(Clearwisdom.net) Thank you Esteemed Master Li and thank you fellow practitioners for the opportunity to share my experiences with you.
It has been seven years since I began to practice Falun Gong and nothing has made me waver, though at times I felt as if I just wasn't doing well enough and Master must have been awfully disappointed. As all my fellow practitioners know, we are faced with many tribulations, some caused by our inability to let go of attachments, some because we can't even recognize our attachments and some are caused by factors thrown at us by the old forces and nowadays by the meddling deities or evil demons in an effort to make us stumble.
In the beginning I had no clue what cultivation actually meant and what it entailed of its practitioners. I just read Zhuan Falun and did the exercises. I had found Falun Gong after praying to the Christian God that I wanted to let go of some of my bad habits, and become a better person, as I was very ill at the time. I didn't want to die without having changed.
At the time, I had looked for something for some time and just stumbled onto Falun Gong. I knew that this was what I wanted to learn and practice and then it took me another four to six months to actually find information about the practice and Zhuan Falun, as I didn't really know the name.
Everything just seemed to happen and I slipped from one phase into the other. First just reading the books and doing the exercises with fellow practitioners. Then taking part in many activities and clarifying the truth in different ways. I help prepare and give presentations, send truth clarification letters and e-mails to China, write letters for fellow practitioners, translate, polish and write articles, distribute flyers and so on. It was just a progression of things, one leading into the other.
Teacher Lets me Know that I'm His Disciple
My mind is sometimes filled with worry, especially when I messed up a little, that I'm just not a good practitioner and I'm not doing the things I'm supposed to do. Then, the next thought is, where do I get the time to do all this. Suddenly it comes to me, if I'm diligent, Teacher will find a way for me to get everything done I'm supposed to get done and that He will do anything in His power to leave no practitioner behind. Then, there is a hint out of nowhere from Teacher and I feel like a mountain dropped off my back.
When I felt that I was not doing that well, Teacher encouraged me again and again. During a meeting a fellow practitioner who had not seen me for some time said, "You look so much younger than when I saw you last time," and left it at that. Before that a coworker told me that he suddenly realized that I looked much younger and asked what happened. Then, I realized I was moving along. I couldn't be all that bad, as I had imagined. It also strengthens my resolve to be diligent and do better. I want to go forward and not one-step back and one forward, just like a yo-yo.
Teacher gives me hints on and off and especially during the exercises, particularly since it still is difficult to achieve the sitting position. It takes a few minute or so to get those legs into position. They are hurting, but then after a while the pain stops and comes back to different degrees during the second half hour. I practice with the Chinese language tape and I can hear Teacher clearly say during the first exercise "Stretch," and during the standing exercises "Doing well," "Hands forward," and "Energy into the arms." I know that Teacher is encouraging me, but I can't get complacent and need to keep working on myself. Teacher's encouragement does not tell me to slack off, but to keep going and not let up.
Teacher also gives me hints when I'm trying to find a notion or attachment. An elderly lady joined our Epoch Times translation team a while back. There was much she said that drove me nuts. I thought frequently that she is just like my mother and whatever irked me about my mother I saw in her. Although I tried I could not change her and our e-mails were polite, but stinging. So, one day I was complaining about her to one of my co-workers and held the human notion that she would agree with me and tell me how awful that woman was. Instead, she pointed her finger at me and said that I had a bad attitude towards that woman. I was speechless. She looked at me and hugged me and said, "I hope you are not mad at me." That hadn't entered my mind. I just was flabbergasted and told her that I would think about what she said. I looked within and found that Teacher had told me through her that I really held a bad attitude and I needed to change this. Now that woman and I cooperate very well and we have become friends. When I delivered the next Epoch Times to that lady I thanked her and told her that she told me what I needed to hear. I learned that when I have a conflict with someone I should make a change and not the other person.
Today I am involved, as we all are, in the three things Teacher told us were needed to save sentient beings.
Cultivating Diligently
First, I will talk about my studying the Fa diligently and moving along my cultivation path without taking a detour.
In the beginning of my cultivation I realized when I slacked off my bad habits reappeared and I did not like that at all. Therefore, reading one chapter of Zhuan Falun every evening has become part of my life. No matter how late, I won't go to sleep until I have read one chapter. My husband was not happy about this and tried to stop me, but finally gave up as he realized I wouldn't budge an inch on that one. Now, he still puts on the TV and wants me to watch with him, and I do for a while, but then I take my hearing aids out of my ear and concentrate on reading Zhuan Falun.
Translating, polishing, and other Dafa work took up all evening and spending time with my husband came to a standstill. He was terribly patient and only occasionally flew into a temper tantrum. I did not fight back, as he was correct, but I needed to read and then go to bed as I get up around 4:00 a.m. or earlier daily.
For a few years I did the exercises always when I was off from work, during holidays and weekends, but not during the week, though some fellow practitioners kept telling me to at least take out ½ hour a day and do the exercises. One day, about two to three years ago I decided I would do ½ hour of exercises daily. That didn't feel right, so I decided to do the full 1 hour of either the fifth or first through fourth exercises. I was worn out after work and when doing the sitting exercise I had a difficult time staying awake after nine hours at work. One time I fell asleep during exercise five and the music stopped playing with a bang and I immediately woke up feeling awful. Since that day I get up at 3:00 a.m. in the morning on the day I do the sitting exercise before leaving for work.
What a difference. Suddenly, I got all my Dafa work done, could spend time with my husband and grown-up kids, and can do many more things. Yes, to be truthful, there are still times when I'm a little overwhelmed. These are times when translations and polishing keep coming in, one after the other or in bunches, and when I need to get my weekly article written for the Epoch Times business section. But I find time to get everything done. What I'm trying to say is that the more diligent we are the more we get accomplished.
I'm still working on many attachments. Some seem to be rooted deeply and the minute I do a rotten thing I feel I'm awful and not worthy of being a practitioner. The difficult part is still to discover what I need to let go of, so I can melt more and more into the Fa.
Sending Righteous Thoughts
I need to work hard on concentrating when sending righteous thoughts and think that I still have much to improve. So, I am sending righteous thoughts daily at work at least two additional times to improve, and sometimes at home outside the regular times.
At times I notice that my hand is drooping or I become rather sleepy, especially during the 6:00 p.m. time after I come home from work. Then for a while I send at least one hour before and one hour after, and at times also one half hour before and one half hour after the time we send as a group righteous thoughts. It helps my concentration improve quite a bit.
For a while, although I'm now wearing hearing aids to hear the clock ringing, I slept through the midnight sending righteous thoughts time and woke up just after or a little while after. I then send righteous thoughts, but that is not good enough. Then, I noticed that the ringer was turned off, although I checked it several times before going to sleep. I kept wondering if this was interference, or was done by my husband, who is a non-practitioner and who worries that I don't get enough sleep. I did not want to accuse him directly, so I told him about the ringer being turned off and that we must have a ghost in the house. He looked at me as if I was crazy and told me that I was being ridiculous. He didn't admit to anything, but for a while it was not turned off. Then, it started again. So, I went to my husband's little office downstairs and said that my clock was being turned off again and I was upset about it. He looked at me in a funny way, started waving his arms and hands - an action that is not like him at all - and said in a voice that was not his at all that his God was the Supreme being - he is a non-practicing Hindu - and then said that this being told him to turn off my clock as I needed my sleep, given the hours I worked. I did not know what to say. Then I meekly said to that thing that I would eliminate it and the voice came back - there is no way I could do that.
I realized that it must be a meddling deity or something else. I started sending righteous thoughts towards him and still continue to do so. He is his own self again and he even wakes me up now if he thinks I didn't hear the clock.
Clarifying the Truth
I used to distribute flyers and still distribute close to 200 copies of the English Epoch Times and some Chinese Epoch Times weekly to people in two government agencies and on the Metro/Subway. But I also write a weekly article for the Epoch Times, polish and translate articles, and answer questions for Faluninfo.net. I wear "I Support Falun Gong Buttons" in English and Chinese, and people look at them and some ask me what Falun Gong is, so I give them a flyer and tell them a little about the persecution. In the end many tell me that they will read up on it on the Internet. I wear these buttons at work, when going shopping, going to a restaurant - at all times. My family was against me wearing them, but I just kept wearing them. They no longer interfere.
One non-practitioner lady even sends The Epoch Times I give her to her son who is serving in Iraq, as well as her daughter, and distributes a few more to her acquaintances, hairdresser, the vice president of a large American bank and friends.
I answer questions for Faluninfo.net. There is a lady from an African country, one from Lebanon, a young man from Iran and several from other countries who began to practice Falun Gong and who keep in contact. I answer their questions, and tell them about clarifying the truth of the persecution and how they can tell the people around them. They are not sure as for many I'm the only practitioner they are in contact with, though I brought them together with practitioners that live closer to them or are in similar situations. But, all keep in touch. There has been on and off the odd one who wrote how excited they are about Falun Gong and then suddenly they totally change and write negative things about Falun Gong. I have learned to handle them. None of them was able to change my mind.
Writing a weekly article for The Epoch Times business section is not easy. I need to do a lot of research. When I have a real problem finding a subject to write about, and after I have discarded most research I had done because it was just not newsworthy, I ask Teacher for help - and suddenly I find something to write about and it flows fast.
Thank you Master for all the hints and help you have given and continue to give me.