How to Truly Help Practitioners Who Are in Tribulation

(Minghui.org) One day, I took my daughter with me to our local Fa study group. As we were just about to get started, Practitioner Chen arrived and asked us to go to practitioner Aiyin's home and send forth righteous thoughts for her.

Aiyin had been dealing with illness karma for several days and now her symptoms had gotten serious.

Several practitioners left with Chen to go to Aiyin's. I shared with those who stayed what I thought Aiyin's problems might be. I thought she might not have been aware of her problems, so I thought we ought to discuss them before talking to her. Most of the other practitioners told me they had also identified her problems and pointed them out to her already, but she just couldn't accept it.

That made me feel so helpless. Just think, she slacked off so much that now she has illness karma. How could we get through to her?

After we finished sharing about how to help Aiyin, we started to study the teachings. My daughter had motion sickness on our way over, and she kept murmuring that she felt dizzy and couldn't read. I sent forth righteous thoughts for her and told her to negate it, but it didn't help, so I asked her to just listen while we read. She sat there and murmured to me every once in a while, “Mom, I'm dizzy.”

I was not focused either. As I studied the Fa, a dream I'd had came to mind. In it, three practitioners had passed away. Two of them were in their caskets, so I didn't see their faces. I saw the third practitioner's face, so I negated the old forces' evil arrangement immediately. But I forgot to do the same for the other two.

As I thought of this, I started to repent. Why was my enlightenment quality so poor? Since I knew they were both practitioners, why didn't I negate it for them, too?

Then I recalled something else. One time, as I sent forth righteous thoughts for Aiyin, I saw green snakes crawling up to her house. When I later ran into her, I had a bad headache as soon as I got close to her. I was aware that something evil was in her dimensional field. I helped her send forth righteous thoughts the following week, a couple of hours each day.

I still couldn't focus on Fa study and kept on thinking about the dream and what I had seen. I wondered: “Should I tell the others about the horrible things I saw in my dream? How should we share with Aiyin about her problems? I saw snakes marching to her house (with my third eye) while sending forth righteous thoughts. That means she still didn't let go of her lust and desire.”

At the moment, we were reading in the section titled “Demonic Interference From One’s Own Mind:” “So, once an attachment is developed, it will lead to this demonic illusion. It is very difficult for one to stay away from it.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)

I was shocked. I knew that Master [Li Hongzhi] was giving me a hint that all I'd dreamed and seen were demonic illusions. But I kept worrying and thinking about what I had dreamed about and seen. I was wrapped up in a demonic illusion and couldn't break away from it.

Then I thought of a cultivation story that I'd recently read. A Taoist master was teaching several disciples to cultivate in front of an alchemy furnace. This master evolved a demonic illusion to test them. All of his disciples but one entered the illusion, and their hearts were moved by it. One of them even broke a precept. When the master ended the test, they came out of the illusion and found their master and the undisturbed disciple still sitting in front of the alchemy furnace. All the disciples but the undisturbed one had failed in their cultivation.

I thought Master was giving me a hint. What I dreamed about and saw were all demonic illusions that I entered into as soon as my heart was disturbed. Master said:

“No matter how high one’s cultivation level is, once this problem occurs one will fall all the way to the bottom and, in the end, be ruined—this is an extremely serious issue.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)

I suddenly realized that I had never truly enlightened to this point. I understood it only superficially: that one will fall all the way to the bottom if one gets caught up in illusion. But so many times we are so disturbed by what we see in our dreams that we turn it into reality, and that leads to actual persecution. It's similar to the above story. We fall and drop when we believe what we see in a dream or with our third eye. We always think we have seen it in advance and use that illusion to validate ourselves.

As we continued studying the Fa, we read in the section “Your Mind Must Be Right:”

“Let me put it this way: If you carry a considerable amount of energy, whatever you say will have an impact.”

“If you open your mouth and say something to him, that tribulation may become true.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)

I was stunned. I knew that Master was giving me another hint. If I opened my mouth and described the horrible things I'd seen, then I might actually bring that tribulation to her.

Meanwhile, it came to my mind that the police were waiting for me outside my home and would search me for Falun Gong materials and then arrest me. I immediately negated that possibility and suddenly realized one more thing: I could negate it firmly when I saw the demonic illusion that pertained to me, so why couldn't I negate it when it came to my fellow practitioners? Why did I regard it as inevitable? I think the most fundamental reason is selfishness.

As I enlightened to all these things, I suddenly woke up from the demonic illusion and my mind became sober. That's right. All I had dreamed and seen were demonic illusions. The false image of my being searched and arrested vanished immediately.

Just then, my daughter picked up the book Zhuan Falun and started reading it. I asked her if she was still dizzy.

She replied, “I'm all right, Mom. I am not dizzy anymore.”

Just think, I wasn't able to eliminate the evil elements for her even though I sent forth righteous thoughts, but now, when I was out from under the spell of the demonic illusion, she was all right.

That night, as I was doing housework, I kept thinking. Unconsciously I again recalled that dream and what I saw with my third eye. But now I knew how to reject them because I had truly enlightened to the Fa principle. I knew it was all demonic illusion. And I realized that if I wanted to truly help Aiyin, I should identify my own shortcomings instead of helping her identify her problems. I suddenly woke up! For so many years we've been cultivating and paying such a painful price!

As I wrote this article, I thought of something else. That day, we were supposed to study Lecture Seven, but a practitioner insisted that we study Lecture Six one more time. Nothing is accidental for practitioners. Master arranges everything to enlighten us. My heart was filled with warmth and gratitude for Master.

After doing the housework, I sat down and started to write this article. I knew that I had to write it out immediately, just in case I couldn't recall it later. I truly hope that my sharing can help fellow practitioners with illness karma break through tribulations.