Western Practitioner: Finding Falun Dafa After Years of Seeking

I'm still a rather new practitioner and I've been practicing Dafa for a year now. I used to suffer from a very deep depression. I stopped seeing a point to life when I was very little. I realized that everything was just temporary. I saw that there was a pattern to life: you go to school, you go to college, you get married, you get a job, you have kids, and then you die. Life just lost its spark. I didn't know what to do with my life, because nothing mattered to me. I felt like I was just going through the motions, waiting around to die.

I got to the point where it was like I couldn't feel anything; it was like my body and my heart became numb. I was always looking for something but I didn't know what it was. I didn't even know where to begin. I would walk around bookstores, and search online. I remember thinking, "How can I find it if I don't know what to look for?" Sometimes I would just sit on my floor and think that maybe if I sat there long enough something would happen.

I couldn't find any peace in society. I had already dropped out of college twice and it was very had for me to work. I didn't feel like I belonged anywhere. I really wanted to become a monk or just go live in the mountains somewhere. I then realized that if I was ever going to find my path in life I would have to leave everything and go find it. I remember saying a prayer during that time. I said, " Father, I know what I have to do, but I don't have the strength to do it on my own. Please Lord, help me to find you."

Then, about a week later, my Mom tried to kill herself so I went to visit her. Then, when I came back I was told that my girlfriend had been cheating on me and then she broke up with me. Then my boss fired me. Then, I couldn't afford to go to school anymore so I had to quit. I also couldn't afford to pay my rent anymore so I had to leave my home. And it just so happened that my homeless friends came back to visit during that time so I left to go traveling with them. That was on Valentine's day last year.

I ended up going down to Florida and was living in the woods with about 100 other homeless travelers. At first I wanted to join a certain spiritual group. I had met one of them there and he said that he would email me the information that I needed, but I never heard back from him so I never went. I ended up meeting someone there who I felt I could learn from. I stayed with him and a few other people on a piece of land for a while and I really learned a lot there. I saw that even in such a beautiful place, people still fought, people still stole from each other, and people still lied to each other. I saw all the problems that existed in the world reflected on a smaller level in the people I was staying with. I saw that for the world to change, people would have to change. I then decided that it was time for me to leave again. So I went walking. I had such a deep pain at that time, I felt very hopeless, very lonely, and very confused. I began to think that I was just crazy. I really didn't know what I was looking for.

Finally, on the day when I had pretty much given up, I decided to go back and stay on the land I was at before. It was on Earth Day of 2005. I was still in Florida and I was at an Earth Day fair. There were a lot of different booths there and one of them happened to be a Falun Dafa booth and they handed me a flier.

I remember reading the flier and reading about the exercises and it sounded so incredible. I had this feeling that I had to learn it. So I used a computer to print out the exercise instructions. I learned the exercises one at a time by looking at the pictures, then I decided to go back and stay on the land with my old friend and together we learned the 4th and 5th exercises. I did the exercises every day. I could feel a lot of static on my hands when I did them and I could feel different things opening up, so I knew that they were very powerful.

Then, I was told by one of my friends back home that I had gotten a letter in the mail saying that I had to go to court. So I had to go home. When I got back I ended up making peace with my Dad. He had left me when I was younger and I always resented him for that. I talked to him and told him that I forgave him. We've gotten along ever since. I was staying with him and he gave me a CD player so I downloaded all of Teacher's lectures. The CD player was broken when I got it and wouldn't work. I really wanted to listen to the lectures and it started working. After that I couldn't stop listening to them. Everywhere I went I'd have my headphones on. I was so amazed at what I was hearing that I didn't want to stop listening. Sometimes I'd even fall asleep listening to them. It was then that I realized that this was what I had been searching for all this time. I was hearing the answers to every question I ever had. I had such a deep feeling of relief. I still prayed to God a lot at that time, but all I could think to say to God was thank you.

Then, I decided to come back to California to make peace with my Mom and the rest of my family. When I was getting ready to leave, I decided to listen to a music CD I had and the CD player stopped working again. I understood that it only worked so that I could hear the Fa. Dafa helped me to fix so many things. I made peace with my family. They had always been very worried about me. I used to have so much trouble thinking clearly; I remember once while I was reading Zhuan Falun, the chapter on thought karma, I thought to myself, "Wow, I've thought so many bad things in my life, I need to start thinking good things, so I said in my mind, 'Falun Dafa Hao, Zhen Shan Ren Hao.'" Then instantly, I had this deep nauseating feeling in my head for just a split second and then I instantly felt very relieved. My mind has become very clear since. I no longer have any trouble working a normal job, I have no problem going to school, and I can be at peace doing these things now. I feel like no matter how much I say, I can never fully explain the beauty and peace that Dafa has brought to my life. Everything finally makes sense and I've finally found somewhere where I feel like I belong. I want nothing more than to help spread its beauty.