(Clearwisdom.net) I did not return to Falun Gong until 2007. Because of the old forces interference, I knew nothing about Fa-rectification since the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999. Nevertheless, compassionate Teacher gave me a second chance.
I Learned Falun Gong When I Was Young
I was 13 years old in 1996. My mother's colleague brought back from Beijing a copy of Fa. My mother hid it in the bookshelf, and I found it by accident. Tears rolled down my face after I read it for the first time. Teacher's benevolent words awoke me, and I realized this was what I had been looking for. The book explained questions that I had had since I was a child. Ever since then, Falun Gong has been deeply rooted in my heart.
I had just begun to attend junior high school when I first learned about Falun Gong. My father was very much against my practicing it. He became furious every time I read the books or went to group practice with my mother. Yet I picked up the book when he was not watching. Back then, the blessings of Falun Gong filled my heart, and I could often hear Teacher's words asking me to conduct myself according to the Fa. That is how it was until the persecution started in 1999.
I Stopped Practicing amidst the Persecution
Because my mother was well-educated and a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), she was taken to the brainwashing center for many months. My mother felt unprecedented pressure. Under the CCP's threat and her attachment to fear, she wrote a Guarantee Statement and agreed to hand over all Falun Gong related books. After pleading with my life, she let me keep Zhuan Falun and Zhuan Falun - Volume II. Once my mother turned in all other Falun Gong books, my heart felt empty, and I felt a sense of loss I had never experienced before.
Teacher's Compassion Prompted Me to Return to Falun Gong
When I began to practice Falun Gong, I did it in secrecy and rarely had contact with other practitioners. In addition, my mother had stopped practicing after the persecution began, and I had lost touch with other practitioners. Thus, after 1999, I did not stay current with the progress of Fa-rectification. Gradually, I stopped studying the Fa after I lost my cultivation environment. I finished four years of intense high school studies and attended college. I lived in the big dye vat of human society and was tainted by fame, profit, and sentimentality. I had no direction in life and did not want to learn. The Fa had faded in my heart and I was attached to ordinary people's way of living. Oftentimes, I felt terrible and was unhappy with the way things were. Even though I was not walking the path of a Falun Gong practitioner, the old forces did not let go of me. During the years when Falun Gong was persecuted most severely, my body was in terrible shape, and I had lots of serious sickness karma to the point of almost losing my life. However, deep in my heart, I had one thought, "Falun Gong is good, and Teacher is right!" My only hope was to see Teacher return.
Although I suffered greatly mentally, I still had hopes of returning to Falun Gong. Before graduating from college, I met a practitioner who was Clarifying the Truth on the Internet. She told me about the persecution of Falun Gong and the pace of Fa-rectification. I was shocked, and the small hope I had in my heart grew larger and larger and filled my entire body. "I want to learn the Fa!" the voice deep in my heart cried out. The practitioner emailed me all the Falun Gong books and lectures. I immediately read them and felt like Teacher was speaking to me. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I realized I had lost so much in the last eight years. The only thing I could do was to diligently study the Fa and quickly catch up with Fa-rectification.
Passing the Test of Life and Death
As soon as I decided to do the three things well, especially saving sentient beings, great tribulations followed. First, the attachment of fear came with the decision to validate the Fa. Whenever I wanted to clarify the truth to save sentient beings like other practitioners did or thought about my peaceful life being interrupted or had to take life and death lightly, I would break out in cold sweats and become flustered. Every time I saw or heard a police car passing by, I felt like the sky was going to fall. After several sleepless nights, I posted my first article to validate the Fa on the Internet.
Once some of my attachments to fear were eliminated, the test of sentimental attachment to my family followed. After returning to Falun Gong, the first group of people I clarified the truth to was my family and friends. Because my grandfather was a Buddhist, when he found out I was practicing Falun Gong, he became extremely angry. He called my father and wept and yelled and asked him to do all he could to keep me from practicing Falun Gong to safeguard our family's happiness. I knew that dark minions were affecting my grandfather. At first my father allowed me to study the Fa at home. After my grandfather's phone call, he ordered me to immediately stop practicing and wanted to destroy all the truth clarification material. I tried my best to protect the material and patiently explained about Falun Gong to my father. Previously, my father had understood the facts, but this time he turned a deaf ear and kept hitting and scolding me. He sternly told me to choose between the family and Falun Gong. I chose Falun Gong.
A few days later, I moved out to live by myself. When I moved out, both my mother's sadness and my father's disappointment and indifference hurt my feelings deeply. My father called me "an unfilial son and a disgrace to the family." And when I thought of those words, the pain and the feeling of being wronged made me cry. Nevertheless, I clenched my teeth, and recited Hong Yin II (Version A) "Righteous Thoughts and Righteous Actions:"
"A Great Enlightened One fears no hardship
Having forged an adamant will
Free of attachment to living or dying
He walks the path of Fa-rectification, confident and poised."
When I thought about the practitioners that have had to face the test of life and death during the persecution and about everything Teacher has done for us, my tribulation amounted to nothing in comparison. Could I give up my vow to validate the Fa and to save sentient beings because of my parents' sadness? No, I could not. Once I put down the attachment to my family, my heart felt brighter.
Miraculous Happenings on the Path of Validating the Fa
Even when I was going through the toughest test of sentimentality, I persevered in studying and validating the Fa. Therefore, Teacher showed me many miraculous events.
When I first began my job, I contacted some local practitioners. I wanted to get as much truth clarification material as possible to validate the Fa and save sentient beings. However, the amount of material was limited and there were many practitioners who needed it, so I was only able to obtain a limited amount. One day I thought that, if I could get a DVD burner, then I could produce my own material. Perhaps because of this thought, a few days later, my work unit assigned me a computer equipped with a DVD burner. There was also a printer in my office, so I had all the equipment that I needed to make truth clarification material. After work, my office became a small material production site.
During group Fa study, practitioners had pointed out my attachment of impatience and not paying attention to the quality of the material. Although I had those strong attachments when producing the material, Teacher must have been protecting me because of my thought to save sentient beings; thus, I did not encounter any dangerous situations. Oftentimes, the printer was out of order, and, even though I had never touched a printer before, it began to work after I jiggled it a few times. With the thought of saving sentient beings, I ignored my attachment to fear and distributed the material on the streets. Very often, the police vehicle zoomed by as soon as I was done. When I clarified the truth to people in public, I encountered accusations and verbal abuse.
Sometimes it was very hard to listen to the abuse, but I remembered Teacher's words, "All the beings are counting on you! " ("Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.")
"Falun Gong disciples, don't forsake the magnificent responsibility that has been bestowed upon you in Fa-rectification, and even less should you disappoint those beings, as you are now their only hope for entering the future." ("Let Go of Human Attachments and Save The World's People")
With those thoughts in mind, I kept distributing DVDs and the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, clarified the truth, and posted fliers. I participated in those activities pro-actively and worked effectively as a particle of Falun Gong.
When we truly let go of the "self" and have the heart of saving sentient beings, we often witness miracles. No matter how dangerous the environment, I tried my best to save people and did not encounter any problems. I clarified the truth to strangers at work, and sometimes after a few minutes of talking, they agreed to quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations. Once I followed Teacher's requirement to do the three things seriously, I noticed the changes in my body and mind. I know that Teacher is doing these things and protecting me. This is to allow someone that has just returned to Falun Gong to experience miracles.
Being Diligent and Helping Other Practitioners
Aside from doing the three things, I noticed that, although many people around me used to practice Falun Gong, that changed after 1999. They had even forgotten about it (my mother was one of them). Perhaps the poor state of the practitioners in the local area is the reason why the old forces cut us off from Falun Gong for so many years. I thought of helping these practitioners. Since I had just come back to Falun Gong, could I possibly have a positive effect on them? I was not sure. However, Teacher saw my earnest heart and arranged things for me.
For days, I just happened to see sharing articles on how practitioners helped others to step forward, and learned how some practitioners helped those who were afraid to step forward. I first thought of helping my mother to come back to Falun Gong. I printed out Teacher's post-1999 lectures and gave them to her secretly. After my father went to bed in the evening, I talked to her and let her know that Falun Gong is precious. I shared with her about Fa-rectification, how practitioners' righteous thoughts can bring miracles, and hoped that she would step forward. At first I did not know what to say, but as long as I had the heart to help her, words came out of my mouth with ease. The field was full of peace, compassion, and righteousness, and she often broke down in tears. It was like what Teacher said in "Clearheadedness" in Essentials for Further Advancement:
"I often say that if all a person wants is the well-being of others and if this is without the slightest personal motivation or personal understanding, what he says will move the listener to tears."
Under Teacher's arrangement and my help, my mother finally wrote a solemn declaration about her willingness to come back to Falun Gong. At the same time, I went through many tribulations. My mother had strong thought karma and it manifested in her daily life. She suffered from dizziness, chronic fatigue syndrome, and depression. Whenever she read Zhuan Falun or other lectures, the thought karma interfered with her. Consequently, she did not want to read and thought she had too much bad karma to be able to cultivate. Time after time, I patiently guided her and told her that she was being interfered with by her thought karma. I told her to have strong righteous thoughts and to read "Your Main Consciousness Should Predominate" in Zhuan Falun. Gradually, her thought karma was no longer that serious.
In the past, my mother made mistakes because of her attachment to fear, so she often encountered tribulations of this sort. Whenever her attachment to fear appeared, she did not want to study the Fa or do the exercises, and she even scolded me and said that it was all my fault. That was very hard for me to take, so I adjusted my state of mind and had long talks with her. I helped her change her notions and strengthen her righteous thoughts. We went back and forth like this many times. Without the patience and the benevolent heart of a practitioner, it would have been difficult to do these things well. Finally, my hard work paid off, my mother's fear was lessened, her mind was more righteous, and she could do the three things. I was very happy for her.
After helping my mother, I came across more local practitioners who had given up their cultivation practice. Whenever I saw them, I asked Teacher to help me and let the side that I cultivated well shine forth, so that I could help them get out of their difficult situation and not miss the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. As a result, some of them began to study the Fa and do the exercises again and were able to step forward. Others could not step forward for the time being but were willing to read the book and the lectures. Whenever I saw changes in them, my heart was filled with joy.
Even though I have wasted eight years, as long as Fa-rectification is not over, I still have the opportunity to make up for it. I know I have missed a lot of time and opportunities, but I understand why the old forces were able to cut me off from the progress of Fa-rectification for so long. It was because I was attached to ordinary people's things and lacked righteous thoughts. It's been one year since I returned to Falun Gong, and I have not done enough. I have seen many practitioners using the fact that they have just returned to Falun Gong as an excuse. Instead of recognizing that they are lagging behind in the speedy progress of Fa-rectification and diligently doing the three things, they are doing the three things passively. That is why I wanted to share some of my experience with everyone. I think my firm belief in Teacher will prompt me to do the three things diligently, walk well the final path, and not be unworthy of Teacher's benevolent salvation and sentient beings' expectations.
