(Clearwisdom.net) I have been eliminating illness karma since last week. It all started with a sore throat, and then developed into violent coughing and other symptoms of a severe cold. I did very well as a practitioner in the beginning. I did the Falun Gong exercises as usual at 3:50 a.m. I burned DVD copies of the Chinese New Year Spectacular by Divine Performing Arts during the daytime and distributed the DVDs in the evening. I studied the Fa and read the Minghui website as usual. Somehow my coughing got worse over the following several days. It seriously affected my doing the exercises, sending righteous thoughts and sleeping. I felt that my state was not a good reflection of a person cultivating in Falun Dafa.

I started practicing Falun Gong after July 1999, and I understand that my personal cultivation is combined with Fa validation. I don't think that the process of illness karma elimination, which interferes with my accomplishing the three things, would be arranged by Teacher. The interference must be coming from the old forces and evil elements. I calmly looked inward to find out what I did wrong or neglected regarding my xinxing. I was shocked to see the many human attachments emerging, along with the strong righteous thoughts during the process of eliminating that illness karma.

First, I saw my attachment of seeking physical purification and being beautiful. I know the process of passing the test of illness karma is Teacher's arrangement to eliminate it. Teacher helps us purify our physical bodies, as cultivators should "Let joy be found in hardship."("Tempering the Will", Hong Yin). I was actually happy every time I coughed violently and spit out dirty things. I thought to myself, "Hey, another piece of karma is eliminated." I had not noticed it then, but my attachment to physical purification was growing. The illness karma kept me from eating, but I was happy with the weight loss. I even wished the situation would intensify and indeed, my symptoms got worse.

Second, the mentality of showing off and validation of self also showed up. I continued to do the three things while enduring illness karma. I thought that I was better than my practitioner husband, and I often showed off in front of him.

Third, I saw my attachment to seeking comfort and a fondness for sleep. I coughed a lot for days, lost my appetite and became very tired. I got up every morning to do the exercises, but I was unable to complete the full set. I would get too sleepy and go to bed, whereupon I would sleep until 7 or 8 a.m. I even missed sending righteous thoughts at 6 a.m.

It was close to midnight, the time to send righteous thoughts, when I saw these attachments. I sat with legs crossed in the lotus position, determined to eliminate all these attachments. I said to myself, "I thoroughly negate the persecution by the old forces using the loopholes in my cultivation. I am a disciple of Master Li Hongzhi. I will be rectified by Dafa and no one has the right to touch me. Whoever dares to do that is committing a crime." I pressed my hands together and asked Master to give me strength. That night I did not cough at all. On the morning of the second day, I went to group practice, and I finished the full set of exercises.

I often read articles on Minghui of fellow practitioners' sharing on how important it is to pay attention to every thought in our daily lives from the perspective of cultivation. My experience once again verified that. If we neglect cultivating ourselves, the old forces will take advantage of our loopholes and intensify the tribulation of illness karma, which might well cause ordinary people to misunderstand us and make it harder to help them.