(Minghui.org) I experienced excruciating pain one night about a month ago. Neither lying down or sitting eased the pain. I had three such episodes in the past, but they were milder and bearable. However, this time, the pain was too great—I couldn’t breathe, as even letting in air hurt so badly.

I asked Master for help, “Master, I can’t take it anymore!” The moment I said this out loud, I realized it was not right and selfish of me. Master has already endured so much for cultivators and sentient beings, I couldn’t ask Master to endure more.

I asked Master, “I will endure the pain if it’s my own karma. But if it’s the old forces persecuting me, I refuse. I will return it to whoever gave it to me. I don’t acknowledge it. Master please help me distinguish between the two.” As soon as I had this thought, the pain was gone.

I realized from this incident that with both karma and persecution, the pain that manifests on our body feels the same. However, we cannot acknowledge nor endure persecution imposed by the evil old forces. When we cannot distinguish between the two, we can always ask Master for help. We can’t tell the difference but Master can. This way, the old forces won’t be able to touch us, and we just pay off our karma as we should.

When we have sickness karma, it should not affect us doing the three things that Master asks us to do. This has been the case for me at least. When we experience sickness symptoms, we need to examine ourselves to find attachments that we have not relinquished.

A cultivator does not have sickness, then why do we have symptoms of sickness? We can always find the root cause by looking inward, getting rid of it, and improving ourselves.