(Clearwisdom.net) May 13 is Master Li Hongzhi's birthday. He is the founder of Falun Dafa. Practitioners of Falun Dafa around the world recognize this day as World Falun Dafa Day. Every year at this time, I recall how I began cultivating in Falun Dafa, and all the ups and downs in my cultivation. Not once have I not felt very grateful to Master. I am deeply touched by what Master has done for all the practitioners and sentient beings. Here I would like to share some of my cultivation experiences and hope it can provide some enlightenment for others.
I am 72 years old now, and I obtained the Fa in 1997. Before that, I had many diseases, especially blood in my urine. My blood pressure was so low that I would become out of breath by just walking. Because of such low blood pressure, my heart didn't get enough blood, which caused insufficient blood supply into my vertebrae and brain. When I was walking, I sometimes suddenly lost my balance. The doctor explained that it was the low blood pressure that prevented my brain from getting enough, making me feel faint. The medicines I took had several side effects. My skin became hypersensitive, and--the worst thing--I had trouble falling asleep and had to rely on pills. In the end, none of the sleeping pills worked, and at that point, regardless of which medicine I took, I had an allergic reaction, and my insomnia got even worse.
At that time, I almost had a nervous breakdown. After several years, I had gone to almost all the hospitals in the city where I was living, but none of them helped me. The illness made my life miserable. I remember that on one winter day I was so uncomfortable that I couldn't sit or lie down. My husband comforted me, telling me that I shouldn't feel sad, and that he wanted to take me downstairs to take a walk. It was already midnight, there was no one on the street, and the cold wind chilled me, so we quickly returned home. I was suffering so badly, I wondered how I could ever sleep that night. I stared into the sky and wondered why I had ever come to this world.
Seeing that I was getting worse, my husband encouraged me to visit our son, who lived on an island in the South Pacific. He said, "If you are sick and you can't take any medicine, rather than stay at home, you should take a break and go visit our son." I said I was too weak to travel, but my husband insisted,, saying "If you go, you just stay there as long as you can. Don't worry about the expense." Actually, my son and my daughter-in-law had invited me to stay in their home, but I was afraid that if I went, I wouldn't be able to help and might just be a burden for themh, since my daughter-in-law was about to go into labor. However, they said, "You don't need to do anything, we'll handle everything ourselves. You just come and take a break." Finally, I went with my husband.
After we arrived, I continued to see doctors but just got worse and worse. Some doctors even suggested that I see a psychologist. My visa was good for one year, but I was longing to go back home (to China) on the thirteenth day. My son said to me, "Mom, the reason you came here was because you weren't healed in China during all those years. I am looking for people to help you." I said, "Your father has wasted a lot of money on me. My life isn't worth that much." I also told my son that people in China are all afraid of the medical expenses. When I went to apply for reimbursement for my medical expenses, and the leaders at my workplace told me, "There are several people like you in our company, some even live in the hospital year-round. Right now the economy isn't very good, and the medical expenses are very high. In the long term, our company won't be able to support it." I knew it was true. The company paid just a small part for us, and we had to pay a lot more ourselves, however I understood the company's situation. Very soon after, the company went bankrupt.
Having run out of options, my son suggested that I learn a qigong practice. He told me that he had a friend whose parents came from Beijing, that the father was practicing qigong, and that his disease had been healed. I later learned that they were practicing Falun Gong. At that time, my son didn't know much about it, but he insisted that I learn the practice. I refused and said, "If you could just get me some sleeping pills that would help me to sleep for one night, I could go back to China on my own."
At this time, Ms. Li, who was living in the same room with me (she practiced Falun Gong), saw that I was suffering so much. She took out "Lecture in Sydney" (from 1996) and gave it to me to read, but I kindly refused. When she gave me the book a second time, I told her, "Three generations in my family don't believe in it. "
Several days later, when she saw that I was still so miserable, she said, "Can I teach you to do the exercises?" I agreed.
After dinner, she started to teach me the first exercise, "Buddha Showing a Thousand Hands." I learned so slowly that it took me an hour to master the second movement. Then I said, "Let's stop here for today. You have to work tomorrow. She said, "Let's continue tomorrow night." I later went to the balcony to practice the exercise that I had learned. The feeling of energy flowing was so strong, and my palms became very hot. Unexpectedly, I slept extremely well that night, all the way until morning. Ms. Li told my son and his wife about my good night's sleep. Both of them came to see me, and my son said, "Mom, I heard that you slept very well last night." I said that I had. He then said, "Let's see how you sleep tonight." For the following several nights, I slept very well. My son then believed what had happened to me, and he was so happy that he gave it a "thumbs up." My daughter-in-law was also very happy for me. They said, "Falun Gong is so amazing! It's so magical! Falun Gong is good!"
My son wrote a letter to our relatives to tell them about my improvements. One paragraph in the letter said, "It's delightful to have my mom here, but what's more important is that her illness was miraculously healed. You can tell from the photos we are sending that she looks like another person compared to her passport photo. During the first two weeks, she was still having a lot of trouble falling asleep. I was very worried, so I took her to see some doctors, but neither Chinese nor Western medicine worked. Then we asked my mom to try Falun Gong. It's really unbelievable. On the first day she practiced the first exercise, there was an instant change, even though she didn't truly understand the essentials of the movements. As long as she continued doing the exercises, she got better and better. Now her health is quite normal."
After I recovered, I wanted to begin reading the Falun Gong books, but I didn't know where to buy them. Within three days, Ms. Li noticed an advertisement in a newspaper for the books, so she went with my son to get them for me. They bought me Zhuan Falun and The Great Consummation Way of Falun Dafa, and the bookstore gave us Explaining the Content of Falun Dafa for free. Ms. Li said her movements weren't accurate, so she wanted to correct them at a practice site. After two days, she brought home a newspaper that advertised a local practice site. She and my son contacted them, and it turned out to be very close to where we lived. It only took me seven minutes to walk there. My son asked, "When did they start practicing there? Why have I never seen them when I passed by in the past?" I later learned that they had just moved there a month before. Master was arranging all of these things for me, step by step. I should really cherish this rare chance to cultivate.
It has been eleven years now. When I was in difficult circumstances or my status wasn't good, I reminded myself, "You are a disciple of Master Li. You have to keep your mind clear and strengthen your confidence, and you shouldn't relax. It's not easy to have a human body, so you should firmly cultivate yourself in Dafa and keep up with Master in Fa-rectification."
Ms. Li later told me something else. Her mother used to have an inflamed gallbladder, for which she had already had several surgeries. The doctors told her that if the disease flared up again, they couldn't perform any more surgeries on her because of her age. When her mother was in the hospital, a Falun Gong practitioner went to see her and suggested to her mother that she practice Falun Gong with her. Ms. Li's father didn't believe it, but her mother decided to leave the hospital, and she started practicing Falun Gong with her friend. Her father had to let her leave the hospital, and he took her to the park every day to do the exercises. Gradually, her mother recovered. At first, her father didn't believe in Falun Gong, but after he witnessed the miracle of Falun Gong himself, he also wanted to practice.
I met a woman with high blood pressure. She also wanted to practice Falun Gong, so she went to the exercise site and asked what Falun Gong was. We told her that it's a cultivation practice of the Buddha School based on the principle of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and that it teaches people to be good and helps people keep fit. We explained that it raises one's moral character and places high importance on virtue. After we finished the exercises, I talked to her all the way home. I told her that my disease was cured just one hour after I did the first exercise. She asked me if it was indeed true. I said, "As a practitioner, I don't tell lies." Surprisingly, her husband and her daughter also had good enlightenment quality, and her entire family started cultivating. I remembered that her daughter was going to take the college entrance exam, so they were afraid that cultivation would affect her studies. They suggested that she start cultivation after the exam, but she was so determined to practice that her parents couldn't stop her. She went to the morning exercises with us every day, and after the exercises, she went to school. I later heard that she was admitted to a university. Several years later, the 80-year-old mother of the woman also started practicing Falun Gong. And the woman herself started to run a Minghui kindergarten. After two years, the scale of the kindergarten was very remarkable. Her husband was also doing well in his business. It is amazing how much Dafa has given them!
I would like to add something here. It is true that Falun Gong healed all my illnesses within just one hour, and it was really miraculous! Some people don't believe it. I was oncde arrested and taken to a police station, and I clarified the truth to the police officer who questioned me. When I said Falun Gong had healed me within an hour, several other officers joined in, saying, "It couldn't happen that quickly. No matter what, it should take a while!" However, it was true.
In the early days after I obtained the Fa, every day on my way to the morning exercises, there was a smell of incense surrounding me. I didn't pay it much attention to it at first, because I thought there was someone burning incense in the park. But as time went by, I realized that this wasn't the case. I wondered where the smell came from in such a big park? I was once on a trip to one of the islands and noticed the same smell. Twice the smell became very strong at my son's house. I then developed an attachment to the smell, so I asked the assistant practitioner what was going on. He told me, "Let it be. People experience the magic of Dafa everywhere. Some people can smell the magnolia flower. They are all good things. Just ignore it." The smell lasted for ten months and then disappeared after I went back to China.
I was encouraged by fellow practitioners to write this article, in order to tell people how Falun Dafa is indeed good. Thank you for reading it !
Category: Health Benefits
