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Looking Inward, Cultivating Oneself, Fulfilling One's Prehistoric Pledge

December 07, 2008 |   By Xinsheng, a practitioner from Hebei Province

(Clearwisdom.net)

Greetings, Master Li! Greetings, Fellow Practitioners!

After seeing the article, "A Call for Articles for the Internet Experience Sharing Conference for Practitioners in China," I hesitated for a long time, until today I decided to write my personal cultivation experience. I want to report to Teacher and share my experiences with fellow practitioners. I feel that to seriously summarize my personal cultivation experiences and the lessons I learned from them is also a process of cultivation and improvement.

Witnessing the miracle of Dafa

I obtained the Fa in 1996. Introduced by my friend, I bought the book Zhuan Falun. After I read the first sentence of "On Buddha Law:" "Nothing is as profound as Buddha Law," a warm current ran through my whole body from head to toe and all the cells in my body became very excited. The first sentence impressed me deeply. I continued to read, and the more I read, the more profound I felt it was. The more I read the book, the more I felt that it contained heavenly secrets and I now had a better understanding of issues that had concerned me for many years.

When I first read Zhuan Falun, I was smoking as I read. When I read Lecture Seven, Teacher said:

"In the field of this class, no one thinks of smoking a cigarette. If you want to quit, it is guaranteed that you can do it. When you smoke a cigarette again, it will not taste right. If you read this lecture in the book, it will also have this effect."


When I read that paragraph, I told myself I really wanted to quit smoking. But I had tried several times before and was not successful. Since reading that chapter could help me quit smoking, I decided to read it several times that night.

In the next few days, I did not think about smoking and smoked less and less. At that time, I thought I might become very sick since I had smoked for over 20 years and had not stopped for even one day. I was prepared to deal with some potential illness. However, two to three days went by and there were no signs of illness. Moreover, I became more and more energetic. At around 6 p.m. on the fifth day, I suddenly realized that I had not smoked for the whole day. I took out a cigarette and began to smoke, but it tasted bad. I quickly stopped. At that moment, I thought of Teacher's Fa principle: "The Fa refines the practitioner." I was excited and very happy, too. I wanted to shout in the street, "This gong is really powerful!" At that time, I did not have any enlightenment quality. I only felt that this gong was very good and powerful. I did not even think about expressing my appreciation to our benevolent Teacher. Remembering about that, I feel very guilty.

Because of the many miraculous improvements in my health as a result of Dafa, I became very firm in my belief. Since then I have told people about the good results of Falun Gong's healing and health effects, and I have persuaded people to practice Falun Gong.

Never cooperate with evil at any time

After July 20, 1999, the evil CCP used all kinds of methods in persecuting Dafa and practitioners. In order to prevent practitioners from communicating with each other and prevent them from going to Beijing to validate Dafa, the CCP arranged for people to monitor practitioners.

The head of my work unit told me, "Upper management came to see me and told me to arrange for people to monitor you Falun Gong practitioners. Based on that order, we have made arrangements. You should not go to Beijing." I replied, "It's I and not you who will decide whether or not I will go to Beijing. It will serve no use even though you arrange for people to monitor me. I can still go. If you arrange for people to follow me wherever I go and monitor whatever I do, I will go to Beijing immediately!" He realized that this tactic was not going to work, so he tried another: "Will you tell me when you decide to go to Beijing?" I said, "I will not tell you before I go to Beijing. I will wait until I have left or have arrived in Beijing." He said, "OK." Ever since then, no one has monitored me.

On another occasion, the CCP's local 610 Office required some practitioners to attend their meeting. The head of my work unit told me to go. I said, "I do not want to go." He said, "That will not work. This was decided earlier." I was very upset. When I got home that evening, the more I thought about it, the more I felt that there was something wrong and that I should not attend their meeting. I called the head of my work unit and told him that I would not attend after all. He said, "That will not work. This was decided by my superior!" I replied, "I will not attend that meeting no matter who made the decision!" He said, "Then you should talk to the people above." I said, "It's you who informed me about the meeting and I should talk to you." He did not say anything more. Since then, my work unit has not asked me to do anything else, no matter what the event.

During that time, there was not too much communication among fellow practitioners nor did I see any materials from the Minghui (Chinese version of Clearwisdom) website. I also did not have any idea about "Not cooperating with the evil." Although I had a very strong attachment of fear, I firmly believed that I should not do or say anything against Teacher or Falun Gong. I had a thought that I would not do things in the communist way or bend to their will. As a result they did not bother me later on for things like filling out the form for a guarantee statement or writing reports, etc. They fabricated those items and handed them over to their superiors. Thinking back on it now, it might have been because I had righteous thoughts that rectified that environment.

Saving sentient beings at a Party meeting

In the persecution of Falun Gong, the Party has used different methods to deceive the Chinese people and incite hatred of Falun Gong. Once the local 610 Office arranged a meeting and the head of my work unit told me to make a speech. At that time, I did not refuse as firmly as before, although I did not want to agree to speak at the meeting. This was because I was thinking of promoting Dafa at the meeting. I asked, "Must I make a speech?" He said, "You have to." After I agreed, I did not know why, but subconsciously I felt a little bit happy.

At the meeting the next day, they arranged for only me to make a speech. The head of my work unit made an introductory speech and then asked me to speak. I said, "The title of my speech today is 'How I Was Infatuated with Falun Gong.'"All attendees immediately focused their eyes in my direction. Then I began to talk about how I obtained the Fa and how I got rid of my illnesses after practicing Falun Gong. I also talked about how my mind was purified and how I became a healthy person. I gave some examples of Dafa's amazing healing powers. The entire stadium was quiet and everyone listened attentively. It seemed like they did not want to miss one single word. When telling about something exciting, I said, "If there was no benefit to practicing Falun Gong, who would want to get up at midnight to do it?" People smiled.

During my speech, I noticed that the face of the head of my work unit changed color. I could tell that the audience was worried about me talking like that. But I was not afraid and continued. At last I said, "You all know that I was addicted to smoking before. I tried several times to quit but was not successful. However, after I read the book Zhuan Falun, in less than one week, I quit smoking. Moreover, many of my illnesses were gone. This is why I was infatuated with Falun Gong." After I finished, the head of my work unit was unhappy. He picked up on what I said and asked me, "You only talked about the reasons why you were infatuated with Falun Gong. Won't you talk about what happened later on?" I said, "Everyone knows what happened after the persecution of Falun Gong began. There is no need for me to talk about it." The meeting ended.

Now I realize that Teacher arranged for this opportunity and strengthened me so that I would talk at that meeting. If I had refused to make that speech, other people would have spoken. If so, they would have accrued a great deal of bad karma and then faced the danger of being eliminated. Teacher arranged for me to save those people.

In that meeting, I was the one who took the lead role. Now I began to truly understand the deep connotation of what Teacher said: Dafa practitioners play the lead role in human society.

Clarifying the truth to local people

During the two years after July 20, 1999, I noticed that the Minghui articles did not contain much about our local news. I became very concerned. I wanted to write something but subconsciously I felt that my writing skills were not good enough for the Minghui website. I also often asked why those practitioners who were very diligent and also knew how to write did not write articles for the Minghui website. In the meantime, I collected many local Dafa stories, but I could not find a fellow practitioner who was good at writing.

Finally, one day when I became very worried, an idea suddenly appeared in my mind: "You are a Dafa practitioner. Who is going to do it if you don't?" I was immediately awakened and felt very guilty for not doing more earlier. I decided I must write articles myself. That same day, I began to write and organize what I had prepared before. I quickly finished two articles about clarifying the truth and being rewarded for protecting Dafa. With fellow practitioners' help, those two articles were published in "Minghui Weekly." After reading the published articles, I was very excited and happy. I knew that it was encouragement from Teacher and I should do better in the future. Later on, I compiled many local articles. In order to make sure Dafa's accounts were genuine and accurate, sometimes I had to visit the event location and double-check the facts.

After doing this for awhile, I realized that it was not enough for only myself to be doing this job and that I should ask more fellow practitioners to participate and be involved in this job, too. Isn't it good to collect accounts of Dafa activities from various areas and publish them on the Minghui website? I began to ask those fellow practitioners about whom I wrote to record more events. I would then help them to reorganize the material and send their articles to practitioners who had Internet access to post on the Minghui website.

After we had more local articles, in one of our communication meetings, we all agreed that we should set up our own local truth clarification newspaper in order to save more sentient beings. But since nobody knew anything about editing technology, we could only make a simple local truth clarification newspaper, and the articles were not posted on the Minghui website. We distributed the newspaper as soon as the editing was complete.

It was at that time that Teacher arranged a better way for us. One fellow practitioner met a homeless practitioner who had experience in creating a truth clarification newspaper. He had editing skills and helped us solve the technical problems.

Material from our truth clarification newspaper was sent to the Minghui website and was soon published. We continued our publication. Since it was about our local events, people liked to read it, which had a very good effect in saving sentient beings.

Since more and more fellow practitioners participated in writing truth clarification materials, we began to have more articles. The practitioner that worked on typing often had to work until 2 or 3 a.m., which affected his regular Fa study, doing the exercises, and ordinary daily work. I then decided to learn how to type so I could share the workload.

I did not have any typing skills and had to learn from the basics. Later on I learned how to type Chinese words using Pinyin. I typed very slowly and could only type a dozen to twenty words a minute and often had to work until midnight.

There is no accidental event on our cultivation road. I understood that Teacher wants us to do what we should do as Dafa practitioners. In fact, Teacher has arranged everything. We only need to do it and fulfill our pledge.

Letting go of attachments and doing the Three Things well

One year, since I did not let go of my attachment to earning more money, I went elsewhere to look for a job. Because I could not get in touch with local practitioners, I could not read the Minghui Weekly Newsletter or Minghui Weekly and dared not to clarify the truth to save people in that region. Although I studied the Fa and did the exercises every day, I could not improve myself. Not only did I not improve, instead I kept dropping to a lower level, which made me feel very sad.

After I came back from that job, I planned to go out again to work. Two local companies wanted me to work for them. I decided that I would work for the one that asked me first. The boss at that company contacted me right after I returned home and asked me to begin three days later. Then he asked me to wait for a week. The third time he asked me to wait for two weeks. Later on, he told me that they were not ready yet and there was no job at all.

Before I returned home, the boss from the second company told me that he wanted me to work for him in another location one month later. One month later, he told me to wait for two to three weeks more. Twenty days later, he called me and told me he would soon ask me to work for him. A month later, he called me and told me I would go to work in a week. A week later, he asked me to wait for a few days. At last, he said it was too late for that year and told me to wait for news the next year.

At that time, I began to understand the reason why these two companies asked me to wait and wait. Wasn't Teacher giving me a hint? But I still could not let go of the attachment to earning more money. Teacher cared about me and did not want me to be ruined due to being attached to money. Therefore, Teacher used these opportunities to give me a hint. I knew that I should try to save more people since I was staying in that region. If it were not for Teacher's hint, I could not imagine what result I would have gotten if I continued being attached to money.

The next year, I decided that I would not go out to work. I notified my boss and told him that I would not go to work again. Since then, I have settled myself into doing the three things.

After a while, the man I worked for the previous year asked me whether I would like to work for him in one of the projects in my local area. I told him I would like to do that. Thus, without affecting my focus on doing the three things well, I agreed to work for him. I had more freedom in doing my work. Since I worked in a very efficient way, I could make time to do the three things.

Through that event, I understood that if a practitioner cannot let go of an attachment, it will become a barrier and that practitioner will drop to a lower level, or might even be ruined. Cultivation is a serious matter. One must let go of all attachments and do things in a natural way. This is the correct law principle.

Getting rid of human mentality and improving as a whole body

For a long time, conflicts existed among the practitioners in our region. We could not coordinate with each other well and caused great damage in validating the Fa, clarifying the truth, and saving sentient beings.

At first I wished I could solve those conflicts, but I did not pay special attention to communicating with fellow practitioners from the Fa's standpoint. I also did not look inward to search for my own shortcomings. Instead, I used ordinary people's methods to solve those conflicts and got the opposite result. Since I did not pay attention to looking inward and did not maintain my mind nature, I always looked for fellow practitioners' shortcomings and would not let go. At last, I too was involved in the conflicts. Moreover, it became a very strong attachment for me. Later on, some fellow practitioners did not balance well enough in solving those conflicts and the conflicts were escalated. I got very angry. Although at that time I was able to remind myself to maintain my xinxing and look inward, I could not control my agitation and search for my shortcomings.

Later on I understood that it is not a righteous thought if a practitioner's mind is not coming from the standpoint of the Fa. Only when the mind is working from the standpoint of the Fa, will it be a righteous thought. At that time was my righteous thoughts were not strong enough. Thankfully I met two fellow practitioners when I was shopping and we exchanged our understandings. They very kindly, seriously, and accurately pointed out my attachment. I was then able to improve a lot from the Fa.

At that time, fellow practitioners asked me to work with them in helping other practitioners who were not diligent enough. I told them that I felt I did not have a pure enough heart, but that I would like to coordinate with them. If I worked directly with other fellow practitioners, I might bring my attachments along.

After I decided to get rid of those human ideas, and with Teacher's strengthening, I noticed that, a few days later, my xinxing had improved a lot. I could control myself and not bring my own attachments into situations. I felt very strange. How could I get over that condition so easily? I understood that Teacher once again helped me get rid of those attachment by arranging for me to meet those two practitioners and communicate with them. It was Teacher who gave me a hint to allow me to improve from the standpoint of the Fa and to upgrade my mind nature. It was Teacher who got rid of an attachment so strong it was almost like granite. It was Teacher who protected me when I walked through hardship. I can't imagine how much painstaking effort Teacher has made to help me!

The above is my cultivation experience. In the future process of assisting Teacher in validating the Fa , I will be more diligent in cultivation. I will look inward and get rid of my attachments. I will follow Teacher's requirements, do the three things well, and fulfill my prehistoric pledge.

Please kindly point out any mistakes. Heshi.