(Clearwisdom.net) I obtained the Fa in 1996 and have been practicing Falun Gong for 13 years. During these years, just as Teacher said, I have gone through all kinds of difficulties and tests. For over two years, I could not cultivate well, especially after being arrested for going to Beijing to validate Dafa in 1999. Although I still thought that Dafa was good and Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance was good, I did not step forward to validate Dafa due to my attachments to fear, comfort and laziness. I was not even consistent in doing the exercises. I also thought that it was not right for practitioners to distribute truth-clarification materials. At that time, I lost my righteous thoughts and used a human mentality to evaluate everything.
However, our benevolent Teacher does not want to give up on any Dafa practitioner and gave me a chance to witness how a cancer patient recovered after practicing Dafa. But that person stopped practicing Falun Gong after the persecution began on July 20, 1999, and later that person passed away. I also saw a practitioner in our city who was a coordinator before July 20,1999, but turned away from Dafa and did some evil deeds. All of these instances reminded me that they had deviated from the Fa and that the old forces had dragged them down. So, looking at my own situation, I wondered whether I would end up walking down the same road as they were if I did not study the Fa and do the exercises for a long time. It was really horrifying when I thought about it, so I began to pick up the book Zhuan Falun again and asked a fellow practitioner to give me some copies of Teacher's recent lectures, articles, and truth-clarification materials. In the meantime, my spouse and I began to prepare some truth-clarification posters by hand.
It was May 2002 when Teacher helped me to get out of a difficult situation. I followed Teacher's requirements and tried to do the three things. There is a Dafa song called "Our Benevolent Teacher's Hand." There is a line in this song that says, "You drag me out of the mud I'm in and clean up the dirt on me; help us to get out of difficulties and walk in the righteous way." I really like listening to this song. When I listened to it, I burst into tears and decided that I would act like what the song said: "Tightly grasp Master's hand and use righteous thoughts and actions to return all of what Master has given me."
In two months, I will be 80 years old. For a senior, it is very important to maintain righteous thoughts and actions, and also maintain a healthy body. Below is my personal understanding that I wanted to share with fellow practitioners.
When I obtained the Fa in 1996, I was already 67. Before practicing Falun Gong, I was a long-term patient with all kinds of illnesses, such as psychoneurosis, gastric ulcers, coronary disease, and hemorrhoids. I could not go to work on a regular basis due to the illnesses that I suffered from all year long. I retired when I was only 54 years old. After I retired, I tried all kinds of qigong, but my illnesses became worse and I had some symptoms of cerebral thrombosis.
One day I encountered the book Zhuan Falun. I felt that Falun Gong was different from all of those qigong things that I'd practiced before, and I decided to practice it.
In February 1996, I was fortunate enough to attend a group Fa study, watch Teacher's lecture video in Jinan, and learn the five exercises. After the nine-day session of watching Teacher's lecture video in Jinan, I felt that my body had totally changed. All of my illnesses were gone.
When I first practiced Falun Gong, I had some kind of skin ailment on my back. I kept putting on cream to treat it. If I didn't apply some cream, it would be very itchy. About two months after I started studying the Fa, one day my spouse was putting the cream on my back and suddenly said, "If we do not have any illness, why are we still putting on this cream?" I suddenly realized that I should not put on the cream anymore. A few days later, my skin stopped itching and became smooth. Just one thought can make a big difference.
Six months after I started to study the Fa, one day I suddenly began coughing constantly. Because my lungs often got infected before, I would take medicine or get an injection and even stay in the hospital. This time, I my cough was very severe. I began to wonder whether I had a lung infection again. In fact, that was a sign of not having righteous thoughts, and I began to cough more and more severely. This continued for over 30 days. I could not even sleep well. I thought I should take some medicine to control it, so I asked my daughter to take out the medicine I took before. When my daughter brought the medicine to me, I suddenly felt very uncomfortable and wanted to throw up. I immediately realized that I should not take the medicine since my coughing was not illness, instead it was getting rid of karma. I quickly asked my daughter to take the medicine away. After she took it away, I drifted off to sleep and stopped coughing. Once again, I experienced the difference of a single thought, which separates a human being and a divine being.
After that, my daughter also obtained the Fa.
There was another occasion after I'd studied the Fa for over ten months. My younger sister came to visit me. The following day, I suddenly began to have a fever and even my bones hurt. My sister became worried because I had such a high fever and asked my spouse what the illness was. My spouse told her, "Nothing. This is a good thing." My sister did not understand and asked me why. I told her the same thing. The next morning, she woke up and saw me and my spouse preparing breakfast and saw that I looked just fine. She said she could not believe her eyes. Thus we began to promote Dafa to her, and she also obtained the Fa. At that time, both my spouse and I thought that it was a good thing because I got rid of a lot of karma.
Next I want to mention a recent event. In the Fall of 2006, I started to get a few phone calls from colleagues from a former work unit. But when I picked up the phone, they all said, "Nothing" and then hung up the phone. Later on, a colleague told me that they'd heard a rumor that I had passed away and they called me to find out. At almost the same time, I got a phone call from my granddaughter who was studying in a university in another city. She told me that she had dreamed that I had passed away. I was alarmed. Was it because I was not diligent and my predestined time to live in the human world was over? Later on my throat felt uncomfortable. It seemed like something was stuck there. As time went on, I felt that there was something in my esophagus, and it became worse and worse. I felt a great deal of discomfort. Then it began to be very painful. I could not even bend my back, and it hurt even when I ate fruit. I didn't go to the hospital or take any medicine, but I also did not have enough righteous thoughts. I thought it might be persecution from the old forces, so I tried to send forth the righteous thoughts, but it was not effective. This continued for over ten months. During that time, I often had a human mentality and wondered whether I would die from it and whether it was my time to pass away. Would I attain enlightenment if I was persecuted to death by the old forces? What kind of influence would it have on ordinary people? What was stuck in my esophagus? Although it did not prevent me from doing the three things, I did not have any energy and it seemed like I was only going through the motions; my righteous thoughts became less and less.
When I attended a group Fa study in 2007, I learned Teacher's poem,
"When disciples have ample righteous thoughts, Master has the power to turn back the tide." ("The Master-Disciple Bond", Hong Yin II)
I was moved by the poem. While I was in bed at night, I thought to myself, "Where have my righteous thoughts been all these months? Since I had so much human thinking, how could I have a good state of mind? How could I recover from my 'illness?'" From then on, I stopped thinking about it. My path has been rearranged by Teacher. What should I be afraid of? I would follow Teacher's arrangement and only focus on doing the three things well. Thinking this way, I felt better and more relaxed. I had a good night's sleep. The next day when I woke up in the morning, the feeling that something was stuck in my throat had disappeared. Everything returned to normal. At that moment, I burst into tears and thought to myself about how much Master had endured for me yet again. I must use righteous thoughts and actions to repay what Master has given me. I will closely follow Master and strive forward.
Having a healthy body set up a good foundation for me to clarify the truth to people. Since May 2002, I have persisted in Fa study and practicing the exercises, and followed Teacher's requirements to do the three things well. I diligently studied Teacher's new lectures and exchanged understandings with fellow practitioners. In 2006, I set up a Fa study group at my home.
Besides regularly clarifying the truth and persuading people to withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations in our region, I've also gone to other places to clarify the truth to my former classmates, friends, and relatives. I've also clarified the truth to those who came to my home such as police officers, the Party secretary, and members of the Party committee at my former work unit. Since I experienced such great physical improvement, which itself validated the Fa, I was quite effective in clarifying the truth to people. I've successfully distributed copies of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, truth-clarification materials, and posters. Besides the materials I get from the practitioner-run sites, I've also made some myself, such as posters with "Falun Dafa Is Good" and "Withdraw from the CCP and Its Affiliated Organizations."
I have not done enough. In the future, I will strive to do better the three things.
