(Minghui.org) I am a 79-year-old Falun Gong practitioner. After the persecution began in 1999, I proactively participated in efforts to clarify the facts about Falun Gong. I study the Fa, do the exercises, send forth righteous thoughts, hand out Falun Gong informational materials and persuade people to quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations. Even though I have been persecuted, with Master looking after me, I survived all the hardships and have gradually become more mature.
I used to just read the Fa but not focus on what I was reading. Sometimes I did not understand the literal meaning of the words, let alone the deeper meanings. I finally understood that this was the reason I was frequently persecuted and interfered with. I began paying more attention to understanding the Fa.
I kept in mind the section in Lecture Six of Zhuan Falun: “Your Main Consciousness Should Dominate.” But I was interfered with and had trouble sleeping. Beings in other dimensions tried to hinder me from stepping forward to clarify the facts about Falun Gong and the persecution of its practitioners.
Whenever I was interfered with, fellow practitioners sent forth righteous thoughts for me and studied the Fa with me. Eventually, I pulled through the tribulation. But, I was still not able to fully understand what was going on.
Recently I suddenly understood the meaning of a paragraph of Master’s Fa,
“When one begins to practice cultivation in a righteous way, one must eliminate one’s karma. Eliminating karma means having karma wiped out and transformed. Of course, karma will resist, and so one will have tribulations and obstacles. But thought karma can directly interfere with one’s mind. Therefore, one’s mind has swear words that condemn Teacher and Dafa, and one may think of some evil thoughts or swear words. As a result, some practitioners do not know what is going on and think that these thoughts come from themselves. Some people also believe that they are from possessing spirits or animals, but they are not from possession by spirits or animals. Rather, they result from the reflection of thought karma on one’s mind.” (Zhuan Falun)
Even though I was able to recite Master's teachings, I never compared my thoughts and actions with the Fa. I now truly understood what Master is teaching us. I realized that my main consciousness was not in charge, and I was being controlled by my thought karma and other negative things.
I decided to follow Master’s teaching. I realized I needed to remove and resist these negative things with very strong righteous thoughts, and overcome them. I firmly believed that if I was determined, the karma would be eliminated.
I decided to improve the quality of my Fa study, in order to deepen my understanding of the Fa.
Because I was persecuted several times, I had grown to hate the police. Through continuous Fa study, my compassion emerged and I stopped hating them. Master teaches us,
“A benevolent person always has a heart of compassion.With no discontentment or hatred, he takes hardship as joy.”(“Realm” from Essentials for Further Advancement)
Afterwards, I noticed that when I talked to people about Falun Gong, my compassion moved them, and they changed their attitude towards it.
I met an officer from our city's police department one day who was very active in persecuting practitioners. He beat many of my fellow practitioners, verbally abused me, took me to a labor camp, and ransacked my home. I used to really dislike him, but this time I was very friendly.
I touched his shoulder and asked, “Did you read the letters I sent? You used to beat us up and verbally abuse us, but we don’t hate you. We understand that you were following orders, but we wish to save you!”
He smiled at me and left without a word. In the past he was very nasty and arrested us. Since I no longer hated him, he was nice to me in return.
A few days later, I saw him again on my way to talk to people about the persecution. When he saw me, he smiled and asked me what I was up to. I just told him that I was shopping. He smiled, said that he knew what I was up to and walked away.
I realized that Falun Gong disciples’ compassion can wake up more people, including those who used to persecute us. I will try my best to become more compassionate and help more people understand the facts about Falun Gong.