(Minghui.org) Continued from Part 1
Returning to Genuine, Diligent Cultivation
As soon as I returned to group practice and study, I tried my best to be diligent and to get back to my original state of enthusiasm. I also began to work on building a cultivation environment at home.
1. Breaking Out of Bondage
People used to envy my family. My husband and I were both senior officials in our corporations. We both had good incomes and lived comfortably. Our daughter was our pride and joy.
After the authorities started to persecute me, I lost my job, my husband became our sole financial support, and, before long, even good friends deserted us. However, we still maintained a front that everything was fine. Then, I strayed from Dafa.
Within three months after I returned home from the forced labor camp, misfortunes started to occur.
First, my 80-year-old father passed away. He had practiced Dafa for a while but stopped because of the persecution. He resumed when he found out he had lung cancer. He was slowly recovering until news got to him that I had been arrested and sent to a forced labor camp. He was grief-stricken. Within a year, he succumbed.
My husband, whom everybody used to regard as kind and even-tempered, would pick fights with me and seek revenge over the slightest provocation, especially when he was driving. I felt helpless to stop his destructive behavior.
Our daughter started spending an inordinate amount of time watching TV, surfing the web, and playing video games. Her fashion sense became strange and embarrassing. I felt helpless to stop her downward spiral. Eventually, she developed health problems.
The physical condition of our house was even worse: the porch roof started to leak, paint peeled off the walls, the floor cracked inexplicably, the water pipes froze, and cockroaches appeared from nowhere.
I was devastated. After some lengthy and in-depth Fa study, I realized that what was happening was closely connected to my cultivation state. If I wanted to find solutions to my problems, I had to first rectify myself within the Fa.
Sure enough, as my thoughts became more and more righteous, things began to improve.
2. Setting up a Fa Study Group at Home
Like many practitioners, I really want my family members to obtain the Fa.
My sister and I agreed to persuade our husbands to join our Fa study, listen to programs on traditional Chinese culture, and watch New Tang Dynasty television every day. Our goal was to have our husbands learn Dafa.
I then realized that pushing people, family members included, to practice Dafa is looking outward and a big attachment, something that we must remove.
My sister agreed. We stopped pushing.
When we changed, our husbands changed, too. Once reluctant, they started to respond to gentle cajoling and then became self-motivated, continuing a Fa study routine to this day.
My sister and I also started another weekly Fa study group with my mother-in-law and another practitioner. Together we overcame initial interference of sickness karma, personality conflicts, and disagreements over ideas and concepts.
3. Setting up a Material Production Site at Home
When I noticed how hard fellow practitioners work on producing truth clarification materials, I realized my own responsibility and calling. I wanted to set up a such a site at home myself.
When I had the desire, Master made arrangements for me to get to know two practitioners with technical skills. They helped me purchase the necessary equipment and taught me how to use them. I learned how to print, burn CDs, and obtain content online.
Before and after the equipment purchases, I was full of trepidation. I was afraid my husband would object to my spending the money, to having all this equipment at home, to my needing to spend an inordinate amount of time working on projects.
Through sharing with the group, I learned how a practitioner should always use righteous thoughts to overcome all true or imagined obstacles, and to believe that every Dafa task is a noble endeavor that nothing can or should interfere with.
I pushed my fear aside and righted my thoughts. Sure enough, my husband raised no objection at all. In fact, he ended up helping me whenever needed. In time, he has even taken over household chores so I can devote more time to Dafa work.
I realized cultivation is really very easy, provided we have strong righteous thoughts.
In the process of setting up a home material production site, I uncovered many human notions and attachments, passed many trials and tribulations, and learned to raise my xinxing. I also became clearer in my understanding of the Fa.
I was able to accomplish all of this with the help of fellow practitioners in the group environment.
4. Walking Hand in Hand with my Daughter on our Cultivation Path
My daughter was six when I first started Falun Gong cultivation. Although she did not do the exercises, she would often listen to Master’s lectures. Master also cleansed her body so that for ten years, from 1995 until 2005, the year I was persecuted, she enjoyed consistent good health.
One day at school, when I was in the labor camp, my daughter suddenly fainted and lost consciousness.
In 2007 after I was released, the authorities sent people to harass me at home. I was pressured to write a guarantee statement to renounce Falun Gong.
A week later, my daughter had another fainting spell. A doctor diagnosed her with epilepsy and prescribed medication that she had to take for the rest of her life. Unfortunately, that medication would also severely compromise her immune system.
I did not want her to take the medication, but my husband and my daughter insisted, so I gave in.
Two years later, my daughter suddenly decided the medication was causing her great discomfort, so she would not take it anymore.
Another three years went by. By that time, I had already been cultivating in a group environment for almost two years and had developed strong righteous thoughts.
So I said patiently to my daughter, “I know Master has been watching over you. Your sickness is merely an illusion. I think you should start practicing Falun Gong.”
My daughter readily agreed to join me for group Fa study and exercise.
When she came home the first time, she said she felt much better.
A month later, the day before group exercise and study, she had another seizure. This time, she understood that it was a test. She refused to go to the hospital and was determined to go on with her cultivation practice.
Shortly after that, our group sent righteous thoughts for half an hour, followed by an hour of meditation. On the way home, my daughter confided in me that she felt wonderful, as if she had taken a cool and refreshing shower after having sweated profusely.
My daughter now enjoys good health and is full of energy. She insists on doing her exercises early every morning. She listens to Master’s lectures in her car on the way to work. She goes to two Fa study groups with me every week. On the way home, we distribute and post materials about Dafa and the persecution.
We help each other to be diligent and to walk hand in hand on our separate cultivation paths.
5. Being an Integral Part of One Body with a Single Purpose
Master said, “The environment is created by you, yourselves, and it, too, is essential for your improvement.” (“Environment” in Essentials For Further Advancement)
I remember when I first started practicing Falun Gong, when I would go to the group practice site every day. I could actually feel the state I was in and knew that I improved very quickly.
Fellow practitioners also realized that to return to our original state, we need to get back to our original group practice environment.
So, we divided our big group into three smaller groups. We are physically separated, but our hearts and intentions are linked. We communicate in a timely fashion on the progress of our Fa study, sharing experiences, and helping newer groups and newer practitioners.
We now have five groups, from that of about a dozen practitioners to groups of two or three family members to groups consisting of neighbors. Some groups meet on fixed days and times, some don’t. We attend different groups once, twice, three times, or more every week.
We are of all ages and all levels–some new, some veteran–but all with one purpose: to be diligent, and help each other and always maintain our righteous thoughts.
This year, I have helped other practitioners purchase eight printers and four disk burners to set up their own material production sites at their homes. I know I was able to do all that because of the group environment that has improved my overall disposition.
I have been practicing Falun Gong for 18 years. Having fully integrated myself into the group environment for the past three years, I finally know I have found my original cultivation state!
Fellow practitioners, let us all build up our own group practice environment, assimilate to it, and quickly get back to our original cultivation state. Let’s make sure we are there to help each other so we can all follow Master home.
