A New Practitioner’s Cultivation Experiences

(Minghui.org) I began practicing Falun Dafa last year. My parents began practicing before July 20, 1999. In the early years, the persecution in China was brutal. My father was persecuted many times, and my mother sent me to my grandmother’s home hundreds of kilometers away.

My grandmother didn’t practice cultivation, so for more than 20 years I went along with modern society’s trends. I developed many bad habits, such as lying, fighting, watching pornographic films, being ungrateful, and being self-centered in everything I did. After I was finally reunited with my parents, I argued with them and even swore at them. When I look back now, I’m ashamed.

I overate and gained weight, which resulted in health problems: leg cramps, stomach cramps, and allergies. And I caught every type of flu. My immune system was weak. Many teenagers in China are addicted to online games, and I was no exception. I played games, read novels, and stayed up late. I wouldn’t go to bed until the following morning. I often wondered why life was so boring—what was the point of it? I sought a way out, but I was hindered by my vested interests, atheism, and the notion that seeing is believing.

Fortunately, my parents practice Falun Dafa, and I personally witnessed how wonderful Dafa is. My parents have practiced for many years, and they enjoyed good health. Once, I had a quarrel with my grandfather at my aunt’s home. I behaved unreasonably and made a scene. My grandmother said that my behavior was abnormal and my face turned blue. She suggested that I was possessed. She was a Christian so she started to pray, but her praying didn’t help. My relatives tried various ways to help me but to no avail, so they called my parents. Once my parents arrived, I calmed down. Dafa left an imprint on my heart—sometimes when I was faced with crisis situations, I recited, “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” Because I was afraid of being persecuted, I didn’t become a practitioner.

Becoming a Cultivator

But Master didn’t give up on me, and my mother helped me. She encouraged me to listen to practitioners’ cultivation experience sharing articles and articles about divinely-inspired culture.

While I was driving one morning and stopped to wait for a traffic light, the song “Be Saved” suddenly appeared in my mind: “Be saved, Be saved, don’t miss the opportunity again.” I made up my mind to practice Falun Dafa.

At the beginning of 2020 I began to practice Falun Dafa. Due to the COVID outbreak, our community was locked down. Because our business was also closed, I had time to learn the exercises and read Master’s lectures on the website. I benefited a lot.

Finding Attachments When Clarifying the Truth

I eventually understood that the pandemic is here to weed out those who don’t deserve to be saved. I also sensed that Master wanted practitioners to hurry up and save people. In the Fa lectures, Master repeatedly said: “Save people.” After I understood that, I started to clarify the truth to people face-to-face. At first, I was afraid that people would report me.

Master saw that I had the sincere wish to save people, and he encouraged me by arranging for me to meet people so I could help them. When I mentioned withdrawing from the CCP organizations, they agreed and had a very positive understanding of Dafa.

But after clarifying the truth to a few people, I felt that I did well and my ego began to swell. When I met people later, however, some were not willing to listen. Some said unpleasant things, and others had a deep misunderstanding of Dafa. My fear resurfaced. I immediately sent forth righteous thoughts to deny it and asked Master to strengthen me. After looking inward, I found that I had the attachments of arrogance, eagerness for quick success, complacency and that I was strongly influenced due to the indoctrination by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). I did not let others express their opinion—I only wanted to listen to good words. I showed off, wanted to validate myself, and so on. In the past year, Master has strengthened and compassionately protected me even though my cultivation path was bumpy and I was stumbling.

Raising My Xinxing

Our family owns a small business. I am usually responsible for delivering the goods, my mother is responsible for sales, and my father handles the warehouse. While delivering goods, I made good use of my time to clarify the truth and validate the Fa to some renovation workers and property owners, and I was very happy every day.

After I delivered the goods to one location, the workers refused to unload the truck—they wanted me to carry the goods upstairs. I said it would take me several hours to do that and that it had been agreed in advance that they would unload the goods. But they said, “We don’t care—you have to unload it.” I began to feel resentful and then I thought, “Society and moral standards have declined, and some people only care about themselves. I am a cultivator and I practice Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. I cannot be like them.” I quietly unloaded the goods.

On the way back, I thought, “How pitiful people are now. If I hadn’t practiced Dafa, I would have raised the price for the items and asked the owner to pay me more.”

Master said,

“To truly practice cultivation, you must cultivate your mind. This is called Xinxing cultivation. For example, in a conflict among one another, you should care less about various personal feelings and desires. While competing for personal gain, you want to improve your gong—how can that be possible?” (Lecture One, Zhuan Falun)

Although I remained calm, my heart felt very unbalanced: why should I unload goods for them for free? When I really calmed down, I dug deeper into these notions and removed them. I am a young man with strong attachments to saving face, vanity, lofty ambitions, competitiveness, and lust. At the same time, the CCP indoctrination interfered with my validating the Fa.

When I started delivering goods, some business owners and customers said that I could really endure hardship when they learned that I was the son of the business owner. When I returned home, I asked my mother, “Are you really willing to let your son do such hard labor?” That really exposed my attachments to saving face, vanity, and jealousy were exposed. When I looked at these problems from the perspective of cultivation, I felt that I was being tested and this had happened to expose my attachments. I gradually eliminated them, and they no longer moved me.

Because my grandfather is poisoned by the CCP’s propaganda, he believes that atheism and science are the truth and that seeing to your own personal interests are more practical. He has a hot temper. When others do something not in line with his ideas, he shouts and curses at them. When I examined my behavior, I saw that I was acting the same way. When I couldn’t maintain my xinxing, I argued with him. But when I thought about it, I realized that he was misled by the CCP and is really pitiful. Fortunately, I have Dafa as a guide to restrain myself.