(Clearwisdom.net) Several years ago an unfortunate incident happened in my region: an elderly Falun Gong practitioner died. This incident negatively affected our practitioners. Recently, another elderly practitioner began experiencing severe sickness karma. The local practitioners sent righteous thoughts for her. The results were positive. Her condition changed from her being unable to get out of bed to being able to walk. Unfortunately, shortly after she recovered, something happened in her family, and she failed to study the Fa well. Her sickness karma symptoms returned. When her condition became severe she became incontinent and "muddle-headed" and could barely see or even speak. A few practitioners went to see her. After their return they said her condition was very bad and her days were numbered.
Practitioner A suggested that the local practitioners should go to help her by studying the Fa with her. Surprisingly, over a half of the local practitioners did not agree with this proposal. They believed that was a waste of time, that it would be better to spend the time handing out flyers for the salvation of more people. Helping the elderly practitioner was put on hold.
I work in another region all year long. Recently, my job requirements made it mandatory for me to return to my hometown to handle some issues. That is when heard about this incident. I told Practitioner A, "Master said that all people in the world are Master's dear ones, not to mention a Dafa practitioner. How could we not care about her? This elderly practitioner is experiencing severe sickness karma symptoms, but she has not yet died. Is it right that she should have to wait for us to help her? If we do not go and still put off trying to help her, and if this practitioner cannot hold on anymore and really dies, how will we feel about it then?" Practitioner A agreed with me, but she still had reservations about how to intervene. She thought that this was a coordination issue for the local practitioners. Her words made sense to me because both of us were very busy, and we needed the involvement of all the local practitioners. I was very emotional when speaking about it at the eventual meeting with practitioners. I also mentioned, "If we do not help her now, how could we bear to see her after we complete cultivation?" The local practitioners kept silent. I thought that they had agreed with me and felt pleased. To my surprise, in the end no one was willing to go help the elderly lady. As there were no other options, practitioner A and I went to help her.
We smelled a strong odor coming from inside the room during our first visit. She had been in bed for a long time and was incontinent. Her children had no time to take care of her. The smell was really awful. The elderly practitioner lay unclothed in bed. Her eyes were dull, and her face was quite pale. We went up to her and held her up, asking if she could recognize us. She barely recognized Practitioner A. I asked her, "Do you still remember who our Master is?" She paused and thought for a moment and said, "I forget." Seeing her like that I felt bad. How could she have gotten into such bad shape? I felt increasing regret about our practitioners' indifference and apathy toward a fellow practitioner and bemoaned our lack of responsibility and neglect in fulfilling our missions.
After I entered the room I immediately sent forth righteous thoughts. Practitioner A suggested that we study the Fa with the practitioner. One of us read the Fa, while another sent forth righteous thoughts. Hearing we would study the Fa, the elderly practitioner immediately sat up and attempted to sit in the lotus position, albeit with much difficulty. She conjoined her hands and listened quietly. Seeing this made me cry. This practitioner had perhaps not been diligent in her past cultivation, but even after her condition became so bad she still loved Dafa so much. It was her love of Dafa that had helped her try her best to live. Master had not given up on her. How could we not care for her?
We studied the Fa together for one hour. The woman showed obvious improvement, judging by the changes in her face along. Her eyes showed some light and energy. When we were about to leave she insisted on seeing us off. She stood by the door against the wall, with the aid of her cane. She said to us, "Will you come again?" I felt moved and said, "Yes, we will be back tomorrow!"
On the third day it happened that Practitioner A and I were busy, so we asked Practitioner B to go to study the Fa with the elderly practitioner. Practitioner B saw me on returning from the elderly woman's place and said, "Her condition is not good. It is very bad. It will be impossible to pull her back." Practitioner B also mentioned some of her sickness karma symptoms. I was puzzled as her condition was not bad during the two days when Practitioner A and I had stayed with her. How come she had suddenly gotten worse? I started to waver in my faith, "Isn't it that I am doing things with my human sentimentality? Isn't it that I had placed too high a hope on this?" This bad news made me feel discouraged but I still said, "Even if we cannot pull her back, we still need to try our best. We need to show our concern." But I was actually quite shocked.
I went to see Practitioner A. We talked for half a day. We came to understand that the change in the woman's condition occurred because practitioner B did not have confidence in the elderly practitioner, so the woman had exhibited another side of her sickness karma to Practitioner B. To achieve the best result, we must first believe in Master. We also needed to have faith in the elderly practitioner's abilities. At the same time, we also needed to believe in the power of our righteous thoughts. Although I had realized this point, our enthusiasm was not as high as before.
When we went there the third time, the elderly practitioner said her daughter had gone to buy medicine for her. Hearing this, I felt a chill in my heart. I immediately remembered Master's words,
"If you hold on to humanness with one hand and won't let go, and you hold on to Buddhahood with the other hand and won't let go, just which one exactly do you want?" ("Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference")
Could it be that the elderly practitioner was beyond salvation? While I was thinking like that my main consciousness was still alert, as I knew that the old forces were interfering with my will so as to achieve their goal of continuing to persecute the elderly practitioner. I then sent righteous thoughts to eliminate all the old forces' arrangements and interferences. I calmed down and read the Fa and sent righteous thoughts for her.
The practitioner listened attentively as usual. Although she did not show obvious improvement, her mental state improved greatly. After seeing her several times, our enthusiasm had faded a little. However, our belief in considering the fellow practitioner's tribulation as ours, and of "all the practitioners being one body," had greatly encouraged us. We knew that we could not stop there, because helping a fellow practitioner is a responsibility that we cannot dodge. We must persevere in our efforts. Furthermore, we also needed to believe what we were doing was right. When a practitioner asked Master how to help a practitioner who was on his death bed Master said,
"The best thing is to read the Fa to him." ("Fa Teaching at the 2007 New York Fa Conference," April 7, 2007)
We just needed to act according to Master's words. Each time we were about to leave, the elderly practitioner's eyes looked sad, which showed her unwillingness for our session to end. This also counteracted our declining enthusiasm.
However, it was not realistic for two persons with formal jobs to always go to help this practitioner. Furthermore, we knew we had not done very well overall in this period of time. We had delayed some of our Fa-validation work. On top of this, we were also a little discouraged by the phenomenon that she just could not remember to ask Master for help, although we had told her again and again to remember Master when she was in pain. One day Practitioner A said to me, "We have already accumulated a lot of our own Dafa work that we need to do. Today we will go there once more and then stop for three or four days so we can concentrate on our own work." I thought about it a while and agreed, albeit with reluctance.
After we arrived at the practitioner's home we studied one lecture of Zhuan Falun with her. We again told her to remember Master when she was in pain. We taught her to say, "Falun Dafa is good" as well as "Truth-Compassion-Tolerance is good." Practitioner A suddenly remembered the formulas for sending forth righteous thoughts. She then taught the woman, word by word, Fa Zheng Qian Kun, Xie E Quan Mie [The Fa rectifies the cosmos, the evil is completely eliminated].
The elderly practitioner recited the formula several times and all of a sudden laughed aloud! She then propped herself and stood up. I was shocked, as I thought that she had developed a mental problem. She held onto the tables and started to walk step by step. I wanted to help her, but she pushed me away. I gave her the cane, which she also refused. She started to walk in circles in the room. While walking she kept reciting, "Falun Dafa is good. Truth-Compassion-Tolerance is good. Master is great. Fa Zheng Qian Kun, Xie E Quan Mie." There were several occasions when she even did not need to hold onto the wall as she walked.
Practitioner A and I were amazed. We were really happy for her. I conjoined my hands and thanked Master. After walking for a while, the elderly practitioner became sweaty all over. She stopped and stood against the wall. Again, she could not clearly recall the four sentences. Her eyes were opened wide as she tried hard to recall them. When she could not remember the words she pounded the wall with her hands. I hurried up and went over to hold her, saying, "You are tired. Get a little rest." She said, "I am not tired. I just felt anxious." I tried to help her to the bed. She stared at Practitioner A and suddenly said, "I see you." Practitioner A asked, "What do you see me looking like?" The elderly practitioner replied, "I saw you waving a fan.' We all laughed. She then said, "Since you two have come, my recovery will be quicker."
I helped her sit down. Practitioner A asked her, "Who helped you?" She said without interruption, "It is Master." She then again recited those four sentences, but she just could not remember them clearly. When she felt anxious she pounded her legs. She stood up again and walked around in the room. Seeing her face covered with sweat and her lips pale, Practitioner A was afraid she might not be able to handle it, so we hurriedly helped her sit down, asking her not to rush and to just recite any of the sentences she could remember. It took a while before she calmed down. When we were about to leave she insisted on seeing us off. We could not stop her. She seemed to know our worry saying, "I guarantee that it is no problem." We said some encouraging words to her and then left.
After leaving her home I was still overjoyed. I understood that Master's encouragement for us facilitated the change in her and did contain Master's element. Helping another practitioner is absolutely not wrong. We should not slack off in such an effort and become numb! I said to Practitioner A, "How do you feel? Do you feel embarrassed for having thought about stopping for three or four days?" Practitioner A said with emotion, "It is all done by Master. We just did the superficial things." We then decided to go see her again the next day. Today I wrote this article.
When I began to write this article I still held some grudges toward the local practitioners. When I wrote this section, though, I became rational. We all need to search within ourselves. Without Master's compassionate support and encouragement, Practitioner A and I could have become disheartened. Complaining about fellow practitioners is the same as shirking responsibility, which is wrong.
I want to share my understandings with practitioners that are experiencing similar incidents of sickness karma symptoms in their areas. First, when we see practitioners who are experiencing severe sickness karma symptoms we need to send forth righteous thoughts, to negate what they had signed on to do with the old cosmic forces; eliminate the old forces' arrangements and stop all the persecution directed toward them. Most importantly, however, we need to help them study the Fa.
In "Fa Teaching at the 2007 New York Fa Conference," Master mentioned that the practitioner should read the Fa to the practitioners who are on their death beds.
None of Master's words were casually said; they are the Fa and the principles we should follow. Furthermore, when assisting fellow practitioners in learning the Fa, we are at the same time also studying the Fa, so it is not something we have wasted our time on. This is "hitting two birds with one stone." Sometimes the result can be even better. For example, when I read the Fa once for the elderly practitioner, the demon of sleep came to interfere with me. If it had been me reading the Fa by myself alone I would have stopped. But being with the elderly woman practitioner I persevered and finished the whole lecture.
Additionally, we need to help other practitioners out of our genuine concern for them. We need to treat fellow practitioners as our most dear ones.
Master said he does not want to leave even one disciple behind.
Those practitioners who are experiencing sickness karma symptoms are our fellow practitioners, and they are Master's dear ones. We have this responsibility to help them. Furthermore, we should be confident and believe that with Master's protection we will certainly be able to pull these practitioners back. A few practitioners also helped send forth righteous thoughts for practitioners experiencing sickness karma tribulations; however, they held a perfunctory mindset while sending righteous thoughts. They thought that they were doing it for the sake of satisfying their role, and it did not make too much of a difference. They did it merely in a mechanical way, not from their genuine hearts. With this mindset, how could Master help them?
The Fa rectification has progressed to the final stage. Let us help each other and improve and cultivate ourselves diligently, and return home together with Master.