The Importance of Firm Righteous Thoughts

(Minghui.org) I’m 70 years old and started practicing Falun Dafa in 1997. After the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999, I didn’t give it up. Because I clarified the facts about Dafa, I was illegally sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison. My son, who was also a practitioner, was tortured to death during the persecution.

I left China in 2013. One day, I met another practitioner who was a professor. She said, “Why the long face and sad look? Haven’t you let go of your sentiment for your son?”

I smiled in grief and said nothing. How could others know the unbearable pain I was hiding in the depths of my heart? It was an indescribable sadness, a huge burden I couldn’t let go of. The burden was an unbearable sense of guilt.

Letting Go of the Burden in My Heart

While I was incarcerated in Guangdong Women’s Prison, I was physically and mentally tortured. It was a hell on earth.

At first, because I would not give up Falun Gong (also called Falun Dafa), they locked me up in a small cell, and 12 to 13 people took turns watching me. They gave me nothing to eat and said, “No food for you until you admit you are a criminal.”

They wouldn’t let me sleep or bathe for over three weeks. They verbally abused me, pulled my ears, yanked my hair, and completely humiliated me.

My son was tortured to death in a forced labor camp, but they wouldn’t let me say it. They insisted that he died of natural causes... I lost 44 pounds in one month in the prison.

I was worried about a lot of things, including my elderly father who needed care. After a painful struggle, I signed the so-called “Four Statements [to renounce my practice of Falun Gong]” against my will, leaving a stain in my path of cultivation. From then on, the burden of self-blame filled the depths of my heart.

They later drugged me with some unknown substance. I kept vomiting, and my urine was red. They took me to the prison hospital and had blood work done. I was on the brink of death.

In my heart I was very conflicted. I wanted to ask Master to help me, but I had already given in to the evil—how dare I ask Master? After a mental struggle, I asked Master after all. I cried out weakly in my heart, “Master, please help me.”

This thought had a miraculous effect. Two to three hours later, I recovered. I told the doctor, “I am well. I want to be discharged.” Instead, I was escorted to the Department of Justice General Hospital outside the prison, where they kept me for half a month.

They said I had an incurable disease. They did a lot of blood work and various tests on me. At that time, I didn’t understand why they were doing those tests. (Many survivors reported similar tests during detention. The tests were allegedly related to forced organ harvesting.)

They told my younger sister that I had pancreatic cancer. My sister requested medical parole for me, but the prison denied it on the grounds that I was disqualified. My sister told the prison authorities, “If something happens to my sister, I won’t spare you!”

I knew that it was Master who helped me. Master didn’t give up on me, but I was so ashamed to face Master. It was that heavy burden in my heart that made me look sad, something you do not expect to see in a practitioner. Master said: “...the appearance stems from the mind.”” (“Fa Teaching Given at the Epoch Times Meeting,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. X)

A few years passed, and I made very little progress. Seeing that I lacked enlightenment, Master helped me again. One day, another practitioner whom I’d known since I had lived in China, sent me a text message. It was a story that goes like this:

“A man walked alongside his god. He could not see the god, but after he saw two rows of footprints behind him, he knew his god was walking with him. When he was suffering great hardship, he turned around and only saw one row of footprints behind him. He asked his god, ‘Where were you when I was in the greatest hardship?’ His god said mercifully, ‘Son, I was carrying you!’”

I cried. I cried so hard that I lost my voice. Master has never left me. He has always been watching over me. Nowhere else can we find a Master as good as ours! We will never know the great sacrifices Master has made for us, and Master will never let us know.

Later on, I had a chance to see Master up close. I was so excited that I cried. I felt so ashamed and dared not face him.

Fellow practitioners told me that Master looked at me. I was immensely happy and finally let go of my burden. I could feel his great compassion. He does not hold his disciples’ past faults against them but instead just unconditionally sacrifices and suffers for them. I knew that only by doing better in cultivation could I make Master happy.

Later on, the professor practitioner saw a picture of me in the waist drum team and said I had changed. She said I looked younger, and my smile was very bright.

Witnessing the Power of Dafa

I had sickness karma after I left China. In the process I once again witnessed the power of Dafa.

In August or September of 2016, I suddenly noticed something hard had grown on my right side between my abdomen and ribs and filled almost the entire right side of my abdomen. It hurt when I lay down or bent during practice. The lump felt so real—it was a test to my heart.

Later on, I had shortness of breath and fatigue when I walked, I was cold in my sleep and woke up with cold sweat on my neck. I did not know how long I would last. About two months later, I panicked and felt like dying. I forced myself to calm down and clean out any bad thoughts. I told myself I had a mission and could not depart yet.

I knew Master had spoken many times about practitioners having no illness, and I knew that what was happening to me was false, but it was a real hard lump I could see and touch. It was a burden in my mind, not to mention the pain.

Having cultivated for so long, what would people think of me when they saw me like this? I laughed at my vanity, but what could I do? I knew it was not an illness, that it should not exist in my mind.

Physically not feeling well, I wasn’t mentally well, either. My health worsened day by day, and I lost 20 pounds in one month. My fellow practitioners were surprised when they saw me, so I told them I was on a diet.

I once again calmed myself down. I was determined to only follow the path of a practitioner and walk with firm righteous thoughts guided by Master’s teaching.

Master said,

“Somewhere in the body one may have a tumor, infection, osteophytosis, etc. It is because in another dimension there lies a being in that place. That being is in a very deep dimension.” (Lecture Seven, Zhuan Falun)

“After you remove that being, you will find that there is nothing wrong with the body in this dimension.” (Lecture Seven, Zhuan Falun)

With the strengthening of Master’s Fa, I sent righteous thoughts more often to eliminate the being behind the lump in my abdomen.

Master said,

“Whenever there is interference of one kind or another in qigong practice, you should look for reasons within yourself and determine what you still have not let go.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)

I looked inside to see what had been taken advantage of by the evil. I remembered I didn’t pass a xinxing test after having a conflict with another practitioner. I felt I’d been wronged and resented her. Even though I did not show it, whenever I saw her, I felt hurt and avoided her. In fact, I did not pass the test. I did not look inward thoroughly or improve my xinxing.

I also discovered I had a lot of attachments to things such as comfort, showing off, and jealousy. When I saw others with their families, I inevitably developed a sense of sorrow and desolation. I asked, “Why do I have nothing?”

I valued family very much in my younger years and sacrificed a lot for my family, but how could I have known that the more I pursued it, the less I had, and, in the end, my family was completely broken. I realized I was lowering myself to the realm of everyday people.

I thought, “Even if I die, I will dig out the attachments because I cannot take them with me.” I searched and searched and found a lot of them.

In the end, I had one firm thought, “No matter what the outcome may be, I must not see a doctor, because hospitals cannot solve the problems of practitioners.”

So I completely let go of everything in my heart and made a decision: “No matter what happens, I will give all of myself to Master, and be a true Dafa practitioner. Master has the final say about me.” After more than two months of this ordeal of mind and body, I finally became determined and was at peace.

Experiencing the Power of Dafa

One day, I kept needing to urinate and had to stay in the bathroom the entire afternoon. At first I had a human thought: “Incontinence, wet pants, it looks like my days are over...” I immediately corrected that thought.

I realized I did a poor job in cultivation and still had too many attachments. I must not blame others because those were all my own problems. I did not want those attachments. I later passed some thick, pink stuff that filled the toilet bowl.

That night, the lump in my abdomen was gone, and I had no more pain. It stopped hurting when I was doing the exercises. I got suspicious and thought, “A dying flash?” My enlightenment was that bad at that time.

It took me a week to wake up to the fact that I was really well, that the lump was gone. My abdomen was soft again. I called a fellow practitioner and said, “I’m well, I’m completely well!” The first thing he said was, “Thank you, Master!” Tears came to my eyes.

Alas! This disappointing disciple dragged this on for two months! It was Master who cleansed my body and took out the bad things. Thank you, Master!

Ever since this tribulation of sickness karma, I have deeply felt that one must firmly believe in Master. Master’s teachings about sickness karma helped me look at the lump with righteous thoughts. If I had treated myself as an everyday person and gone to the hospital, the doctor would have said it was either sclerosis or cancer, and I might have died.

I have come to understand that, in any hardship, one must firm up one’s righteous thoughts and look inward, calm down, and, step by step, correct every thought based on the Fa. With Master watching, one will change.

I have been practicing for more than 20 years, and Master has never asked me for a penny.