(Clearwisdom.net) In August 2005, I went to southwest Sichuan Province on a business trip. A local practitioner asked me to pay a visit to a practitioner who was in the hospital. He said that the hospitalized practitioner practiced quite diligently but had had some problem with his liver. Due to concern and pressure from family members, he had to go to the hospital to get a check up. The diagnosis shocked him: he was in the last stage of liver cancer. He asked fellow practitioners to visit him in the hospital, saying that would make him feel more comfortable. They went to visit him, one after another, to send forth righteous thoughts for him. However, his "illness" rapidly deteriorated.
When I went to visit him, he kept saying that he had done this and that for Dafa, and that he felt the illness was very unfair. It was very difficult for him to accept reminders of Fa principles. He told me that he must not pass away, his reasons being that he was concerned about not bringing any negative image to Dafa and that Dafa needed him. He said that he had cried, begging Master to keep him in the human world. He said this wish was not for himself but for Dafa.
Listening to his wife, who also practiced Falun Gong, express her distrust of and complaints about Dafa and seeing his extremely strong desire to survive, I knew that my short time of sharing with him would not make much difference. Such a change could only occur from solid, long-term, sincere cultivation practice. If I could have reminded him that all his matters are arranged by Master (that is, except when he tries to have Master do this or that) and if he could have truly understood this and be at ease, the result would be quite different.
Throughout a practitioner's entire cultivation, the process of correctly understanding the various levels as well as the physical reactions that arise during the transformation of our bodies is also a process of understanding our cultivation to become mature. As soon as a person steps into the cultivation of Dafa, his or her entire life will have been totally rearranged on a path of cultivation towards elevating and returning to one's true self. Furthermore, all the mechanisms that Master planted in our bodies continue to transform us towards the highest standard, and such things as illness do not exist at all.
I have understood from the "Fa" that the process of transformation of our bodies is also an exhibition of the constant improvement of our levels. Moreover, the requirements for us at each stage are different, and they are the standards and requirements of an even higher level. I have also come to understand that the transformation of our bodies complies with respectful Master's Fa-rectification process. If a practitioner who needs to improve on a particular aspect at a certain level does not improve his or her understanding of the Fa principles, then he will stay at that level and in the tribulation for long time, as the elements at that level are still able to interfere with him and can still reach him.
In March 2001, I was arrested for going to Tiananmen Square in Beijing to appeal and detained for almost three months. One day I felt extremely uncomfortable. I was unable to inhale or exhale. My heart stopped beating and my breathing stopped, but my mind was clear. When my heart suddenly stopped beating (I had been on a hunger strike for a very long time), I was shocked: "Ah! Am I just passing away like this?" When this thought emerged, I immediately realized: "Isn't this a perfect opportunity to test whether I have let go of the attachment of life and death?" I calmed down: "If I am alive, I will continue to do well all that a Fa-rectification partitioner should do. If I die, I will return to be with Master." I lay there calmly. About half an hour later, I started to breathe, and soon my breathing was normal. On the second day, due to an adamant request from the chief of the detention center, I was released. Some practitioners at that time died in similar situations even though they were at home. I think that was caused by the attachment of fear and the lack of understanding of the Fa principles.
In 2004, while I was in an empty room at a fellow practitioner's home in another city, I suddenly fell down. The whole right side of my body, from my head to my toes, was numb. The symptoms seemed like a stroke. I smiled in my heart, thinking: "You evil old forces attempt to test and persecute me with such a false image. How could I, as a divine being, become paralyzed? You old forces assumed that I would be deceived and regard myself as paralyzed, and you attempt to take advantage of me to leave me paralyzed forever." I sent forth righteous thoughts with my left hand raised up, and I called the local coordinator to send forth righteous thoughts for me. The next morning when I woke up, the symptoms were gone and everything was normal.
Master has repeatedly taught us in the Fa that good or evil comes from a person's spontaneous thought. If I regarded myself as paralyzed, then I might still be lying in bed today and not able to get up. I've met several practitioners who were in such a situation; they fell off their path due to the mistake of that spontaneous thought. Their confidence was then shaken, and their righteous thoughts became weaker and weaker. The situation got worse and worse, and it became harder for them to maintain righteous thoughts.
After the "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party" was published, the evil specter could not resist and tried to cause interference. My understanding from the Fa is that, as soon as the Nine Commentaries was published, large quantities of evil specters were eliminated. Even though they had already died, those elements still attempted to damage people and tried to get into practitioners' bodies. Therefore, many practitioners were coughing and I was not an exception. On the first day, I thought that I must be going through the last karma elimination. On the second day, my cough was worse, and I hurried to send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate such interference and the false image. On the third day I could not get out of the bed, coughing terribly and vomiting blood. I lay in bed, coughing and vomiting blood, while reciting Hong Yin II. While I was reciting "Nothing," Master gave me a hint and I suddenly realized: "Aren't I doing things purposefully by trying to analyze whether it was karma elimination or a false image? I not only did not remain unmoved, but I also tried to analyze: that was truly doing things purposefully." As soon I improved my understanding of the Fa principles, my righteous thoughts became strong, and that night my coughing stopped.
In June of this year, I suddenly had pain in my lower back. It hurt even when I tried to get up from a higher chair. I reminded myself that before I practiced Falun Gong I had hurt my lower back, so now, perhaps, it had come back for the purpose of karma elimination. I did not pay attention to it and regarded it as a good thing. I endured the pain like this for two days. Then I felt something was wrong: "Why should I recall the past? I am attached to all of the old cosmos; then wouldn't I still be a being of the old cosmos? I still hold the history, information, experience, matter and everything about the old cosmos in my brain, and I often recall them. Then I am still a being of the old cosmos. We are soon to become the Buddhas, Daos, and divine beings of the new cosmos, but if we are still holding onto the principles of the old cosmos and do not let them go, then the elements of the old cosmos will have excuses to interfere and block us from stepping towards the new cosmos." After realizing this, I suddenly stood up straight, and I no longer felt any pain in my lower back.
Any tests or tribulations or the continuation of an incorrect state of our bodies are all caused by two reasons: not having improved one's understanding of Fa principles and not seriously seeking within and cultivating xinxing. There are processes and manifestations of body purification in one level after another, just as there is with the purification of our minds. Humans possess both good and evil. Cultivation is to continually enhance the Buddha nature and eliminate the evil nature and karma until the body is totally changed and no more evil nature is left. During this process, the standard of the requirements for us from the Fa become higher and higher, and our understanding of the Fa principles also needs to be constantly elevated.
