Everything Is Already in the Book

Hello everyone, my name is Christine. I'm a practitioner from Barrie, Ontario, but I live in St. Catharines, Ontario during the school year. I'm 21 and I've been cultivating for nearly three years. I'm very glad to be here today.

Recently Master Li has told us about the power of practitioners' righteous thoughts. When our thoughts are pure they can do many things, and accomplish much more than what we can do by just using our hands. One time I asked the Student President of my University to write a letter of support for the practitioners in China. He was eager to help and said that he would certainly do it. However, even though his heart was sincere he was taking an awfully long time to finish it. I called him a few times to see how it was going, but I could never get hold of him. We were already into final exams and I hadn't received it yet. One day when I was very busy I gave him a quick call. A thought flashed into my mind. I thought, "you're going to be there to answer the phone and write this letter." Then he picked up the phone and he had the letter to me shortly after with an apology for taking so long. My righteous thought helped to eliminate any interference he was receiving.

Before reading Master Li's most recent articles and lecture I felt that he was always describing abilities of higher beings and not speaking about what practitioners are able to do directly themselves. The concept and way of thinking that I'm not yet at that high of a level hindered me from using the abilities that I actually have. In Zhuan Falun, Master Li says, "For a practitioner, one's mind-intent dictates supernormal capabilities to do things. For an everyday person, one's mind-intent directs the four limbs and the sensory organs to work, just like the production office in a factory:" (pg. 349). I now see that Master Li had already told us everything.

When we do the eliminating evil exercise, I can feel that it's so powerful. My body feels very strong and righteous. During the first part, when we eliminate the evil in ourselves, I wondered what I could think or repeat. Sometimes I stated that I wanted to give everything that I had to eliminate everything that is not Zhen-Shan-Ren in me from the very root. Then when we eliminated the evil in the cosmos I would repeat the two sentences "The Fa rectifies the cosmos, the evil is completely eliminated" in English and Chinese. English because it holds more meaning in my heart and Chinese because it seems more powerful. I try to concentrate on these simple words.

When reading Zhuan Falun the other day, I read the following on page 356, "When one chants the Buddha's name, one must do it single-mindedly with nothing else in mind until other portions of the brain become numb and one becomes unaware of anything, with one thought replacing thousands of others, or until each word of "Buddha Amitabha" shows up before one's eyes. Isn't this an accomplishment?" I understood this as the state that I should try to reach when I eliminate the evil. I should be focused on nothing but eliminating it and put my whole heart into it.

I'm a University student. During the school year I live in a house in residence with three other girls. Two of my housemates like to party a lot, are smokers and even use drugs. One night I was up late, about 3am, preparing for a health show the next day. I heard my two housemates come home from the bar with one of their friends, and they were really drunk. After a while I could smell a bit of smoke. Then I could hear them coughing and I could smell drugs. I was so surprised. The smell was horrible! I thought, how could I let it enter my room, which was filled with Dafa books and materials? So I opened my door, covered my face and called up to them, "Are you guys smoking drugs?" They were silent. Then one of my housemates said in a small voice something about smoking a cigarette. I replied that it smelt of drugs in the hall and it was coming into my room. I told them that they could go outside to do that. I was very firm. No thoughts of our friendship being hurt entered my mind. A small voice said, "OK."

I went back to my room and closed the door. I took my covers and used them to cover the crack under the door and opened my window. I felt light and awake, not tired at all. Even though I had no covers and my window was wide open, I was not cold and felt very comfortable. I had very little sleep that night but was able to jump out of bed in the morning without feeling tired.

When I got home from the health show that night, one of my housemates knocked on my door. She offered me a popsicle and told me how sorry they were. She repeatedly apologized, stating that they never should have put me in such a position. I said, "I forgive you." She looked really bad. She had bags under her eyes, was pale and shaking a lot. I asked what was wrong with her. She told me that she was at the hospital all day and was horribly sick. They had to treat her. She couldn't keep anything down.

Now she wants to improve herself. She has always been 100% supportive of the Dafa practitioners in China. Whenever she saw me working on something for Falun Dafa, she would express her support. She joined our Dafa activities two days in a row when we were in Ottawa, and she learned the exercises there too. She even had the privilege of hearing our Teacher lecture during the conference. I was so happy for her when I saw her excitedly clap in support of his words. She must have a great-predestined relationship.

The next morning, after my housemate apologized to me, I noticed a GLAD air-freshener plug-in outside of my room. When I saw this I smiled to myself. One of my housemates must have put it there for me.

I think that being tolerant does not mean to passively tolerate evil things. Master told us in "Beyond the Limits of Forbearance" that, "...Forbearance does not mean tolerating evil beings- that no longer have human nature or righteous thoughts- defying both human and divine laws as they corrupt living beings and Dafa's existence at different levels, much less is it ignoring terrible crimes. Zhen Shan Ren is the Fa!" My understanding is that I should suffocate the evil under all circumstances. I think that in order to do this well, I can't allow any human thoughts or notions to interfere.

In August of last summer I was in a serious car accident. I collided with another car in the middle of an intersection on a small highway road near my home in Barrie. When it hit the other car, my car flew into the air turning upside down, and then it hit a pole before landing on its roof. It then skidded for a long time, which gave me some time to think about what was happening to me. I didn't feel scared at all. I recall thinking to myself that I was a practitioner and that I was not afraid of what could happen to me. As a result I felt as though I was sitting inside a bubble and that nothing could hurt me. People then gathered around the car and helped to pull me out. Everyone was shocked that I wasn't hurt and that I was so calm. Two young men repeatedly said they had never seen a car fly so high before. I only had some minor sore spots but nothing serious. I told the ambulance that they could leave because I didn't need to go to the hospital. Even though my car was totaled, the huge Falun Dafa display boards that were in my back seat weren't damaged at all.

I enlightened to many things from this accident, including how I was landing upside down with some of my understandings in my own cultivation, but I want to just mention one specific realization that I understood from it quite recently. This car accident happened immediately after Master's article 'Eliminate Your Last Attachment(s)' was written, so, at the time I understood this as my life and death test. Afterwards, I thought that was it: I had passed that test. It wasn't until later that another practitioner mentioned something about how much of your life you give to Dafa is important. Through her I came to understand that the life and death test does not necessarily literally mean getting into an accident or being held at gunpoint; that is, it's not as simple as letting go of the attachment to fear. But actually, how much of my life that I am able to give up for a greater purpose is also very important. There are many things surrounding us that can make us comfortable, tempt us and interfere with what we are supposed to being doing for Fa rectification. In order to be clear we have to study the book a lot. We have to take care of all aspects of our lives because we have to be good examples for others under all circumstances and we also have to use every opportunity that presents itself to reveal the truth. I think that overseas practitioners' cultivation is very different from those that are in the midst of the persecution in China. Our test is perhaps more difficult to realize. For some practitioners maybe it's hard to see the importance and the urgency of this situation because on the surface it appears that we are not in the midst of it all. But in fact this is a big test for all practitioners, whether we can continually step out and constantly give something back to Dafa, or whether we can't.

The other night when I was studying the Fa I was able to enlighten to a few things. I was reading lecture seven. On page 299, Master said, "When I taught a class in Qiqihar, I saw a person who had a vendor stand on the street and was pulling teeth for people. One could easily tell that this person came from the South, as he was not dressed like a Northeasterner. He would not refuse anyone who came to him. He would pull a tooth for anybody who came, and he had there a pile of pulled teeth. His purpose was not to pull teeth, but to sell his liquid drug." I felt that this quote was explaining to me the importance of taking every opportunity to spread the Fa and offer people salvation. We should be just like this person that "would not refuse anyone who came to him". Everyone we meet, we meet for a reason, which is of course, to give them the opportunity to hear about Dafa. I can illustrate my understanding with an example. On a sunny day I was sitting on the steps outside of the University of Toronto reading Zhuan Falun, when a girl from Korea about my age came up to me to ask me to fill out her school survey. When I was done, I gave her a Falun Dafa flier and explained to her what it was about. She became very interested and asked me questions even though her English wasn't very good. A few weeks later she emailed me because she had seen a few practitioners in a mall talking to people, which reminded her of me. Then she came to the Toronto Zhen Shan Ren Day- Multicultural Festival, and my brother taught her and her friend the exercises. Then she started to read the books. I think that every opportunity to talk to people about Dafa is very precious. Perhaps all of the people that we meet are supposed to hear about Dafa from us.

In addition, the sentence, "His purpose was not to pull teeth, but to sell his liquid drug," to me, clarified what my purpose is. On the surface it appears as though we are talking about tai chi like exercises and that we are appealing for human rights, etc. But our real purpose, which is to offer people salvation, is the most sacred thing. My actions must be the result of a pure heart. This pure heart can be achieved, of course, only through studying the Fa a lot and genuinely cultivating my heart. I can't humanly try to reach this.

When I reached page 305, I read, "Some people claim that they only need to drink water, while others claim that they only need to eat fruit. All these are phony bigu, and as time passes they are all bound to fail. A genuine practitioner will stay in a cave without drinking or eating- that is real bigu." I understood "real bigu" to be referring to the state of mind a true practitioner should be in; that is, one without leakage and free of omissions. People with leakage could be understood as people who practice "phony bigu"- people who aren't genuinely trying to let go of their attachments and even coming up with reasons to convince themselves that they should keep them.

Master has told us that everything is in the book. In "Deter Interference" Master said, "I had told you beforehand in my Fa lectures about all of the problems that might occur during this vicious and destructive test. For those who haven't genuinely practiced cultivation, it is really difficult to pass." Lately I find that many of the realizations that I have from Teacher's recent articles were actually already explained in Zhuan Falun, I just didn't enlighten to them. Also, I often find that my day only runs smoothly when I read a lot. It seems when I begin to have problems in my work it is usually caused by my not studying the Fa enough.

I hope that we can all learn a lot from each other today. Please don't hesitate to point out to me anything that I have shared that may have been incorrect.

Thank You.