(Minghui.org)
I hadn't paid much attention to Falun Gong prior to 2007. I often saw Falun Gong materials left by practitioners in our apartment corridor but I never looked at them.
One day in 2007 I took a flyer and read it a few days later. It said that people who believe Dafa is good will be blessed, and it talked about the wonderfulness of practicing Dafa. One article quoted Master's words from Zhuan Falun. I wondered what Zhuan Falun was all about and really wanted to find it. I began routinely checking to see if Falun Gong materials were in the corridor and I would then read them.
Later a practitioner came to shop at my store and she clarified the facts to me. When I asked if she had a copy of Zhuan Falun , she said she did. I asked if I could borrow it and she brought it to me. September 27, 2007, was the day I finally obtained the Fa and began practicing.
I read Zhuan Falun in two days and remembered that Master said, “When it’s difficult to endure, you can endure it. When it’s impossible to do, you can do it.” (Lecture Nine in Zhuan Falun) The practitioner gave me the videotapes of Master's Fa lectures and exercise teaching. I learned the exercises from the video. When I first did “Holding the Law Wheel” of the second exercise, my head felt incredibly painful. I remembered, "When it’s difficult to endure, you can endure it. When it’s impossible to do, you can do it" and I endured till the end.
In the middle of the night a few days later, I saw Master's Fashen (Law bodies) standing next to my bed, purifying my body. I could feel the Falun rotating on my hands and the top of my head. At that time I hadn't even finished learning all five exercises!
One day my third eye opened and I suddenly saw Master's Fashen standing there smiling at me. I quickly greeted Master but I dared not open my eyes for fear that He would disappear. After a while I really could not keep my eyes closed any longer so I opened them, and Master's Fashen was still there smiling at me.
After reading the book for over a month, I came to the realization that Dafa was so wonderful that I should tell more people about it. I asked the practitioner for some truth clarification materials so that I could put them up. She gave me some, and I posted them around and asked for more. She then gave me many more.
When I distribute materials I usually start from the top level of the building and distribute as I walk down the levels. Once I went inside a building, only to find that a residential card was required to operate the elevator. I climbed the stairs instead. When I reached the top level, the 18 th floor, I did not even feel tired. It was as if I had floated up there.
As I studied the Fa more, I was able to recite some parts of it. I often recited the Fa as I walked or distributed materials. My heart was filled with joy and my body felt light. What I most recited was:
“He comes with Truth that gives him free reign And travels the four seas with a free and easy spirit The Fa’s principles spread throughout the world His Fa Boat sets sail, loaded full with sentient beings” (“Tathagata,” Hong Yin II)
Once while I was riding a bike to distribute materials, my husband phoned, asking me to come home soon. I hurried, but he kept calling me. Since there were still some materials left, I continued distributing them. When I was finished and started to go home, I saw the front tire was flat. There was no time to repair it, so I just rode the wobbling bike home.
Chinese New Year's Day in 2009 I went to a residential community. When I got to the entrance I saw that all the buildings had electric doors. How could I get in? As I walked towards a building, however, the electric door opened and a girl was at the door, saying, “Hurry up!” I thanked Master in my heart and quickly went in.
Once inside I saw the girl's parents walking towards the door with gift bags in their hands. The girl was waiting for her parents to go out. I walked upstairs and a man on the third floor said “Happy New Year!” I also wished him a happy New Year and I knew Master was encouraging me. I put materials on every floor of the building.
Another time when I was hanging brochures on doorknobs, the door suddenly opened, and a woman came out. She angrily looked at me and then at the packages I had left on other doors. I went downstairs and hurried across the street into another subdivision to continue distributing. Then I saw a police car drive by with the officer on the phone.
After I finished distributing all the materials and went out, the policeman was still there with the phone in his hand. I walked towards the car as it was in the direction of my way to work. As I walked by, the policeman suddenly started the car. My heart was thumping as I continued to walk; the car followed me slowly.
I kept saying the formulas for sending righteous thoughts as I walked. At the intersection I stopped and look back. The policeman put down the phone and drove away.
The practitioner who introduced Dafa to me was arrested and detained for a month in September 2008. After she was released, she became reluctant to provide me with materials to distribute. I felt lost and alone. Since I did not know any other practitioners who made materials, I started to send truth clarification messages through my cell phone. At the end of 2008, I went to her home to ask for materials. She said, “You belong to the next group of practitioners and are different from us. I am moving. From now on you can ask so-and-so for materials.”
I cried all the way home that day. I was very depressed and spent the next days in tears without studying the Fa or doing the exercises. I felt Master no longer wanted me to be his disciple. On the eleventh day I could not bear it. I picked up the book and randomly opened it. I read, “But it does not have any energy there, because they do not practice qigong.” (Lecture Two in Zhuan Falun) I cried again for a while and thought, "As long as Master still allows me to cultivate, it doesn't matter if I'm in the next group."
Master said:
“Don't worry about whether you're a Fa-rectification period disciple or a future disciple. Now that you've taken up cultivation, you're already a being that's envied by countless other beings. So just walk your path well. With anything a being does in the cosmos, he'll get returns for it. There will be returns for doing good, and there will be returns for doing bad. Cultivation of course involves returns as well--it's the good return of achieving an Attainment Status for validating your Attainment Status. This is an absolute truth in the cosmos. Don't think too much, and don't get concerned with what your own situation is. If you can do what it takes and you can cultivate, then go ahead and cultivate.” (“Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Western U.S. Fa Conference”)
I decided to produce materials myself. A practitioner helped me purchase a printer, and I started to print flyers and distribute them.
The police raided several local material sites on April 25, 2009. A practitioner I knew well was sentenced to seven years in jail. Later the home of another practitioner who produced materials was demolished, so she passed the production workload to me. Since I had to take care of my business during the day and my husband was not supportive at that time, I had to make the materials after he went to sleep.
I had been running businesses for over 20 years and had become selfish, competitive, and profit-driven, so I have had many tests in this regard.
When I just started cultivating, I ran into situations to improve my xinxing every two or three days. Once when I was walking past a store, a young man was splashing water from a basin. As I walked by, he splashed water on my feet; I briskly walked a few steps further but he followed me and kept splashing water on me. I clearly understood that I should endure, but I could not help complain a little. He said it was his place and he could do anything he wanted. I did not talk back.
Another time a customer ordered something. When he came in to pick it up, the item had not been delivered to my store yet. He seemed to be drunk and kept arguing loudly without listening to my explanation. Many people gathered to see what the commotion was about. He pointed at me and said, “Let's not buy things from her store in the future, she has no credibility.”
I knew it was a test to get rid of my competitive mentality, so I just let him be. After a long time he finally left. About an hour later he came back to apologize. He said he was drunk and asked me not to take it seriously, and he would still buy things from me.
After I started cultivation, my husband complained that I was always busy and no longer cared about him. After I get involved in the mobile phone truth clarification project, many practitioners would come to me every day. He was very afraid and told me, “Stop practicing. I don't want to end up in prison with you.” I was still busy with my work and did not pay attention to his feelings.
One night while I was making pamphlets, he came into the room and said, “If you continue to do this I will smash the machine.” Later when I was not home, he searched my cabinet and bed and found many bundles of currency bills with truth-clarification messages written on them. He was even more frightened.
The tension between us kept growing. One day I came home, only to find torn Dafa books all over the floor and bed, and Master's portrait was damaged. I got very angry and thought my husband had gone to the opposite side. He swore at me almost every day and threatened to divorce me.
A few months later, I learned that he had an affair. I said, “No wonder he stopped swearing at me so much. As long as he doesn't affect my cultivation, let him be.” Even he seemed to feel he had done something wrong and no longer bothered me as much.
One day after several practitioners visited me, he commented, “You have even become a key person. Don't you know the Communist Party is against Falun Gong? Sooner or later you folks will all be in prison.” His words really woke me up. For a long time I had regarded his deeds as coming from him, but at that time I realized the evil factors had been manipulating him.
Master said:
“When a tribulation arrives, if you, a disciple, can truly maintain an unshakable calm or be determined to meet different requirements at different levels, this should be sufficient for you to pass the test. If it continues endlessly and if there do not exist other problems in your xinxing or conduct, it must be that the evil demons are capitalizing on the weak spots caused by your lack of control. After all, a cultivator is not an ordinary human. So why doesn’t the side of you that is your original nature rectify the Fa?” (“Expounding on the Fa” in Essentials For Further Advancement)
For the past two years I kept having family tribulations. I was so busy with my truth clarification work that I did not thoroughly clarify the facts to my husband, so he was being controlled by the evil factors. I started to sent forth righteous thoughts towards him and told him to be quiet. He stopped talking as if nothing happened.
After that I often sent forth righteous thoughts and occasionally clarified the facts to him. Once when I was sitting on the bed reading Dafa books, he kicked the door open and stared at me, saying, “Can't you stop practicing?” I answered, “I became healthy after practicing Falun Gong. You've cursed at me so many times, but I never fight back. Had I not practiced Falun Gong, would I be so tolerant?” He said, “Just tell me if you still intend to practice.” I said I would. He lifted his foot and kicked my elbow, saying, “Still want to practice? Let's file for divorce tomorrow morning. I can't wait another day.”
I felt very hurt at the time and could not calm down, so I did the fifth exercise. After half an hour I no long felt so disturbed, instead I felt sorry for my husband. He must have a predestined relationship to be my husband, yet I had been cold to him and had never told him what Dafa is really about. My behavior towards him was not to the standard of a cultivator. I had not followed Master's teachings to balance my family relations well. I lacked compassion for him and had not met Dafa's requirements in our relationship.
From his teachings Master had told me what to do, but I had not cultivated solidly. I felt guilty that my mistakes had almost ruined my husband.
From then on I tried my best to take care of him and used every opportunity to tell him the facts. He gradually changed. When fellow practitioners came, he no longer lost his temper. He even helped me do some truth clarification things. I deeply realized that only by following the Fa's requirements to have true compassion can we really change people.
I was the first one in my area to use a mobile phone to clarify the truth. Once I sent two messages to a national security director asking him to release Dafa practitioners and stop the persecution so that he would not risk incurring retribution. His reply was full of curses, including defamatory words about Master. I sent him another two or three messages reminding him of possible retribution and he replied with swear words each time.
I got so upset that I turned off my cell phone and stopped sending messages. That was my early state of mind when I was sending messages. I lacked kindness and compassion, and was driven by everyday people's attachments. I'd feel happy when people said nice words and would fight back when they said bad words.
After six years of clarifying the truth with cell phones, I've let go of many attachments. The most obvious one was the attachment to competition. When I called people to help them quit the CCP and its affiliates, I was not affected by their attitude and I had a true heart to save them. I was not moved when they got impatient or swore at me.
Some people would say after picking up the phone: “Why do you keep bothering me?” I would tell them, “If you keep getting calls, it means I have a predestined relationship with you. We've never met, so what do I get by calling you at my own expense? I only hope that when disaster strikes, you will be safe.” I would then continue to further clarify the truth.
The project of clarifying the truth using mobile phones really took off in my area by the end of 2008. We started to buy many mobile phones. I was responsible for purchasing SIM cards, editing SMS, and teaching fellow practitioners to operate the phones.
The hardest part was teaching other practitioners how to use the phone. Most local practitioners were elderly. After they learned to use the phone the first time, they would forget how to use it the next day. There were practitioners who could not learn to use the phone after many times. I complained that they came too often and wasted my time that could be used on studying the Fa. Sometimes I was very cold towards them.
One fellow practitioner who was over 50 was embarrassed because she failed to learn how to use a phone after many tries. Once she said, “Do you think that I should not be doing this? Why am I so stupid? I am embarrassed to ask for your help again.” She was in tears. I was touched and realized that I was not being patient with my fellow practitioners. They really wanted to learn and wished to clarify the truth. Realizing this, my cultivation state got better for a while and I was calm and tolerant towards fellow practitioners. But after a while I reverted to my former behavior.
A few days ago, as a fellow practitioner stepped in my door, I told her, “Why do you come here so often?” She said, “I thought you would welcome me so we can share experiences.” I said, “This is not the place for sharing experiences. I have a business to take care of and I need to study the Fa when I have time. I'm sick of seeing you.”
She said, “You need to look inward.” Then she left. After work I mentioned this to another practitioner. That practitioner said, “You really need to look inward. Have you thought about why it's been like this for you for for so years? Periodically you get stuck in the same situation. Then you get depressed.” Before, whenever I had conflicts to discuss with her, she would side with me every time. But this time she asked me to look inward.
After looking inward, I found that my problem was not being honest with people. I thought speaking my mind directly might cause conflicts. Looking deeper, it was the attachment of being afraid of offending people. As time went by, the resentment grew.
When I realized this, I knew that resentment was formed postnatally and it's not my true self. I was determined to eliminate it. As soon as I became determined, my cultivation environment completely changed. Practitioners would come to be helped and then leave quickly.
I still have shortcomings in my cultivation. I will continue to be diligent in my cultivation in the limited time left, to do the three things well, and fulfill my prehistoric vow.