(Minghui.org) I am a 64-year-old Falun Dafa practitioner who never went to school. However, I can read Zhuan Falun and other Dafa books. More than 20 of my family members and relatives started cultivating Falun Dafa one after another, and we experienced many miracles. Today, I am sharing my experience of memorizing the Fa with fellow practitioners.
I wanted to memorize the Fa a long time ago. I tried, but probably because I thought that memorizing the Fa would be very difficult for my elderly and uneducated self, I was not able to continue. Later, I realized that my fear of difficulty and lack of confidence had interfered with me. I came to understand that as long as we are truly dedicated in our effort to read and to memorize the Fa, Master will help us, no matter our age and education level.
One day, I found an MP3 player at home and turned it on and listened. Falun Dafa practitioners were sharing their experiences regarding memorizing the Fa. Some sharings were from practitioners in their 70s and 80s who had already successfully recited the book Zhuan Falun from memory dozens of times. What I heard touched me deeply, and I felt grateful to the Minghui website for publishing these stories. I made up my mind to memorize the Fa!
I started memorizing the Fa in November 12, 2020. At the beginning, it was very difficult, and I felt as if something was blocking my memory; it had been a serious test to my mind. To memorize a paragraph, I first tried to memorize character by character in a sentence; then I connected the characters and tried to memorize the sentence. I used a pen to put marks on a paper, one mark for each character and I put as many marks on the paper as the number of characters in the line that I was memorizing. It took me a long while to memorize a few sentences. I persisted this way for five days, and sometimes I spent up to four hours to memorize just a short paragraph.
I then begged Master for help, “Master, I want to memorize the Fa, I really want to memorize the Fa!” On the sixth day, I was able to memorize one page of the Fa in an hour! Starting from the seventh day, I could memorize six pages of the Fa in four hours. It took me 40 days to memorize the first lecture, and then I could memorize one lecture in 20 days. In the following days I memorized the Fa faster and faster, and eventually I could memorize one lecture in about ten days. I persisted in memorizing the Fa every day, and the more I memorized, the more I loved to memorize the Fa.
My xinxing improved quickly. In five months, I memorized the entire book Zhuan Falun for the first time. I felt amazed and knew that Master had helped me; Master removed something from me and opened up my wisdom. I would never be able to do so without Master’s help! Thank you, Master!
I felt that while memorizing the Fa, I could embed every sentence into my mind. The paragraphs that I understood in my regular reading, I could memorize without much difficulty. However, there were paragraphs that I felt were difficult to memorize. I thought about the reason and realized that I did not internalize these paragraphs of the Fa in my regular reading, thinking that these paragraphs did not seem to have much to do with my xinxing cultivation at the time. I realized this was a serious problem of not respecting Master and the Fa. I thought to myself, “Master, no matter how difficult it is, I will keep memorizing the Fa!”
Memorizing the Fa helped me find my deficiencies, correct myself, and improve my xinxing. Since then, when I read paragraphs that I do not understand, I read them over and over again until I came to understand. One day during my memorizing process I read,
“A true Dafa practitioner can obtain the same result by reading this book, provided that he is strict with himself in improving xinxing.” (Lecture Two, Zhuan Falun)
I cleared my mind and looked into myself. I had read the Fa for 26 years. I had thought that I was diligent and had kept doing the three things; I had thought I had not fallen behind in all aspects. However, I found that I was far from the requirements of the Fa; I found I was still attached to many human notions, including showing off, zealotry, jealousy and self-validation, and I was impatient. I sighed, for I had changed superficially without changing my inside, and I still had a lot of human notions even after cultivating for such a long time. I was embarrassed about my complacent thought that I had cultivated myself so well. Memorizing the Fa helped me to constantly find my insufficiencies.
My home hosted a Fa-study group. One day while we were reading the Fa, someone suddenly knocked on my door; the knock sounded urgent. I looked out the window and saw three police officers. I turned off the lights and we all stayed quiet as we sent forth righteous thoughts for about an hour. We heard the police move on and knock on other doors. Everyone left after we finished sending righteous thoughts.
We were not bothered by this experience and kept gathering together to study as we usually did. Three days later, I met two people in the same community who had learned the truth about Falun Dafa. They told me, “You should pay attention to your safety. People from the police station came and asked if there were any Falun Dafa practitioners in this community. We told them that we did not know and had not seen anyone.”
I then looked inside to determine if I had any attachments that might have attracted this interference. I found that many fellow practitioners had come to my home to get truth-clarification materials during this period. I realized that we had not paid enough attention to our safety. Master said,
“This mentality of showing off can manifest in any situation; it can also surface when doing a good deed. In order to gain fame, personal profit, and a little benefit, some people often brag about themselves and show off: "I’m very capable and a winner."” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)
I found that I had the mentality of validating myself and showing off. I liked to hear compliments from fellow practitioners, saying that I had cultivated well. My attachments to zealotry and showing off grew and were taken advantage of by the evil. Fortunately, I was able to find these attachments through memorizing the Fa. I corrected myself and disintegrated the evil. The interference did not happen again.
Master constantly showed me higher meanings of the Fa while I memorized the content. I improved every day. Whenever I achieved a further understanding of the Fa, I was moved to tears. I regretted not starting to memorize the Fa earlier and wasting time in my past years of cultivation practice. If I could memorize the Fa in my early years of cultivation, my xinxing would likely have improved much faster.
I felt that I had worked well with fellow practitioners for the past 20 years. However, when I had disagreements with one particular practitioner, I always felt in my mind that I was right. I thought that she was a coordinator and should be able to do well in all aspects. I often found her faults and looked at her shortcomings, and sometimes I even felt aggrieved. I realized this stemmed from my jealousy.
For example, this practitioner mentioned one day that while we were rescuing an illegally detained fellow practitioner, I said something wrong, which hindered everyone’s sending righteous thoughts. I had a thought immediately, “Am I being blamed for something that happened unexpectedly?” My mind was disturbed. One morning when I got up to memorize the Fa, this feeling turned up again, and it kept getting worse. I continued thinking about how she was unkind to me and often hurt my feelings over the past ten years.
I immediately realized that my thought karma was interfering with me and wanted to create conflict between us. I kept resisting it, “What are you! I don’t acknowledge you and won’t follow you. I will not fall into your hands, and I only follow my Master’s teachings.” I looked inside and realized that my jealousy was causing the trouble. I sent righteous thoughts for a while to eliminate it. I felt relieved immediately.
However, jealousy arose again two days later. I realized that this mentality was very stubborn and not easy to discard. I then shared my understandings with the fellow practitioner coordinator and confessed my deeply hidden jealousy of her. Later, my xinxing improved and this jealousy never appeared again.
I never had any further negative thoughts about this practitioner. I realized that my human notions caused me to feel disturbed. Only by discarding selfishness and other human notions can I improve. Now we both cooperate much better. Memorizing the Fa helped me to achieve such improvement!
I feel that memorizing the Fa is completely different from just reading through the Fa. My mind is completely focused on the Fa while memorizing; I could embed every sentence of the Fa into my mind and achieve new understandings every day. Memorizing the Fa also cleared my mind when doing the exercises. I often felt a very strong energy field around me while doing the Falun Standing Stance and the sitting meditation. I felt wonderful things as Master described:
“There is another state in which as one sits for a while, one finds that the legs are gone, and cannot think where the legs went; the body is also gone; the arms are also gone; the hands are also gone—only the head is left. As one keeps practicing, one finds that the head is gone as well, leaving only one’s own mind, a little thought that one is practicing here.” (Lecture Eight, Zhuan Falun)
Thank you, Master, for your compassionate salvation! I will cherish this unprecedented opportunity, persist in memorizing the Fa, and diligently do the three things well; I will do my best to be worthy of Master’s salvation.
Please point out any of my shortcomings!