Avoiding Hopelessness by Cultivating Like I Did at the Beginning

(Minghui.org) I am a young Falun Dafa practitioner. I have encountered many challenging situations in recent years. They made me feel hopeless, as if there was no way to move forward. However, I found that as long as I followed Master’s requirements and took just a single step forward, a new path would emerge, even though doubts and fears still arose during this process.

Seemingly Hopeless

A few years ago, I was arrested and detained for practicing Dafa, and my home was ransacked. I was released on bail as the detention center refused to accept me. I fell into a state of deep fear and floundered after returning home, because the bail release does not mean the end of the case. The police could proceed with my case, which might ultimately result in a court hearing.

I found it difficult to calm down. Despite studying the Fa more diligently, I felt that something was blocking my mind. I struggled to absorb what I had just read, and once I closed the book, I couldn’t even remember the content. Moreover, my body felt unbearably cold, as if I were in a freezer all day and night. An invisible pain seemed to envelop me completely.

I didn’t know how to make a breakthrough. I was hesitant to take legal action against the persecution I faced, and I feared that living away from home would make me a wanted person. Ultimately, I chose to leave home and go into hiding when the police summoned me for interrogation.

With the help of other practitioners, I soon settled in. I devoted a lot of time to studying the Fa and sending righteous thoughts, but I still felt hopeless. All the pursuits I had in ordinary society disappeared overnight. No matter how hard I studied the Fa or sent righteous thoughts, I couldn’t manage to calm my mind. I was unsure of what I should do next.

One day I studied “What a Dafa Disciple Is” in Collected Teachings Given Around the World Volume XI. Master said: “The more hopeless things may seem, it’s possible hope will appear right before your eyes.”

My tears flowed. I felt that Master was with me at that moment, understanding my thoughts.

Even though it was difficult to calm my mind, I still spent the entire day studying the Fa and sending righteous thoughts. Looking back, it was an incredible experience. Although I struggled to concentrate when I studied the Fa during the day and my body felt terrible, at night when I fell asleep, the principles of the Fa unfolded within my dreams and I dreamt that I was ascending.

To my surprise, I found it difficult to comprehend the principles of the Fa that I had seen in my dream after waking up. However, I vividly rememberd the sense of inner happiness and excitement I experienced. Soon after, the substances blocking me from assimilating to the Fa or calming down disappeared. The intense pain I felt when sitting in the lotus position during meditation vanished as well. My state of mind began to expand, and the feeling of hopelessness left me. This helped me to realize that what seemed like a dead-end situation was merely an illusion.

Using the Law to Go Against the Persecution

I returned home a year later, thinking that since I had been away for a year, the police might have closed my case and they would no longer be searching for me. However, my name was on the online wanted list, which left me feeling confused. During my Fa study, I had experienced several moments of enlightenment, realizing that it was time to go home. So why was I still on the wanted list? I couldn’t understand it and started to feel depressed. With the police constantly coming to my home to harass me, I once again faced the same dilemma I faced a year earlier. Should I leave home again, or should I stay and take action to oppose the persecution?

After careful consideration, my family and I decided that I should confront the issue rather than avoid it. We filed a complaint against the police officers involved in my case for unlawful conduct. We requested that they dismiss my case and remove my name from the wanted list.

I had numerous worries and fears before sending the complaint, as if some malevolent forces anticipated my decision from other dimensions. The night before I mailed it, the police came to my home to harass me again. This situation brought immense pressure on both me and my family, filling my mind with fearful thoughts. Should I carry on? Is this path right for us? Can my family handle the pressure that might arise from appealing to higher authorities in the future? These questions kept running through my mind that night.

These words flashed through my mind later on: “Don’t try to feel it!” I realized that I shouldn’t be affected by the fear imposed on me, no matter how strong it felt. Instead, I should do what I think is right. With my family’s support, I went ahead and mailed the complaint.

As we didn’t receive a response regarding the complaint after the deadline, my family contacted various departments to follow up. During this time, the local police department sent officers to harass us again. My family then brought all the documents to meet with them in person, to clarify the facts and expose the unlawful behavior of those officers. The police explained to my family that they were just following orders from above.

After this experience, my fear diminished greatly. We filed additional complaints with the appeals office and administrative litigation departments against the police, for their ransacking my home without a search warrant, unlawfully confiscating my personal property, and for the threats, intimidation, and harassment my family and I experienced both at home and over the phone.

When the officers came to harass us again, we demanded that they show their identification. As soon as they heard this, they turned around and left. They have not returned.

We have continued to use legal channels to resist the persecution for almost a year. Although we did not achieve the goal of having my case dismissed, many of my attachments were weakened. I became aware that the so-called persecution had, essentially, already disintegrated. We are now using this opportunity to counteract the persecution and clarify the facts to those in law enforcement and the judicial system. Once they understand they are violating the law and could be held accountable for persecuting us, they no longer use the excuse of “following orders” to take part in the persecution.

Printing Dafa Materials at Home

Due to the persecution, I stayed at home for over a year to study the Fa, and did not participate in any activities to save people. When I saw other practitioners going out to talk to people about Dafa and distribute informational materials, I felt a deep sense of envy. That was when I realized how precious the relaxed cultivation environment had been before the persecution, and how valuable the opportunity we have now to save people. I realized that I should step out and do what I am supposed to do.

I noticed that there hadn’t been anyone distributing materials on a large scale in my area for many years, and there were very few truth-clarification materials production sites. Some practitioners wanted to distribute materials, but didn’t know how to obtain them. This led me to consider setting up a materials production site, but I still had concerns. My case hadn’t been dismissed yet, so I questioned whether it was rational for me to do this right now. And due to the persecution, my equipment had either been confiscated or lost. I was unsure how and where to buy new equipment for printing materials.

I felt like I was Shakyamuni’s disciple who kept asking him about whether it was appropriate to clean the bathtub, because I repeatedly asked Master in my heart if what I was doing was right.

Through Fa study, I realized I should do it, but I wasn’t sure how to get the equipment and printing materials. In addition, would my family members support me? To my surprise, some practitioners stepped up and helped me obtain everything I needed to print materials, and my family also expressed their support. Amazingly, it took only one week from the initial thought to set up the materials production site to getting it fully operating.

A practitioner had agreed to deliver some materials in the afternoon. However, that morning, staffers from the residential office came to harass me. They said that if I wanted to practice Dafa, I would be better off doing it at home, and not to go out to distribute materials. It was impossible for the residential office to know what we were about to do. For safety reasons, only the practitioner who delivered the equipment knew the details, and we have always been careful about phone security. I was a bit worried about the situation.

I asked a family member, who is also a practitioner, whether we should wait for a while and return the equipment for the time being, or take a rain check and think about it later. My family member said firmly that since we’d already purchased the equipment, we wouldn’t return it. I realized that I needed to eliminate any interference from other dimensions and just do what I wanted to do. I later understood that it was the evil from other dimensions that had sensed my fear and attempted to stop me by creating illusions.

The printer began to function smoothly, but a sense of fear lingered at the time. I didn’t dare leave the printed materials at home, and quickly hid the printer after each use. Gradually, that substance of fear became less and less. Although I still put the equipment away after using it for safety reasons, my mindset had undergone a significant change. The materials production site operated smoothly, and no one came to harass us again.

Having learned from past experiences of persecution, I realized that I shouldn’t slack off in studying the Fa or in sending righteous thoughts while engaged in Dafa work. Additionally, it is important for me to maintain righteous thoughts while distributing materials, and to be cautious around surveillance cameras in order to carry out our work more effectively.

Overcoming Hopelessness and Boredom

I spent the majority of my time alone in a single room for several years. At times, I didn’t even speak a single word for weeks. I remember when the persecution first began, I remained indoors and was unable to go outside. The level of suffering I experienced during that time was beyond words. Whenever I had time, I would recite Zhuan Falun repeatedly, and gradually, I got used to that state.

I spent my time by the printer, where I focused on printing, binding, and packaging materials, repeating the same thing day after day. One day, however, I suddenly lost interest in everything. I found myself lacking motivation for anything. I knew something was wrong with my cultivation. I simply didn’t want to do anything, and couldn’t get out of bed to do the exercises. After feeling down for a day or two, I picked myself up and continued. This kind of state continued on and off.

Master said:

“The more hopeless things may seem, it’s possible hope will appear right before your eyes. Especially during those times when you are feeling so bored, perhaps you are in fact establishing your mighty virtue.” (“What a Dafa Disciple Is,” Collected Teachings Given Around the World Volume XI)

In the past, my attention was focused on the first part of the sentence. However, I’ve recently noticed the “feeling so bored” that Master mentioned, I no longer feel hopeless, and it seems I have let go of the things that I lost due to the persecution. Now, I need to think about how to overcome the “feeling of boredom,” and how to maintain the same state of diligence in cultivation I had at the beginning in order to meet Master’s requirements. These are the challenges I need to address and accomplish.

Reflecting on my cultivation journey over the past few years, what I feel the most is that the path of a cultivator has been arranged by Master. No matter how painful or hopeless things may have seemed at the time, it was all just an illusion.

Thank you, Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners!