(Minghui.org) As a practitioner, if we want to continue to cleanse and purify ourselves, as well as to elevate, we have to abide by higher standards—we cannot be like ordinary people. Having cultivated for so many years, I feel that I have changed. I can now consider others’ needs first when I do anything and follow Master’s guidance. I measure everything I do based on the Fa. I am also able to first look within when I encounter problems, reflect on myself, and truly cultivate.
Master said,
“Remember that a holy being would never let anything affect him or her emotionally; worldly things simply don’t occupy a holy person’s mind. They will always be pleasant and upbeat, however badly they might be treated.” (The Ninth Talk, Zhuan Falun)
I am a cultivator, which affects how I behave. I must try my best to do the three things well, cultivate myself well, study the Fa well, send forth righteous thoughts well, and save more sentient beings.
Master said,
“If you, as my student, truly want to “help Master rectify the Fa,” then you should concern yourself only with how to best fulfill what Master wants. This alone is what you should be doing” ("What Does It Mean to “Help Master Rectify the Fa”," The Essentials of Diligent Progress III)
Therefore, I do what Master said.
I would like to relate an unforgettable experience. I went out to distribute Falun Gong informational materials one night in the spring of 2010. There were many people out, but a police car wove through the crowd with the siren on, so it was not easy to hand out my brochures. I did not give out many even though I walked for a long time. I left my house at seven and thought, “Let me travel through another dimension.”
I continued walking and noticed that it had gotten very quiet and there were no more streetlights. I thought that this street would be a good place to distribute truth-clarifying materials and left a few Dafa booklets at the shops along the way. After passing an intersection, I realized that I could no longer hear the police siren and there were fewer people. I did not think much about it, just that I wanted to let people have access to the truth about Dafa.
Because it was nighttime, I could not figure out in which direction I was walking. I thought that if I walked too far, I would just take a cab home. However, the further I walked, the smaller the crowds. I saw rows of cars on both sides of the street and a young couple walking by. At that time, I just did not feel like talking. Then I saw a couple taking a girl through a big moon gate. I continued to walk on.
About three or four children were playing in front of a house and two large dump trucks drove by making a lot of noise. There was a barbecue stand by the side of the road and I noticed that the grill used to barbecue the meat was unusual—it had a square chimney on one side. That was different from what I usually saw. I asked to the woman by the grill, “Have you started cooking?” She replied without turning around, “Didn’t all these skewers just come off the grill?” She had curly yellow hair and I only saw her back, not her face.
Just then I saw a metal barricade across the road. I wondered, “Is there something wrong? I can’t go any further.” In my heart, I asked Master, “Master, should I stop here for today? I will continue tomorrow. I want to go home.”
Master said,
“Whatever thoughts you have are known to my spiritual bodies* in another dimension. Space and time are different there, and so your thoughts, as my spiritual bodies behold them, are extremely slow to form. And so those bodies of mine know your thoughts even before you could. The point is that you should change any thoughts that aren’t appropriate.” (The Second Talk, Zhuan Falun)
I saw that a car had stopped not far away, so I walked over and asked the driver if he would give me a ride. He asked me to wait. Just then, a big man in a suit got out of the front passenger seat and the driver said, “Hop in. Let’s just wait for him for a bit.”
I sat in the backseat. In a little while, that man got back into the car. I could not see his face clearly, but I felt at ease. When the engine started, it sounded as if the car was driving through water—I actually heard water gushing. I wondered to myself why there would be so much water on such a clear day. After a while, the car made a turn and I saw the crowds from earlier in the evening very clearly under the streetlights.
The car stopped at my house and I got out. Just as I straightened up, I heard a “woo” sound and turned back to see what it was. To my shock, the car was nowhere to be seen, not even a shadow!
Who could I tell about this? Who would believe me? But that really happened to me! I am not trying to say how well I cultivate. On the contrary, it just told me that I cultivated so poorly that Master had to worry about me! It was an example of Master’s benevolence—his vast mercy had protected me.
This incident has encouraged me all these years, reminding me to be diligent in my cultivation.
The pandemic was very serious in 2020, and our district was locked down. The entrances to all the sub-districts were closed, and no one could enter or leave. Then, another rule was announced: Only one person per household could leave the house to shop every two days and this person had to return within two hours. If not, no one would be allowed to leave the house. The lockdown made it very difficult to clarify the truth in the district, so I had to use these two hours well. In the past, we could chat with others face-to-face when we clarified the truth, but now, if you greeted someone, they would be so scared that they would walk away.
What should I do? Change the method! When I went to the supermarket to shop, people appeared scared, but no matter how difficult it was, I could not become lax about saving people. Later, the supermarket required everyone to scan a bar code and have their identity cards checked. If not, you couldn’t enter, so I looked for supermarkets that were easier to enter or small supermarkets.
One day as I returned from clarifying the truth, there was a layer of fresh snow covering the ice on the deck in my backyard. Carrying the rice and vegetables, I slipped and fell, landing on the right side of my chest and my right arm.
I couldn’t move my arm, but I immediately thought, “I am fine. I am a practitioner, I have Master’s protection. There is no problem.” I got up and went into the house. However, my arm and the right side of my body ached pretty badly. I thought that this was the evil persecuting me because I was doing the most righteous thing—there was nothing wrong with saving sentient beings.
That afternoon, I did the exercises. I couldn’t lift my right arm, so I used my left hand to raise my right hand. Even though it was very painful, I persisted. When it became unbearable, I begged Master in my heart to empower me, to not acknowledge the evil’s persecution, and to not let it stop me from saving sentient beings and doing the exercises. I also recited, “Nothing is truly unbearable or impossible.” (The Ninth Talk, Zhuan Falun)
For the next seven days, my chest felt so tight that I could not breathe properly when I slept at night. When I felt my chest, the right side stuck out much more than the left and it felt very hot, too. And no matter where I put my arm, it ached and hurt, making it hard for me to go to sleep.
I looked within to see where I did wrong that allowed the evil to have an excuse to persecute me. I was not attached to money or lust, and I did not care much about relationships. Why was I being persecuted?
Ah, I found it. I still held onto hatred. This attachment occasionally made itself known when I complained that my husband did not support me in my cultivation, refused to help me around the house, and created trouble for me. When the police came to our house to harass me, he opened the door for them and did not tell me they were there. He did not stop them when they confiscated my Dafa books and the recorder I used to do my exercises. He did nothing when I was detained for 15 days. I could go on and on about all the things I thought he did wrong.
I knew that I should not feel hatred, and I tried to get rid of this attachment, but I just could not do it. I even accused my daughter of not loving me and not supporting me. Whenever these attachments surfaced, I would send forth righteous thoughts to get rid of them, but after a while, they would appear again. I just could not get rid of them. I really felt bad about being such a disappointment, but I thought, “I am a Dafa practitioner. If there are any areas that I did not cultivate well, I will rectify them based on the Fa. I have Master to watch over me and the evil has no right to persecute me. I am not going to let them stop me from cultivating like this!”
I did not skip any of the exercises. Although my arm hurt so much that I could not do them properly, I persisted. While doing the second exercise, my arm hurt so much that I shook and could barely stand. I send forth a thought: “Evil, you cannot stop me on my path of cultivation. I am not even afraid of death, why would I be afraid of pain? That will never pull me down. Since you cause me to be in pain, I will do the same to you.” Although the pain was excruciating, I did not acknowledge it.
Master said,
“In spiritual practice you must eliminate karma, and that is painful. A higher energy like gong is most definitely not something gained through comfort and ease. Without suffering, there would be no way to break your attachments.” (The Sixth Talk, Zhuan Falun)
I continued to go out to save people, and I gradually felt better.
I once met an older man who understood the truth at a big mall. He said, “I am 91 this year. I never attended school. I know that you all are good people. I look forward to Master Li returning to China soon! He needs to come back quickly!” Tears welled up in my eyes and I said to him, “Sir, thank you for saying that! You are a good person so you will definitely be blessed. Remember ‘Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good, Falun Dafa is good!’” He said that he would. I’ve had many similar encounters.
Of course, every individual is different. Throughout all these years, I’ve met all sorts of people as I’ve clarified the truth. Some of them do not understand why someone like me, who already is old, does not stay home to rest and watch TV in comfort. They do not understand why I go out to talk to people, so they do not want to listen to what I say. There are also people who belittle me. Every time we meet people like that, fellow practitioners tell me, “Do not take it to heart!” I cannot hate that person for not understanding the truth, because I did not do a good enough job clarifying the truth to him.
As I clarify the truth to save sentient beings and give people with predestined relationships the chance to be saved, I never feel tired. The more I walk, the more relaxed and light I feel.
Master said,
“In other words, this is something unprecedented. Never since the dawn of time have massive and magnificent changes in the cosmos taken place as they are now with the Fa rectification, and nor were there ever Dafa disciples. Master created this glorious opportunity and has led you to this historical epoch. Strive to spiritually perfect yourselves, do your utmost to show what you are made of as you strive to save all lives, and try to do even better!” (“Fa Teaching at the 2019 New York Fa Conference”)
“I hope that now, at the end of this process, Dafa disciples will do their utmost to save more people and do even better, such that their mighty virtue becomes even greater. You mustn’t let up, and you must do even better at this.” (“Be More Diligent,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. X)