(Clearwisdom.net) Recently, I kept hearing about practitioners who appeared to have serious illness symptoms. Some were hospitalized, and some refused to go to the hospital. As a result, they brought a negative impact to their family members while experiencing sickness karma. Some had illness karma for a long time, and sometimes their situation got a little bit better, then got worse again.

We all understand that everything that happens to practitioners is not accidental. Teacher has stressed in his lectures many times that practitioners should look within. When illness karma emerges, we should look for the reason, why we fell short, what we are attached to, which attachments we need to get rid of, and so on. As long as we are able to find the root causes, the illness karma will be eliminated.

Having said that, another key issue is whether we believe in Teacher and Dafa and treat ourselves as practitioners. When we first began to practice Falun Gong, Teacher eliminated much of our karma by bearing it for us. Given that we have cultivated to where we are today, how can we still have illnesses? As long as we feel discomfort here and there, we treat it as an illness. Think about it, do we really believe in Teacher and Dafa? My personal understanding is that as long as we believe in Teacher and Dafa, and trust that we are true practitioners, and treat the illness karma with righteous thoughts, the illness karma illusions will change.

Let me give a few examples here: Prior to 2003, every winter, I coughed like crazy. Sometimes it lasted for more than a month, sometimes I vomited blood while coughing. In the beginning, I didn't pay much attention to it, and only thought it was karma elimination. Two to three years passed, but this situation kept recurring. Later I came to enlighten that this had nothing to do with karma elimination, but was persecution. Therefore, one thought emerged: I am a Falun Dafa practitioner, I do not have this karma, my body is under my control, and it will stop. Therefore, when I felt like coughing again, I began to hold my breath for a short while, then I stopped coughing.

Another time, it was during the Chinese New Year. They were cooking fish at home, I was attached to fish, and when I ate it, it felt as if a bone got stuck in my throat. My husband asked me to go with him to the hospital to have it removed. Since I didn't maintain my xinxing well, I went with him. After the doctor finished the examination, he began to ask me questions related to my esophagus, such as: When I ate, did food go down smoothly? Did I feel pain? After that, he said to me seriously: "You don't have a bone in your throat, however, there appears to be something as big as the head of a screw in your esophagus. I suggest you have an examination on that." At that time, an idea flashed into my mind: This was all an illusion. Immediately, I said: "I don't feel anything wrong, I am okay, another examination is not necessary." He began to write down what I had said. I knew that I had done wrong, so I said to Teacher quietly: "Teacher, I am wrong, I should not have come to the hospital." I then began to send forth righteous thoughts to stop him telling my husband, since my husband wasn't there at that time.

After a while, my husband came back, sure enough, the doctor told my husband that I did not have any bones in my throat. He said: "If you don't feel comfortable, be sure to have an examination, ensuring that you receive medical treatment in time when you need it." I then went home with my husband. My husband forgot about this incident quickly after we got home. A few years have passed, and my throat never hurt again. I understood that it was the old forces taking advantage of my loophole and trying to persecute me. My other understanding is that when we run into a situation like this, we should not be in a hurry to tell our family members who are non-practitioners.

One afternoon in 2005, while I was walking, I hurt my ankle two times. At that time, I only had one thought in my mind: I am a practitioner, I am okay, and then nothing happened. At 10 p.m., when I was washing my feet, I said to myself: My feet hurt pretty bad today, will they hurt tomorrow after I wake up? After I had this incorrect thought, my feet began to ache to the point that I couldn't walk. It took me much effort to climb up into the bed, and after a short while, I couldn't move my feet. I sent forth righteous thoughts right away to eliminate my incorrect thoughts. I knew I was wrong, so I said to myself: I am a Falun Dafa practitioner, if I am wrong, I have Dafa to correct my words and actions, and I have my Teacher who is taking care of me, the evil has no right to persecute me. In addition, I have to go to work tomorrow, and the evil cannot affect me while I am saving people, nor can they undermine Dafa's reputation. My body is under my control, I will be doing well soon. At midnight, I sat in lotus position to send forth righteous thoughts. After that, I felt that the pain had lessened a lot, and then gradually it reduced more and more. At 4:20 a.m., I got up as usual, and at that time, my feet could move again. Then I sat in the lotus position, did the meditation, followed by the first and second exercises. After I finished sending forth righteous thoughts at 6:00 a.m., I did the third and fourth exercises, and then everything returned to normal. After my husband got up, he didn't see anything wrong with me at all.

Through a few incidents that happened to me in the past, my understanding is as follows: After we appear to have illness karma symptoms, we must learn to look inside, strengthen our righteous thoughts, believe in Teacher and Dafa, and truly treat ourselves as practitioners. My other understanding is: We should not rush to tell our family members who are non-practitioners when illness karma symptoms emerge. Because they are everyday people, they don't care whether it is our karma elimination, or our xinxing improvement, or the evil's persecution towards us, they only relate them to illness, so they will urge us to go to the hospital, or even force us to go to the hospital. If we are not firm enough, or if we go to the hospital, we will be like everyday people, then all the troubles of everyday people can come to us as well. On the other side of the token, if we follow the requirements of the Fa, treat illness karma with righteous thoughts, look within, rectify our words and actions, try to solve the problems on our own, and then share it with our family members, this way we not only save ourselves many troubles, but also help to validate the Fa.

The above is my personal understanding on illness karma, please point out anything that is not in line with Dafa.