(Clearwisdom.net)
I have been cultivating in Falun Dafa for 13 years, and during these years I have been under the care of Buddha’s saving grace. I have lived my life conscientiously and have realized the preciousness of Dafa and how Master has shown us great compassion. I would like to share with fellow practitioners and report to Master how I have managed to understand the Fa principles, do the three things well, and assist Master with saving sentient beings.
1. Obtaining the Fa
I was fortunate enough to obtain the Fa in 1997. Before that, I had many illnesses, and I never had a day where I felt comfortable. Within one month of beginning to learn the Falun Dafa principles and exercises, all of my illness disappeared. I'm truly grateful for what Master has done for me.
Starting cultivation in Dafa was also the turning point in my life. I have gone through tremendous changes physically, and my view of the world has changed dramatically. In the past, I was very attached to fame, personal gain, and sentimentality of everyday people. Through cultivating in Dafa, I was able to let these attachments go. I used to lead a very tiring life and only had negative thoughts on my mind. After I began cultivating in Dafa, I let go of those bad thoughts, and my life became more peaceful as a result.
2. Studying the Fa and Cultivating Xinxing
After understanding how precious Dafa is, I have immersed myself in Fa-study. I quickly finish off the housework after work, and then I make the most of my time by reading three chapters of Zhuan Falun every day. If I have any spare time, I recite Zhuan Falun, Master's new articles, and Hong Yin. In addition, I get up early every morning to do the exercises, so that the improvement of my xinxing and physical transformation would speed up.
2.1 Eliminating Sentimentality
My husband is the eldest in his family; he has four younger sisters and two younger brothers, all of whom are married. I used to dislike it when my brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law came to my house. During summer and winter holidays and public holidays, they often came with their children to our home. One time, my husband scolded me because dinner was a bit late. Hearing that, my brother-in-law, who is in his early 30s, walked up to me and punched me in the head, as well as kicked me in the lower body—and my husband just turned a blind eye to it. I nearly fainted from shock and was very angry. My sisters-in-law always urged my husband to divorce me. Therefore, I was not happy when they came to visit, and it showed on my face. In addition, I never ate with them.
When I started Dafa cultivation, I began to handle myself as a practitioner; whenever I ran into things that I wasn't happy about, I would try to be tolerant and look within.
Master said in “Non-Omission”:
"There is sacrifice in forbearance. Being able to make sacrifices is the result of improving in one’s cultivation." (Essentials for Further Advancement)
Subsequently when my in-laws came over, I not only cooked for them, but also ate with them. I treated my parents-in-law very nicely as well. They saw the changes in me. One day, one of my brothers-in-law praised me openly at the dinner table. I said to them: "It was Falun Dafa that changed me completely. I hope you'll remember that Falun Dafa is wonderful." They all nodded their heads.
2.2. Returning Precious Items to Rightful Owners
One day in November 2003, I saw a gold ring on the ground in a residential area that looked like it was worth about 1,000 yuan. My first thought was that as a practitioner, I should not be greedy and take what does not belong to me. Two days later, I found the person who lost the ring. In December 2005, I found a platinum earring at another residential area. Three days later, I found the person to whom it belonged. If I had not cultivated in Dafa, I would have kept the ring and the earring. Seeing that they got back what they had lost, these two people were very excited. Each of them wanted to treat me and buy me a gift as a way to express their gratitude. I said to them: “Don't thank me. I'm a Falun Gong practitioner. You should thank our Master instead, as it was Master who taught me to be honest like this. Please remember that Falun Dafa is wonderful.” Later, I also helped them to withdraw from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations.
3. Spreading the Fa and Saving Sentient Beings
Through studying the Fa, I understood that the aim of cultivation is not to achieve individual consummation, but to assist Master in Fa-rectification. I needed to spread the Fa to more people and help save them. I walked all over my local area and clarified the facts about Falun Dafa to people during weekends and holidays.
3.1 Clarifying the Truth during an Epidemic Outbreak
In September 2004, I heard that there was a village having a Hepatitis B outbreak. I wanted people there to learn about Falun Dafa. A practitioner and I took 300 truth-clarification stickers and 40 truth-clarification letters and walked about 9 miles during the night to get to this village.
As we placed our materials in people’s mailboxes, suddenly a man shouted at us, “Freeze!” We had very strong righteous thoughts and kept walking without turning our heads to look. He did not bother us and we continued handing out materials until we had nothing left. That day, under the protection of Master's Fashen, we safely returned home.
3.2. Remaining Unmoved by the Persecution
After July 20, 1999, when the unlawful persecution of Falun Gong began, CCP agents were searching everywhere to confiscate Dafa books while arresting and beating Falun Gong practitioners. In order to validate the Fa, I traveled to Beijing three times. During two of those trips, I was illegally detained and thrown into a forced labor camp. However, nothing could stop my wish to cultivate in Dafa.
In January 2001, the CCP fabricated the self-immolation incident at Tiananmen Square to poison the minds of the Chinese people. A practitioner and I handed out flyers in large quantities to expose the evil lies about Falun Gong propagated by the CCP. A road near my home led to a downtown area, which had a lot of traffic. There were more then 90 electrical poles along this road, and I thought: “It would be wonderful if we could stick truth-clarification slogans on those poles.” I wrote 130 posters which said, "Falun Dafa is good!" "Truth-Compassion-Forbearance is good!" and "Tiananmen self-immolation incident was staged." At night, another practitioner and I posted them wherever we could; whenever cars passed by, both of us quickly lied down and hid in the grass. We didn't pay attention to any of the difficulties, as we only had one thought on our mind: “As long as sentient beings can be saved, it doesn't matter what we have to do.” We finished very late at night and then went home.
3.3. Establishing My Own Materials Production Site
With the rapid progress of Fa-rectification, large volumes of truth-clarification materials are needed. I feel that I am getting busier and busier, and it seems that there is not enough time to do all that we should do. Practitioners who take care of printing the materials are busy day and night and have limited time for Fa-study. Seeing that, I thought that I should not wait for others' materials, so I bought a personal computer and a color printer to print my own. I'm in my 60s, and I had no idea on how to use them. With Master's help and a fellow practitioner's patient support, I finally learned how to log on to the Internet, download materials and print them out. My computer became my Fa instrument, and from 2005 to today I have been using it to save sentient beings.
4. Taking Every Opportunity to Save Sentient Beings
After repeatedly studying Zhuan Falun and Master's Fa lectures, fellow practitioners and I have realized that we should step forward to clarify the truth to sentient beings and save them.
Master said:
“Throughout history people have declared that they would save sentient beings. But who knew the true meaning of saving sentient beings? You are truly saving sentient beings, and only you are worthy of doing something this magnificent. Make sure you don't lose this opportunity!”(“Touring North America to Teach the Fa”)
4.1 Clarifying the Truth to a Train Conductor
Once I met a 40-year-old train conductor who was cleaning the floor where I sat. I said to him that it must be very hard to be a conductor. He replied that it was. I then asked him to please take a break and have some popcorn. I took the opportunity to ask him if he was a member of the CCP. He answered that he was not. I asked if he had joined the Youth League or the Young Pioneers. He said, “Yes,” and I told him to renounce the memberships because the CCP was corrupt and the heavens would destroy it. I let him know that only after one renounces all the CCP memberships can they escape future catastrophes. The conductor agreed to quit, and I asked him to remember in his mind that Falun Dafa is good and Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good. I wished him peace and he was very thankful.
4.2 Helping More People to Quit the CCP
Xiao Lin, 31, lives in the rural area of Daqing. A few years ago, I went to his parents' home to clarify the truth to them and persuaded them to renounce all of the CCP memberships. Xiao Lin, his parents, two brothers, two sisters-in-law, a sister and their children renounced the CCP. One year after Xiao Lin got married, he and his wife borrowed money to buy an old house in a local village. Subsequently, their finances turned for the better. Five years later, they were raising five cows, one of which got pregnant, 30 pigs, nine chickens and a dozen ducks. They also bought a feed mill and were planning to renovate their house.
This April I attended a wedding and passed by their house. I gave them a DVD of the 2010 Shen Yun Performing Arts show and Xiao Lin played it immediately. I asked him to remember that Falun Dafa is good, and he replied, “I always remember it, because I believe Falun Dafa is good.”
4.3 Dafa Music at a Wedding Ceremony
My son was married on October 18, 2010. Before the wedding, I thought that since I was a Dafa disciple, I needed to validate the Fa at the wedding. I asked the master of ceremonies if we could provide our own wedding music. When he said “yes,” I let my son (a non-practitioner who is very supportive of me) load Dafa music such as "Eternal Fate," "Walking with Our Master," and other songs onto the MP3 player.
During the wedding, Dafa music resonated into the clear and broad sky! With these sounds, the wedding ceremony was harmonious and full of happiness and joy.
A few days later, a fellow practitioner with an open celestial eye told me that the day my son was married, there were many Buddhas, Taos, and Gods in the sky, and Master's Fashen also appeared. I was so overjoyed that I could not stop crying. I believe it was Master encouraging me to be more diligent on the path of validating the Fa. I feel very grateful for Master’s magnificent compassion.
4.4 Being Good to My Father-in-Law
My father-in-law is a farmer, and he raised seven children (three sons and four daughters). He had a hot temper and sometimes hit my mother-in-law, who had to endure his temper over a lifetime. She eventually passed away a few years ago.
After I retired, I had to take care of my father-in-law. My parents-in-law lived with us from 1986. I did the laundry, washed the toilet, cooked and cleaned the room for them every day. Even after I did these chores, sometimes my father-in-law was not satisfied with my help.
Later my father-in-law could not get out of bed because he had trouble walking. I taught him to recite “Falun Dafa is good,” as he could not read. He said that he could not memorize it and asked me to write it on a piece of paper so that he could hold it in his hand and recite it. When he asked about the self-immolation incident at Tiananmen Square, I explained to him that it was a fabrication and asked him not to believe it. He then realized that I was telling the truth and that the CCP was propagating lies all along. I told him that Falun Dafa teaches people to be good, and that many people's illnesses disappeared with practice.
One time, I asked him if I could read Zhuan Falun to him. He agreed and I read over 30 pages to him. Although I asked him to lay down, he said that he was not tired and insisted on listening while sitting up. After several such Fa studies, I found that my father-in-law seldom lost his temper anymore. Once, I cooked the rice a bit too long, and I was afraid that he might be angry. However, he just said that the rice was not hard, and I realized that he indeed changed for the better.
One day, my husband left home at 4 a.m. When I subsequently checked into my father-in-law's room, I found that he was foaming at the mouth. I cleaned his mouth and face and realized that he was in critical condition. I called my husband, who told me not to call anyone, as he thought it was temporary and his father would be alright. I then asked my neighbor Xu to check on my father-in-law, and Xu said that he was dying.
My father-in-law died, and then all of my husband's brothers and sisters wanted to fight with me. They asked me why I did not take him to the hospital straight away, and they thought that I had poisoned my father-in-law. I was tolerant and did not quarrel with them, and soon this was cleared up. After the funeral, we did not let them pay a cent. Because I had taken care of their father for such a long time, they wanted to give me 3,000 yuan. My husband told me in advance and assumed that I would take it, but I said calmly that I would not take a cent, as I cultivated in Falun Dafa and it was my responsibility to take care of my parents-in-law. My husband told his brothers and sisters, who never expected that I would refuse their money. From then on, they completely changed their attitude toward me. Through my actions, I showed them that Falun Dafa is good.
4.5 Passing Tribulation by Putting Saving Sentient Beings First
Master said:
“No matter what you're doing, Dafa disciples must make validating the Fa the number one priority.” (“Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Atlanta Fa Conference”)
No matter if I visit friends or go out on business, I always put saving sentient beings as a first priority. I carry Dafa materials in my bag, clarify the truth to people with predestined relationships and post materials wherever I can.
Sometimes fellow practitioners and I went together to the market, downtown, along the roads, and to rural areas to directly clarify the truth and persuade people to renounce the memberships of the CCP. We gave them the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, Shen Yun Performing Arts DVDs and booklets. We would leave after sending forth righteous thoughts at noon and then return at 3p.m. No matter if it was cold in the winter or hot in the summer, we kept doing this every day. On average, we could help a dozen to two dozen people quit the CCP every day.
It's not difficult to clarify the truth face to face for one, two or 10 days. However it's hard to keep doing it for a long period of time. We knew what it meant and what it was worth. I thought of giving up when I had a sickness test. The heels of my feet suddenly hardened and cracked. My feet were bleeding and it felt like I was stepping on needles when I tried to walk. However, whenever fellow practitioners and I went to clarify the truth, I did not feel any pain. Every day after clarifying the truth, I’d wash my feet and stay in bed to rest. My son brought some cream to put on my feet and my husband tried to wash my feet with a Chinese medicine treatment, but I politely refused and told them that I'd be OK. I knew that as a cultivator, I was not sick and it was only interference from the old forces. I was determined and sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate and oppose all of the old forces' arrangements. I was encouraged by Master's Fa. My feet healed after six months. I passed this tribulation and my xinxing also improved in the process.
5. Finding My Attachments and Becoming More Diligent
Reflecting on the path of my cultivation, every step along the way was under the direction of Master's Dafa, and all was achieved under Master's protection. I could not move a step without Master and Dafa. Cultivation is up to the practitioner, but gong is up to the Master. In fact, Master arranges everything. All we have to do is walk the righteous path.
Fa-rectification is nearing completion, and I still have many shortcomings to overcome on my cultivation path. For instance, I sometimes do not look inward when a conflict arises; I have attachments of fighting, jealousy, showing off, being unforgiving, arrogance, and others. In the future, in order to do the three things well, I need to cultivate myself solidly. I must get rid of these attachments and become a selfless, altruistic and righteous being, so that I can live up to the honor of being a Fa-rectification Dafa disciple. Only on this righteous path can I fulfill my prehistoric vows.
Thank you, Master! Thanks, fellow practitioners!