Falun Dafa Saved Me When I Was Lost

(Minghui.org) Other practitioners often encouraged me to write my story down. I always wanted to, but I really didn’t know where to start. Before I began practicing Falun Dafa I indulged in every kind of debauchery. I’d like to tell you my story.

A Miserable Childhood

When I was 14 months old, my mother got pregnant again with my little brother. At that time, due to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) inhumane one-child policy, I was sent away and raised by another family. When I got older, my relatives told me that when I was little, my foster mother burned me with cigarettes.

When I turned 13, she tried to sell me. When my biological mother found out about it, she took me to my aunt’s home. I remember at meals my cousin often said, “Don’t eat that dish. That’s for my father.” I felt that no one loved me. When I was 16, I entered society and began to go astray. I smoked for 14 years. I was bullied and even beaten. I also bullied others and did many outrageous things.

I hit rock bottom morally. I contracted syphilis and the doctor showed me pictures of people who had this disease covered in festering sores. I thought I would die. I started to get treated but I continued to take drugs and sell them.

I lived in Shanxi Province then, and we often visited Wutai Mountain. It is 1,008 steps up, and I kowtowed every three steps until I reached the top. My head was swollen and my legs were covered in cuts. Many people were amazed at my piety, but they didn’t know what I had in mind. All I wanted to do was sell more drugs and earn more money. First, to help me live better, and second, I knew that it wasn’t easy for my foster father to raise me, so I wanted to leave some money for him when I died. I did so many bad things that I really couldn’t tell good from bad.

Encountering Dafa

I was later arrested for possessing drugs. I was put in detention centers, transit detention centers, and finally prison. Everywhere I went, I met Falun Dafa practitioners. The first one I met was in the detention center. She looked like she was in her early 30s. When I asked her, she said she was 40 years old.

One day, the cell leader said, “You drug addicts should all learn from Falun Dafa practitioners.” I began paying attention to this practitioner: When everyone fought to drink hot water, she just drank water from the tap so the others could have the hot water. I said, “The tap water is not clean.” She said, “It’s okay. Practitioners have positive energy and the bacteria will disappear.” I thought this was amazing.

She told us that Falun Dafa was being persecuted. She said that the police went to practitioners’ homes and harassed them. She was very calm when she clarified the truth to us about Falun Dafa. She treated everyone the same, with kindness, compassion, and a smile on her face.

At night, everyone slept on a long bunk. The others fought for space, but she tried to make her quilt as narrow as possible. There was only enough room for her to sleep on her side. By that time I had seen almost everything, so I had my own standards by which I measured others. I thought, “This lady is really special.”

The second practitioner I met was in the next detention center I was sent to. She was about 20 years old. She was frightened and wept a lot. She was very honest and simple and did whatever she was told. Everyone tried to persuade her, “Just say you won’t practice Dafa anymore and then you can go home.”

She would just cry again. I felt very sympathetic towards her, and I often gave her food and chatted with her. She probably felt that I was a good person. We slept next to each other. She asked me to remember a sentence,

“Worshiping Buddha can plant causal seeds for the opportunity to practice cultivation; cultivators who chant incantations can receive protection from higher beings.” (“The Teachings in Buddhism are the Weakest and Tiniest Portion of the Buddha Fa,” Essentials for Further Advancement).

She said that she couldn’t understand the meaning of this sentence completely, but she just felt it was very good. She asked me to remember it, and so I did. When I was sent to prison, I often thought of this sentence.

When I was sent to prison, the first meal I had was instant noodles with some vegetables a practitioner gave me. I was very hungry and it tasted good. I called the practitioner “Fourth Aunt.” We were in the same cell. From then on, whenever we were free, she would teach me poems from Hong Yin, Lunyu, “Buddha Nature” (Zhuan Falun Volume II), and so on. She always told me short stories which helped me see through my various notions. She also taught me to recite the Falun Dafa exercise verses and taught me to sit in the full lotus position. I was able to do it the first time I tried.

I practiced sitting in the full lotus position when I did hard labor. It was really painful! When I was first arrested, I didn’t cry, because I always knew I’d be arrested. So I decided that I would just do the full lotus position to pay back for the bad things I did. It was strange that the more my legs hurt, the faster my work went.

I tried to take care of practitioners. In prison, Falun Dafa practitioners are not allowed to be alone—someone else must always be with them. I accompanied Fourth Aunt to the bathroom and passed on messages to other practitioners. I protected Dafa lectures during prison searches. I had a short prison term, so I was not afraid of anything. I didn’t need to earn work points to reduce my sentence, and I was not worried about being put in a small cell. I had been out in the world for so many years, had met all kinds of people, and had seen everything. I just felt that practitioners were good and that taking care of them was something I should do. In my heart I just wanted to follow them.

Master Takes Care of Me

Before I was imprisoned, I was on the verge of collapse. I had lost all hope. When I was a child, I was given to others to raise. I dropped out of school early and went astray. I tasted every kind of human debauchery. Taking drugs made me decadent and I felt like the walking dead. Then I got syphilis. I often looked up at the sky and asked Heaven, “Why did you arrange such a life for me? What exactly do you want me to understand?”

I later understood that Master was taking care of me even before I got in touch with Dafa. At the age of 13, when my foster mother wanted to sell me, she lied to me and said that my uncle missed me and told me to go to my uncle’s home with that stranger. For some reason, I just wanted to call my uncle first, so when I got off the bus, my aunt came to pick me up. As soon as I met her, she said, “You can always come if you want. Why did you have to lie?” I said, “I didn’t lie! That person said that my uncle missed me.” Just as I turned around, the stranger disappeared.

I also tried to commit suicide and took more than 90 sleeping pills. But I didn’t die. I woke up after sleeping for two days. It turned out that all my suffering was because I was waiting for the opportunity to practice Falun Dafa. Master was protecting me before I got in touch with Dafa!

After I was arrested for possessing drugs, a practitioner told me, “One’s attitude towards Dafa will determine a person’s future.” It was probably then that my righteous thoughts toward Dafa arose. It was perhaps also the reason that my sentence turned out to be very short, as it should have been very long.

Before I formally began practicing, Master helped me quit drugs and my diseases all disappeared without my realizing it. Everywhere I went, Master arranged for practitioners to be there. Their words and encouragement enlightened me and guided me. If I was out in the world, with all kinds of distractions, how would I be able to calm down and learn about Dafa? Instead, I was imprisoned and met practitioners. Every time I think about it, I am endlessly grateful to Master for mercifully picking me up out of hell!

I Begin Practicing Falun Dafa

Because of my terrible childhood, I did not know what normal behavior was. Drug use made me decadent, and I’d never had a proper job. I couldn’t and didn’t know how to be with others. After I was released from prison, my mother helped me find a job selling mobile phones. For the first six months, I wanted to quit every day. I felt so uncomfortable.

Later, I contacted a family member of a fellow practitioner in prison, and she downloaded Master’s lectures for me, videos of Master demonstrating the exercises, as well as sharing articles from fellow practitioners. I began to read the teachings on my own. I gradually calmed down and relaxed. I persisted, and little by little, I was able to integrate myself into society.

I felt it was lonely practicing by myself, and I really wanted a group cultivation environment. A few days later, a customer accidentally left behind a Shen Yun DVD. I was so excited. Someone came to look for it, and I was happy to meet a local practitioner! From then on, I went to her home to read the Fa. I later met more practitioners. Some often visited me. I soon joined a weekly Fa study group.

I really felt like I was bathed in Buddha’s grace. After 6 a.m. every morning, I went to a practitioner’s home to read Zhuan Falun before I went to work. After getting off work, I went to another practitioner’s home to study the Fa. I recited Hong Yin on my way to and from work. With the Fa in my heart, I was so happy that I felt like skipping when I walked. I just wanted to smile at every person I saw. I was so grateful that Master arranged everything for me, from the opportunity to cultivate to my cultivation path. Now it was up to me. I knew I must truly change myself.

I understood that it is a good thing to give for others and be selfless. At work, I didn’t care about who did more or who did less. I tried to do as much as possible, including things like cleaning up and mopping the floor.

For a while, I worked in furniture sales. Coworkers often compete with each other for customers. When two coworkers negotiated a sale with a customer, they would fight openly over how to split the commission. These situations are very common in China. I thought I shouldn’t do that because I practiced Falun Dafa. I helped everyone because I truly wanted to help, and I was truly happy for others when they got a deal. I didn’t want my help to be just for show.

I told myself that I must let go of self-interest, not get into disputes with coworkers, and not compete for commissions. Sometimes, I wasn’t able to close a deal the first time I met a customer; then the second time they came, I happened to be absent, and my coworkers signed the deal. I thought the commission belonged to whoever signed it, and I must let go of my attachment to self-interest. Gradually, my xinxing improved and I was able to accept it calmly.

A customer came to negotiate a big order, and a coworker came to help me, but we weren’t able to close the deal. When the customer returned, the coworker didn’t call me over. I thought, “Why didn’t she include me? What should I do? If I rush over there to take the order, it would be normal according to the rules here. However, in cultivation I cannot just go with ordinary rules! Wasn’t I determined not to compete with my coworkers or fight for deals?”

I thought of Master’s Fa, “...you will have a buffer and room to think.” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)

I sat at the counter and asked myself, “Although the commission for this order is more than my salary for a month, don’t I want to let go of self-interest? Don’t I want to cultivate myself and improve?” In the end I didn’t say anything. I just helped the coworker finalize the deal.

Master said,

“Thus, even less should our cultivators be like this, as a cultivator should follow the course of nature. If something is yours, you will not lose it. If something is not yours, you will not have it even if you fight for it.” (Lecture Seven, Zhuan Falun)

My earnings did not decrease because I gave up competing with my colleagues. On the contrary, my situation improved. My coworkers and customers all trusted me. In my spare time, I told them about my experiences and how the CCP persecutes Falun Dafa. They all withdrew from the CCP and its affiliated organizations.

I had another big attachment that was very difficult to get rid of—resentment. I was very young when I was given to the foster family. When I was about six or seven years old, I understood that I was being fostered. What child doesn’t want to be with their biological parents? I once saw my father at my aunt’s home, and I wanted to go with him. He didn’t agree at first, but seeing that he couldn’t persuade me, he told me to go get my clothes from my foster home and he would take me with him. But when I returned, he was gone. For so many years, I was unable to let go of my resentment because he lied to me. In the later chapters of my rough life, I always resented my father, as I thought my suffering was caused by him giving me away.

After I began practicing Dafa, I understood that I should let go of all human attachments, including resentment. I understood that the relationship and fate between people are not something that my father could determine. Everything has a cause-and-effect relationship due to one’s karma. I also understood that it is not a bad thing for people to endure hardship and pay back their karma. I began to let go of my resentment, and it gradually faded away.

As I continued to read the teachings, I came to understand that practitioners have the mission to save people. My family members all have karmic relationships with me. I have to let go of my attachments and improve myself in order to save them. I started to contact my father. I explained the truth about Dafa to him in simple terms and gave him some truth clarification materials. He was able to understand.

As I have continued to cultivate, many things changes have changed, both in myself and in my environment. Sometimes fellow practitioners told me, “Don’t always regard yourself as a new practitioner.” I then tried to change my notions and align myself with veteran Dafa disciples. I am not afraid to go out and distribute truth-clarifying materials. I thought to myself, “In the past, I wasn’t afraid of doing bad things; now, how could I be afraid of learning to be good and doing good things?”

Other practitioners encouraged me, “It is really rare for people to come in and begin practicing Falun Dafa at this time. You are doing a great job and you are not like a new practitioner at all.” Hearing their praise I was no longer as humble as I was before. I became complacent. Some practitioners said that my exercise movements were very precise and even told others whose movements were not as precise to look at mine. I really started to feel good about myself.

When I told two veteran practitioners about this, I said, “I was told that my exercise movements are very good and that I’m always able to hold my hands upright when I send righteous thoughts.” As soon as I said this, I felt something was wrong. One practitioner smiled and said, “After I was told that I was not sleepy at all when I did the exercises, I fell asleep and even snored during a group exercise.”

I immediately saw my strong mentality of showing off. If I continued to be like this, wouldn’t I reach the state of having demonic interference from my own mind? I thanked Master for enlightening me through the words of a fellow practitioner. The good and bad things encountered on the road of cultivation are all tests for practitioners. No matter what kind of test, I must follow the Fa, cultivate my mind, and look inward to eliminate my attachments.

Final Remarks

Whenever I think of my past, I can’t believe that was me, and I can’t help but burst into tears. I’m so grateful for Master’s saving grace! I can’t express it in words. On the road of cultivation, I still have a long way to go, and I will constantly work hard to cultivate and correct myself. I hope I can do better and better in the future to repay Master’s grace!