My Previous Life

May 2001

Before I learned Falun Dafa, I had experienced all kinds of health problems and strange discomforts in my body for no apparent reason. However, the reason I started to practice Falun Dafa was entirely because I was attracted by its profound principles and theories.

At the beginning of my cultivation, the full-lotus position (crossing the legs on top of each other) required for the fifth exercise (sitting meditation) was very difficult for me. I had great difficulty with just the half-lotus position (crossing one leg on top of the other), not to mention the full-lotus position. Each time when I put one of my legs on top of the other, I would feel great pain and become quite uneasy. At that time, I did not have a deep understanding of the principles of Fa. Part of me felt that I was very "unfortunate" to be born with a pair of "stiff" legs. Yet I also felt that as long as I "painfully" practiced, I could one day get into the full-lotus position. Therefore, I made a plan for myself. I set a goal to increase the length of holding the half-lotus position by 5 minutes every week. In order to reach this goal, I would be covered with sweat from the pain almost everyday during that period, and as the pre-set length of the meditation time increased, keeping my legs crossed became more and more difficult. Sometimes I even had fear towards crossing the legs. When I saw other practitioners at my daily practice site easily finish the fifth exercise with the full-lotus posture, I always painfully looked within and questioned, "Why can't I be the same as others?"

One afternoon, according to the plan, I should have been holding the half-lotus position for 50 minutes. However, after 15 minutes, the pain was so strong that it almost caused me to pass out. Very soon my clothing was wet from the sweat. I forced myself to continue, and at the same time asked the Teacher again and again, "What is the reason for this?!" Finally, my will power from the human side completely collapsed at the end of 40 minutes. In pain, I put down my leg. A feeling of desperation came up to me: maybe I can never get into the full-lotus position. This thought made me feel extremely sad, painful and hopeless. Covered in sweat, I crawled into bed with tears. In this extreme pain, I quickly entered a dream like condition.

Suddenly, a male voice (more accurately, the voice sounded like the Teacher) slowly started to tell me a story.

The story happened sometime in the 1950's "Land Improvement," or in the 1960's Cultural Revolution (Editor's note: Two major political movements in China). It took place in a small remote village in China. This village had a landlord, who had a daughter. There was also a young man from another town who came to this village. The young man and the landlord's daughter soon fell in love. However, when their relationship was discovered, the villagers angrily tied them up and brought them to the leader of the village. (Vaguely, I felt that maybe it was not allowed to start a relationship with a landlord's daughter under the political atmosphere.) The head of the village quickly judged that the relationship between the two youngsters was "low and dirty." The judgment of the head of the village was almost like the law for that small village. Ever since then, whenever there was a political meeting (political meetings were very common), this pair of youngsters would be brought on the stage and humiliated. (Under that condition, I could almost vaguely hear the villagers yelling out "strike down...")

The voice telling the story suddenly paused for a moment, and then told me, "Finally on one day, a political meeting got out of control. Angry villagers started to beat the young man." Immediately, my heart was shaken and asked the voice, "Was that young man beaten to death?" "No he wasn't," answered the voice, "but someone punched him so hard that the left side of his face was crushed. That young man was very handsome. But afterwards, he never wanted to look into the mirror and he dared not see others. Everyday he hid himself in a small dark room and did paper work for his living. In this way he painfully got through the rest of his life."

That voice disappeared after reaching this point. I awoke as well. I looked at my watch. About 10 minutes had passed. Suddenly, I understood the reason for my two strange habits during this 20 some years. One was that I disliked looking into the mirror ever since I was a kid. I often placed the mirror on my mother's make-up table facedown. My mother often joked about it. Another strange thing about myself was that the left side of my face often felt pain without any reason.

I immediately understood -- Teacher was telling me: "Everything happens for a reason." I could not guess whether I was the head of the village who judged the young man, or the person who disfigured the young man. One thing I knew for sure, was that due to my ignorance and crudeness, a young man's life had been ruined. At the same time, I immediately understood why since high school, I somehow knew that after I turned 36, my health would be very bad, and my life would be very hard. Maybe at that time there was a part of me that already knew that I had a great deal of karma to repay. We all know that for a non-practitioner, if you owe a life you have to return a life; if you owe money, you have to return money. This is the law of the universe. People always ask Gods why life is so unfair to them when they experience pain and helplessness. Very seldom would they question themselves with a sober mind when suppressing, or even persecuting others under the influence of their own acquired notions.

After this guidance, even though getting into the lotus position was as painful as before, I did not dare to have any complaints. Every time when I thought of that young man, I felt so sorry that it could not be described in words. I knew that this kind of karmic debt needed to be repaid using the whole life for a non-practitioner. However, in my second year's cultivation, one day after going through another round of painful leg-crossing process, I somehow felt that the karmic debt I owed that young man only had less than half remaining. Immediately, tears came out of my eyes. I silently told myself, "I have repaid too little. I am sorry to that young man; I am sorry to the Teacher!"