Cultivating in Dafa Gives Me the Greatest Happiness

(Minghui.org) I don’t smoke, drink, gamble, play video games, or watch television (TV). I don’t travel, go shopping, or indulge in rich foods. I don’t even use WeChat – a popular Chinese social media app. Most ordinary people would find it hard to understand, and wonder how I could find joy in life.

Although I am far behind in what the Fa requires of me, I am not willing to go back to an ordinary life, even for a moment to pursue fame, gain, or indulge myself. My only purpose in life is to work hard, doing the three things well, and constantly improve in Falun Dafa cultivation. Doing so gives me the greatest happiness!

Returning to Cultivation After Getting Lost

I was fortunate to start practicing Falun Dafa at a young age with my family. The principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance were deeply rooted in my heart. But, after the persecution started, I got further and further away from the Fa, and gradually became lost in the human world. After leaving Dafa, I was constantly tortured by a sense of helplessness and torment in my heart.

A big change occurred in my family, which left me feeling in despair. All I could think about was how to end my life, but I couldn’t do it. Frustrated and puzzled, I felt there was a mysterious force protecting me.

The local Dafa coordinator learned about my situation, came to visit, and invited me to their Fa study group. In the past, I was afraid of being persecuted and I didn’t dare to go. But, now I had nothing to fear, as I wasn’t even afraid of death. Practitioners were sending forth righteous thoughts when I got there. A fellow practitioner gave me the instructions, and I started to send righteous thoughts with them.

I closed my eyes and my mind settled down. A scene appeared in front of me. There was a dark forest with no end in sight. A five- or six-year old child was lost, crying and walking aimlessly. I could sense that the child was me, because I could completely relate to his loneliness, helplessness, pain, and despair. Suddenly, it was like a big hole was torn open in the night sky, and dazzling lights shone down. A solemn and majestic Buddha descended from the sky, and went to the crying child. The Buddha looked at the child with infinite love, and said softly, “My child, come home with me!” He put the child in his palm and flew into the sky. In that instant, all my pain disappeared. Every cell in my body was enveloped by the warm, bright Buddha’s energy, and my heart was filled with incomparable joy and happiness.

As a result of the atheistic education in school, I had always been dubious about gods and Buddhas. But, this experience was so real and shocking that I couldn’t help but burst into tears. The practitioners around me thought I was crying due the pain from sitting in the full lotus position. I told them what I had just seen, and they were amazed and happy for me. They said that I was very fortunate and Master was taking care of me.

I realized that Master had always been by my side taking care of me. Even when I wanted to give up on life, Master did not give up on me, and was still trying hard to save my life. When I saw the scene in the Shen Yun program where Master descended from the sky to save mankind from a catastrophe, I recalled this unforgettable experience. My eyes filled with tears, and my heart filled with infinite gratitude. 

I made a vow to Master in my heart, “From now on, my life will only exist for the Fa. I will cultivate in Dafa and return home with Master. That is my only purpose in life.”

Assisting Master in Fa-rectification

Just when I was glad that I finally returned to Dafa, the practitioner responsible for making truth clarification materials was arrested, and the production of materials stopped. The local coordinator was very worried and asked if I would be willing to take on the important task of re-establishing the material production site. Although I didn’t know anything about setting up a material production site, I agreed without hesitation. My thought was very simple: My life exists for the Fa. As long as it is something Master wants or is needed in the Fa, no matter how painful, difficult, or dangerous, I will do everything I can to achieve it.

With this pure heart, I started the difficult process of re-establishing the material production site without knowing anything about it.

The coordinator decided to have several smaller material sites instead of one large one, and all the sites would operate independently from each other and there would not be any connections among them. As a technical practitioner, I would be responsible for everything from the purchase of machines and consumables, technical training for practitioners at each site, the maintenance and repair of the machines, and delivery and transportation of the materials. For safety reasons, I was the only person responsible for these tasks and I also had to keep things confidential.

In order to have enough time for these tasks, outside of my day job, I tried to simplify my life. I have no idea how many sleepless nights I spent trying to solve technical issues, or how much I traveled in the wind and rain. I only remember that I was so busy that I was always jogging instead of walking, and my meals were often simply a steamed bun while on the go. All I was thinking about was to race against time and not delay practitioners’ important work of assisting Master in saving people.

Although it was extremely difficult, my heart was filled with happiness. I felt that I had been away from the Fa for so long and wasted so much time, and now I finally had the opportunity to contribute to the Fa and fulfill my mission in this lifetime. Could there be anything more joyful and glorious than this?

I would like to thank practitioners involved with the Minghui website and the technical forum. With their selfless hard work, they produced very practical tutorials with pictures and texts that are easy to understand. Every time I encountered difficult issues, I would ask about them in the forum, and would always get timely and detailed answers. They paved the way to achieve success even for a clueless technical practitioner like me.

Of course, in the terrifying atmosphere created by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), I was only able to do all of this smoothly given Master’s meticulous care and protection. One time, I went to deliver materials to a practitioner, who was being followed by a plainclothes officer. I didn’t know it at the time, but I walked passed the officer and handed a large packet of materials to the practitioner right in front of them. After I left, the practitioner turned around and distributed the materials as he walked. After distributing only a few copies of materials, the officer grabbed him. The practitioner was taken to a detention center overnight for interrogation.

When I heard that the practitioner had been arrested, I lost my righteous thoughts and was terrified, as if the police were about to come and arrest me. When I calmed down, I thought, “I am a Dafa practitioner. How can I be afraid of these people? The practitioner was detained, and I must fill the gap and distribute the materials.” I adjusted my mentality, sent forth righteous thoughts, and went out to distribute the materials.

The first thing the practitioner did when he was released from the detention center, half a month later, was to ask his family if I was okay. He breathed a sigh of relief when he found out that I was fine, and repeatedly said that Master was protecting me. When we met, he told me what happened in the detention center. The police detained and interrogated him; the most they wanted to know was who gave him the materials. Of course, he didn’t tell them. The police said they would still find me, and went to look over the surveillance recordings. The practitioner was concerned they would find me.

Obviously they didn’t, but why? I remembered that before I went to meet the practitioner that day, there was light rain, so I put on a raincoat. Even though I passed by the plainclothes officer, he couldn’t see clearly who I was because of the raincoat. They also couldn’t see my face clearly in the monitoring cameras due to the raincoat. Now that I think about it, the rain was arranged by Master to protect me! I was so grateful to Master and could not hold back my tears. I can only be more diligent in cultivation to repay Master’s grace.

Studying the Fa and Cultivating Solidly

I spent a lot of time working on the material production sites, and treated the work as a form of cultivation. But as time moved on, I felt that if my xinxing did not improve, I would not be able to do the work well, and it would even have a negative effect.

For example, I attended a colleague’s wedding and then returned to the material production site. As soon as I walked in, the printer that was working smoothly suddenly printed everything in red. After a while, the paper jammed and it stopped printing completely. I disassembled the printer and cleaned the ink cartridge, thinking it was clogged. But after cleaning it several times, it still remained the same. Then, a fellow practitioner asked me to look inward. I tried hard to think about my problem, and found that attending the wedding aroused my desires and lust. As soon as I found my problem, the printer instantly returned to normal by itself. We were stunned.

Another time, the printer kept printing everything in blue, and it turned out it was because I was lazy and slacked off in studying the Fa and doing the Dafa exercises. Similar things have happened many times, and every time something didn’t go well, the root cause were often problems with my xinxing. There were many painful lessons of technical and coordinator practitioners getting arrested in various places. The true reason was often that they were busy doing things and neglected improving their xinxing, which is critical for cultivators.

When all the material production sites could operate independently, I tried to take myself away from busily doing things and calm down to study the Fa and cultivate myself. Especially, during the lockdown period due to the pandemic, there was a lot more time to study the Fa with a calm mind.

I study the Fa mainly by memorizing the Fa. I have memorized Zhuan Falun 10 times so far, and Hong Yin toHong Yin V three times. Now, I am planning to start memorizing the three Essentials of Diligent Progress and all of Master’s short articles. I have an ambition to memorize all of Master’s teachings, so that I can always use the Fa to compare against my thoughts, words and actions, and be completely immersed in the Fa.

Many local practitioners do not have Master’s other lectures at home for safety reasons, so they rarely study them. In our group Fa study, I would sometimes bring a few more books, other than Zhuan Falun, the main book of Falun Dafa, each time. I would read it aloud while others listened. Fellow practitioners often praised me, saying I read very well, and I was quite proud of myself. But then, a practitioner pointed out that by reading the whole thing myself, everyone else was forming a dependency on me, which would hinder everyone’s improvement in cultivation. I couldn’t take this, and felt that I was clearly doing a good thing for everyone, and how could I be at fault? My self-esteem was hit hard, and I almost got into a fight with that practitioner. After I got home, I found that I had forgotten my key and couldn’t get in, so I had to wait outside the door. While waiting, I calmed down and thought: There is nothing accidental in cultivation. It was Master who gave me the hint through this incident because I was not able to enlighten on my own.

For cultivators, looking inward is a magical tool. I had definitely done something wrong, so I began to seriously look inward, and indeed found my desire for fame. I thought I had pretty much given up fame and gain, but in fact, I had only given up superficial things, but not my attachment. My vanity of seeking fame was still very strong. I was happy when practitioners praised me, and angry when someone pointed out my issues. I exploded when someone said something about me. How could I truly be a cultivator?

Later, in the Fa study group, we changed to everyone taking turns reading aloud the other books I brought. I found that it was indeed more effective, as I didn’t have to get so tired reading the whole time, while other practitioners were less likely to become sleepy and doze off, and they no longer depended on me.

While looking back at my cultivation, I discovered many shortcomings and problems that I usually ignored or were unwilling to face. More importantly, I regained the cultivation state of when I first started to cultivate.

Due to my limited level in cultivation, please point out anything that is not in accordance with the Fa.