(Clearwisdom.net) No matter how difficult the course of our lives has been over the past ten years, my spouse and I have kept the Fa in our hearts. Whenever I become puzzled or weak, I remember that my life has been extended by Falun Dafa, so I can't afford to be sluggish, but must strive ahead vigorously.
Most of my life has been spent in illness and pain. I had to take medicine after every meal. When I was younger, I looked everywhere for qigong treatments, but nothing ever worked, even after several decades. My health only worsened over the years. Finally, I took an early "medical retirement" from my company. Later on, I converted to Buddhism and spent 6 years with an elderly lay Buddhist seeking Buddhas, repairing mountain roads and building temples everywhere.
After searching for several decades, I was finally fortunate enough to obtain Dafa at the end of 1998.
I remember that I had just begun to read Zhuan Falun. The president of the Chinese Buddhist Association called me one evening: "I hear you are practicing Falun Gong. I tell you that you cannot practice it! I've received reliable news that the government will soon ban the practice." At the time, I was in great pain and could not eliminate liquid and solid waste from my body. I did not know what diseases were causing this, so I went to the hospital for blood work and a CT scan. The doctor told my wife that I had to be hospitalized immediately for treatment. She knew the diagnosis but did not tell me. Before undergoing surgery my wife accompanied me on a walk in front of the hospital gate where I met a fortune-teller and face-reader soliciting customers. I said: "Face-reading is a good way to tell one's future because the face doesn't lie. You do not need to say either good words or bad words." Thus I continuously consulted two fortune-tellers whose results were almost the same. Another fortune-teller who used the Book of Changes and the Eight Triagrams said to me: "Grass is growing on your grave mound. Why are you still living in the human world?" The meaning was clear - that I should have died long ago. I had just started reading Zhuan Falun and had not really started to practice, so I was puzzled. Only through studying the Fa later on did I come to understand that our great Teacher was already taking care of me at that time!
I left the hospital five days after my surgery. The doctor told my spouse that I had two years to live, but I did not know that I had cancer. All the rest of my family knew it, but hid the truth from me. Two years passed and one evening my wife and I were studying the Fa. She could no longer hold back and asked me, "Do you know what disease you had?" I replied, "Wasn't it prostatitis?" She said, "It was cancer. I see that you have recovered very well, so I could not hold this in any longer and had to tell you. During the period you were in the hospital and nobody was at home, I cried several times."
After hearing this, I was dumbfounded for three days! My spouse continued, "After three months, when you were in the hospital for testing, it was discovered that you no longer had any cancer cells. When we told the doctor to remove the urination tube and bag, he said it was absolutely no good to remove it before three months; removing them is easy and takes only a couple of minutes, but it would be awful if the cancer recurred. So, we waited for three months. After looking at the CT scans, the doctor said: "I have done surgery for many years. I have never seen a case like yours. Let's discuss this after waiting for another half year." I could not afford to stay hospitalized, so I had to go home. It was very uncomfortable and made it difficult to turn over in my sleep. I could not take a bath because it was during the winter. After removing the urination tube from my navel, the doctor said I would need to change medicine many times before it would heal completely. He said that it could take several years or the rest of one's life, but I only needed half a year, and I was actually cured in two months time.
During that half year, I earnestly studied the Fa and did the exercises. The group Fa study was in my home which is only sixty square meters. We sat on the floor studying the Fa every afternoon. During the summer vacation we had four young disciples join our group. Because it was so crowded with people, I sat crossed-legged under a table and studied Zhuan Falun with ease. I also went to the suburb to teach farmers to study the Fa, do the exercises and play the lecture video. At that time the environment was unusually loose and unrestrained.
But after July 20, 1999, Jiang Zemin's regime began to persecute Falun Dafa and it blotted out the sky and covered up the earth with fabricated rumors and slander. My wife and I were still new practitioners then, having obtained the Fa only seven months earlier. On the morning of July 20, 1999 both of us brought our things with us in a large bag as usual to the practice site. When we arrived seven or eight policemen had taken over our site. A police car was nearby. That was the only morning I did not do the exercises.
From the time the persecution began, my spouse and I made a plan for studying the Fa and doing the exercises. Every afternoon was set aside to study the Fa; we did not do any personal things. One day while grocery shopping, I met an old fellow practitioner who was eighty-four years old and originally studied the Fa at my home. Her eyes couldn't see the words clearly. I asked her: "Are you still practicing?" She said the instructor did not practice and nobody took care of the group study and exercise. I said: "If you want to study, you can come to my home in the afternoon." She said OK and thus we had a three-person Fa study group that met continuously until September 2004. After that we bought a new home and had to move out. For over 5 years of studying the Fa together, I read and she recited. She could recite the first, second and most of the third lecture of Zhuan Falun. She could recite all of Teacher's new articles. When we moved out she lamented that there would be no one to arrange the study group and exercises. I had arranged for three fellow practitioners to help her read the Fa, but not everybody can persist to the end. Her family members and her daughter-in-law made sarcastic comments when meeting them. I bought a player for her so that she could listen to Teacher's recorded lectures. She often called me with various questions. I went to her home three times to visit her. Before I left she held me and did not let me go. She cried that it was too far; she was in the west and I live in the east. She often called me and I encouraged her to persist in doing the exercises and listening to Teacher's lectures.
Soon after moving into our new house, we met a practitioner when she was clarifying the truth at the market in the morning. The group Fa study today was formed with her help. I really appreciate her help. All these things are arranged by Teacher. I also another older female practitioner who is never absent or late for the group Fa study. She lives a long distance from us. I thought it would be OK if she came once a month, but she came the same afternoon that we called her to tell her our new phone number.
I found it difficult to send forth righteous thoughts at 12 a.m. and do the exercises starting at 3:50 a.m. because it cut my sleeping time too short. I thought in my heart that Teacher was possibly testing our disciples in China. Because the road of cultivation is so bitter, enduring hardships can eliminate karma, work the body, and temper the will. We bought two alarm clocks, one for sending forth righteous thoughts at 12 a.m. and the other for doing the exercises starting at 3:50 am. Because the alarm bell was not that accurate and it was difficult to see the clocks at night, we often made mistakes. One time we got up at 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. Through this period of tempering, we are finally used to it. From April 23, 2007 to this day, we have been doing all five sets of the exercises. I have almost no distracting thoughts or even feel sleepy or tired. Again, I think Teacher's law body is watching us on our side. Teacher has placed a dome in the sky over China. It is enveloped in red light; the whole dome is red. Our bad thoughts have also been eliminated, so both of us have been able to keep going to this day.
Next, I would like to tell about how I passed the test of sitting in the full lotus, cross-legged position. For six to seven years, I could sit for only forty minutes. While sitting, I can break into a sweat when it's three degrees below zero, and I have cried many times from the extreme pain. My wife constantly encouraged me. On the seventh day of the long vacation on May 1, 2007, I was finally able to reach the standard of sitting cross-legged for one hour. From that day on, I never put down my legs even though my whole body trembled. I have thus persisted for eight months and never uncrossed my legs before the time was over. The pain is indescribable. I think everyone has experienced it. It is really like Teacher says in Zhuan Falun,
"One with much de has good enlightenment quality. He can suffer and endure physical as well as mental hardships. "
Sitting on the sofa, watching TV with one leg over the other and drinking tea...can this be called cultivating?
Before I began practicing I retired from my company due to illness. My nickname was "medicine basket." Now, anyone who meets me wonders how this old man became younger. Everyone says my face color is good. I tell them that I should be dead, but the fact that I have lived to now and have a happy life is a gift from the Teacher of Falun Dafa!
It is because of a predestined relationship that I can study the Fa and practice with everybody at the present time. I will cherish this precious time and do well the three things Teacher has arranged for us.
June 17, 2008