(Minghui.org) (Continued from Part 3)
The 10 of us were born in the 1990s in China. We used to behave the same way as most of the young people living there. We were self-centered, competitive, liked to watch movies, played games, were mindful of our reputation, pursued recognition, and aspired to be trendy. We were loyal to our friends, and would do everything for them, even if we needed to fight.
After a while, we happened to live together again. We wanted to have a closer relationships in our day-to-day life, and we treasured our predestined relationships even more. We have been encouraging each other while walking on the cultivation path, and clarifying the truth about Dafa together.
At the university, we had a group environment, and we also had veteran practitioners to remind us of cultivation issues. However, after some time, it was easy to relax in our cultivation. For a single girl, one could be tempted to follow the trend, use cosmetics, and buy clothes, as well as luxury items. If one lacked good control over oneself, it could easily cause one to overspend. In addition, one could also pay too much attention to one’s appearance, then one’s attachment to lust would arise. As to men, the “struggling philosophy” which revolved around making money, buying one’s own house, and getting promoted also affected us. If we became too attached to these things, we would be too tied up with making a living and waste our precious time, instead of cultivating.
At the time when we were struggling with these matters, a young man who was about our age joined us. His arrival helped us gain a deeper understanding of cultivation.
His name is Yumi, who began to cultivate with his father at the age of four. After he grew up, he has been clarifying the facts to his classmates. But since many people nowadays are atheists, they couldn’t accept the Fa principles, such as “...you did not fight back when hit or talk back when cursed at.” (Fa-Teaching Given at the Conference in Sydney), and so on. They preferred being selfish and pursued personal gain. They looked down upon him and ignored him. Yumi was very sad, he was wondering how come he couldn’t meet any young practitioners.
When he was in his third year at the university, his father was illegally sentenced to four years in prison in 2014, because of practicing Dafa. He and his mother kept going to different government offices to appeal, but they ended up being held at the detention center with the claim of “false accusation.” At the detention center, a drug-addict beat him several times. As a result, his glasses were broken and his body was covered with bruises. He was very sad and begged Master deep down, “Master, I didn’t do well and let you down. However, I came here to clarify the facts to people and awaken their conscience. I don't want them commit a sin against Dafa. I need your help.” When he looked at the drug addict, he felt very sorry for him.
One day, the drug addict's addiction flared up – his body curled up, and he shivered. It was very cold and windy, and as the wind came in from the windows from time to time, Yumi gave his winter jacket to the drug addict. He was so touched that he changed his attitude towards Yumi from then on. One time, the guard didn’t allow Yumi to eat for a few days. The drug addict secretly got him some food, although this could have gotten him into trouble. He also came to understand the truth about Dafa, decided to withdraw his memberships from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and became a good friend of Yumi.
After Yumi was released, officials from the municipal government didn’t allow him to find a job, so he had to go to another city to look for work. His first job was teaching, but the boss delayed his pay for five months.
Then he remembered what Master said:
“Thus, our practitioners should be like this even less so, as a practitioner should follow the course of nature. If something is yours, you will not lose it. If something is not yours, you will not have it even if you fight for it.” (Lecture Seven, Zhuan Falun)
He thought that the boss had given him some used clothes, which showed his kind nature, so he decided not to go after his back pay. In addition, he bought snacks for his students, but for his own meals he would only buy the poorest quality vegetables to save money. The place he rented was also extremely humid. Because he was an excellent teacher, his students surrounded him after school and talked to him. He was also thought very highly of by their parents. After he had to leave this job, his boss finally paid him.
When Yumi finally encountered these young practitioners, he was very touched. Soon he became part of the group and has cultivated very diligently.
We often came across stories about practitioners on the Minghui website, who for upholding their belief, were subjected to live organ harvesting, sexual harassment, and were injected with unknown drugs. We were not only very upset, but also felt very sad. Then, our attachment to fear would flare up.
There was a period of time when the CCP launched a door-to-door campaign to harass practitioners. Every time when there was someone knocking on the door, my heart started pounding. I worried whether they were coming to harass us.
One time when someone knocked on the door, Youyou volunteered to open it. As soon as she got there, she heard someone from outside yelling, “Is Falun Gong here?” She was petrified, ran back to her room and broke out in tears. She found out later what that person asked about was rather, “Is the landlord here?”
We are all fairly young and have limited social experience. Although we didn’t experience many tribulations, our attachments were no less than those of others. In order to help us improve, Master has arranged our cultivation path based on our ability to endure. The above incident made us realize that it’s time to get rid of fear.
Gradually our thoughts became more and more righteous. Though attachments to fear would still flare up, our wish to tell people about Dafa and stay away from the evil CCP was getting stronger. We came to understand why so many veteran practitioners risked their lives to tell people the facts about Dafa. Their kindness changed to compassion. This is something a practitioner should possess – fear is really not worthy of even being mentioned. Then we began to clarify the facts to our colleagues, and whoever we ran into.
One time, when Maizi was dining in a restaurant, he saw a blind man passing by, and he seemed to be looking for something. Maizi approached him right away, and asked if he needed help. He told her that he was going to the bank to withdraw money, but could not locate the branch. So Maizi helped him find a branch. The blind man said, “You are such a wonderful person! Now there is hardly anyone like you.” “Right, I’d agree with you that good people are hard to find these days. However, our Dafa Master requires us to be a good person. I am a Falun Dafa practitioner. Have you heard about it?” “You practice Falun Dafa? Isn’t it something bad?” “It’s slandered and defamed by the CCP – don’t believe it. People who practice Dafa are good people.” Then, Maizi answered more of his questions.
One time, Xiao Tao saw a red dot on her leg. Then this little dot became a big bulge, and kept swelling all the way down to the toes. As a result, she had to limp when walking. One day, her leg had been aching until three a.m. We all encouraged her, and did the Dafa exercises with her. During the process, she had to lean against the wall because she had difficulty standing, When she was doing the exercises, she felt as if her leg was on a hot plate, and she almost couldn’t endure any longer.
Every time when she couldn’t hold onto it, Master’s words would appear in her mind: “When it’s difficult to endure, you can endure it. When it’s impossible to do, you can do it.” (Lecture Nine, Zhuan Falun)
Keeping Master's Fa in mind, she could finish the exercises. Half way through it, she felt that the pain had lessened. After that, we smelled a nice scent coming from her body, which strengthened her confidence.
Then, for the next two days, she came down with a fever and felt burning hot. She also had red dots on her body, and the bulge in her leg began to fester to the point of forming a small hole. When she was doing the exercises, pus began to flow from the hole. We were doing the exercises, Fa-study and sending forth righteous thoughts with her. At night, when her fever was very high, we got up every hour to send forth righteous thoughts for her. Her leg recovered after some time, and new flesh grew at the hole.
After she recovered, her body felt very relaxed. She’d be jumping around every time when she went out, and she also would like to take on all the heavy-duty household chores, and never felt tired. Her mother said, “This must be snake disk sores – your dad used to have them. He went to the hospital, and it took him over a month to recover. You didn’t use any medication, but you recovered so quickly!”
For a while, we felt very depressed, and always ran into conflicts with one another. One time, after a conflict, Youyou suddenly felt terrible, and wanted to end her life. Right then, Yanzi saw black substances moving towards Youyou’s bed, but her body was protected by an array of white light. Yanzi immediately sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate these bad substances.
When Youyou said she didn’t want to live any more, Yanzi saw a python in a golden armor jumping at her while holding a shield, to stop her from sending forth righteous thoughts. She told all of us, and we became alert right away. We sat in a circle to send forth righteous thoughts. After a while, we heard thunder from outside, then the dimensional field became peaceful again. With the vanishing of the python, Youyou’s negative thoughts also disappeared.
On that night, we did some sharing. Through that, we became more understanding and tolerant of others. We came to realize: “When the negative thoughts surfaced, besides our own reasons, there could be evil elements reinforcing them from other dimensions.” Just like the extreme thoughts held by patients feeling depression, these thoughts are not necessarily from their minds. Thus, if we examine our negative thoughts and actions at any time to keep our dimensional field clean and peaceful, the negative substances would not be able to take advantage of us.
We’d also participate in some truth-clarification projects by making use of the skills we possess. Over the course of a few years, we felt we have made the most of those projects.
After we began to practice, no matter whether it’s at school or work, we always are either the top students or employees. However, when we met with each other, conflicts would still arise, because every one has his or her own understandings. I felt this was good, he felt that was better. Even though we showed agreement on the surface, deep down, we didn’t always agree with each other. Especially when it came to truth-clarification, we felt that it’s more important to do things right. When I tried to change my mindset, I ended up going to the other extreme. For instance, I’d think: “Whatever!” or “I won’t say anything this time”, which showed that I had the attachment to avoid trouble, worry that my idea would be rejected by others, and being afraid of running into a conflict.
Master has been quietly helping us. Even though we didn’t do well, he would still give us opportunities and other practitioners’ words to encourage us. We came to understand that doing these things were not only for saving sentient beings, but they were precious opportunities for improving ourselves.
Master said:
“Do you realize that as long as you’re a cultivator, in any environment or under any circumstances, I will use any troubles or unpleasant things you come across—even if they involve work for Dafa, or no matter how good or sacred you think they are—to eliminate your attachments and expose your demon-nature so that it can be eliminated, for your improvement is what’s most important.” (“Further Understanding,” Essentials for Further Advancement)
Master also said:
“When a person harbors resentment it’s because he has grown fond of hearing pleasant things and having things go well. And then when things don't go that way, he resents it. You can’t be like that, if you think about it. You can’t go about cultivation that way, can you?” (“2018 Fa Teaching Given in Washington, D.C.”)
Gradually, while doing projects, we learned to understand others through being kind, letting go of our ego, and harmonizing the overall body. Only at that time, did we realize that our capabilities were all arranged, and we complemented each other. With our working well with one another, we could accomplish our tasks easily.
During the past six years, Master has helped change us from someone possessing a strong mentality to one of maturity and understanding others. At this time and age, we have become Master’s disciples – our gratitude is beyond any words.
Given the CCP virus, our society is undergoing unprecedented transformation. Unlike other people who were panicking, worried and desperate, we have been steadfast in doing the things we are supposed to do. Despite a natural calamity, we truly hope that those kind people which were deceived by the CCP will learn the truth as early as possible, witness the beauty of Dafa, withdraw their memberships from the CCP and its youth organizations, and have a bright future!
(The end)