(Clearwisdom.net) Good day! My name is Ben and I am from the United Kingdom, I have practiced cultivation for about eight months and during this time I have had many interesting experiences. Today I am going to talk about a very good experience of clarifying the truth by running a half marathon in a town called Reading in the UK.
I have a friend who is also a practitioner who lives in the same town as I in a place called Dorking. One day he phoned me and told me that a friend of his had dropped out of a race due to an injury and he was asked to run in his place, this race was the Reading Half Marathon. He was going to run in a Falun Dafa t-shirt and asked me if I would come along and hand out truth clarification materials in the crowd; I agreed, but, I always used to be quite shy so I was a bit nervous about the idea.
The next weekend we set off for Reading, my friend with his running shoes and me with a large backpack full of Falun Dafa newspapers as well as some smaller leaflets that I was given unexpectedly just before I left. Both of us wore Falun Dafa t-shirts. When we got to Reading we had to take a bus to where the race started, and sat next to a very nice lady on the bus to whom we were able to clarify the truth. We were late getting to the starting point of the race, so my friend had to start immediately, I said goodbye and got out some papers from my bag, ready to give out to people.
As the race had already started, there weren't many spectators left at the start, and the ones that were left didn't seem to want to accept my Falun Dafa newspapers. I looked within myself and found that I was nervous. I thought that maybe I'd do better if there were more people to give the papers to. I had a map of the race and realized that there was a point in the course where I could take a shortcut to get in front of the runners, where there would be a larger crowd waiting for the runners to pass. I knew I had to be quick so I started to run. I was far behind the main group of runners but, there were still a few slow or older runners and some spectators left. As there were spectators on the sidewalk I had to run on the road. As I was running, people were looking at me and clapping, saying "C'mon you're doing really well! Keep it up!" I found this strange and thought "Wow! They think I'm in the race!" As they were smiling at me, I thought that they would probably accept the newspaper. So I handed some out as I ran, and sure enough the spectators accepted them with much gratitude, sometimes even asking me for one. My nerves and fears started to disappear too.
Then I got to my shortcut which cut about 1.2 miles off the course. After taking the shortcut, I arrived at a place where the main group of runners was going past. I stopped to catch my breath and see if my friend was running by, but I couldn't see him. I tried to hand out some papers in the crowd but, most people didn't accept them and looked at me as if I was a nuisance, spoiling their enjoyment of the race. I looked in my mind again and found that when I was running my thoughts had been very focused, so the outcome of my handing out papers had been good, but now, my shyness had returned and this was impeding my work. I realized at that point that I had about 400 papers in my bag and if I was to hand them all out I was going to have to run the whole race! I had never run 13 miles before but, I thought that maybe it was Master testing my endurance, so I had better do it. As I started to run, my mind became clear again and people were happy to accept the newspaper. Some were even saying, "Thank you very much young man" as if they had been there waiting for me to come past. Everyone I saw was happy and smiling, which gave me great strength to keep going. There was also one very obvious predestined relationship which stuck in my mind: at one point my shoelace became untied so I stopped by a wall a short distance from a street corner to tie it and get some more papers out of my bag. This took about a minute and I then started running again. As I went round the corner, four Chinese girls stepped out of an alleyway and were suddenly standing right in front of me. They were very pleased to accept the leaflet. As I ran on, the course turned around and came back on the other side of the street, I looked across and saw the girls still standing there eagerly reading the information. I can't help but think that maybe it was Teacher who untied my shoelace, as I would have missed them if I hadn't stopped.
As I ran further, I handed out many more papers to people with predestined relationships. I experienced a very wonderful feeling and was not tired at all. But, inevitably I ran out of papers, though I was still quite far from the finish. I decided to walk for a bit so as to think about what to do and I started to feel very tired. I found this strange, as I had been so full of energy a few moments before. I then thought, "Maybe I need food?" so I got a sandwich out of my bag and started to eat, but this did no good. Then I thought that maybe it was because of my attachments, but I looked within and found no obvious attachment. Then I suddenly remembered, I had been given about 200 extra small leaflets just before I left, which were hidden in the bottom of my bag. As soon as I got them out, my energy started to return and many more people accepted them with a smile and encouraged me a lot. When I finally ran out of the small leaflets, it was only about 3 miles from the end of the race and as the last section was out of town, there were no more spectators, which I thought was very convenient. One of the race marshals asked me about my t-shirt as I passed so I told her about the persecution. She replied "You stick up for them!"
About a mile from the end I went through a park and started to walk, gazing up at the sky as it looked very beautiful with the sun shining through the clouds in rays. I thought, "Wouldn't it be great to read the Fa now." I remembered that I had one of Teacher's poems in my wallet, so I got it out to read:
"Predestined relationships spanning endless lifetimes
Each connected by the thread of Dafa
Through hardships the body of gold is tempered
Why such slow and leisurely steps?" ("The Difficult Path to Godhood")
I looked down at my feet and they were taking very leisurely steps, so I immediately started to run and made it to the end where my friend and I met and joyfully exchanged stories of the race. Both our legs were very painful afterwards as we hadn't done any training for the race, but neither of us cared!
This experience proved to me the power of Falun Dafa, and how only two practitioners can reach many hundreds of people. I really am not a runner and probably would have collapsed half-way through that race if it weren't for the power of the Fa pulling me along. I still have many attachments to release, but I think that it was this experience that set me on the path of Fa-rectification cultivation. I thank our benevolent Master, and hope that we can all do very well on our path in the time to come.
Thank you, everyone.
