(Minghui.org) I was six years old when my mother started to cultivate Falun Dafa. I played at her side when my mother participated in group Fa study and at practice sites. When Jiang Zemin initiated the violent persecution of Falun Dafa in 1999, I heard slander and propaganda on the television about Master and Falun Dafa. I knew it was all false accusations and that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was lying to deceive the people.
My mother persisted on her path of cultivation, but when the persecution began she was sent to a forced labor camp and lost her job. Despite all of this, she was still steadfast in her belief in Dafa. I, on the other hand, began to regress in cultivation and break away from Dafa. I became deluded by ordinary society. Under the Party’s indoctrination, young men and women like us don’t understand what genuine traditional Chinese values are and we would watch romance dramas and talk about the love between a man and woman.
I was polluted by so much Party culture from middle school through college. While in middle school, I mingled with the so-called “bad children” and did many bad things. I was disrespectful to my parents. Things were even worse when I attended college. Not only was I disrespectful, I also started to lie. Perhaps my parents still saw me as a good kid, but deep down inside I knew how much I’d regressed.
My mind was not righteous and my actions were even worse. Like this, I saw my physical body getting weaker and weaker by the day. I suddenly fell to the ground one day in high school and began having seizures. My parents had to take me home and then took me to the hospital.
In the days to come, my body became very weak. This created a mental burden for me, and I suddenly thought about how my mother used to tell me that her body became healthier because she cultivated Falun Dafa. I began to practice Falun Dafa with my mother again. My mother taught me how to do the five sets of exercises and we read Zhuan Falun together. Gradually, my thoughts and notions started to rectify themselves. On the surface, we faced the CCP’s persecution and society’s atheist ideals, but deep down inside I knew that Falun Dafa taught me to walk on a righteous path.
I began to have discomfort when I started to cultivate. I knew that Master was eliminating my karma, and the symptoms of my discomfort seemed less painful each time. However, I began to experience a lot of thought karma.
Master said,
“But thought karma can directly interfere with one’s mind. Therefore, one’s mind has swear words that condemn Teacher and Dafa, and one may think of some evil thoughts or swear words.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)
I began to have thought karma similar to what Master described in Zhuan Falun, and I did not know what to do when my thought karma appeared. I was very upset and I felt that I was suffering more than merely enduring physical discomfort.
I shared my experiences with my mother and she told me that we needed to study the Fa more.
Master said,
“The Fa can break all attachments, the Fa can destroy all evil, the Fa can shatter all lies, and the Fa can strengthen righteous thoughts.” (“Drive Out Interference,” Essentials for Further Advancement II)
I struggled with studying the Fa in the past, but after my bad notions and thoughts disappeared, I was able to study one lecture of the Fa every day and also began to memorize the Fa. I also practiced the five sets of exercises, and if I had extra time I practiced the second exercise for two hours. In addition, I strengthened my righteous thoughts by waking up at 4 a.m. every day.
I began to feel I had genuinely changed, and I started to experience the wonders and solemness of cultivation.
My soul was cleansed while immersed in the Fa. During this time, I also began to realize that I still had Party culture. After immigrating overseas, I started to encounter a lot of Western people at my workplace. I started to notice a drastic difference between the mentalities of Chinese and Westerners. My Western colleagues trusted and were honest with each other, and did not have any complicated thoughts. Though I practiced Falun Dafa, their sincerity still touched me, and I began reflecting on my actions and thoughts! I thought to myself, “Aren’t all the bad things I’m referring to considered Party culture?”
I finished watching the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party in three days and realized that many of the negative things in my mind were Party culture. The communist ideology propagates nine immoral elements: evil, deception, seduction, fighting, stealing, cheating, division, elimination, and control. Not only has the CCP destroyed China’s 5,000 years of civilization and murdered 80 million Chinese people, it has also destroyed traditional Chinese values. People in China nowadays only care about fame, fortune, and indulging themselves in lust. Family and friends no longer trust or are sincere with each other. People care about nothing besides money and their position in life.
The CCP has destroyed China’s 5,000 years of civilization, and many people no longer know the meaning of life. However, I still believe that compassion exists deep down inside them. Chinese people are just blinded by the CCP’s evil environment and cannot find their way to a righteous path.
I am an example of that. Only after cultivating did I realize that I had to respect my elders and trust my husband, and treat him with sincerity. I needed to eliminate my grudges and attachments of lust and desire. In addition, I needed to do well at my job and cultivate away fame, attachments to material interests, and jealousy.
Master said,
“No matter how the human moral standard changes, this characteristic of the universe remains unchanged, and it is the sole criterion that distinguishes good people from bad people. As a practitioner, one must then conduct oneself by following this characteristic of the universe rather than the standards of everyday people. If you want to return to the original, true self and move up in cultivation practice, you must conduct yourself according to this criterion. As a human being, you are a good person only if you can follow this universe’s characteristic of Zhen-Shan-Ren. A person who deviates from this characteristic is truly a bad person.” (Lecture One, Zhuan Falun)
I believe that the compassionate thoughts in people’s hearts will eventually lead them to the right path. As a Dafa disciple, I will genuinely cultivate myself, help more sentient beings understand the truth about Dafa, and recognize the evil nature of the CCP. I will spread the beauty and wonders of Dafa to more sentient beings.