(Minghui.org) Some practitioners have been in poor cultivation states recently, frequently having accidents and disease symptoms. I wish to share my understanding of this as a kind reminder to all practitioners.

Another practitioner and I went to visit an elderly practitioner two days ago. He lives in a very remote area and did not come to pick up his weekly magazine. He had told the other practitioner that he could not read the magazine anymore due to poor eyesight. He had fallen the month before. At the beginning of the year, his body had also become red and swollen. His cultivation state was not good.

I went to his home a few times to share with him. I noticed that he had a strong attachment to tasty foods. He also loved to drink very strong tea, with tea leaves filling up half the cup. I shared my thoughts with him about that, and he said he would let go of his attachments to food and drink. Since then he has only drunk plain water. His health improved quickly.

This elderly practitioner had been persecuted several times. He did his best to maintain righteous thoughts when he was sent to a detention center and a forced labor camp. When he was in the labor camp, a guard yelled, “You guys who practice Falun Gong always say ‘Falun Gong is good.’ Now who dares to speak about how you benefitted from Falun Gong?”

Everyone was quiet until this practitioner stood up and said, “I once had severe heart disease, rheumatism, and other ailments. My diseases disappeared after I practiced Falun Gong.”

The guard arranged for someone who had renounced Falun Gong to try to persuade the elderly practitioner to renounce Falun Gong, too. Instead, the elderly practitioner reawakened the former practitioner's righteous thoughts, and the person returned to cultivation. The guard did not bother him again.

After he was released from the labor camp, this elderly practitioner found work downtown. He lived with other practitioners, and they were all very diligent. Everyone clarified the truth using cell phones. Unfortunately, the practitioner lost that job two years ago and returned to his hometown. He was isolated from the group and became lax in cultivation. He started to have troubles.

When we arrived at his home, he was watching a lot of TV and his yard was full of overgrown plants. He still had the cat he had adopted as a kitten. I had asked him several times last year to give the cat away since we are practitioners. He had vaguely agreed, but it was still there.

He said his son had arranged a free medical exam for him after the New Year. He went since he thought he was free of disease and it did not matter if he had an exam. However, the doctor said he had severe diabetes. His family asked him to go to the hospital and get treated as soon as possible, as diabetes was common in their family, and several relatives had died of it.

He told us that he might die next year. We were surprised, and I said, “How could a cultivator be sick? Aren't you pursuing it yourself?”

“I know what you mean,” he replied. “But since last year, my feet and calves always feel cold, even in the summer. I had my blood sugar measured several times, and it was always very high. I feel dizzy all day long. You have to believe the facts.” I could tell from his words that he felt old and that he believed he was going to die soon.

We reminded him of Master’s words:

“Let me give you an example. In Buddhism, it is said that every phenomenon in human society is illusory and unreal.” (Zhuan Falun)

We also reminded him that his symptoms were all illusions caused by his human attachments. Hundreds of years ago, the legendary Taoist cultivator Zhang Sanfeng started to practice cultivation when he was 70, and he lived until he was 130. We said that he, too, was only 70, and he was practicing cultivation of the Great Way.

We asked him how often he did the three things. He said he only read a paragraph of the Fa every day. He usually only sent forth righteous thoughts two or three of the four daily set times and skipped the one at midnight. He was very busy every day planting sesame, peanuts, and vegetables.

“Your cultivation environment is so good!” we said. “You have time and no one is interfering with you. You are wasting time that should be used to cultivate. Aren't you heading in the wrong direction?”

He also said something that shocked us, and we realized he had doubts about Master. I said, “Master has been waiting for us to cultivate ourselves and save more people. How could you doubt Master?”

Master said,

“If you still are not fundamentally resolute in the Fa, everything else is out of question.” (“For Whom do You Practice Cultivation?” from Essentials for Further Advancement)

It seemed that he awakened after we shared with him.

On our way back, the other practitioner told me a secret about himself. He said that, when Master Li had instructed practitioners to modify certain characters in our Dafa books, he developed doubts. He thought, “A god should know everything and be capable of anything. Why would a god need us to change the characters?” He said he could not reconcile this.

I told him that, in my understanding, changing the word itself may be a test: to test if you believe in Master and if you do what Master says. Master must have his own arrangements.

I shared both of these practitioners’ thoughts with another practitioner. That practitioner said, “There are thousands of reasons for one not to cultivate. However, there is only one reason for him to cultivate and that is to firmly believe in Master and to do what Master tells us to do.

“A real practitioner will cultivate all the way to the end no matter where he is, what situation he is in, and whether he is cultivating alone or in group. Those practitioners who are not diligent have human notions that formed over thousands of years. Those loopholes will be taken advantage of by the old forces as soon as they slack off.

“It is still an issue of believing in Master and Dafa. Tests can occur at any moment. Only by studying the Fa more can we keep strong righteous thoughts and pass the tests. Encouraging each other is also very important.”

Please correct me if there is anything inappropriate.