Undergoing a Complete Change After Practicing Falun Dafa for Two Years

(Minghui.org) I began to practice Falun Dafa in 2020. Although this is a relatively short time, I feel that I have undergone a complete transformation. As a young man, I didn’t have any goals in life—instead I focused on competing for fame and fortune. After I began practicing Falun Dafa, I found the true meaning of life, and I tried to follow the principles of the universe, “Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.” I was able to gradually correct many of my bad habits, behaviors, and mentalities. I am extremely grateful to Master for his compassion in helping me change.

Letting Go of Atheism

I deeply and blindly believed in science since I was a child, and I didn’t believe in the existence of divine beings. Even though I watched some television series, such as Journey to the West and Investiture of the Gods, I believed them to be fictional. I didn’t think heaven existed, because spaceships traveled into the sky and the astronauts didn’t see heaven. I also did not believe that “good and evil actions will receive retributions,” and I believed everything happened by chance. I always felt that only through fighting and competing could I find what I was looking for, and I didn’t think there was anything wrong with doing bad things when gaining a benefit from doing so.

I was taught both at school and at home to be obedient and follow teachers’ and parents’ directions. When I didn’t obey, I was punished. I felt the only reason for not violating the rules and not hurting others was to avoid being punished. I never understood why I was expected to follow the rules. Also, because I did not believe in the existence of divine beings, when I wasn’t watched, I would do bad things such as copying others’ homework, cheating on exams, stealing money from my parents in order to go to an Internet cafe to play games, going to factories to do mischief, cursing at others, and so on. Thinking about it now, I accumulated so much karma back then.

My wife began practicing Falun Dafa when she was a child. When we first met, I felt that she was very kind, tolerant, and considerate of others. When we were in a relationship, every time we had a disagreement, she always backed down first. On the other hand, since I was young, I always argued with others a lot, and even if I was wrong, I still kept arguing. Therefore, with her, I could win any argument every time. I always thought that I was smarter than her.

After we went abroad, she began to clarify the truth to me little by little. When she mentioned atheism, I said, “There are no divine beings. Scientific research has never discovered this. It is all superstition.” She said, “If there is just no instrument to detect something, would that prove it doesn’t exist? Would the existence of an object depend on whether or not the instrument detecting it has been invented?” I was speechless, and I couldn’t argue with that because what she said made total sense.

Indeed, wouldn’t there still be molecules and atoms before the microscope was invented? There are so many things that human eyes can’t see. Many things we know exist only because there are instruments that can detect them. But weren’t those instruments also invented by humans? If something hasn’t been detected, can we say for sure it doesn’t exist? I began to doubt about atheism.

At the time, although I gradually got to know some facts about Dafa and I withdrew from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), I still didn’t have a good understanding of why people practice Falun Dafa. I just felt that it was similar to doing meditation in Buddhism, which I couldn’t really accept at the time. My wife would often read Zhuan Falun to me, and I gradually realized that many things in the book were the truth, and it indeed could improve people’s moral standards.

I encountered a lot of troubles during my graduate school studies, and I had a major conflict with my mentor at the end of 2019. Since my mentor was immersed in the CCP culture for a long time, when I affected his interests, he threatened me and used all sorts of ways to oppose me. It was a very painful time for me. Every day, I stayed awake all night thinking about how to resolve these problems. I tried everything I learned based on my past experiences in ordinary society, such as having others pull strings behind the scenes, but nothing worked.

During this time, my wife continued to read Zhuan Falun to me. She tried to open my heart with the Fa principles, telling me not to be overly attached to fame and wealth, and that I should let go of them. She said there was an old proverb in Chinese: “When one takes a step back, everything will open up,” and if something belonged to me, then I would never lose it; if something didn’t belong to me, then losing it might not be a bad thing. I began to slowly change my thinking. I tried to let go of these things, and I stopped using ordinary means such as deceiving others to deal with problems. I also started to communicate with my teachers at school. After doing this, I suddenly felt more relaxed. My troubles and stress seemed to be all swept away, and things started to turn around. The teachers understood me, and tried to help me by communicating with my mentor.

Through this, I suddenly realized that some of the concepts I believed from ordinary society were not good. These included the CCP sayings: “People are deceived by others when they are too kind,” “Don’t trust others fully, or don’t tell them everything. Additionally leave 70% to yourself,” and “One shouldn’t have the thought to harm others, but one must also have the heart to guard against others,” and so on. On the contrary, when we follow the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and put others first, we may lose something on the surface, but in fact it can resolve the issue fundamentally. Thinking back to the way of life from China’s thousands of years of civilization, those historical figures did not achieve success by being clever, and those cunning people might be successful for a while, but in the end they were looked down upon.

I began to read Zhuan Falun with my wife. After reading it for the first time, I found that my outlook on life changed completely, and I began to believe in the existence of divine beings. Looking back at the many things I experienced, I found that humans are indeed very incapable, and thus many things would not follow people’s wishes, because in fact, everything is based on the arrangements made by divine beings. For example, sometimes one tries his best to plan something, but what happens in reality is completely different from what he has planned; sometimes he isn’t fully prepared, but things end up perfectly; sometimes one thinks he will suffer a lot of losses, yet in reality nothing happens. However, when he thinks that nothing can go wrong, suddenly one faces many troubles. I found that many of my concepts in the past were wrong. When we use the scientific way of thinking, many things cannot be explained.

The so-called supernatural abilities have been recognized by the scientific community, yet they cannot be explained by science. But they do exist in religions and even in ordinary human society. Thus, the existence of divine beings is not a superstition. The book Zhuan Falun – the main book of Falun Dafa – explains how diving beings exist, what other dimensions are, and the limitations of modern science. As I kept reading Zhuan Falun, I felt that the truth contained in Zhuan Falun far surpasses any others books I have read. From it, I have learned what real science is, what the purpose of life is, how to correctly interact with other people, and so on.

As my cultivation continues to rise, I gradually gained a deeper understanding of the existence of divine beings, and I understood that only by following the requirements of Dafa to improve my xinxing and truly cultivating myself, can I assimilate to the characteristics of the higher-level universe, and ascend to the next level. My life now has a purpose, and I can also do things better in ordinary society. I am deeply grateful to Master for his compassion.

Recognizing the Lies of Communism

In addition to atheism, I was also indoctrinated by all of the CCP ideology since I was a child. In schools, we had to constantly go through “political theory studies.” I forced myself to believe in communism. I even joined the CCP and took a poisonous oath without realizing its significance. I could not distinguish between the CCP and China; I thought that being patriotic was equivalent to loving the CCP. I was so deeply poisoned by the CCP’s lies.

The CCP has always advocated that people in the West are exploited and oppressed by Western capitalism and there is a wide gap between the rich and the poor. But after I came to study abroad and lived here for several years, I gradually discovered that was not true at all. Many people here work eight hours a day, five days a week, and get off federal holidays as well as dozens of paid vacation days. They are rarely asked to work overtime by their supervisors, because by law the overtime work must pay higher than their normal wages. So, except for emergencies, the employers are not willing to pay employees for overtime work. With a normal salary level and benefits, most people can live comfortably without worrying about living essentials.

In contrast, about half of the people in China earn less than 1,000 yuan a month, and whether it is a state-owned enterprise or a private enterprise, it is very common to work overtime without overtime pay. This really made me see who is in fact exploiting and oppressing. But because the CCP has always used the excuse that China is a developing country with little capital accumulation to cover up the corruption by high-level officials, I still did not discover all the CCP’s lies.

It wasn’t until my wife had me read the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party and The Ultimate Goal of Communism that I finally understood what communism really is. Its originator, Karl Marx, was actually a Satanist. In the Bible, Satan is described as a devil, and Marx was a member of the Illuminati, which was allied with Satanism.

At the beginning of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, he wrote, “A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of communism.” This was the devil who wanted to rule all mankind. Marx advocated violent revolutions and “defeating class enemies.” These were all ways for human beings to kill each other. In the infamous Cultural Revolution that took place in China, the leader of the CCP at that time used Marx’s theories and adopted the method of violent revolution to eradicate “class enemies” on a large scale in China. But who defined the class enemies? It was solely based on whoever followed the leader. Whoever listened to his words were friends, and whoever didn’t were enemies. Even when those high-level military officials who made great contributions in the war made suggestions to him, they were labeled as class enemies. As a result of this violent revolution, China’s 5,000-year-old glorious culture was destroyed.

China’s economy went backwards, and many innocent people were killed. The same was true of the land reforms that took place in China in the 1950s. Those landlords were all labeled as class enemies and many were killed. But was that really true? My great-grandfather was a landlord. He needed to manage the grain that farmers grew and arrange them for sale. He was very busy and had to work very hard every day. He always paid the farmers in full and on time. But according to the CCP, the landlords smoked opium at home and never did any work. Imagine if all landlords were like that, how would there be so many prosperous periods in China’s history? When we think about these carefully, we can tell that all the theories advocated by communism are lies.

In addition, there is another big difference between capitalism and communism. In Europe’s capitalist society, things involving money are usually transparent, such as workers’ salaries and tax rates, and governments’ total tax collections. But, in China, these are all hidden.

Under communism, on the surface one speaks of public ownership, as if the working class owns all the assets. But in fact, all the money is in the hands of high-ranking CCP officials. Most factory workers in China work at least 6 days a week and 12 hours a day. If they were in the West, they would be quite wealthy. But in China, because these values are so-called “public owned,” these workers make very little money. In a state-owned enterprise in China, the leaders are all high-ranking officials of the CCP, and they can spend money however they want and get reimbursed. This money all comes from the work of those low income workers.

It is obvious that the concepts of communism established by Marx were simply lies. As the public ownership of wealth is not transparent, no one will share the wealth with the common people, and all the wealth will be in the pockets of the high-level communist officials.

China’s past movements, such as the “Great Leap Forward,” and “People’s Commune,” also proved that after people began to equalize wealth, many people would try to work as little as possible while demanding as much as possible. The result was that many people starved to death in these movements. The same thing happened in the Soviet period in Russia.

There are many other examples. Now I have understood the evil nature of communism and eliminated its concepts from my mind. But in mainland China and even the rest of the world, there are still many, many people who are fooled by the lies of communism. We must work hard to clarify the truth, and this is also a great opportunity that Master has given us to save sentient beings and establish our mighty virtue.

Eliminating My Bad Habits

After I began practicing Falun Dafa, I was able to eliminate many of my bad habits and notions. I have become more easygoing, and my thoughts are calm and relaxed. My relationship with relatives and friends has become much better – all thanks to cultivating in Dafa.

The most obvious change is my temper. In the past, I had many misconceptions. For instance, I always felt that a man should have a temper, and mistakenly believed that being manly means having a strong personality and a bad temper. I used to have a really bad temper and would get angry over very trivial matters. When I encountered things that did not go according to my wishes, if they were caused by others, I would blame them and I rarely compromised. If I caused the problem, I still complained and wondered why I was so unlucky. I never thought about what I did wrong that caused the problem. I often got angry at my wife and I even lost my temper in front of her parents. Every time, my wife tolerated me in every possible way, and sometimes she would even take the initiative to apologize. Although I always felt that my wife was a very kind person, I never felt it was my fault.

After I started to practice Dafa and read Master’s teaching about having a heart of great forbearance in Zhuan Falun, I realized that being a true man is not about having a bad temper, but on the contrary, it is about displaying great tolerance. Master gave us the example of Han Xin. When he was insulted by a local ruffian, he was able to control his temper and didn’t kill the ruffian with his sword. That is what a real man should be like. Those who can achieve “you won’t fight back when you’re beaten or sworn at.” (Lecture Nine, Zhuan Falun) and use their compassion and kindness to influence and help others are the ones who will achieve great things.

There is an old Chinese proverb: “When an average person is humiliated, he’ll draw his sword to fight.” For an ordinary person like this, he will only be an ordinary man all his life and will be destined to accomplish nothing. In addition to Han Xin, there were many other stories of great figures in China’s history who displayed great Forbearance, such as Gou Jian, Liu Bang, Liu Bei, Lian Po, and Lin Xiangru, and so on. They all tell us that successful people all must know first how to be humble and forbearing and control their temper.

So I started to pay attention to getting rid of my bad temper. When encountering anything that didn’t go my way, instead of blaming others, I first thought about whether I was at fault, and I tried my best to look inward as Master told us. If I really didn’t do anything wrong and it was someone else’s fault, then I would also try to be considerate of others, and take the matter lightly.

After cultivating for more than two years, I have gradually been able to maintain a compassionate and calm state of mind. I no longer get irritable easily like before. My wife says that my temper has changed drastically. In the past, when we disagreed on something, I always lost my temper first and accused her, or I insisted that she listen to me. Now I can talk to her calmly, and respect her viewpoint. In addition, when encountering some unexpected things, such as machine failures, train delays, rain, snow, etc., I no longer complained but understood that it was my own karma that Master placed in different levels to help me improve my xinxing. As a result, I also felt light and relaxed. I really want to thank Master and Dafa for allowing me to have such a beautiful transformation.

Practicing Dafa also enabled me to gradually get rid of my pursuit of self-interest. In the past, I was very attached to personal gain and self-interest, and I always had a greedy mindset. Regardless of whether or not the money or things belonged to me, if I had the opportunity, I would always attempt to obtain them. This heart was very dirty, yet I thought I was being clever. When I was a child, I stole money from my parents’ wallets to go to Internet cafes to play games; I lied to them that the school asked us to pay for books, and then used the money for myself. When I went to college, whenever there was anything free, I would try my best to take as much as I could, as if I would suffer a big loss if I didn’t take advantage of it. When I was working on my master’s degree, I often used public funds to reimburse myself for travel and food. If I didn’t start cultivating, I would have continued creating so many karmic debts in the years to come.

I slowly tried to let go of my obsession with money and self-interest. I tried to have a state of mind to let everything happen naturally and follow the path arranged by Master, while improving my xinxing and cultivating myself. Also, I tried my best not to take anything that I shouldn’t take, and take gains and self-interests lightly. The result is that I don’t actually lose material things necessarily, yet my heart becomes more peaceful, and I sleep better. I no longer become obsessed over anything.

On the road of cultivation, there are still many aspects that I need to improve on. Although two-and-a-half years is not a long time, I have undergone such great changes both in my body and mind. Especially when dealing with conflicts, I am more considerate. I have become more peaceful and broad-minded. Thank you Master for showing me a truly correct path. I will continue to cultivate more and more diligently and do better in all aspects.