(Clearwisdom.net) I obtained the Fa in 1995. At the time, I was on maternity leave and went back to my parents' home. Two weeks later, my husband came to visit us. I noticed that he looked very good. He told me that it was because he had practiced Falun Gong, and that Falun Gong taught Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance. At that time, I felt that this practice was a very good one. I decided that I would practice it when the baby got older. After I returned to my own home, I also listened when my husband listened to the Fa. Later, he taught me the exercises. I could feel the warmth in my palms and my body while practicing. I thought to myself, "Why should I wait? I should begin the practice now."
Therefore, I began my journey of cultivation. Just like what Teacher said, after I studied the Fa, my entire outlook on life changed fundamentally. I began to truly understand that the purpose of a human coming to this world was to return to one's true self. Since both of us practiced Falun Gong, our family was in harmony. We worked diligently and received praise from other family members on both sides, along with co-workers and neighbors.
However, after the persecution began on July 20, 1999, the evil Chinese Communist Party (CCP) destroyed our beautiful life. We went to Beijing to appeal to the government by clarifying the truth about Falun Gong. We were then taken back to our hometown by force. We were not allowed to go to work and were forced to attend the brainwashing classes and write the three statements. We were monitored around the clock in order to prevent us from going to Beijing to appeal again. Lawless people constantly called our home at night and severely disturbed our normal daily life. In that evil environment, I was lost and did not know what to do. Later, after I calmed down and studied the Fa, and gradually managed to have a clear mind, I decided that I wanted to stand up and clarify the truth for Dafa and let ordinary people know the truth about Dafa.
At the beginning, I distributed truth-clarifying materials to residents in the small community where I lived. In September 2000, I made copies of some truth clarifying materials and went to the market to distribute them. At that time, when I first began to step forward to do something to validate Dafa, I was not that stable in my mindset. After Fa study, I became more and more stable in my heart. I then began to clarify the truth about Dafa to my other family members, classmates, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and passersby, etc.
Once a leader from my work unit found me and said, "I am sorry. I want to tell you one thing." He fished out a piece of paper that read, "Whoever reports will be rewarded" The main content on that piece of paper was, "If you find Falun Gong practitioners distributing truth-clarifying materials, report them. Each person who reports the event will receive a certain amount of money each time." That leader warned me repeatedly that his leaders wanted him to make sure to let me know. At that time I was not afraid at all. I thought to myself, "Before I did not have a good chance to talk to him. Now he came to see me. Isn't that a very good chance for me to tell the truth to him?" Therefore, I asked him, "Do you know about Falun Gong?" He said he didn't know too much. I began to tell him how our Teacher requires us to treat our job, and how to handle a conflict, etc. That leader attentively listened to me and raised some questions now and then, such as about the broadcasts on national TV, the fabricated stories about the Tiananmen Self-Immolation, homicide, etc. I patiently explained the truth to him. Finally he said he understood now and told me to practice at home if I felt it was good. He told me not to go to Beijing to appeal and not to distribute truth-clarifying materials. Otherwise, we would all be in trouble. I told him I knew what I should do and that Dafa practitioners could only bring blessings to their work unit. I remembered Teacher's Fa in my heart:
"Validate the Fa with rationality, clarify the truth with wisdom, spread the Fa and save people with mercy" ("Rationality" from Essentials for Further Advancement II)
Since then, that leader has not come to talk to me about my practicing Falun Gong. Because that leader had righteous thoughts towards Dafa, later he was blessed and was accepted by Tsinghua University for graduate studies.
Along with the speedy Fa validation process, clarifying the truth to ordinary people became an urgent task. Sometimes I wondered how to clarify the truth to my former classmates. When I had that thought, I didn't realize that the chances would come. One day in April 2004, I received a phone call from one of my former middle school classmates who told me that there was a gathering to celebrate our twenty-year reunion. I immediately expressed that I would like to participate. Nothing is accidental. Therefore, I began to prepare a truth-clarifying CD called "Traveling Heaven and Earth through Wind and Rain" for each classmate and teacher. In the meantime I asked my fellow practitioners to help me send forth righteous thoughts in order to make things go smoothly so that every classmate would accept the CD and be saved. On the day of the gathering, I expressed my wish to each classmate and teacher, "I care about each one of you sitting here and I sincerely wish all of you have a beautiful future. Therefore, I prepared a gift for each one and hope this gift will bring you and your family my sincere wish." A teacher asked me the content of the CD and I told him that it was about the truth of Falun Gong. One classmate immediately said that was a personal belief and said he understood that it was wrongfully persecuted. Therefore, everyone was happy to receive the CD. The entire gathering was very harmonious.
After the gathering of my middle school classmates was the August gathering from the Skilled School. I prepared the same gifts. Since everything went pretty well last time, I thought that this time there should also be no problem. Because of the attachment of complacency, interference came immediately. One of my previous classmates even prevented me from distributing the truth-clarifying CD's. I knew it was interference. Therefore, I sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil factors behind him and then told him, "You should not behave like that. You cannot stop me. I only have one wish, which is to let everyone sitting here know the truth about Falun Gong and have a beautiful future." With that righteous thought, I gave the truth-clarifying CD's to everyone who wanted to accept them. Only a few people did not want the CD.
After two classmates' gatherings, I realized that I should not have any attachments when validating the Fa. Just as Teacher said,
"I will use any troubles or unpleasant things you come across--even if they involve work for Dafa, or no matter how good or sacred you think they are--to eliminate your attachments...." ("Further Understanding" from Essentials for Further Advancement)
When the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party was published, I first thought that it had nothing to do with me since I was not a member of the CCP. After Teacher published the article "Turning the Wheel Towards the Human World," I began to realize that the Youth League and Young Pioneers were also organizations of the CCP. Therefore, I immediately declared my resignation from all CCP organizations. In the meantime, I exchanged my understandings with other fellow practitioners and clarified some hazy understandings. We also reached the same understanding on how to ask ordinary people to quickly break away from the CCP organizations. We thought we should start doing this ourselves and then gradually expand the scope. At first, there were a lot of mental obstacles and we were afraid of others saying that we were getting political. After further Fa study, we corrected our erroneous concept. During that process, some people resigned from the CCP organization once we explained the reason for doing so. Some people would try several times. However, no matter how difficult the process was, I held a mindset that we must let everyday people see what the evil CCP is and tell them what its fate is, and why people should break away from it. The process of truth clarification is also validating the Fa and improving our understanding. Whenever I encountered some obstacles in my truth clarifying activities, I would first look inward to find out what kind of mindset would cause that. Then I would think about how to do it in the correct way.
We should pay special attention to sending forth righteous thoughts. In 2003, when I heard the news that we should send forth righteous thoughts around the clock on July 20, I thought to myself, "Do not go to bed the entire night? What should I do if I cannot hold my palm erect because of sleepiness? I should take a nap after lunch." Since I had that bad thought, I encountered interference immediately. I became muddle headed and did not have a good effect when I sent forth righteous thoughts. Since I did not recognize it as interference, I suddenly felt like throwing up after 11:00 p.m. at night. I got up and used the bathroom and could not settle my stomach. All I vomited was blood. At that moment, I was shocked and wondered why that could happen. "I am a cultivator so why would that symptom appear?" I immediately denied it when the wrong thought came. During my years of cultivation I have felt that Teacher has been looking after me every minute. Therefore, I sent forth righteous thoughts at once to get rid of those dark minions and rotten demons that were interfering with me and completely opposed the arrangement of the old forces. In the meantime, I studied Teacher's Lectures in the United States about illness karma. Thus, by sending forth righteous thoughts at the top of every hour, and insisting on studying the Fa until daybreak, the interference was quickly eliminated.
The following day, I earnestly watched Teacher's first three Dalian lectures on video. On the third day, a fellow practitioner who I had not seen for a long time came to my home. She said that she hadn't been able to eat anything for a long time. She was worried and could not bear it any longer. At that time her family members were planning to take her to the hospital. She asked our suggestions on what to do next. I then told her about my recent hardship and how I passed it. I suggested that we send forth righteous thoughts and eliminate the interference from the old forces. It was difficult to completely deny the old forces. I suggested that in the meantime, we should strengthen our Fa study and do the three things well. We should not hold our previous mindsets of staying at home and cultivating ourselves. We should step out and clarify the truth to everyday people. We should believe in our Teacher and Dafa. Nothing bad will happen to us. After talking to her we watched lecture four of Teacher's Dalian lectures. I do not know whether it was coincidence or if it was Teacher's special arrangement, but all of her questions were answered while watching the lecture. Later she came to visit me several times and she completely recovered and also corrected her cultivation state.
During these years of cultivation, I have encountered many difficulties and hardships. I always remember one thing: If I fell down, I would get up again and continue walking forward. If it was not for Teacher's mercy saving us, I don't know if I would have made it this far. Besides what I have shared, I have quite a lot of experiences, but I cannot express all of them at one time. In the process of walking my cultivation path, I still have a lot of shortcomings. For example, recently I fell into laziness. After reading Teacher's articles "A Will That Ebbs Not" and "The Closer to the End, the More Diligent You Should Be" I began to think deeply and realized that I must take a more straight way on my cultivation path. We should calmly study the Fa and look inward, work with other fellow practitioners and step forward together. Teacher is our guidance. Each of Teacher's articles was published to prevent us from taking a side path. By walking only our Dafa path, we can reach the shore of happiness.
March 14, 2006
