(Clearwisdom.net)
1. The Persecution Started as Soon as I Began to Cultivate
I went to visit my elder sister on February 18, 1999. I picked up a book on her desk and began reading. Shortly after that I was deeply attracted to the book and deeply moved, and wanted to finish the book right away. When it was approaching meal time, my sister noticed it was hard for me to put the book down, and said, “You can take the book home.” I took the book with me: it was Falun Gong.
I saw the pictures of the exercise movements in the book and I began to learn them, but I was not sure whether I was doing them right or not. Someone told me there would be many people exercising on Sundays in the square. I just wanted to watch others and learn, so I left without my sitting mat. When I arrived at the square there were over a thousand people exercising there. When the music began, I stood in line and naturally followed along. I felt the strong energy field throughout the session. That was in mid-April 1999, and is was my first and last large-scale group exercise practice.
The next Sunday I went there again with my sitting mat, and saw many people leaving, saying the exercises were no longer allowed to be practiced. I was puzzled, and didn't know the reason why. I thought it was just temporary.
2. Righteous Thoughts and Deeds
I had just obtained the Fa when the persecution began. The media all over China overwhelmingly slandered Dafa and Master. I was very upset and did not know what to do.
Having no alternative, I had to do things my way. I took away the newspapers which my workplace ordered every day and removed the pages that slandered Dafa. I didn't want others to read such articles. I wrote my objection to each paragraph, and also added my commentary along with the papers sent back to the author. I wrote my own thoughts about the situation and added pictures or a headline, and put the posters up in public. I didn't know anything about truth clarification yet, and didn't have any other materials, let alone access to the Clearwisdom.net website. I felt greatly encouraged every time I heard a Falun Gong spokesperson talking through Radio Free Asia.
During the persecution, the people who betrayed Dafa led police to every Dafa practitioner's home and they searched for Dafa books and Master's pictures. One day after I came home, a neighbor told me a local police officer had come looking for me and inquired whether I practiced Falun Gong or not. I was not scared nor did I think about hiding. I thought, since I benefited so much from Dafa, I had to stand up for such a great Master and Fa. I went to look for the local police officer. He asked me why I still practiced Falun Gong. I didn't answer him directly, but smiled and said, “Look, all my illnesses are gone because I practice Falun Gong. I had a stack of medical bills that could not be paid by my workplace. How can I stop practicing Falun Gong?” He replied, “You can practice at home but you can't go to Beijing.” He said there was an order from above that if anyone in his area went to Beijing to appeal for Dafa, he would be heavily fined. He told me not to let anyone know that I practice if they inquired. I replied, “I can't do that. That is lying.” The conversation ended, and he has not looked for me since. I knew it was Master who protected me, a new disciple.
Fellow practitioners later brought me Master's new lectures and Clearwisdom articles, and only then did I realize that the persecution was an old force arrangement. Master did not acknowledge any of its arrangements. I worked with fellow practitioners to expose the persecution. We put up posters, hung banners, sent out fliers, and did whatever we could.
One time I was working for a magazine agent. I collected business cards, articles and letters from all over China, and sent them truth clarification materials and holiday greeting cards. It was relatively easy for me to use stamps, envelopes, and greeting cards from my work. It was quite normal for an everyday person to do that. However, I am a cultivator, and I should not take advantage of this perk. I am doing the most sacred thing, that is saving sentient beings, and my heart has to be pure. I spent my own money to buy envelopes and stamps for truth clarification. My colleagues all knew that I was a Dafa practitioner, so whenever they received truth clarification materials from fellow practitioners, after they read them, they gave them to me, and didn't throw them away like they did in the past. I put the materials in a place easy to see to let others read them when them came to my office. I then mailed them out after a while.
3. Memorizing the Fa
My reason for learning Zhuan Falun by heart was easy. I saw a fellow practitioner's book being confiscated. Particularly the fellow practitioners who were in prison had no books to read, were unable to study the Fa, and some had been “transformed” by the evil. I thought that if I memorized Zhuan Falun, and stored it in my brain, the evil would have no chance of "transforming" me. So I began to learn the Fa by heart.
Initially I had a hard time, I forgot the content I had already learned. I thought I should learn the Fa by heart just for the sake of remembering it. It was also a cultivation process. When I let go of my thought of having a poor memory due to my age, and only thought about how much Master had endured in order to save us, and those fellow practitioners who had been subjected torture in prison, I thought I should overcome any difficulties. When I finished the first round of Zhuan Falun I felt so good within. I felt I had made great progress. The second round was relatively easy. I memorized the Fa on the way to clarifying the truth. Whenever I got stuck reciting the Fa, I made a note to look it up that night and remember it well. Later I began to read a lecture of Fa and then learn it by heart. Sometimes it was faster for me to learn the Fa by heart than read it. This added time to my Fa study, and it was easy for me to pay close attention. If I didn't, then I would not remember anything, let alone not memorize it. Every day I had content of Zhuan Falun in my mind, and whenever I met with difficulties or tribulations, the Fa's content guided me. I benefited so much from this.
One time I went out to distribute truth clarification materials, and noticed my fellow practitioners had already covered the area. I then changed location and continued to distribute. One fellow practitioner mentioned that one of her friends was on a business trip for a week and when she returned she found not one, but several copies of Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party in her mailbox. These books were made by fellow practitioners with their hard earned money and should not be wasted like this.
I lived by myself so it was easy for me to go to remote areas that needed truth clarification materials. With Master's support, I rode a bicycle to places over one hundred miles away with ease. After several years, I became more familiar with the environment and roads of the remote villages. My areas expanded. Even though it was far, I would learn the Fa by heart on the way and sing Dafa songs, and I arrived in no time.
4. Improving Xinxing and Becoming More Diligent
With the encouragement of a fellow practitioner in 2009, I wrote an experience sharing article, and it was sent to the Clearwisdom website, but not published. In the meantime, my cultivation situation changed. It became difficult to send out truth clarifying materials, not many people quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after I clarified the truth to them face to face, my bike broke, and people said hurtful things to me. I was also injured several times over a short period of time. I had never run into anything like this over the past ten years. I was upset, depressed, tearful, and knew this was not a good state. I wanted to change but also wanted to cry out loud.
I knew it was time to improve my xinxing. I looked inward and did find a number of attachments. I was surprised after cultivating for so many years that my state was still this way. Over the years, I always used the excuse of financial strain for not being able to purchase a computer. Also I used the excuse of not knowing how to operate a computer. I felt at ease and justified accepting the informational materials fellow practitioners provided me. I had never thought of setting up my own family materials production site, so as to take some of the load from the larger site. These were attachments to fear and selfishness. I told myself that I should not search for excuses, but instead break through and improve from this point.
I had the idea of making my own materials, and with fellow practitioners' help, I purchased a computer and learned from the start. When I was able to open the Clearwisdom website for the first time, and when the printer began to work, I was deeply moved. From that point on, my cultivation state changed as well. It truly was, “'After passing the shady willow trees, there will be bright flowers and another village ahead!'” (Zhuan Falun) Those thoughts of depression and crying were all gone. I was happy and delighted.
5. Witnessing the Wonders of Dafa
In April 2005, I was a nanny taking care of a child. The grandmother of this child was a college teacher, and she believed in Pure Land Buddhism, but had all sorts of illnesses. She saw me carrying the child while walking up six flights of stairs with ease and said, “You are very healthy.” I replied, “I practice Falun Gong. Before that I had many illnesses, such as heart disease, hypertension, neck pain.” She was curious and wanted to read Zhuan Falun, so I loaned her the book.
A week later, she told me, “This book is wonderful. When I read the book, the incense I burn is the best, it is the incense that indicates the Buddha is present.” I didn't know what that meant, and she gave me a book so I could read about it. Suddenly I felt Falun turning rapidly in my abdomen. I only heard about this through experience sharing, but had never personally felt it. Why did the Falun suddenly turn so quickly? I immediately remembered what Master said about practicing only one cultivation way. Even though I didn't want to learn other things, I had curiosity. Otherwise why did I read her book?
I returned her book, and everything returned to normal. I am grateful for Master's hint. This was the first time that I personally experienced the turning of a Falun. This teacher also read the Nine Commentaries and quit the CCP and its related organizations.
My brother, who had his own business, he had a dispute with someone one day, and called me to help. During the discussion, we began arguing. My words were strong, and they were also stubborn. During the argument, I again felt the strong turning of Falun in my abdomen. I immediately realized I was wrong. Master said in Zhuan Falun,
“If you compete and fight like an ordinary person, you are an ordinary person. If you outdo him, you are even worse than that ordinary person.”
I quit arguing immediately when I realized I was wrong. A minute earlier I was very articulate and suddenly I was quiet, and the other party was confused. My brother took him to another room. They didn't quarrel, but solved the problem. I later looked inward and found that this was not an accident. It exposed my attachment to fighting, and also my sentimentality. I always wanted to interfere in others lives, and I was afraid that my brother would be hurt.
I remembered one thing clearly. One night, I was having illness karma. I was very dizzy, and felt awful. It was the hardest karma elimination experience I had to handle. I began memorizing Zhuan Falun, and focused on learning the Fa, and I forgot about the dizziness. It felt like someone was operating on my head. After a while, suddenly my dizziness went away and I felt normal. I clearly felt someone gently pulling back an arm from my neck. That action was very soft and gentle, as if putting a baby to bed. I sat up, but nobody was around, I realized it was Master's fashen adjusting my body. Tears ran down my face, as my gratefulness was beyond words. I shouted from the bottom of my heart, "Thank you Master! Thank you Master!"
Like most of the Chinese people who have received the atheistic doctrines from the CCP since childhood, I also did not believe in the existence of gods and Buddhas, just like it is written in Zhuan Falun,
“Some people are so stubborn that once you mention qigong, they will laugh at you from deep down inside. They think that you are being superstitious and too ridiculous. As soon as you bring up the phenomena in qigong practice, they will regard you as being all-too-ignorant.”
In order to save me, Master compassionately cleaned my dust-ladened memory, opened my wisdom, and renewed my life. I was no longer lost in everyday society. The Fa from Zhuan Falun made me clearheaded and enlightened,
“If you are free from this sentimentality, nobody can affect you. An everyday person’s mind will be unable to sway you. What takes over in its place is benevolence, which is something more noble.”
This opened my heart, and I became a happy, helpful, upright, and dignified cultivator. I will find my way home in this chaotic world. I truly felt the existence of gods, and experienced the wonders of Dafa. I am able to be saved in this one precious chance in eternity!
