(Clearwisdom.net)
(Article for First Written Experience Sharing for Falun Gong Practitioners in China)
1. A Predestined Connection Established
One day in December 1995, a Falun Gong practitioner brought two precious books to my home, one was China Falun Gong and the other was Zhuan Falun (1). I started reading the books after I received them. I just could not put the books down whenever I read them. I tried my best to adjust my time to read the books.
2. Studying the Fa (2)
In "Melt into the Fa" Teacher says:
"As a student, if his mind is filled with nothing but Dafa, this person is definitely a genuine cultivator. So you must have a clear understanding on the matter of studying the Fa. Reading the books more and studying the books more is the key to truly elevating yourself. To put it more simply, as long as you read Dafa, you are changing; as long as you read Dafa, you are elevating. The boundless content of Dafa plus the supplementary means--the exercises--will enable you to reach Consummation. Group reading or reading by yourself is the same."
I thought to myself, now that I have chosen to take up this path to cultivate myself, I should be strict with myself according to the standard of Falun Dafa. I made up my mind to memorize and recite Zhuan Falun. If I filled my head with Falun Dafa, then my mind would not be engrossed by human matters.
In the process of my practice, I was able to conduct my character strictly in accordance with the principles of Falun Dafa in my actions and behavior at all times. Whenever I encountered any trivial matters, I looked within myself. I would not harm others for the sake of my personal interest. I was very busy with my work so I would arrange my time well. Every morning I got up at 3 in the morning. The first thing I did was to recite from Zhuan Falun. By September 19, 2001, I had already recited the whole of Zhuan Falun five times. During the process of reciting the lectures from Zhuan Falun, I overcame many obstacles and interference. I also came to better understand many more of the principles of Falun Dafa. In addition, I spent time reading through Zhuan Falun, the additional writings of Falun Dafa, and Teacher Li's new articles.
I had considered studying and reciting the teachings of Falun Dafa as my first priority since I had started practicing. Hand-copying and reciting the teachings has many benefits, including those listed here:
1. Reciting the teachings of Falun Dafa enables me to really study the principles, eliminate all sorts of interference and recite it wholeheartedly. If I don't focus my attention and effort, I won't be able to recite it.
2. After reciting the teachings of Falun Dafa further, all sorts of attachments and desires, postnatal notions and thought karma, and other bad things are cultivated away. I am able to quickly improve my character. When encountering a test or tribulation, I have strong righteous thoughts and I'm able to overcome it easily.
3. I'm able to handle my character well so that I do not go astray on my path. I am able to withstand the test amidst strong wind and waves. Every time I make an improvement or step up one level, I feel like I have steadily and solidly reached the standard.
4. Before I began reciting the teachings, I often had regrets, feeling that I hadn't handled myself in accordance with the standards I believed a practitioner should have lived up to. After I began reciting the Fa, though, I no longer had any regrets. I gained a deeper understanding of Teacher Li's article in "Explaining the Content of Falun Dafa,"
"Since they began to memorize the book, instead of measuring themselves [against the Fa] after doing something, the students know beforehand whether they should do something. This is excellent."
3. Choices
After the persecution began on July 20, 1999, the official policy on Falun Gong was to use various methods to send groups of practitioners to undergo brainwashing. At that time, I was forced to undergo brainwashing for four days. I was forced to submit my books, have my picture taken, and be interviewed by reporters. My department heads, human resources director and district party secretary each spoke to me separately to try to force me to give up the practice.
After returning home, my relatives, friends, classmates, colleagues and neighbors, and my husband's supervisor, classmates and colleagues all came over to persuade me to give up the practice. They told me not to do things that were against the country, and they said that an arm is not as strong as a thigh, meaning that I have no way to defy Jiang's regime. During that time, it did not matter how they persuaded me, the only thing on my mind was to steadfastly remain unaffected on Falun Dafa because I am the one who knows exactly what it is and they didn't know. Based on my own solid cultivation during the past few years and the benefits I had gained from the practice, I firmly believed that Falun Dafa is an upright teaching. It is wrong for a small minority in power to issue the order to persecute Falun Dafa. I felt suffocated due to the heavy pressure at the time. I did not wish to see anyone. It was so unbearable then that a day went by like a year.
I suddenly remembered Teacher Li's words in "Huge Exposure,"
"If we change the situation in human society and reverse the general climate, then let's see who still says that Dafa is good and who changes his mind. This way, won't everything suddenly become crystal clear?"
Now, under such an evil climate, do I follow Teacher closely or do I become so strongly attached as to lose my direction? This is a serious test for a Falun Dafa practitioner. Therefore, I asked myself, "Do you still count as a cultivator? Can you withstand the test with a weak main consciousness? In order to save the cosmos and sentient beings, Teacher has endured so much hardship. Now, when Teacher is the target of such an unreasonable attack, you are so incapable of action?! Are you worthy of being Teacher's disciple?"
So I decided to let go of everything, eliminate interference and follow Teacher closely. That night I told my husband, "I have made up my mind to steadfastly practice Falun Dafa and remain unaffected. If I were to give up practicing, I would rather die than live. It would be meaningless for to me to live anyways." Seeing that I was determined and would not change my mind, he agreed. Later, he helped me do a lot of truth-clarification work. That night as I lay in bed, I felt as if I was floating up and it was very powerful. I also saw a Falun (Law Wheel) swirling before my eyes at a very rapid speed. I had this feeling twice in a row. I knew it was Teacher's acknowledgment of my making the right choice and encouraging me to strive forward courageously and diligently in my future practice.
4. Righteous Thoughts and Righteous Actions
In many lectures, Teacher has pointed out that time is pressing, and asked practitioners to cherish this time and make the best use of it. As the course of Fa-rectification progressed rapidly, I indeed felt that time is pressing and that Falun Dafa practitioners' responsibility to save sentient beings is indeed huge.
I clarify the truth and distribute flyers whenever I can and wherever I go. For example, I always carry truth-clarification material with me to distribute. I carry a few dozen copies with me. When I run into an acquantance, I give him one. When I pass by a place, I distribute the flyers I have with me. I never let an opportunity to distribute truth-clarification flyers go by. I do this when I am on my way home from work, when I attend a meeting or when I'm on the street. In terms of clarifying the truth, basically whenever I see someone, I clarify the truth to that person. For example, I clarify the truth to my colleagues at the office and I explain the truth to my neighbors and visitors when I go home. When I attend a meeting I clarify the truth to people in the same line of business; sometimes after talking to someone, I will give him a flyer and ask him to give it to others after he finishes reading it.
In Zhuan Falun Teacher talks about "practicing only one cultivation way." I understood that as time becomes more pressing, then we should study the Fa all the more single-mindedly. We should study the Fa with complete and full attention. We should study by heart each word and every sentence of the great Fa of the cosmos and fill our head with the Fa. This way everything we do and everywhere we go, our actions will be based on Fa-rectification and we'll accomplish our tasks more efficiently. One night in my dream I first saw myself walking toward home on a muddy road. Then I rode a bycle; then I took a car, a train, and eventually an airplane. I knew this was Teacher encouraging me to constantly strive forward courageously and diligently on my path of Fa-rectification cultivation.
5. Elevate Together as One Whole Body
Teacher has said many times that Falun Dafa practitioners are a whole entity. Therefore, it is extremely important for practitioners to elevate and transcend together as one whole body. In Fa-rectification cultivation, not only do we have to be diligent, we should also help practitioners who have failed to step forward to elevate together with us.
In order to elevate together as one whole body, we first resumed our Fa-study environment. We get together once a week, and for security reasons we have changed locations many times. Then we organized small-scale Fa-conferences many times so that we could share experiences and improve together. Afterward, we made separate efforts to look for those practitioners who had fallen away, every single one of them. We helped them eliminate their fear, obstacles and interference so that they could step forward to validate Falun Dafa and catch up with the Fa-rectification progress.
At the beginning when we resumed our group Fa-study, not many people came. Afterward, the number of people who participated increased, ranging from a couple people to more than twenty or thirty. In terms of exposing the evil and clarifying the truth, we started to guide the practitioners to write and mail letters, asking them to use red envelopes [Note: Chinese traditionally put money in red envelopes during New Year's Eve and give it to their children as a New Year gift, or use red envelopes to pass monetary gifts on the occasion of someone's wedding, birthday, etc. Here Falun Dafa practitioners make use of this format to clarify the truth]. Later, we had them take truth-clarification materials with them, and finally we had them take and post truth-clarification posters. They started by taking one or two copies, then ten to twenty copies, and eventually up to several dozen copies. These practitioners first clarified the truth to their relatives, friends, colleagues, classmates and intimate friends. They progressed from talking to acquaintances to talking with strangers; from talking to a small number of people to a large number of people. This way, fellow practitioners went from being afraid to step forward to having the courage to step forward, from being afraid to act or talk to daring to act and talk, from doing a little to doing a lot, from being timid and overcautious to maintaing an upright mindset. Step by step they overcame their attachments and obstacles and stepped forward.
6. The Power of Righteous Thoughts
One day in October 2002 when I was at a relative's home I was illegally taken hostage by perpetrators of the persecution. Two days later I was sent to a detention center.
The minute I arrived at the detention center, my first thought was: "I must walk out of here with honor and dignity. This is not a place for me to stay. I'm innocent. I will not cooperate with the evil's arrangements, completely. I will not serve forced labor, I will not work by shift, I will not wear prison clothes and I will not recite any prison rules. I will practice the exercises when I'm supposesd to. I will send righteous thoughts when I'm supposed to. I will clarify the truth when I'm supposed to." A few days later I calmed my mind and searched for loopholes in my path of Fa-rectification cultivation. I searched and searched and found that it was the attachment of comfort, fear and emotion. It was exactly because I had attachments that the dark minions manipulated the evil rotten demons to take advantage of me and that the old forces arranged this cultivation environment for me. Right then I had the following realization: Eradicating the old forces' arrangement and completely negating them is not something that we just talk about. Only when we are truly able to have a clear understanding from the Fa-principles are we able to eradicate them specifically, destroy them quickly and negate them completely.
I thought that if I stayed there like that and wasted time during Fa-rectification, then I would be taking the path arranged by the old forces, and it would be like committing a crime. So I held a hunger strike to protest the persecution and walked my own righteous path of Fa-rectification cultivation. After that, except for sending righteous thoughts at the top of the hour, I used the remaining time to study and recite the Fa and to share experiences with fellow practitioners. I don't know how many times I had recited the Fa that I had fully memorized by heart. I remember one day I recited "Lunyu" (3) more than sixty times. At the time my brain was filled with "Lunyu." It was just like what Teacher says in Zhuan Falun:
"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."
One night in a dream I saw a thin layer of dark clouds beneath the blue sky. Above the dark clouds the heavens were truly clear and the celestial bodies were transparent. Indeed it was incomparably magnificent.
With Teacher's compassionate protection, Falun Dafa's power and my own righteous thoughts, within ten-plus days I was able to make it through three tribulations in a row: a forced labor camp, a detention center and a brainwashing class. Overcoming tribulations with righteous thoughts made me deeply realize the power of righteous thoughts.
7. The Solemn Nature of Cultivation
In recent lectures Teacher clearly tells us that the old cosmos's nature is "selfishness," while the new cosmos's nature is "selflessness." The old cosmos's nature of "selfishness" has penetrated the old cosmos throughout all levels from top to bottom. I think when it manifests as it reaches the cosmos's lowest level, ordinary human's various attachments and desires such as fame, wealth, lust and emotion, and all human thoughts are based on "selfishness." Therefore at the personal cultivation stage these warped substances need to be eliminated little by little and be severed level by level. Only when we constantly eliminate these substances and constantly cultivate can we eventually meet Teacher's requirement for us. This is what Teacher says in Zhuan Falun,
"To tell you the truth, the entire cultivation process for a practitioner is one of constantly giving up human attachments."
Genuine personal cultivation is laying the foundation for saving sentient beings during Fa-rectification cultivation.
Based on my own understanding, with regard to following Teacher's requirements to do well in the three things in Fa-rectification cultivation (4), the key is changing our selfish nature and completely reversing human thoughts. We must be clear about our Fa-rectification cultivation's special responsibility and properly balance the relationship between personal cultivation and Fa-rectification. We must firmly take up the main mission of saving sentient beings and understand the true meaning of practitioners' lives and existence. We need to truly understand, based on Fa-principles, who is persecuting whom and accordingly, we must be able to completely oppose all arrangements made by the old forces and disintegrate the old cosmos's whole system and mechanism. Only by doing these things can we walk our cultivation path righteously. In order to achieve this state, we have to go through something of a rebirth by means of the Fa-rectification cultivation process. That is why cultivation is serious. The difference in one thought could possibly ruin a person. Now the dark minions and gods are directly participating in the persecution, while knowing full well that they persecute us using all sorts of tricks and means. We are eliminating their persecution, in order to save sentient beings amidst delusion. Obviously, we understand another layer of meaning of why Teacher has repeatedly asked us to study the Fa, study the Fa and study the Fa.
The above is my realization and understanding at my level. Of course in the course of cultivation there are still many shortcomings that I have not written out. Fellow practitioners, please kindly correct me if there is anything improper.
Notes
(1) The book, Zhuan Falun, comprises the principal teachings of Falun Dafa.