(Clearwisdom.net)

Part 1: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2005/5/8/60478.html

One new practitioner is a retired teacher who has practiced Falun Gong for half a year. She is practicing diligently and now is organizing group practice and teaching the exercises in the park every day. All new practitioners say that she teaches them in a very friendly manner with a pure heart. She reads the main text of Falun Dafa practice, Zhuan Falun, every day. Last month in Istanbul, at a seminar during International Women's Day, the hostess asked the audience, "Who would like to tell us how to discover one's true self?" The practitioner spoke up, "It is Falun Gong. I have rediscovered my true self since practicing Falun Gong. First of all, I have become a healthy person. I used to suffer from arthritis for more than forty years. It is only just over two months since I started to practice Falun Gong, and the arthritis in my knees has gone. At the same time, I have obtained a peaceful mind and have never been foggy-headed since I started practicing. Master Li Hongzhi teaches that whatever we do, we should consider others first and we should get rid of our selfish motives and all attachments. We should improve our character and become people with high morals." After her speech, she received warm applause. After the seminar, the practitioner briefly demonstrated the exercises. She said she introduces Falun Gong to people wherever she goes.

Falun Gong practice site in Turkey

Another practitioner is an employee of a bank. She told me that she had been searching for a cultivation way for her whole life. After having read Zhuan Falun, she said that she finally found the way! She said that her path to Falun Dafa was predestined: "In the Spring of 2004, a friend of mine who has some supernormal ability and lives in another city visited me. She told me that I would become a vegetarian and then meet a lady who would teach me a cultivation method..." Soon after that, this woman indeed didn't want to each meat anymore and thus became a vegetarian; half year later, through a mutual friend, she learned Falun Dafa from me!

Though things appear to happen by chance, in fact, everything is predestined. Since she started to practice Faun Gong, she has not missed a single day of practice. She said that Falun Dafa has made her a more friendly person and has changed her life: Her relationships with her co-workers and supervisors are now much better, and she was relocated to the headquarters of the bank. She said: "Since I started to practice, my life suddenly become so promising, I am so lucky!"

She asked me how to express her gratitude to Master Li. I said: "We also have similar feelings as you do; however, Master told us that we only need to cultivate diligently and he doesn't want anything from us." She said: "Really! If you have a chance, please pass my gratitude to him!" I replied: "I can post your appreciation on the Minghui website [Minghui is the Chinese version of Clearwisdom]."

She also told me that she had read more than 10 books about cultivation and supernormal abilities before she found Falun Dafa. After she finished reading Zhuan Falun, she found that Master Li's teaching covered all the topics of the other books and is much more thorough and clear. Later, she remembered a dream she had several days ago in which she saw a few Chinese characters: "Clean up the messy stuff." She asked me what that meant. I told her to read the first page of Zhuan Falun and the part talking about cleaning up the environment for practitioners. She then enlightened to it. On the second day, she piled all the materials from other schools in front of the door of her apartment, to be picked up with the trash. I happened to visit her on that day and witnessed that moment, I was so happy to see her having made a big breakthrough.

A new practitioner at another practice site has completed reading through Zhuan Falun once and practices at home every day. She also goes to a practice site to practice once a week. She told us how her high blood pressure has gone down. She told people that Falun Gong is so marvelous and then everybody began borrowing Zhuan Falun to read. Some spent their own money to make a photocopy of the book. More people in Turkey are learning the Fa.

One woman has not been to our practice site for a month. She said that she used to practice Falun Gong every week ever since she started six months ago and she felt healthy and full of energy. In the past month, some relatives of hers came and she was too busy to practice and consequently felt quite sluggish. Upon hearing that some others had begun reading the book, she also wants to photocopy the book so that she can read it every day.

Another practitioner has practiced for more than 2 years and has enlightened to many principles of the Fa. Two months ago, he started to teach his elderly parents the practice. His mother is more than 70 years old and has had high blood pressure and heart disease for more than 20 years. On the third day of her practice, she started to experience body cleansing. The symptom was that her blood pressure went up to 250. The old woman was a little scared, however, drugs wouldn't help her this time. Her son told her that she was just experiencing body cleansing and shouldn't take it as an illness. He told her she should have faith in Master and Dafa because many people have gone through similar experiences. The practitioner's mother also said that this high blood pressure problem was strange, as she could do things normally, while usually, she wouldn't have been able to get up from her bed in the past if her blood pressure was higher than 200. Two days later, everything was back to normal. She now understands what body cleansing means. Now, the elderly couple practices every day from 12 noon to 1 p.m. following Master's instruction video. The mother said that her chronic health problems are getting better and she feels energetic. While her husband reads Zhuan Falun to her every day, her xinxing is also improving. She said that she wanted to talk with her daughter-in-law to improve their relationship. They quarreled in the past and their relationship has been quite tense ever since.

There are already six practice sites in Ankara where Turkish people can learn the Falun Gong exercises for free and then practice together with other Falun Gong practitioners. In a University in Mersin, new practitioners have also established a Falun Gong Club.

At the same time, practitioners have been working very hard to clarify the truth of the persecution in China to people in all circles. In Istanbul, veteran practitioners made several thousand copies of calendars bearing a brief introduction to Falun Gong and delivered them to Turkish cities in the beginning of this year. When walking on the streets, going into banks, stores, restaurants and stationers, you can often see Falun Gong calendars on their desks or walls. The calendars as a mean of promoting Falun Gong have played an important role in Turkey. Large numbers of people have visited Falun Gong websites and made telephone enquiries after they got their information from the calendars.

After having heard the truth of Falun Gong, a parliament official told practitioners, "Throughout history, any government that persecuted religions or religious groups never came to a good end." What he said revealed how foolish the Chinese Communist Party is and expressed the sense of justice and righteous belief held by the Turkish people.