CULTIVATION STORIES

Before practicing Falun Gong, I was in critical condition and diagnosed with many severe illnesses. For example, at best, my lungs functioned at 27% of normal capacity. Most of the time, it was even less than that. It was a constant struggle to stay alive. Breathing was very exhausting and painful. I relied on oxygen tanks all the time. My left lung was diagnosed as non-functional. I suffered from a jerking pain in that area day and night. My doctor indicated that it was neither tuberculosis nor asthma, which are curable or at least controllable with modern medicines. My case was incurable. My only hope was having a lung transplant. In other words, I had been sentenced to death by the disease. In addition to my lung problems, I had severe heart problems. One of my coronary arteries was 90% clogged. Heart surgery was performed but failed. I felt chest pain all the time. I was in a wheelchair and could not handle my own day-to-day life. It was awful to live on the border between life and death while suffering great pain.

At this critical moment, I was lucky enough to be introduced to Falun Dafa by my daughter. I observed her changes for the better since she became a practitioner. For a long time, her sinus problem was so severe that she could only breath by mouth, and she could not sleep well at night. Using medicines every day did not help her at all. However, all those symptoms disappeared after she learned Falun Dafa. One day my daughter read Zhuan Falun to me. At that time, I did not even have the energy to read, but I listened wholeheartedly. Somehow, I trustingly believed in the power of the Fa (Buddha Law) and the teacher, Master Li. Miraculously, the very same day I was fine without wearing the oxygen mask and have not encountered any critical breathing difficulties ever since. In the past I could not imagine living without the oxygen tank. After cultivating and practicing Falun Dafa, I broke all the chains to illness. All my symptoms vanished without a trace.

From cultivation practice of Falun Dafa I was able to get rid of the life-threatening illnesses and year-long torturous symptoms. However, the process of body cleansing and karma elimination continued. Sometimes my tribulations seemed so horrifying. It was hard to imagine that an old lady with a poor health history such as mine could overcome them. Yet, with my firm determination in cultivation and trust in Dafa, I overcame those life and death tribulations in a short period of time.

I remember that I had some symptoms of a severe cerebral hemorrhage in late July 1999. I endured all the suffering and continued to practice the exercises and to listen to teacher’s lectures on tapes. Amazingly, in two weeks I recovered.

Last December I had a bad fever during which I suffered from a dry, aching throat. That night when I got into bed, I felt like my whole body was boiling, but my mind was busy reciting Master’s poems. After I completed one of the poems, "Da Jue" [Great Enlightened Being], I felt a burst of warmth flowing into my head and filling my whole body. My fever was gone almost instantly. My husband and I resumed group practice together the following morning as if nothing had happened.

The above are my personal experiences about the karma elimination process. At 76 years of age, I have gone through several horrifying episodes and recovered in a very short time. Looking back over the past year, I realize that my cultivation is still in its infancy when gauged by Master Li’s teaching. However, my body has been cleansed over and over again. My sincere gratitude to our Master is beyond words.

I came from Shanghai. Due to prolonged stress, I suffered from a heart attack in late 1994 that nearly ended my life. My illness was a great burden on the whole family. The cost of transportation to the hospital alone exceeded RMB?000, not to mention the large quantities of various medications that I had to consume daily.

In March 1995, I was fortunate enough to receive a copy of China Falun Gong. I could not help crying upon reading the book. My sense of relief cannot be described in words. I knew then that Falun Dafa was the cultivation way that would lead me back to my original home.

After I practiced Falun Gong for only one month, my heart condition improved, my blood pressure returned to normal, and my migraines went away. So I did not need all the previously indispensable Chinese and Western medicines. With further study of Dafa and practicing the exercises, my other illnesses, including a stomach ulcer, back pain, arthritis, insomnia and gingivitis, all disappeared. Even my pharyngitis and neck pain of the past few decades have vanished.

I was unable to withstand the cold due to my numerous illnesses, and had to put on warm clothing long before the cold season began. I suffered from chilblains and cold feet during the winter. Everything has changed since I have practiced Falun Dafa. Now my feet are warm, and I neither dread the cold weather nor need to wear padded clothing.

For the past four years, I have neither been hospitalized nor taken any medicine. Now I know how it feels to be free from illness. Incredibly, my gray hair has turned black again! In the past, I needed to stop to catch my breath after climbing two flights of stairs. Nowadays, I can climb five or six flights of stairs without panting, and can walk faster than those half my age. For a person who has had severe heart problems, I would not have been able to endure such a long flight to Australia to visit my son. I can only thank the miraculous power of Falun Dafa. Now, everyone in the family is on the road of cultivation.

Practicing Falun Dafa has not only purified my body, but also constantly upgraded my Xinxing (mind-nature) by assimilating into the nature of the universe: Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Early one morning on my way to the practice site, I came across a RMB¥50 note. I had no hope of finding its owner. I picked it up and gave it to an old-aged widowed pensioner. On another occasion, I went to a bank to deposit RMB¥10,500 into a savings account. The teller gave me a bundle of RMB¥500 deposit certificates. After carefully counting, I was certain the teller had mistakenly handed me 20 extra certificates worth of RMB¥10,000! As a cultivator I was not tempted to keep such an amount of money that did not belong to me. So without hesitation, I handed the extra money back to the teller. I am just one of the millions of cultivators who would act in the same way.

Master Li told us, "To return to one’s original true self, two factors are required: one is to be able to endure hardships and suffering, and the other is enlightenment quality." In the course of my cultivation, I have encountered numerous trials and tribulations coming from family members, relatives, and friends. I treated these as obstacles to upgrade my Xinxing and realized that suffering is a way of repaying and dissolving karma.

(Adapted from Ms. Tang’s article written in 1999.)

My name is Qihua Li. I joined the Revolution in 1928 and became a member of the medical staff in the Red Army in 1931. I experienced the famous Long March in the 1930s when the Red Army marched over 12,000 kilometers to Shanbei. During the years of war, I held many different positions in the army, ranging from pharmacist, assistant physician, physician, head of the division hospital, and the chairman of the Board of Health. I was sent to study at the First Medical School of the Army in 1953, and I graduated six years later. After that, I served as the Director for the Department of Health and also as the Vice-President at the Fourth Medical School of the Army. Then I became the President of the Second Medical School of the Army and Chairman of the People’s Liberation Army General Hospital (also known as The 301 Hospital). I was credited with numerous achievements and received various awards. I retired in 1984. I started to practice Falun Gong in 1993, and attended Master Li’s 9-Day Lecture twice.

Many people cannot understand why I practice Falun Dafa, including those who are familiar with me. They keep asking why a person who has been an official of the Communist Party and has lived an army life for several decades would believe in Buddha in his later years. Especially, why would one with a highly intellectual status and a life-long medical career join the practice of Falun Dafa? They cannot believe that I have such an interest. Therefore, I would like to share my own experiences and reveal the "mystery."

I didn’t know anything about Falun Dafa before 1993, much less practice it. However, I became serious about learning Falun Dafa after witnessing the dramatic change in my wife’s health after she began practicing it. I was so impressed by my wife’s rapid recovery from her critical illnesses after learning Falun Dafa. My wife had joined the revolution in 1946 and had endured many hardships. She developed quite a few illnesses, such as coronary artery disease, hyperlipidemia, glaucoma, and hepatitis. She took prescription medicine routinely for many years. Although she had the luxury of having quick access to the best medical care, her illnesses were never eliminated. On the contrary, her health deteriorated. Electrocardiography showed that her heart had severe ischemic changes. Because of her severe heart condition, she was completely dependent on medicine and sometimes oxygen to maintain her life. We kept two oxygen tanks in our house, one upstairs, and one downstairs, to provide immediate relief whenever it was needed. At that time, she would even become short of breath just by going upstairs and often needed to rest along the way.

After practicing Falun Dafa, all her illnesses were gradually eradicated without any medical treatment. She learned from our daughter-in-law in 1993 that practicing Falun Gong could have disease-healing effects. So she enrolled in Master Li’s class and went to the first lecture on April 29. At that time, I was skeptical. I thought that, if I wasn’t able to cure her diseases with the best possible therapeutic measures available, how could she recover from such severe heart disease by just attending a Qigong class? However, soon after she started practicing, her body and spirit experienced tremendous changes. Her face and lips became pink, and she became more energetic. She then enrolled in two more of Master Li’s seminars. Along with her progress in Falun Dafa cultivation, all her illnesses disappeared. She has been without any medication for more than five years.

The changes that happened to my wife shocked me. I started to think about and evaluate what happened. The hospital where I worked is among the elite hospitals in the world. Even with all the intensive care she received from the hospital, her illnesses couldn’t be cured. Yet, in only a few months of her practicing Falun Dafa, all her illnesses were cured without any medical help. Why? All these questions repeatedly came into my mind. Facts prevail over all arguments. Gradually, I started to pay more attention to Falun Dafa. Finally, I decided to experience it myself, and so I took the road of Falun Dafa cultivation.

As for my experiences, I have to start from my career as a medical worker. During all those war years, I worked in the emergency medical corps of the army. After the wars ended, the government sent me to medical school to study for six years. I have treated and saved the lives of tens of thousands of patients in my career. On the other hand, I’m like all other doctors in that I can’t guarantee my own health. In 1994, an MRI examination suggested a neoplasm in the vertebra. My family and children were all quite nervous. I did not pay attention to it and continued to practice cultivation. Nothing happened for more than a year. Then, suddenly, on November 4, 1995, I couldn’t hold a pen with my right hand. A CT scan showed a subdural hemorrhage in the left hemisphere of my brain. I was admitted to the hospital as an emergency. After a group consultation, the doctors decided to operate on my brain immediately. I requested an extension for further observation. The situation didn’t progress further, and I didn’t have the operation. However, the accompanying low temperature persisted despite medication. It was not clear what caused the low temperature even after every possible examination. Later, my wife understood that because we are cultivators we shouldn’t stay in the hospital. So we moved back home after asking approval from the hospital director. The second day after I went home, my body temperature returned to normal, and I have never had the problem since.

I was puzzled by this phenomenon because it could not be explained by the knowledge of modern medicine. It became clear to me after I studied Chapter 7 in Zhuan Falun, the article "Disease-Karma" in Essentials for Further Advancement, Lectures in Sydney, and Lectures in North America. In these, Master Li clearly explained the origin, development, and manifestation of illnesses and the process of purifying the body of Falun Dafa practitioners. From my own experiences, I learned that we should not try to explain the phenomenon of Falun Dafa using only the knowledge of modern science. Falun Dafa is extraordinary, so we have to follow extraordinary principles. Therefore, only when one treats oneself as a cultivator and follows the principles of Falun Dafa will miracles happen. It doesn’t matter what illnesses you have as long as you let go of your attachments and read the book with a pure mind. In most cases, you will be cured. There are countless examples. As a Communist Party member, a revolutionary army comrade, and a medical doctor for over 60 years, I earnestly advise those who have illnesses to put down that attachment and sincerely read the book Zhuan Falun and practice the five sets of exercises. No matter what kind of illness you have, you will get unexpected results. This has been proven by the experiences of countless cultivators.

(Adapted from Dr. Li’s article written in 1998.)