My Reaction to Dyeing My Hair Helped Me Examine My Cultivation

(Minghui.org) I began practicing Falun Gong in 1997 and I’m now 67 years old. I’ve been dyeing my hair for many years. Some local practitioners dye their hair and some do not. In everyday society some people do not dye their hair, and even though they have grey or white hair, they look good. 

After thinking it over, I decided that I would stop dyeing my hair. Not only does dyeing one’s hair cost money, it also takes time. 

Two months later my white hair grew out. I thought that my two-color hair looked bad. Although I always wore a hat when I went out, it was still visible. My husband said that I looked like a grandma now. Not able to stand the comment, I dyed my hair again. When I dyed my hair again, my hands and neck started to itch. I thought that I really could not dye my hair anymore as my skin was allergic to the dye. I decided that if anyone commented on my white and black hair I would explain that I was allergic so I had to stop dyeing it.

Even though I stopped dyeing my hair, my neck still itched. The palms of my hands became sensitive and itched. The harder I scratched them, the worse they felt. Small cracks appeared in the area where I scratched, and the skin began to bleed. After two days I decided that no matter how badly my hands itched, I would not scratch them. However, I just could not control myself and I began to scratch them again. 

I know that Master has mentioned that for a cultivator, being comfortable is not a good thing. I knew that I must be tolerant. But I could not control myself and scratching my hands became a subconscious habit. The flesh on my hands became dry and cracked and the skin started to peel. I had to wear gloves and a hat when I went out. When I ate with relatives, I hid my hands under the table because I felt my condition would make Falun Dafa look bad.

My husband, who does not practice, often goes to shops that promote all sorts of products. Sometimes these shops let people who attend their meetings take free things or buy flash sale products. The people who attend these classes are usually married couples. My husband often asked me to join him but I thought Falun Dafa practitioners should not do this. Even though I explained the relationship between loss and gain and that in the end we have to pay for whatever we get, he did not understand the logic. I could only let him do as he pleased.

One day, he pressured me to go with him. He said that the shop manager was a fellow villager and requested that spouses attend. He explained that he already accepted the invitation so he wanted me to go. I had no choice but to go with him. One of the flash sale products was a medicinal cream for skin allergies. The hands on the television looked exactly like the skin on my hands. 

I thought to myself that the old forces were really good at arranging things but I would not be deceived. How could an ordinary medicinal cream cure my condition? My husband asked me to apply the cream but I said that this was not an illness so the cream would not work on me. After we left, my head ached so badly that I felt nauseous. My husband no longer asked me to go with him after that.

I Finally Enlighten

As I wrote these words, I suddenly understood that Master made use of the old force arrangements to enlighten me. Since I know that this is not an illness or an infection, I should not be allergic to the hair dye.

I realized that I must have some loopholes which the old forces used to cause my condition. When I examined my cultivation, I found more than 20 attachments such as to lust, jealousy, showing off, etc. I listened to other practitioners’ cultivation articles to analyze my situation and I found attachments that were hard to detect. I wrote them down and every day I sent righteous thoughts to eliminate them. I also focused on doing the three things. However, nothing changed.

I thought that since my hands had so much karma, they must have done bad things. I recalled that I'd accumulated more than 20 paper copies of Master’s lectures given in different regions. Now that the lectures were compiled and the books were published, I thought that local practitioners no longer needed the print-outs, so I decided to burn them. While I burned them, I had the feeling that I was being disrespectful to Master and Dafa. Wasn’t I destroying Dafa books? I had committed such a big mistake. Therefore, I published a “Solemn Declaration” to denounce all my previous behavior and thoughts that were disrespectful of Master.

Things seemed to become a bit better. The skin on my neck was no longer so itchy. But the palms of my hands still bled and the skin kept peeling. In fact, the skin on top of my hands began cracking and bleeding. Master saw that I still did not get it. One day when I was memorizing Zhuan Falun I read:

“But when it does happen, your entire body will have been remade at the cellular level with the high-energy matter. Then it would no longer be the five elements that make up your body. It would instead be material from beyond this world that forms you—you would have a body of high-energy matter harvested from other dimensions. On another note, virtue, similarly, is made up of matter from other dimensions and not subject to the time of this dimension.” (The Second Talk, Zhuan Falun)

I am a veteran practitioner so Master already pushed me to my position long ago. Master has also removed our names from hell so we are no longer controlled by the three realms. In that case, this little bit of dye is definitely not able to have any effect on my body. I have read and memorized this part of Master’s Fa many times and I also shared cultivation thoughts with fellow practitioners about this Fa principle. So when I encountered this situation, why did I not understand this point? I felt ashamed. I also felt bad about how much I made Master worry.

I sent out a strong righteous thought that my body was made up of high-energy matter and I was not controlled by the three realms. I wanted to totally disintegrate the beings and elements that the old forces used to persecute my body. Afterwards, I felt lighter and I was no longer tangled in this problem about whether to dye my hair.

I think that as practitioners who are cultivating in human society, Master wants us to conform to the state of society. This is because we need to cultivate ourselves and we still need to clarify the truth and save people. In this case, we can make use of the things in ordinary human society in a righteous and compassionate way. 

Dyeing my hair gives people the impression that I’m young and energetic. In that case, why don’t I make good use of it? I dyed my hair again. Gradually, my palms no longer itched and cracked. The skin stopped peeling and gradually softened.

The hands that I did not dare to show anyone for more than a year recovered and were back to normal in less than two weeks. My experience shows the vast difference in the outcome—whether we view the situation as an ordinary person or as a practitioner.