over 100 countries, and Zhuan Falun has been translated into over 40 languages. Falun Dafa teaches people to be good, I told her, and asks them to follow the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. It is a treasure. What Falun Dafa practitioners are doing is not for themselves but for all people.
If a ruling party opposes Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, what will it face? I raised my voice and said that it would be destroyed, that Heaven would eliminate it. The CCP persecutes Falun Dafa, suppresses dissidents, fools people, and hides the truth. I asked her if she would still thank the CCP. Cautiously, she asked me if I was a Falun Dafa practitioner. She said that, when she was in China, a practitioner had called and asked her to quit the CCP. But she didn’t. She didn’t believe it. But now she would think about it after she had heard what I said. We shook hands and parted.
She called me a week later, and we talked for a long time. She listened to me and told me about the truth-clarification videos she’d seen. Several days later she called me and asked me to help her quit the CCP using her real name. She said that she would tell other Shanghai orphans whom they should thank and whom they should hate. I said that I was happy for her and would include her in my experience sharing article. She agreed and said that, as long as it could help save people, please go ahead and write about her.
Clarifying the Truth at Work
I remind myself that I am a Falun Dafa practitioner all the time at work and let my colleagues know that practitioners are good people and that Falun Dafa teaches people to be good. I clarify the truth to them and help them withdraw from the CCP.
One day I put on my headphones and listened to Minghui Radio. My coworker who sat across from me asked what I listened to every day, and if she could listen, too. I realized that Master was asking me to clarify the truth at work through her. I connected my mobile to the speaker and played Lecture Three of Master’s teaching in Guangzhou. Everyone listened quietly and the hour passed quickly. One colleague asked me what it was and if I had more because he wanted to keep listening as it was so good. I told him it was a lecture given by Falun Dafa’s Master Li, that he asks people to be good, to look within in conflicts, and “don’t hit back or curse back.” He said that I had changed fundamentally.
With the help of other practitioners, I downloaded Master’s nine lectures onto my mobile. I played them at work and everyone listened quietly. When we listened to Lecture Four, Master mentioned that the employees returned to the factory the pieces of towels they took home. My boss was sitting there listening without me realizing it. After Lecture Four finished, he moved the speaker to a stool in the middle of us. We listened to Lecture Four again. We listened to Master’s Fa after that whenever conditions allowed. My colleagues would ask me if they didn’t understand something. This motivated me to study the Fa more. If I didn’t understand, I would study the Fa more, read more materials, and share with other practitioners. I explained to my co-workers why they needed to quit the CCP and its youth organizations. They understood and agreed to quit.
A colleague from a northeastern province in China gave me a piece of paper with the names of her brother and his wife in the U.S.A. She asked me to help them withdraw from the CCP. She told me to help the father of her sister-in-law to quit the CCP. He had passed away and was a CCP general. I could feel that she was thankful to Master. Seeing the sentient beings and their family members being saved, I felt happy for them. Thank you, Master, for strengthening me and giving me hints to enable me to save the people at work, their family members, as well as those who have passed away.
Thank you, Master, for letting me live with such happiness every day and letting me spend every day studying the Fa, doing the exercises, and cultivating myself. Master protected me during all of my reincarnations. I don’t know how to repay him. I would like to become a particle of Dafa, save sentient beings, be worthy of Master’s compassionate salvation, and live up to the expectations of sentient beings.
I wish our Compassionate and Venerable Master Happy Birthday again!
I wish my fellow practitioners around the world Happy Falun Dafa Day!
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