(Clearwisdom.net) Before practicing Falun Gong, I would every year have a fortune teller predict my and my family members' fortunes. The fortune teller would say that on such-and-such day I should avoid the stars, on such-and-such day I couldn't come face to face with an equal. When those days arrived, I would follow his demands with reverence and fear. I also asked a Fengshui master to come to my house, where he hung some symbols on the walls. In order not to ruin the Fengshui, whenever I cleaned or whitewashed the walls I would carefully avoid those things. My life was exhausting.
After learning Falun Dafa, I understood that fortune telling and Fengshui were minor skills, rather than things to live by. I cultivate the Great Law, and these things have no effect on me. Teacher arranged a new future for me, and Teacher was watching over me. He purified my body, purified my home environment, dissolved my karma, and arranged my cultivation path from then on. Whatever good fortune I was meant to have in my life, I would certainly have it. Never again was I fearful over small and petty things like before, and I became confident and forthright.
Before practicing Falun Gong, my financial circumstances were quite good, but no matter how much money I had, I never felt secure. I counted every penny and was always fearful I would suffer a loss or enable someone else to take advantage of me.
After practicing Falun Gong, I understood the principles of "no loss, no gain" and "what is mine I won't lose, what is not mine I won't fight for." I understood that I should no longer have the heart for those things. Even so, when the time was coming for my husband to consider retiring, he got a job in Europe with a very generous pay package. Recently the British government contacted us, wanting to increase my husband's retirement pay and asked me to apply for an insurance number. Practicing Falun Dafa has given us good fortune, and these generous economic conditions have allowed me to focus on cultivating.
Before practicing Falun Gong, I placed a lot of importance on sentiment between my husband and me. I would often get unhappy about small matters, such as his not remembering our anniversary or cracking a joke with his friends. I would quarrel with him and not let go of it, sometimes ignoring him for a whole week.
After practicing Falun Gong, I became broad-minded, and it has now been a long time since we've had an argument. My heart is now much more tolerant. My life has a grand purpose, and I treasure the predestined relationship with my husband. We formed this bond a long, long time ago, which enabled us to be married in this life, and which in turn got him to take me from mainland China to Hong Kong, where I could receive a copy of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. Reading this cleared away the evil communist factors in my thinking, and when we moved to Europe I was able to take in the media produced by Falun Gong practitioners. It was in my pursuit of finding a solution to my husband's foot disease that I obtained the Great Law, and when my husband saw the changes in me, he gradually entered into the Great Law himself.
Before practicing Falun Gong, I had so much leisure time each day that I didn't know how to use my time. I feared that I would put on weight if I ate too much, complained of being tired even though I was healthy, and talked with friends for hours about petty matters. Every day I lay down, sat, or knelt in front of the television, shifting positions to keep comfortable. If television and newspapers were boring, I looked at tabloids and rejoiced in other people's suffering. My brain was filled with meaningless drivel.
After cultivating Falun Dafa, I learned that a human body is hard to obtain, and this short human life we have is extremely precious. Only by being human can we have a chance to cultivate, return to our true selves and return to the heavenly kingdom where we truly belong. Every day I study the Fa, practice the exercises, send righteous thoughts, clarify the truth, and live a life full of joy.
Before I practiced Falun Gong, I had a few good friendships that I formed in my teenage years. I thought it hard to form such close friendships.
After cultivating Falun Gong, I met fellow practitioners in regions all over the world, and all of us share the same Teacher, the same belief in the Great Law and all follow the principles of Truth, Compassion, Forbearance in our lives. Each of us uses the Great Law to assess whether our hearts are pure or not. When sharing with each other we don't pay too much heed to everyday people's civilities or family gossip. Even when sharing on the Internet with practitioners I'm not familiar with or who are of different races and nationalities, our hearts still connect.
Before cultivating Falun Gong, I was like the proverbial frog looking up from the bottom of a well, who thinks that the only thing up there is the small part of the sky visible to him. The many things in the world, the mysteries of the earth and the universe, I had no way of understanding and could find no answers.
After cultivating Falun Gong, Teacher disclosed to me so many heavenly secrets. My heart is filled with the Great Law, which is like a backbone holding everything together. I can understand kindness and evil, and good and bad with just a glance. Through continually studying the Fa, more and more of the universe's mysteries are manifesting before me.
Before I cultivated in Falun Gong, I advocated strongly for Western-style democracy in an extreme way. When I came across someone with different views, I would compete and fight with them.
After learning Falun Gong, I slowly came to understand that Teacher wants us to clarify the facts with the aim of stopping the persecution, and it allows us to establish our own mighty virtue in the process of saving sentient beings. Cultivators don't pursue politics.
Before cultivating Falun Gong I worshiped and fawned after everything foreign. Under the wicked Communist Party's brainwashing, I cared nothing for traditional Chinese culture.
After learning Falun Gong, only then did I truly recognize my own country's culture. I felt lucky that I was born in China, could listen to Teacher teach the Fa in Chinese, and read Zhuan Falun.
Before cultivating Falun Gong, I loved to travel. Every time I went to a country, I documented it for future reference.
After learning Falun Gong I asked myself, even if I went to every country in the world, what would that count for? Isn't it just traveling around this tiny earth? I still like traveling, but now my reason for going is different. I like going and doing things related to validating the Fa, fulfilling my predestined relationship with people, and telling them the facts. Perhaps this is the cultivation path I am to follow.
Before cultivating Falun Gong, I placed a lot of importance on love for family, but had no way of helping my family members out of their hardship and tribulations. My mother and father suffered a life of hardship, and died before benefiting from my achievements. My sister still hasn't found a good job and isn't married. Apart from giving her a little money, there was nothing else I could do.
After practicing Falun Gong, I understood the Fa principles that everyone has his or her own fate, and also that suffering hardships is not a bad thing because it enables a person to dissolve karma. I helped my family members, sister, and other friends to withdraw from the Communist Party and gave them hope of being saved. I want to make sure that I don't fail to fulfill our predestined relationship.
Before practicing Falun Gong, I ate too much and slept too much, loved material luxury, and spent my life worrying about putting on weight.
After practicing Falun Gong, I've become too busy to sleep in, have cultivated away my desire for food, and don't pay much mind to what I eat. I have reached the proper weight that I was unable to reach before despite endless worry and hassle.
With everything I do now, it often occurs to me that I never would have thought this way or done things this way before.
It has been almost three years since I obtained the Fa, and it's as if I live in another world. Looking at countless sentient beings mired in pursuit for fame, gain, and sentiment, sometimes I can't help but ask myself: In which lifetime did I accumulate so much virtue, so that I could be so lucky in this life?
Before practicing Falun Gong, I was like a little child of the vast universe, not knowing where I was from, not knowing the way home. I cultivate Falun Dafa because my Teacher has illuminated the road home, and given me a ladder to ascend to heaven.
Category: Improving Oneself
