(Clearwisdom.net)
After I had read "Lecturing on and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference," I remembered the last few words:
"Looking at you, Master is so worried! Looking at you, Master is so worried! Master's words today might have been harsh, but maybe it wouldn't work if I didn't use a heavy hammer. If I'm not able to save you it will be my greatest regret. It would be great if you could be as worried as I am."
I was so shocked. Although my mistake in my past cultivation journey is history now, the disgraceful past made me feel guilty. With Teacher's boundless compassion to save me, I have already stood up and caught up with the Fa-rectification. However, I will remember this lesson in my heart forever. How risky and how terrible it can be.
Today I would like to tell my fellow practitioners about my disgraceful past in the hope that they will learn from my past mistakes: never deviate from our righteous cultivation way. I would like to warn those practitioners who fell in their cultivation that they should get up quickly and catch up with the Fa-rectification progress.
In 2000, I was thrown into a labor camp for one year just because I put up flyers on walls. Under extreme pressure and collaborators' [former Falun Gong practitioners who have gone astray due to brainwashing and torture] lies, in addition to lots of human attachments, I submitted in less than 3 months. I became a collaborator, a major one. When I turned in my so-called "transformation documents," (documents in which I promised to give up Falun Dafa,) I felt Teacher's pain for me. In fact, before I wrote those documents, Teacher had always been trying to give me hints. It was just that I did not enlighten to them.
That same night, I had a dream that the original graceful cultivation path suddenly turned into a dirty, dark road to Hell. I knew I could not carry on like this any more. But when I tried to go back, my way was blocked by a huge wall. I could see an illuminating light through a crack of the wall. I cried out loud and asked Teacher, "Please save me!" When I woke up, the clothing under my head, which served as my pillow, was all wet with my tears. I was full of regret and fear and felt as if a huge rock was on my heart. But because of my attachment to fear, I did not dare to come out in public and did not know what to do next.
Several days later, the labor camp guards arranged for me to make a speech at a meeting and so I did. That evening, in my dream, I saw that half of my curly hair had fallen. I saw myself falling down from an originally very high level. I yelled out with my hands fumbling through my half-skinned head: "Isn't it that I am turning into a demon?" I woke up suddenly and felt extremely heavy-headed. I thought I was done for. At that moment, I was not even keeping up my righteous thoughts or bringing myself back to the righteous way. On the contrary, I asked Teacher: "Please do not give up on me. I did not betray you on purpose."
I did not change and correct myself. Under extreme pressure from the prison guards, I continued to help them brainwash other practitioners. In a dream that same night, I saw a tree full of yellow pears that fell to the ground in my family orchard due to a sudden gust of wind. Those fallen pears decayed quickly on the ground with some large snakes moving around. I woke up in fear. At that moment I really realized that had I embarked on a death path and the whole world was going to fall and life would end. I endured many long nights without sleep. I do not know how many tears I shed quietly. The agony I suffered, compared to any physical pain from torture, was more than anything you could possibly imagine. Still, I was not able to break away from the old evil forces' interference, which said: "You are already like this now. Your Master will not take care of you any more. You have no more hope." With this kind of confused mentality, I endured to the end of the detention term. I naively thought that I would try to be a good person after I was released back home.
The pitiful me, did not understand that Teacher was trying to give me hints as his way of benevolently saving me. Instead, I was giving up on myself. The memory of this is such a painful regret, even today. But I knew that later on I would no longer try to help the evil to deceive practitioners and steer them onto a deviated cultivation way. I only wanted to take advantage of these opportunities to share experiences and understandings of the Fa. Because only this thought was left, Teacher offered me a new opportunity. When I was doing brainwashing alone without any prison guards present, under Teacher's strengthening, I encountered a very determined practitioner who gave me tremendous encouragement and help. I felt hope arise from deep in my heart. When I was really thinking that I should correct what I had done, a current of warm energy circulated throughout my whole body. I knew that Teacher was encouraging and strengthening me. I realized that Teacher had never abandoned me. I swore quietly, "Teacher, please do not worry. I will return soon to the righteous way to wash clean my disgraceful past with actions and to make up for what I have done wrong."
One time, when collaborators (like me) were sent to other labor camps to share "experiences" [with other practitioners,] I told them a terrible, true story about a practitioner who followed an evil cultivation way. When the prison guards were engrossed by listening to me tell the story, my tone of voice changed and I said that I had also written materials renouncing Falun Dafa, and that I did not want other practitioners to do the same wrongful things that I had done. Instead, I hoped that they would always remember the principles of Zhen-Shan-Ren (Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance). When my story changed, the originally "dynamic" ambience in the room immediately became very tense. The guards quickly ended the meeting before any other "experiences" were shared. The prison guards never imagined that I would do such a thing.
Later on, I suffered various pressures, threats, coercions and tortures, etc. On the surface, I was suffering bigger tribulations, but in my heart, I felt light and relaxed. Since that time, I did not consider detention to be a time of not being able to go home. If a cultivator could not return to his true "home," even if he could get out of a labor camp, he would still be behind a prison door. Of course I am not saying that we should stay in prisons. What I mean is that ordinary people are plagued by their reputations, interests and sentiments which are exactly virtual prisons!
Afterwards, I kept correcting myself and making up for the wrong I had committed against Dafa. Teacher has always given me hints to improve and encourage me, which gave me tremendous courage and confidence. I also saw my future and gained hope. I saw myself gradually returning back, and the pear tree blossomed again ...
These things happened two years ago. For the Fa-rectification, I cleaned up my disgraceful past and did what a Dafa disciple should do. I have been arrested again many times and suffered unprecedented pressure and persecution, but I never submitted again. Instead, I became more and more determined. My cultivation journey has become more and more righteous.
This is what I have enlightened to at my cultivation level. Please point out any inappropriate part.
