(Minghui.org) Reborn after starting Falun Gong practice
I started practicing Falun Gong in 1998. Previously my health was extremely poor. My husband was also very hostile to me. My mother-in-law pushed us to sell our house and asked us to move in to live with her. She also demanded that we spend the money we got from selling the house on the whole family. When most of our money was gone, she drove us out of her home. At that time I was in pain all the time and had no money to see a doctor. I also had to take care of my family.
In about 1986 I started qigong practice. However, my health kept getting worse and I weighed only about 70 Jin (about 77 lbs). In 1998, I saw practitioners carrying a mat. I asked them what they were practicing and started practicing Falun Gong. That was when I was reborn.
A practitioner must study the Fa
My employer fired me in October 1999 for going to Beijing to validate Dafa. I was detained for three months. On January 1, 2001, I set off for Beijing again and encountered many inspections on the way, but the people checking for IDs seemed not to notice me, even though I was right in front of their eyes. With Master's protection I miraculously arrived at Tiananmen Square, where I opened up two banners. I was arrested and sentenced to forced labor for one year. I recited the Fa from memory every day and was released one year later.
Because I did not know how to cultivate and how to look inside for attachments, I was arrested again from a Falun Gong material production site. This time I was sentenced to three years of forced labor. I kept reciting the Fa from memory wherever I went. Many people in the labor camp could not read the Fa, so I recited it for them. I also recited the Fa to the people who had deviated from Dafa, and several of them got back to a righteous understanding after they listened to the Fa. Some practitioners kept listening to my reciting the Fa and maintained their righteous thoughts; they were finally released.
One of my deepest understandings is that a Dafa practitioner must always study the Fa. With the Fa in mind, one feels and is steadfast.
Telling people the facts and offering sentient beings salvation
I was initially very fearful about telling people the facts about Dafa. I forced myself to go out with practitioners and was gradually able to cooperate with them to tell people the facts. These experiences enabled me rid myself of many attachments, especially fear. Some days I was able to speak with 20-30 people.
One time I met six farmers. I explained the truth about Falun Gong to them, and they happily agreed. They shouted, “Falun Dafa is good!” right then and there. Another time we met an old man in his 80s. He listened to us telling him the facts, and tears ran down his face. We gave him a CD. He held the CD and looked in our direction until we had walked far away.
Another time we walked into a store. The store owner tried hard to push us out after he learned that we were Falun Gong practitioners. We explained the truth to him for about half an hour, and finally, with tears running down his face, he warmly welcomed us into his store and accepted the materials.
Doing whatever is necessary for the Fa-rectification
It was probably in 2007 that many practitioners were arrested and sentenced, and their homes were searched. When I saw that many elderly practitioners were having difficulties writing articles to expose the persecution, I said to them, “Let me write for you.” That way, many articles were published and achieved the effect of disintegrating the evil. I also wrote about my personal experiences to expose the persecution. My physical condition was not good before; through writing these articles my health significantly improved.
Another practitioner could not stay focused when reading the Fa and could not diligently practice the exercises. We had a sharing and she asked me to write an article about her persecution experiences. One week later when I met her, she told me that her condition had completely changed and she was able to diligently read the Fa and do the exercises.
Improving together with practitioners
In recent years other practitioners frequently came to live in my home, mostly because the persecution had left them destitute and homeless. We often had conflicts at first. As we kept learning the Fa and sharing thoughts, gradually I learned to look inside for my attachments.
A practitioner from out of town lived in my home for several months. At the beginning we were able to get along. In time we started to feel uncomfortable with each other and at last, she left with a negative mindset. After she left I felt very bad. I pondered the situation and called her. I apologized to her and asked her to come back. She came back two days later. However, I knew that the knot in my mind was still there. At the group Fa study, I shared my thought with the other practitioners and exposed my problems first. She also exposed her attachment after seeing that my attitude had changed. The conflict between us that had lasted for several months was resolved. However, I still did not get to the root cause of the problem. Afterwards, when I interacted with other practitioners, I often felt a kind of uneven mentality. I looked deeper into my mind and found that the root of the mentality was personal gain and jealousy, especially jealousy. It was showing up everywhere.
Later on I found that selfishness and ego were the root of all of my attachments. I looked inside for the two offending habits. Whenever I ran into problems, I surely found where I needed to improve and something to discard. Each conflict is an exposure of an attachment. Now I treasure very much the predestined relationship among fellow practitioners and do my best to handle the events and people around me with a pure mind and consider others first.
Now I have realized that conflicts do not happen without reason; there is no unplanned circumstance in cultivation. These moments present opportunities not only for me to improve, but also for other practitioners and for the whole group to improve.
Understanding the difference between cultivation in the Fa-rectification period and personal cultivation
Since the time I started practicing Falun Gong, I read the Fa and often sent righteous thoughts. I did my best to validate the Fa and to offer sentient beings salvation. But for a long time I experienced very painful tribulations. These tribulations often interfered with my doing the three things. Many hard lumps grew on my neck. They made my head look like it had been installed after these lumps were there. When the condition was serious, I lost my memory and was in a state of lethargic sleepiness. I was worried about this and sent righteous thought every day, trying to get rid of it. I also shared many times with other practitioners about it. However, I was unable to get rid of the tribulation.
Fellow practitioners were anxious when they saw me in this predicament. They gave me more than 100 articles sharing about illness karma. One article woke me up, “Correcting the Fundamentals of My Cultivation: Some Understandings on Sickness Karma, Safety, and Self” (http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2011/4/4/124211.html).
This article shared an experience very close to my situation. I found the root cause of why this lasted for more than a dozen years. I did not have a correct understanding of the difference between cultivation during the Fa-rectification period and personal cultivation. For so many years I had been completely in the personal cultivation state; that is, I was cultivating for myself. The most typical examples were, “I want to read the Fa. I want to send righteous thought. I want to do three things. No one should interfere with me. And I want to be diligent.” All of those placed my ego first! All my cultivation had been personal cultivation for me. It looked like I was doing things to validate the Fa, but I was doing them according to what I wanted to do, with the aim and purpose for the sake of my consummation. Fa-rectification period cultivation these days is to harmonize what Master wants and is for the salvation of all living beings in the universe. The goal of doing things should be for others and the needs of the future universe. When I came to understand this Fa-principle, I felt my whole body was cleansed. I was full of energy, and the impurities kept falling off my body. I truly experienced the boundlessness of the Buddha Fa. I also suddenly came to understand Master's teaching,
“Since such an immense Fa is being taught in human society, think about how remarkably easy it is to assimilate one person. Let me draw a most simple analogy: If a piece of sawdust drops into a furnace of molten steel, it will vanish in a twinkling. It would be effortless for an immense Fa such as ours to assimilate a person like you, to eliminate your karma, to remove your improper thoughts, and so forth.” (“Lecture at the First Conference in North America”)
The root cause for my dilemma was my incorrect comprehension of the relationship between cultivation in the Fa-rectification period and personal cultivation. The reasons for my cultivation were incorrect. Based on personal cultivation, one will never be able to enter the high realms of the new universe. Based on the cultivation during the Fa-rectification, one's path becomes wider and wider as one progresses in cultivation. I also came to understand the reasons why many practitioners are in tribulation: they have not correctly understood the differences between cultivation in the Fa-rectification period and personal cultivation.
Truly cultivating in the righteous Fa
I came to understand the difference between cultivation in the Fa-rectification period and personal cultivation and felt that I was reborn. I had not joined the local experience sharing conferences in two to three years. The day after I came to this understanding, a coordinator asked me to join the experience sharing conference. A thought suddenly came into my mind, “Experience sharing conference is a form Master gave us. I should go.” I shared my understanding during the conference about why I was in that specific tribulation for a long time and shared my realization of the difference between cultivation in the Fa-rectification period and personal cultivation. Many practitioners had the same feeling at the time. Several practitioners were also trapped in tribulations at that point.
Then the coordinator arranged for me to work on a project to rescue fellow practitioners. Previously I would have been unwilling to take on this project, because it was difficult and because I looked so unattractive. This presented me with the choice of cultivation in the Fa-rectification period or personal cultivation. I chose to join the project. Initially I was quite aware of my poor physical condition, and sometimes I wanted to quit. However, as soon as my righteous thoughts became strong, the unwanted condition disappeared instantaneously. Sometimes I felt very tired. When I sat down to send righteous thoughts, powerful energy would rapidly dissolve my unwanted condition. I felt that those unwanted things were being removed layer after layer.
Those egocentric things from the old universe are deeply rooted in my mind. I still have layers and layers of selfishness to discard. I also understand that I can do better and better only by reading the Fa wholeheartedly, strictly following the requirements of the Fa, and truly cultivating myself.
