(Clearwisdom.net) Other practitioners suggested that I share my practice story with everyone, and I also wanted to do so. I lived in a very poor and isolated village in South China. When I was three years old, my father passed away. My family struggled to make ends meet, and I even had to beg to get by. I've only had three months of schooling, so it was difficult for me to write an article. Therefore, I recorded my cultivation story on tape and other practitioners helped me write it out. I am sure that I still have gaps in my cultivation, and I hope fellow practitioners will kindly point them out based on the Fa.

1. Told by a Taoist That There Is a Great Master and Falun Dafa Is a Righteous Fa

I have been deaf and unable to speak twice. Each time it lasted seven days, and I recovered without any medical treatment. It was not a simple disease of deafness and inability of speech but rather something directly related to Dafa. Teacher said in Hong Yin Volume II,

"Predestined ties of countless lifetimes
Each has Dafa as its guiding thread..."

("The Difficult Path to Godhood" from Hong Yin Volume II)

The following two stories bear witness Teacher's poem.

In the summer of 1969, I caught a strong cold after working in a heavy rain. I felt very cold and had a high temperature. I slept a long time and it was very late when I got up the next morning. I skipped breakfast and hurried to catch up with the other villagers who were already weeding crops in the field.

When I went by a bridge built of dirt, I saw a Taoist who had a baby face and white hair coming down from the sky. Holding a "Fuchen" or feather duster in his hand, he landed in front of me. I was dumbfounded and asked myself, "Is this a dream? How can this happen? Is he an immortal or a ghost?" Because the road was narrow, I stepped aside to let him pass. I did not have any fear. He stopped right in front me, touched my head three times and took three small white pills out of his pocket. He asked me to open my mouth and said, "It is OK for you to feel uncomfortable. Once you eat these pills everything will be fine."

I swallowed the pills, and he disappeared before I could thank him. I looked around but could not see him anywhere. I bowed towards the direction he had come from three times. I then continued walking. I felt my body become very light and extremely comfortable, as if I had become a different person with endless energy. When I got to the field, I did not say hello to anyone but went right into work, to make up for lost time.

When it was time for lunch break, I saw that my mother and my wife were in tears and other people were pointing at me. I could see them opening their mouths but I could not hear a word. What happened? I felt strange. I said to myself, "I'm not going to worry about it, I'll have lunch first." I ate almost several people's portions of food for I had skipped two meals. After lunch, I started working again. In the afternoon, I went with others to carry wooden blocks to the purchase station. When I was walking on the road, someone pushed me aside. I turned back and saw a truck was coming. Then I realized that I had become deaf and mute. I knew this was related to that Taoist, but I could not tell others about it. My family was very worried. They dragged me to acupuncture treatments and to worship various gods, but I did not improve.

A few days had passed, and my family started to calm down as they saw that I maintained high spirits and everything else was normal. On the seventh evening, that Taoist came to me again. This time he stayed in the sky. He waved his Fuchen to carry me from the corridor in my house to the ground outside. I shouted, "Master" and was able to kneel down to him. He waved his Fuchen to signal that I should stand up. He said, "I am not your Master. You have a Great Master. He will come in the future."

My family heard me shouting "Master" and they all came out. They saw that I had regained my hearing and could speak. From then on, I eagerly waited to see my Master.

Eighteen years later, one day in the fall of 1987, I was wrapping cabbage in my vegetable garden. I felt tired and took a break. When I was stretching and looking around, I saw a colorful cloud quickly approaching me from far away.

I was totally entranced. The colorful cloud suddenly stopped, and I was carried into it. On the red carpet-like cloud, I saw a handsome young man standing there. He held me with one hand. His kind, merciful and benevolent face made me feel very warm and joyful, and I felt that I had seen him long ago. He said to me, "I will take you to look around. You can watch, but you may not speak or ask any questions." I nodded my head.

When I looked down, I saw my physical body was still wrapping cabbage in the garden. Pointing down in one direction, he asked me, "What is that?" I answered fog. He said, "No, that is not fog but dark qi. Someone was spreading an evil qigong there. You should not learn it. Falun Gong will be spread later, that is true cultivation of the Righteous Fa."

He took me around and let me see the emperors of different times in China's history, the cultivators with different skin colors and different dresses cultivating in the mountains around the world, and the mountains of Zhangjiajie in Hunan Province that appear as a stone Bodhisattva when seen from a high perspective. Finally he showed me the Falun Paradise and I saw a gigantic Falun rotating both clockwise and counterclockwise there. He took me to the palace and demonstrated the five sets of exercises. I also saw many things that I was not able to describe.

He then took me back. At that time my physical body was laying in my room and the door was closed. A purple light flashed over and I was carried to the ground in front my house. Then my soul merged with my physical body. He said to me, "You have been gone for several days. If people ask you, you can only tell them two sentences, 'Everything uses righteousness as Gong. Everything bases its root in benevolence.'" I asked him what that meant. He said, "Don't worry about what it means. People will understand it. You will understand it too sometime later."

My physical body had been in the human world without my soul for seven days. During that seven days, my physical body was deaf and dumb and everything else was normal. Since then, I wondered whether that young man was my Master, whether I should learn Falun Gong in the future and why he left so quickly.

2. After I Obtained the Fa, My Whole Family Benefited

In February 1996, a friend, Mr. Zhang told me, "I heard that Mr. Wan has learned a good qigong exercise." I asked him what it was. He said it was Falun Gong. When I heard him mentioning Falun Gong, I ran to Mr. Wan's home right away.

Mr. Wan was not at home. I asked his wife if he was practicing Falun Gong. She said yes. I asked her, "Do you have Teacher's picture and materials?" She said, "Yes. Teacher's picture is on the wall in our room."

I went inside to look. That was exactly the Master who took me to heaven. The Falun was the same as the gigantic Falun that I saw that day. The exercises in the pictures were the same as the five sets that Master demonstrated for me in Heaven. After waiting for over twenty years, I had finally seen Teacher and Falun Gong. I was so excited that tears came to my eyes. I told her, "Please tell Mr. Wan that I want to practice Falun Gong. Please ask him to come to my home to teach me."

Two days later Mr. Wan came to my home and told me in detail about Falun Gong. I said to him, "No matter how much the materials cost, please make sure to get a copy for me." Ten days later, in the evening, Mr. Wan and Mr. Zhang brought the materials to my home and taught me the exercises. I learned all five sets that night. Later I felt a great pain in my stomach when I laid in bed to sleep. I struggled with the pain the whole night and finally the morning came. I used a walking stick to get to the health clinic. When Doctor Hu opened the door, I went inside and sat down on a large chair in the lotus position. All of sudden my stomach pain was gone. I asked Doctor Hu, "Does your chair have some magic power? Why don't I feel any pain after sitting in it?" He said, "The chair has no magic power. But maybe you have learned some qigong exercise that is powerful." Oh, that's why. Because I had just learned Falun Gong. I said to myself, "This answer does not sound like Doctor Hu's words. Teacher is giving me hints using his mouth." Because I had not yet begun studying the Fa, Teacher used this method to teach me. I went home immediately.

When doing the exercises at night, I always heard beautiful music in my ears. From then on, the same music woke me up at four o'clock every morning to practice. Winter or summer, I never stopped doing the exercises. I did the exercises right after I got up, without changing out of my pajamas. But I never felt cold. Instead, I always felt my body was warm inside and extremely comfortable.

Two weeks after I obtained the Fa, my mother-in-law had a heart attack. Under my energy field, her body was cleaned to some extent and her sickness started to go away. Just as Teacher said, "...with one person practicing, the whole family benefits" ("Teaching the Fa at the Fa Conference in Australia"). Gradually she could lean on something to help her walk. I wanted to make a walking stick for her. I wanted to make the handle in a bird shape for easy grabbing. It was hard for me to hold the stick with my foot to cut it with a saw, so I used my toe to hold it down. When I was almost done, I used too much force and cut my toe off. It was being held on only by a tiny piece of skin.

At that time I did not realize that I was practicing our boundless Dafa that can do anything. I put my toe back and asked my wife to find a piece of cloth to wrap it. I was not bleeding at all. Then I went to the field to weed the crops and totally forget my injury. When I finished working, I saw the cloth was gone, and when I washed my feet I found that my toe was completed healed. Nobody had seen my severed toe earlier, even my wife did not know how severe the injury was. So it was incredible to them when I told them what had actually happened. In fact, the deeper you believe in Teacher and Dafa, the more powerful Dafa will manifest.

That winter, another farmer from my village went with me to sell our crop seeds to a buyer in Yueyang City in Hunan Province, 20 miles away. It was snowing that day and the mountain path under the snow was very difficult for us to walk on. We left in the morning but did not arrive there until four in the afternoon. The buyer cooked dinner for us, and it was after five when we finished eating. I said to the buyer, "I have something to do at home and I need to leave now." They thought I was joking. But I told them, "No, I must go now. Please give me the money." The buyer said, "I have the money here, but it is a little less than what you asked for." I asked him why, and he said, "I pay nine yuan a pound for new seeds and sell them for ten yuan. So I only make one yuan. I sell old seeds also at ten yuan a pound and that is where I make my money. Yours are old seeds. I can only give you five yuan a pound, not the six yuan you wanted." I was totally surprised and thought it was unreasonable. Then I said to myself, "Maybe because I am a cultivator, this is a test of my mind nature. It is to help me get rid of the attachment to money."

Then I recalled what Teacher said in Zhuan Falun,

"The only thing ordinary people think about is their own gain and how to live well and comfortably. But we practitioners aren't like that, we're just the opposite. We don't seek the things ordinary people want, but what we gain is what ordinary people can't, even if they want to... unless they cultivate."

I suddenly felt that my mind became much wider. I said to him calmly, "OK. Let's do what you said."

My friend stayed with the buyer but I rushed off for my home. I did not think about anything, and just kept walking. When I reached home, it was just seven o'clock. I walked 20 miles in the snow over the mountain in eighty minutes. It was so incredible! I knew this was because of Teacher's benevolent help. I became firmer on my cultivation.

3. "Walking in the Dark during the Great Turbulence, Seeing the Light after Seven Days"

On July 20, 1999, Jiang Zemin, the head of the evil Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started rampantly undermining Dafa, badmouthing Teacher and persecuting Dafa practitioners. As a Dafa disciple, I could not stand by and watch the evil being so crazy. I wanted to go to Beijing, the place of the central government, to appeal for Falun Gong. But I did not have money for the trip. I met practitioner Mr. Li from another county. He agreed to go with me to Beijing and cover all the expenses. I walked 10 miles to his home the next day. On my way, I saw "Running quickly on the way home" written on a stone at the top of a hill. I said to myself, "Aren't we cultivators walking on our way home? Isn't this Teacher giving me a hint?" Then on another stone, I saw "Walk out with mighty virtue and greatness." Teacher was encouraging me! It meant that I was doing the right thing appealing for Falun Gong. Therefore, my original not-so-sure heart calmed down and I walked more steadily and more firmly. At Mr. Li's home, we discussed the details of our trip and I stayed for the night. We planned to leave the next day. But we were interfered with and Mr. Li could not make the trip with me. Without the money, I was not able to go either. Returning home, I was very upset and could not eat or sleep. I said to myself, "Let me start working from the lowest level of government and move up level by level." I first went to see the leaders in our village and clarified the truth to them. They understood me and agreed with what I told them. They felt that they were powerless in such a large political movement manipulated by the CCP. They kept telling me not to bounce an egg against a stone.

I planned to go the County government the next day. After I finished my dinner that evening, Director Chen from the local police station led two police officers to my home. Director Chen said that he wanted to talk to me. I asked him what it was about. He asked me to go to the police station to discuss it. When I sat in the car with him, he said to me, "You are the local organizer of Falun Gong. You have to confess to us all the details of your organization." I said, "We do not have any organization. All we want is to have healthy bodies and be good people living by the principles of 'Truthfulness, Benevolence, Forbearance.' The government should not strip us of our freedom of belief."

At the police station, Director Chen left me with the two other policemen. One said to me viciously, "Tell us all about your organization. Otherwise we won't be nice to you any longer." I replied, "But we don't have any organization. What do you want me to tell you?" He then started to curse me, saying "Are you going to speak or not?" I said, "I really have nothing to say." He said to the other policeman, "Take off his clothes." The other policeman stripped me to my underwear. I thought, "Trying to freeze me to death? That won't work." I sat down in the middle of the room and said to myself, "Teacher said, 'The Fa gained, you now stand divine...' ('Salvation Far and Wide,' from Hong Yin) I am already a divine person. Am I going to be afraid of the cold?" I sat there for over an hour. Police officer Peng came and kicked me in the chest, and I fell to the ground. When I stood up, he hit my temples with both fists. I was dazzled and a light flashed in my eyes. I closed my eyes for a while and I opened them again, I was still OK.

Officer Peng beat me, then left. Director Chen came back. He pretended to be innocent, "Why don't you wear any clothes in the winter?" I said to him, "Stop pretending. This is the 'deed' of the 'people's police.'" He said, "Oh, sorry. Please put on your clothes. Those young people don't know how to treat people nicely." Then they locked me in an empty room upstairs. All the glass was missing from the windows and the cold wind kept pouring into the room. I stayed there for a whole night. The next morning, officer Fang brought milk, tea, cigarettes and candies to me, trying to lure me to speak. I did not drink anything, nor did I speak. At around five o'clock in the afternoon, I was taken out to the courtyard, where I was handcuffed to a tree.

In the evening, a policeman came and shouted, "This stubborn person should not stand here. He needs to kneel down." He stepped on the back of my knees, but I did not kneel down. Then he tried to push my shoulders, but that failed as well. He became more vicious and started to lose his temper. He climbed up the tree, and I knew something real bad was about to happen, so I asked Teacher to strengthen me. I also kept reciting silently Teacher's words, "It's hard to endure, but you can endure it. It's hard to do, but you can do it." He held the tree with his hands and jumped on to my wrists. My bones were fractured, and I was in great pain. I said to myself, "I am a divine person and the pain is not for me." He jumped on my wrists a few more times causing the handcuffs to bite deeply into my flesh, but I no longer felt the pain. After that, he left.

Shortly after, the director of the County's Armed Services came. He stood in front of me, "What happened?" He asked someone to open the handcuffs, but they were not able to insert the key into the handcuff because it was embedded so deeply in my flesh. It took quite a while for them to unlock me. Then a bunch of other evildoers came. They kept kicking me. One said, "Be smart! Tell us, are you going to practice Falun Gong any more?" I replied, "Why should I stop practicing such a good exercise?" They surrounded me and beat me again. "Are you going to practicing anymore?" "Practice! Practice! Practice!" I answered. A policeman shouted, "I don't believe that I can't beat you into giving in." He found a big wooden stick and used it to hit my back several times. Then he threw it away, shook his hands and left while cursing me, "You are driving me nuts! Driving me nuts!"

Director Li carried a basin of water to wash my face and hands. I could tell that he was very surprised. "For sure the handcuffs bit into his flesh, but how come there is no injury to his skin?" I felt that when the handcuffs were taken off, my injuries were healed. It was our great benevolent Teacher who endured the hardship for me. I wanted to cry but I would not do so in front of these evildoers. Director Li asked me, "Is it painful?" I answered him, "Does it matter to you guys if it is painful or not? Are they going to stop the brutal torture if I feel pain? Goodness begets goodness and evil will be punished. If they do not change their evil behavior they will not escape from the fate of being eliminated." That evening, my son paid a fine and got me out.

I had a dream that night. I saw an antithetical couplet on my door frame, "Walking in the Dark during the Great Turbulence, Seeing the Lights after Seven Days." The next morning, my granddaughter came to ask me to get up. I said it was still dark. But she said, "The sun has been up for quite a while. Can't you see it?" I realized that I had lost my sight. After breakfast, my son and I went to the County government to ask for justice for me. But who would help us there? All the people were either hiding from us or sending us to other people. We came home without any result. With Teacher's help, I regained my vision seven days later.

On January 13, 2000, my wife gave me one hundred yuan to buy piglets. I took the money to a practitioner's home. We planned to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong with two other practitioners, one of whom was willing to cover the trip expenses for all of us with several thousand yuan. When the train arrived at the Zhengzhou Station in Henan Province, I heard someone on a loud speaker saying, "Attention please, practitioners who are going to Beijing, please be prepared for your test." I heard it again when the train was approaching Beijing. I woke the other three practitioners up and told them what I heard. They were very surprised. It was impossible for the train to broadcast such a message, because the evil CCP was arresting practitioners going to Beijing. I must have heard it in another dimension. Teacher was encouraging us. We felt very excited, knowing that our great Teacher was protecting us all the time. In a great mood, we arrived in Beijing. It was morning when we got off the train, and after breakfast, we went to Tiananmen Square. A truck stopped in front of us, and several policemen in plain clothes asked us, "Are you Falun Gong practitioners?" We answered yes. They said, "Please get in the truck." I asked, "Where are you taking us?" They said, "To a place." Then they pushed us and other practitioners into the truck. They took us to a place and asked us to form two lines for registration.

When I was about thirty feet away from the registration desk, I was patted on my shoulder. I turned around and saw two policemen, one was tall and one was short. The tall policeman signaled to me to go with him. He led me to a room next to the bathroom and locked the door from the inside. There was a wooden board laying on the floor. The tall policeman asked me in a low voice, "You are already very old, why come to Beijing?" I answered him loudly, "To rectify the Fa!" He said, "I know. Lower your voice. I mean, rectifying the Fa is not playing. It might mean life and death. Aren't you afraid of death?" I said, "I wouldn't be here if I was afraid." "OK. You are not afraid of death, but are you afraid of pain?" I answered, "I am not afraid of death, why would I be afraid of pain?" He said, "Good. Take off your shoes and stand on this board." I took off my left shoe and put my left foot on the board. The short policeman took several nails that were four inches long and hammered three of them into my foot. I did not shake at all. Then they asked me to put my right foot on the board and nailed it with another three nails. I was not able to move my feet any more. The two policemen looked at each other. The short guy motioned the thumbs-up and said, "You are really something!" The tall policeman asked him to take the nails out. There was no blood on the nails. The tall man brought over my shoes and helped me put them back on. Then they took me back to the other Dafa practitioners. I was sent back to the detention center of my hometown and released after being held there for twenty eight days.

4. Becoming Deaf and Mute for Five Years Due to a Wrong Thought - Recovering via Righteous Thoughts and Righteous Actions

Coming back from the detention center, I clarified the truth about Dafa and how Dafa practitioners were tortured to every person I met. My son was afraid and asked me not to talk about it any more. He also said some bad words. I then said to myself, "If I was deaf and mute, I wouldn't have to face this trouble any more." This thought became reality right away, and right away I could not speak or hear. No one came to bother me any longer.

Five years passed. During that time, many practitioners shared with me in writing, telling me that this was not what Teacher gave to me. Dafa practitioners should not be in the situation I was in. We needed to clarify truth to save sentient beings, so how could we not speak? It must be interference from the old forces. They were right, but I just thought my situation was special and I was blocked by Teacher. So I agreed with the isolation the old forces' inflicted on me and let the evil constrain me for a long time.

In the first half of 2005, a practitioner was released home after becoming enlightened along an evil path at the Majialong Forced Labor Camp in Hunan Province. I thought that I should help her, so I went to her home. But I could only write on paper to share with her. She would write a few lines, then I wrote a few lines. We used a whole notebook to write. Because of my limited education, I often wrote wrong characters, but by and large we could understand each other. She cried and said that she had committed a big crime by cursing Teacher and Dafa. I tried to calm her down and persuaded her to go back to Dafa. She expressed that she would start practicing again and do well the three things. When I left, she burned our conversation notes. A practitioner saved a few pages. When he saw it, the conversation was off from the Fa. He immediately called other practitioners to help me.

One evening, a half dozen diligent practitioners gathered together. They showed me the pages of our conversation. Because the front and back pages were gone, the meaning had changed. However, I could not speak and it was hard to explain in writing. I was so eager to express myself. Several practitioners studied the Fa and realized that their top priority was to resolve the isolation that the old forces imposed on me. Teacher said in "Drive Out Interference," "The Fa can break all attachments, the Fa can destroy all evil, the Fa can shatter all lies, and the Fa can strengthen righteous thoughts." Then we studied "Mind Your Speech" in Zhuan Falun, where Teacher said, "And besides, we have to talk about the Law and spread the Law, so not speaking wouldn't work." Teacher's Fa untied the knot in my heart. We sat down to send forth powerful righteous thoughts for twenty minutes. Then we planned to send forth righteous thoughts again at eight and nine p.m. the next day. We decided that I must speak. I also sent forth righteous thoughts before sleeping that night.

The next morning, I was able to talk! And I could hear, too! The old forces took advantage of my attachment of avoiding trouble to block me for five years. It was such a painful lesson. Teacher said in Zhuan Falun,

"It's actually that your mind is being controlled by a foreign spirit. But for some reason you think it's pretty good, you like having it, and you're happy to have it. And the happier you are, the tighter its grip on you."

That's right. One bad thought, and I lost five years off my prehistoric wish of clarifying the truth to save sentient beings. I matched the old forces' wish and I was controlled by them for so long.

How serious cultivation is! One bad thought could bring such a terrible result to us. We should always keep our minds on the Fa. The old forces will then have no chance of taking advantage of us. Teacher has already told us in Zhuan Falun,

"Besides, if you don't have any worries at home, and if you don't have any trouble at all, what's left for you to cultivate? Practicing in total comfort - who's ever heard of that? That's how you think about it, from an ordinary person's standpoint."

This lesson let me further understand the Fa. I must study the Fa carefully, understand the Fa well and assimilate with the Fa.

My being able to speak again was a shock to ordinary people. I appreciate that Teacher used this method to untie the knot in my heart. I am grateful to practitioners for their help as a whole. I joined other practitioners to clarify the truth to save sentient beings.

In my cultivation, via firm belief in Teacher and Dafa, under Teacher's protection and help, I am able to overcome one tribulation after another. Teacher said in Zhuan Falun,

"Back when I was cultivating, a lot of men of great character told me this: 'It's hard to endure, but you can endure it. It's hard to do, but you can do it.' And that's really how it is. When you go back you might want to give it a try. When you're going through an awful tribulation, or maybe a critical juncture, give it a try. When it's hard to endure, try to endure it. When it seems impossible to do, or just hard to do, give it a try and see just what you can do. And when you can really do it, just like that worn and weary traveler, you'll see, 'the shade of willows, the blooms of flowers, a place to rest my head'!"

Only when we put down our attachments and look to the Fa for guidance in our cultivation all the time, can we do well the three things.

November 30, 2006