A 14 year-old disciple's cultivation experience

(Shared at the 2001 Philadelphia Conference)

Greetings Master Li.

Greetings fellow practitioners.

My name is Tim Wu. I am fourteen years old and going into the ninth grade at Pennbrook Middle School in the North Penn School District.

My parents started practicing Falun Dafa in February of 1999. At that time, I didn't really pay attention to what they were doing. I just saw that they were doing a very gentle, slow-moving exercise every day. However, just after a couple of weeks, I couldn't avoid noticing the changes in my family. My mom used to have problems sleeping at night, usually not falling asleep easily. But I found that she slept very well, and looked energetic. My dad seemed to be not getting angry or raising his voice at me easily. With these incredible things happening around me, I couldn't help mimicking the movements of their exercises to see what would happen to me. After doing the movements for a little while, my body became really warm and the exercises felt very soothing. My hands were especially warm. I didn't know how this slow-moving exercise got my whole body warm so easily. Because when I run and jump while playing basketball, I still can rarely get warm at all. It was amazing. I liked to do the movements very much. Not long after I learned the movements, I was able to do the double lotus sitting meditation for over fifty minutes. Although it was sometimes uncomfortable, it felt relieving to do.

Later, I went to group practice sites with my parents sometimes, and I noticed that all the practitioners were friendly. I didn't know why they were all so nice. So I asked my parents. They told me that the movements were just one part of Falun Gong. The other part was to practice the central components of Falun Gong, which were the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. My mom handed me a book called Zhuan Falun and said, "This book will answer any questions you have." I wanted to start reading, so I joined my parents as they read the book in the evening. We read together in a group, taking turns reading. They read the Chinese version, and I read the English version. After reading the whole book once, I still had many things I didn't understand, but what I did understand was that Teacher Li wants us to be good people and get rid of various negative behaviors and thoughts.

After learning Falun Gong, I have felt that it has benefited my life very much. My health has improved. My friends in school are always getting sick and have to stay home sometimes, like I used to, too. But I have not gotten sick for a long time. I have had perfect attendance all of this year and last year. My studies in school have improved too. I am now in all honors classes and have straight A's. Also, when I first started reading Zhuan Falun, I could only read the English version. When I tried to read the Chinese, I didn't know many of the words and I always messed up. I didn't understand what I read, either. So I often got very frustrated from that. But my parents often encouraged me with what Teacher Li said in Zhuan Falun, "When it's difficult to endure, you can endure it. When it's impossible to do, you can do it." So I followed these words and just kept reading. I read just about every day now, and I can read the whole book in Chinese slowly with not too many mistakes.

Falun Gong has also enhanced me morally. Teacher said, "You should always be kind and benevolent to others, and consider others when doing anything." I have tried to be kind to my classmates, never getting in to fights or arguments like I used to. For example, one time, my friend accidentally spilled soda on my binder and got all the papers in there wet. Before studying Falun Gong, I would have been really mad. Instead, I held it in this time. I just thought that he did not spill the soda on purpose, and there was not really any reason to get mad at him. So my friend said sorry and he helped me clean up. I am happy that I didn't get angry with him. Otherwise, he would have gotten angry with me too, and there would have been a big argument.

After practicing Falun Dafa, my personality appears to have changed quite a bit. Before practicing Falun Dafa, I was afraid of talking in front of people, and it would be even more impossible to spread Dafa to strangers in public. But unwittingly I have found that I could easily hand out materials revealing the truth to pedestrians, demonstrate the five sets of exercises in public, and even knock on residents' doors to clarify the truth and ask them to sign a petition, etc. All these things were done naturally. I thought that as a Dafa practitioner, I should do so.

In July of 1999, probably because there were too many people practicing Falun Dafa, the Chinese government banned it. From then on, just because Dafa practitioners persisted in practicing Falun Dafa, many of them were sent to labor camps, jails, and even mental hospitals [as a way to discredit them]. Thousands and thousands of Falun Dafa practitioners have been brutally persecuted. At least 250 practitioners have been tortured to death so far. I really don't understand why the Chinese government would persecute good people, and why they would be so scared of good people. As the government of a big country, why do they spread lies and rumors to the whole world to slander Falun Dafa? As a disciple and a particle of Falun Dafa, I have a responsibility to tell everyone in the world that Falun Dafa is good, and I should expose these wicked acts of the Jiang Zemin group that confuse right and wrong and fiercely persecute Falun Dafa. I should safeguard Dafa. In the past couple of years, I have used various chances to clarify the truth.

I have a Chinese friend whose home has a Chinese satellite dish, so he often watches news reports regarding Falun Gong made by the Chinese government. One time, he told me some things defaming Falun Gong, and also asked me why I practiced Falun Gong. I responded to him by saying: "How would you know this stuff? Why do you believe these lies? Have you read the book Zhuan Falun?" From then on, he never brought up Falun Gong again. But in my heart, I wish that he would read the book Zhuan Falun some time.

One day, when I was walking with my dad to the Liberty Bell to Hongfa, I was fooling around and kept hitting him on the arm. All of a sudden, I tripped over a rock and fell really hard to my knees. My knee was bleeding and hurt real bad. I knew that this was Master telling me that I shouldn't hit people, even if I am playing around.

Though I have done some Dafa work, I know it is not enough. I have to study Fa more. In rectifying the Fa, clarifying the truth and exposing the evil, I will assist the Teacher in the human world and be a good practitioner of Teacher.

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Thank you.