(Clearwisdom.net)

1. One body, one thought

I began cultivating in Dafa in the beginning of 2003, thanks to a friend who gave me the Falun Gong book after attending a workshop to spread the Fa and clarify the truth in Brazil.

With the book in my hands, I returned home and started reading, and I remember that in the middle of Lunyu I had this thought, “I found Him again, I found my Master.”

After reading Falun Gong, I looked on the internet and got everything that was available online, and I kept practicing the exercises daily, looking at the video that I had also downloaded. In one month, I finished reading everything and one question came to me: “Should I send righteous thoughts or not? Can I do it?”

I looked again at how to do it in the lectures. Master answered some practitioners during a Fa conference encouraging them to do it. Immediately, I made a decision, “I don’t know what the others are doing, but I will cultivate to the very end of my path, even if I have to go alone.”

Forgive my foolishness about thinking of doing it alone; it took me four months to meet another practitioner, but at least it served to forge my determination. After two weeks sending righteous thoughts daily, I saw the following scene:

I was in a circle composed of practitioners, seated and looking inward, all dressed in kasaya. I looked up and saw circle after circle, one on top of the other, going indefinitely upward like a pillar or column with a splendid bright light at the end. Looking downward I saw that the column continued in the same way, circle after circle, but at the bottom was China.

The column had many gaps, some because of practitioners not sending righteous thoughts; some because they hadn't yet acquired the Fa. Over time, reviewing this scene, I understood why some of our efforts face so many problems, because even channeling our gong that way, a lot of it escapes through the gaps. We have to be together, as one body, with one thought, to save sentient beings.

2. Master has always been looking for us

Many times while studying the Fa, a part of my life would come to mind, and I would understand it from a different perspective. It was like Master speaking through the Fa telling me, “I was there, looking for you.”

Sometimes this reenacting of my life in a different light was so obvious. The following is a clear fact for me.

It was 1996, I was 16-17 years old, 7 years before I got the Fa. I was in high school, in a physics class. My physics teacher was a very lively and funny person who liked to teach principles of physics through stories. That day he was teaching about dimensions. This is his story:

“The first dimension is like a tube that has something inside, while you look in it with one eye. You can only see that there is something in front of you, and that you can move back and forth in a line. But one day, one person in this line was very tired of moving back and forth, and then he had the inspiration to look to the side. Soon after, people were asking, ‘Where did he go?’ Well, he moved to the second dimension, where he could move back and forth, and from one side to the other. He was really feeling very free, until he was surrounded and imprisoned in a square. Feeling it was unbearable having his freedom taken away, he started to question again how to get out of there. Suddenly, he had another inspiration, and he looked up. Soon, people who had stayed behind where asking again, ‘Where did he go? He disappeared.’ This time, he went to a third dimension; he could move back and forth, from one side to the other, and up and down. Yes, this is where we are.”

At this moment my teacher stopped for a brief moment, smiled and said, “If someone knows how to get out of here, please, come tell me.”

Immediately after, I heard in my mind, as clear as if someone were speaking to me, “Now, you have to look inside.”

I smiled back. I knew the answer, but only years later, when I began to practice Falun Dafa, would I really understand that there is nothing more to seek outside; that we have to cultivate our xinxing to return.

And how perfectly true is what Master said, “In fact, I treasure you more than you treasure yourselves.” (“Teaching the Fa at the Fa Conference in Australia”)

Master has always been looking out for us.


3. The moments we feel very burdened, Let us extend our hands as He extended his for us

After six months of cultivation, I and another practitioner researched how to print books and flyers inexpensively in a home setting. A few months later, I assumed the work and put it into motion.

So, before the official publication of the Portuguese version of Zhuan Falun in Brazil, I was responsible for printing the books Falun Gong and Zhuan Falun, as well as almost all the flyers and the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. I produced more than 2,600 books altogether, as well as 200,000 truth clarification flyers and dozens of Nine Commentaries.

It was very hard. I had two jobs, one to keep the machines running (I exhausted 14 printers over 4 years), the other to move forward with my life (this allowed me to save enough money to later work as full-time staff for one year at The Epoch Times in New York), combined with self-cultivation, university, taking care of practice sites 2 days a week, producing and mailing material to practitioners around the country. I simply don’t know how this was possible, other than knowing that Master was looking out for me.

I remember one day going to work in the morning after spending the night awake binding books. A pigeon flying above pooped on my shirt, exactly the day that I had a very important work meeting. Returning home exhausted, I decided to visit my girlfriend and her mother before going home. She was really mad with me, and she didn’t even know why when I asked her for the reason, so I decided not to tell her that I hadn’t eaten yet that day. I just breathed deeply and went back home. It was a bit late, but I decided to call another practitioner to share my day. When I concluded we were both laughing, and I told him, “My friend, if I were not cultivating… I don’t know.”

But I did not always take it lightly. Sometimes I could barely walk or breathe, I felt so burdened. On three occasions I felt particularly critical.

The first, I received a letter from a person that I had mailed copies of Zhuan Falun and Falun Gong to after she subscribed to our Falun Dafa website and asked for material. The letter, half the size of an ordinary postcard, said: “Thank you; I waited for this my whole life.” I caught my breath, raised my head, and thought, “I cannot stop, there are too many of them waiting.” Of course, I was just a conduit. She received the Fa because in her heart she was waiting for it, and Master never fails to answer such a call.

On a second occasion, I was walking to my workplace, head down, arms hanging, foggy-minded. I stopped by the crossing of the street, next to a tree, waiting for the cars to pass. It was so hot, not the slightest breeze, yet I felt the branch of the tree tapping my head very softly three times, like a friend caring for another, touching one’s shoulder. I said thanks to the tree, and followed ahead.

The third time, it came in a “dream”. I understood it as an answer to a crucial question for me at that moment. Throughout my cultivation every time I had a fundamental question, Master would indicate it to me, as he does for all of us. The question was, “Why am I so busy? Why am I always so busy?” This is what I saw:

I was on the prow of a large shining boat, helping person after person to board. Sometimes people were so tired that they could barely raise their arms, so I just grabbed the tip of their canoe and brought it on board with the person and everything. A long time later, feeling exhausted, I stopped to take a breath and elevated my head. I looked to the horizon and saw the dark ocean covered with individual canoes, an uncountable number, some of them were so far, with people all rowing toward the shining boat at different speeds and with different degrees of enthusiasm. I lowered my head again and continued to extend my hand, again and again…

I had many understandings about this “dream,” that the shining boat was the boat of the Fa, and that it also represented the future, one boat for all. The dark horizon was the sun setting on the old cosmos, constituted of selfishness, being left behind. I also realized that the people could not get on board except if we inside extended our hands to pull them in.

Now, whatever happens, no matter how hard it is, I remember to look to the horizon, and extend my hands.

So, let us extend our hands to others as Master has extended his for us.

(continued)

Part 2 is available at http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2011/4/25/124632.html