(Minghui.org) After much contemplation, I have decided to write about some of my cultivation challenges. This was a difficult decision because I was not happy with myself for a long time. My hope is that others will benefit from what I have learned.
I began to practice Falun Dafa in 1996. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started the persecution against Dafa in 1999. My family, who also practice, and I filed a lawsuit with the Supreme People's Court in 2015 against Jiang Zemin – the CCP leader who began the persecution.
After the case was submitted, there was a period of time that I was threatened, harassed and sent for brainwashing by my employer and the local 610 Office. I was later terminated from my job. I kept my faith firm in Master Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Dafa and did not yield.
During that time, I realized that my intention for the lawsuit was not pure. I was not doing it to safeguard the Fa, but for the sake of the lawsuit. As it was my responsibility to file my case, I acted brave but became scared after I posted the lawsuit. Negative thoughts caused interference by the old forces.
Suing Jiang was the right thing to do. My first thought after sending out the letter, however, was, “What will I do if I get arrested?” Like Master Li said:
“As true practitioners, we should look at issues from a very high level instead of from the perspective of everyday people. Should you believe that you are ill, this may really cause you to become ill.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)
I did not believe in Master Li and the Fa wholeheartedly. Instead, I was anticipating the future with an ordinary mentality. At the interrogations, I spoke up for Master Li and Falun Dafa. Since having a spiritual belief is my legal right, I admitted that I was the one who signed and sent the letter.
I later regretted that I cooperated at the CCP office. There were many lessons like this one. Under Master's guidance, I got through them one by one.
In a recent dream, I was gambling. Why did I do that in the dream? Was I attached to money? I had the thought – I was putting down a bet on Dafa.
During the time when the local 610 Office put pressure on me to transform and “acknowledge my mistakes,” I thought: “I must stay on the path of cultivation. Even if I yield to the threat now, they (CCP) would not let me off the hook anyway. It's better to put my bet on Dafa.”
What a shameful thought! I wanted to use Dafa and Master to get me through difficult times. I should have corrected myself according to the Fa instead.
I shared what I was going through with my daughter. She admitted making the same mistake.
My daughter had setbacks due to lust, but was able to stop herself at the critical moment. Other practitioners praised her judgment. She thought otherwise: “If I lived up to Master's expectations all the time, I would not be calling out to Him at critical moments.”
She realized that she was taking advantage of Master's compassion and living a life as an ordinary person by only thinking about Him in difficult situations. With a higher education, my daughter became trapped in the materialistic world of making money and constantly improving her lifestyle. She strayed far from the Fa's guiding principles.
I came across Master's teaching:
“You will find that when a doctor at a psychiatric hospital picks up an electric-shock club in his or her hand, immediately the patient will be too scared to utter anything absurd. Why is it? At that moment, this person’s Main Soul becomes alert, and it fears the electrical shock.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)
At these words, I thought about our experiences. We only became alert at critical times in our cultivation and remembered Master when everything else failed. We did not want to suffer and lose our peaceful lives. How selfish and shameful!
I have learned that our main soul knows we came to this world for the Fa. We must treasure our cultivation and spend our days clearly focused on the Fa.
Category: Improving Oneself
