(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
Experience Sharing Conferences are a good opportunity for us to improve together. Here I am writing down my cultivation experiences in order to validate the Fa.
1. Looking within and eliminating interference
I began to practice in 1996 and was illegally arrested twice after the regime launched the persecution in 1999. After returning home from the second labor camp detention, through Fa-study I realized that I had failed to look within when having conflicts with practitioners. Because of my negative thoughts, the old forces were able to take advantage of my gaps, which led to my being persecuted. I felt my cultivation level rise after coming to this understanding. I knew Master helped me by pointing out my various loopholes as I studied the Fa.
A practitioner should allow criticism from others and be able to look within when conflicts arise. I took the initiative to work with other practitioners, and we also began to study the Fa together again. During the group exercise, we all felt a strong energy field. After studying Master's new lecture “Dafa Disciples Must Study the Fa”, we began to study the Fa and do the exercises together every day. All of us have improved significantly.
2. Cultivating myself well at my workplace
After my release, my workplace changed my appointment to a temporary position. The salary was low and it barely covered my daily expenses. I knew the evil intended to persecute me financially. Therefore, I began to recite the Fa four or five hours each day and felt my cultivation state change, and my level rise.
When I first returned to my job, poisoned by the regime's lies, my coworkers dared not speak with me. Only the party secretary came to talk with me occasionally in order to report my status. Sometimes I specifically went to his office and told him the facts of Falun Dafa. In the beginning he did not want to listen, but later he began to change and the process of clarifying the truth to him also helped me.
While studying the Fa, I could feel myself cultivating solidly. One year later, I felt the need to clarify the truth on a larger scale and end my financial persecution. I wrote letters to workplace officials, requesting to resume my previous position. The party secretary asked me to follow up with the personnel department and made some suggestions on what to talk about. One day, I was asked to meet with several officials. During the meeting, I learned that I had been reinstated to a regular position with normal pay. I knew Master helped me during the process so that I could save more people at my workplace.
I'm able to interact with many people in my new position and I am also presented with many opportunities to cultivate myself. Whenever I encounter conflicts, I remind myself to look inward, be more considerate, and remain undisturbed by fame or material gain. During a review three months after assuming the new position, I received very good feedback from various people. The workplace head was unwilling to talk with me earlier, but now he believed in me and said many good things about me.
3. Paying attention to sending forth righteous thoughts
After I was released and returned home last year, I was often sleepy when sending forth righteous thoughts. My hands often tilted to the side and I was very worried about this. Fellow practitioners suggested that I needed to clean up my dimension. I also read many articles on the Minghui website (Chinese version of Clearwisdom), in which practitioners talked about how sending forth righteous thoughts for longer periods of time helped them. One practitioner intensified sending forth righteous thoughts after being sent to a forced labor camp. Doing so ended the vicious mistreatment and he was able to steadfastly validate the Fa thereafter.
I thus began paying attention to sending forth righteous thoughts. During the global sending forth righteous thoughts four times a day, I did it at least half an hour each time in order to eliminate my negative thoughts. The effect became better and better. I was able to concentrate and the interference was significantly weakened.
When I first began distributing truth-clarification materials, I had a strong attachment to fear, and the interference I encountered was also huge. After sending forth righteous thoughts consistently, I was able to cleanse my field and let go of fear, thus the distribution of materials went more smoothly. Once I went to a high-income residential building to distribute Shen Yun DVDs. I climbed up 16 floors one by one, feeling very nervous. After sending forth righteous thoughts to eliminate my fear and any other interfering elements, I calmed down and came back to normal within two minutes, both mentally and physically. It was an amazing experience.
4. Cultivating myself while preparing materials
The primary way I clarify the truth is by distributing materials. I coordinated with other practitioners to cover our local area and make sure no community was left behind. I was able to distribute materials on the way to work and on the way home. The nearby communities were all covered within six months.
The recent Shen Yun DVDs became available in March this year, and knowing they are powerful tools to help people understand the truth, I put a lot of effort into distributing them. In “Be More Diligent”, Master said, “I have said that we are now to focus on higher-end society, and only by making ourselves part of the cultural mainstream can we unlock society at large, have a greater impact, have more people attend, and have more sentient beings come to be saved.”
Thus I began to look for more high-end communities and distributed the materials there. Many of them had high security and often required an electronic key to enter or exit, so I sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate all interfering elements. Once when entering such a community, I silently asked Master for help so that the security guard would not bother me. I was thus able to get in on a bike and the guard did not say anything when he saw me.
Preparing materials that tell the facts is also a precious opportunity to improve. Through Fa-study, I realized more and more the pressing urgency and our responsibility to save sentient beings. I cooperated with fellow practitioners and the quality of our materials became better and better. During the process, there were many issues with the printer and copier. I looked inward and found myself focusing on solving the problem instead of cultivating myself, and that was why the old forces magnified my attachment and caused one problem after another. In Zhuan Falun, Master said,
“"The Buddha Fa" is most profound; among all the theories in the world, it is the most intricate and extraordinary science. In order to explore this domain, humankind must fundamentally change its conventional thinking. Otherwise, the truth of the universe will forever remain a mystery to humankind, and everyday people will forever crawl within the boundary delimited by their own ignorance.”
I realized that I had to correct my intention in preparing the materials. Was I making them to be involved in doing Dafa things or making them to save people? Meanwhile, I should cultivate myself well and let go of any attachments, such as zealotry or any thoughts of validating myself.
5. Helping young practitioners and cultivating well in the family environment
In “Teaching the Fa in Canada, 2006”, Master said,
“The work and family environments that you spend time in are both settings in which you are to cultivate yourselves, are part of the path you must walk, are what you must handle, and handle correctly at that. None of these should be glossed over.”
My son began to study the Fa and do the exercises with us at the age of five. However, because of the persecution we experienced, he stopped. When we returned home after being released from the forced labor camp, we found he had changed; he was experiencing interference and acting out inappropriately. We knew that Dafa would help him and thus we studied the Fa with him. On one hand, we pointed out his issues when they arose; on the other hand, we shared our understandings of the Fa and discussed them with him.
I found that when talking with my son, other problems often surfaced after one was resolved. Each problem also required many discussions. We now study the Fa together every day. When discussing letting go of complaint or hatred towards others, we repeated Master's words in Zhuan Falun, “You have gained four ways in one shot.” In the beginning he was not convinced, so I found some stories from young practitioners on Minghui and shared them with him. One day, he told me that, after reading one young practitioner's sharing, he followed their example and found others also began to treat him well. In this way, he was able to change his mindset and get along well with others.
One day earlier this year, my son fought with a classmate. Forgetting his xinxing, he even ran after his classmate and threatened to hurt him. The classmate's parents were very angry. I apologized again and again, and further realized the importance of leading him in the right direction—that is, cultivation. In order to understand his thoughts, every day I spent some time talking with him. During holidays or breaks, we spent more time studying the Fa. We also watched Master's video lectures together and read new articles together. He gradually began to memorize and recite Hong Yin.
Through Fa-study, my son changed. He no longer thought about fighting with others. Instead, he looked for opportunities to help others and even began to help with household chores. While we prepared truth-clarification materials, he often helped us by cleaning the house or organizing things.
Not long after the new semester began, the student he fought with earlier asked him if he practiced Falun Dafa. My son asked him why. He said that he heard practicing Falun Dafa could make one smart and thus he wondered if my son's improvement was a result of his being a practitioner. My son was very excited about this and told us he would find ways to let more people know the facts. One day, we ran into his teacher, who said my son did well in class. This was the first time we heard such comments from the teacher. We knew this was the power of Dafa.
We've experienced many miraculous things in this past year. We also made progress through studying the Fa. By studying the Fa well, we believe that any issue can be resolved. It is just as Master taught in Essentials for Further Advancement II, “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.”
Above is my personal experience. Please point out anything inappropriate.
Thank you, Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners!