Not Watching What I Said Brought Tribulations

(Minghui.org) For a long time, I focused on cultivating my speech when in front of other people but did not pay attention when talking behind people’s backs. This behavior eventually caused a serious physical tribulation.

In March of this year, my gums on the right side and my face became swollen and my jaw hurt. I had to work hard to open my mouth just to eat porridge. I realized that there was an issue with my character and I started looking inward. I didn’t realize at the time that my problem was that I wasn’t careful about what I was saying. I thought the problem was that I had attachments to hatred and competition.

My wife, who is also a Falun Dafa adherent, sent righteous thoughts for me. The next day my throat hurt intermittently and I felt tired a few hours after I got up. Another practitioner came to my home and sent righteous thoughts for me. On the third day, my throat ached a little less, but I started to drool nonstop. On the fifth day, my throat was swollen and I couldn’t swallow at all. I even spat out the water I drank, and I had difficulty breathing and sleeping. I looked deeper within myself and realized that all my tribulations were happening in my mouth. Was it because of something to do with my cultivation of speech? I realized that was precisely the issue.

On the fifth day, the symptoms were the same and I lost my voice. I still had difficulty breathing. At that moment, I knew that the old forces were persecuting me and wanted to take me with them, away from this dimension. After sending righteous thoughts at 6 a.m., I knelt before Master Li’s (Dafa’s founder) portrait and asked him for help. Around 10 a.m., I coughed up two lumps of a mucus-like substance and was able to speak and breathe normally again. I also felt relieved, like I had been given a new life. I informed my family that Master had purified my body and that I was all right now. I thanked Master for saving me once again. I also felt ashamed for not being diligent in my cultivation.

My tribulation was related to an incident that happened earlier. A few years ago, my brother-in-law had an affair and even brought his mistress to the house he shared with my sister. Usually, his mother would be against this type of behavior, but she was very supportive of her son at that time. My sister divorced him a month later.

I reminded myself to not say anything about what happened and to just cultivate myself. I tried to help my sister by telling her that this could be karma she was paying back from a previous life and that she was paying off her debt. However, when another family member and I discussed what had happened, I began to feel uneasy talking about my ex-brother-in-law’s character and his family. My attachment to hatred and competitiveness had led me to forget about cultivating speech.

During that time, my gums became swollen but returned to normal after a while. This process happened several times. Unfortunately, I did not evaluate the problem using Fa principles. After some time, I went through the tribulation with my gums and jaw.

I now understand that every thought of a cultivator has energy. When a practitioner has bad thoughts about someone, he is losing virtue and creating karma; if he says the bad things out loud, he will lose more virtue and create more karma. Because of my desire to vent and not cultivating my speech, the old forces were able to interfere with me.

The following are some examples of times I wasn’t careful about what I said.

A few elderly practitioners would share their tribulations with my wife because she is empathetic and easy to converse with. My wife would tell me about other practitioners’ challenges, and I would always be critical of their faults. Instead of sharing my opinions to help them, I would talk behind people’s backs and make my own judgments and add negative energy to others’ dimensions. Even if my judgments were true, they might not be the main reasons that the person could not overcome the tribulations.

To summarize, here are some of the reasons why I did not cultivate my speech.

1. Not taking the Fa to heart. I had a superficial understanding of the Fa, and as a consequence, didn’t see that what I said created negative effects on myself and others.

2. Not enough compassion. I didn’t treat my bad thoughts about others as an important component of my cultivation. When I saw ordinary people doing bad things out of ignorance, I found myself judging them instead of having sympathy and compassion for them.

3. When I saw other practitioners’ attachments, I rarely pointed them out kindly. I also did not use their tribulations as a mirror for myself or look to see if I had similar flaws and attachments. I missed opportunities to elevate.

4. Existing Chinese Communist Party (CCP) culture. Despite reading the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party and Disintegrating the Culture of the Chinese Communist Party, I was unable to eliminate the Party culture I still had.

5. Sometimes, I thought something I didn’t do well was a minor issue because I am a Dafa practitioner who obtained the Fa before the persecution began, I have been doing various Dafa projects, and I have overcome multiple tribulations.

After encountering a speed bump in my cultivation, I finally realized that nothing in cultivation is minor. The fundamental reason that I tripped in improving my character was that I didn’t study enough Fa. The Fa can break all attachments.