(Clearwisdom.net) I am 20 years old and grew up cultivating in Dafa. Thanks to my mother’s efforts while I was young, I have never given up practicing. I remember my mom was pretty strict at times. My schoolwork did not have to be outstanding, but my Fa study had to be excellent. I always carried an MP3 player with me to listen to the Fa. I established a habit of using Dafa principles to treat others well and to evaluate things from the Fa. Some of my younger friends used to study the Fa, but now they spend all their efforts making a living, while ignoring the fact that the true purpose of our lives is to obtain the Fa. It is truly a pity. I hope that all the practicing parents can get their children to go back to cultivating.
I learned Dafa at the end of 1998 when I was an eight-year-old boy. I grew up listening to Mom tell me legends. The first time she read Zhuan Falun, she told Grandma and me, “This is a great book about becoming a divine being.” Both of us became practitioners very naturally.
At the time, I liked to look at the pictures and read the poems in Hong Yin and was able to recite the poems quickly. Later I memorized Lunyu and studied the Fa and listened to Teacher’s lectures. When adults got together to do the exercises, I meditated alongside them and was able to sit in the full lotus position for half an hour.
In 1999, when the suppression of Falug Gong began, Mom was jailed and she went on a hunger strike with other practitioners. My dad's company forced him to take me with him to see her in jail. He told me to kowtow to her and not to get up until she began to eat. When I saw her, I whispered to her, “Don’t you worry. Be diligent in your cultivation.” Dad motioned at me to kowtow, but I just ignored him.
Dad said that his company had fined us heavily so I voluntarily stopped drinking milk to save money. When Mom was not home, I had to walk to school. Seeing rocks fall from trucks on my way, I picked them up and put them alongside the road so that bicyclists would not run over them. One time, the school organized all the students to line up in the schoolyard to sign a “rejection of Falun Gong” letter. A few schoolmates and I agreed that we would not do it. After being forced to stay in line for the entire morning, we all said that we needed to go to the restroom when it was almost our turn and dispersed.
After Mom came home, I thought to myself, “I want to go to Tiananmen Square to shout 'Falun Dafa is good.'” I got to go during our school summer camp, and I managed to shout “Falun Dafa is good” while there. I also wrote it at the scenic areas I visited.
Around New Year’s Day, I went with my mom to our relatives’ house to wish them a happy New Year and tell them the facts about Dafa. When we visited a famous temple, we saw a picture desecrating Dafa being displayed behind a window. I asked Teacher to help me to get all the people in the temple to go away. Soon they were all gone. With my mom standing at the entrance and sending forth righteous thoughts, I opened the window, took out the picture ,and put it in my clothes. I walked out of the temple while sending forth righteous thoughts and destroyed the picture.
In junior high, the director gave each student a form to fill out and wanted us to pay ten yuan to apply to become a Party Youth League member. I did not take the form, and he drove me to my home and asked my parents to help me. Dad pushed me down when I still refused to do it, but I did not waver.
All my classmates spent money to get people to help them get into the high schools they liked. I was accepted by an ordinary school, whose students were mostly from the countryside. In high school, I did not spend all my time on academics like the other students did. Mom said I just needed to finish the assignments in class. The rest of the time I should listen to Teacher’s lectures. Every morning, my mom woke me up to meditate.
In high school, I circulated the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party in the classes. It went from one class to another, and it finally reached the teacher’s hands. Many students quit the Youth League, but the teacher never could find the source of the book.
After discussing with my mom about choosing which college to go to, we decided that I would go to a local college. I had more spare time in college, yet my environment became more complex. Mom called me several times a week to remind me to read electronic Dafa books often, and I did the exercises twice a week. The classmates sharing the same room with me in the dorm all quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations. I often told them legends about the Buddha and the divine and about reincarnation in order to rid them of their atheistic thoughts. We discussed the limitations of modern science and the CCP’s suppression of human rights and religious freedom. They generally could accept my views. Every time we had a get-together, I tried my best to help them quit the CCP.
This is the first time I have tried to write an article for the Clearwisdom website. It is because I am just so ordinary and far from what Teacher wants us to be. I will continue to be diligent, so that I do not disappoint Teacher.