(Minghui.org) I started cultivating Falun Dafa with my mother in 1995. During the past 20 years, I’ve experienced many twists and turns, but I never gave up.
I was still in elementary school when I obtained the Fa. Early in the morning, I used to follow my mother to the practice site. I stood next to her while she was doing the exercises. I would watch and copy the movements. If I saw someone with an incorrect movement, I would tell my mother hoping that she would correct them.
Since it was quite easy for me to do the double lotus position for the sitting meditation exercise, I was curious as to why my mother always had trouble doing it. She was only able to meditate with one leg crossed, and that leg was always elevated very high.
The standing meditation exercise was more of a challenge for me. I was always troubled by it. I had many attachments, and found it too tiring to persevere. Rather than admitting that I wanted to seek comfort and give up, I ran to the bathroom during the standing meditation, claiming that I had a stomachache.
I realized the importance of doing the standing meditation exercise for an hour when the new version of the exercise music was released in 2018. I also strengthened my notions about practicing the exercises after reading The Great Way of Spiritual Perfection. I made a breakthrough and was no longer “afraid” of the standing meditation so it became much easier.
When I was in sixth grade, I was assigned as a hallway sanitation monitor. No one liked this task in our school because there were basins for mucus and spit. People would spit in the basin and it was very dirty. My classmates would only rinse the basin, but not thoroughly clean it. As a result, the top of the basin was very moldy.
I would arrive at school very early, and clean the basin thoroughly. My hands were covered with frostbite since I used cold water. Dirtiness, weariness and hardships did not bother me at all. I worked on the basin until it was clean.
One day, a male classmate used all his effort to bring up lots of spit and mucus. He spat it on the edge of the basin on purpose then smirked at me. It did not bother me. I just wondered why he would do something like that.
I was constantly bullied in elementary school, but never took it to heart. I cared more for others than myself. People called me foolish, but it did not matter to me. Dafa gave me the strength and courage I needed.
When the persecution started in 1999, I was in middle school. During my second year in middle school, the other pupils joined the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) youth organizations. When I refused to join, my teacher asked me why. I simply said that I did not want to. In high school, the teachers urged me again to join the youth organization. I smiled and politely refused, so my teachers eventually stopped asking me.
During my years in high school, almost every relative in my family told me, “If you don’t give up Falun Gong, you will not get accepted into college.” My father, who does not practice, also tried to persuade me to give up cultivation before my National College Entrance Examination. He stopped once he saw that I was steadfast in my belief.
I graduated from college successfully, and my father benefited quite a lot from Dafa since my mother and I are cultivators. For nearly 20 years, I had not taken any medication, with one exception. When my mother was illegally detained, my father and my aunt, a doctor, forced me to take some medicine upon seeing me coughing for several days. That was the first time I took medication.
My father was well aware of my mother’s weak physical condition before cultivation and how her health improved with the practice, so he wasn’t against us cultivating Falun Dafa. Sometimes he would clarify the truth to our relatives, and explain how my mother never took any medicine during her 20 years of cultivation. My relatives all had doubts but my father verified everything.
When I was in junior high school, internet cafés became very popular. My father was not very well educated, so he thought very highly of going to internet cafés. He was very frugal and once he saved up enough money he insisted that I use it to go to internet cafés. I was shocked and told him that I would not go because the air was polluted by cigarettes, and people were constantly gaming. It was not a good place to be.
In middle school, my classmates said I was very easily amused. They would see me always smiling. In reality, I never let anything bother me. My mind would imagine all sorts of happy and silly things.
I did not mind the hardships, weariness and dirty tasks that I had to endure in middle school. One time I voluntarily switched bunkbeds with a classmate of mine because she couldn’t handle the bad odor coming from the bathroom.
During one year in college, my spirits were low and I was on the verge of an emotional breakdown. Why did that happen? Nothing major occurred, it was just little things that bothered me. However, my thoughts made me miserable. I did not realize it was thought karma.
I attempted to talk to my mother, and hoped she could help me. However, she did not seem to understand me and did not know how I truly felt. I wanted people to understand and appreciate me. My negative thoughts got stronger and stronger, and it made me very cold and detached.
One night I had trouble falling asleep. I had an extreme headache, and did not want to live. As soon as that thought occurred, I realized, “No! I am Master’s disciple, this is not what I want!” But, I still felt so helpless, and was about to suffer a breakdown any moment. I stared up into the skies and thought, “I am willing to give up everything I have and place myself completely in Master’s hands. I will do what Master says.” After having that thought, many bad substances were eliminated and I felt very light. I knew that Master eliminated my thought karma after seeing that I was very sincere. Later on in cultivation, I discovered what I felt was a form of jealously. Although I studied the Fa every day, many ordinary thoughts still existed in my mind, and they were hindering me from enlightening to the Fa.
After graduating from college and starting a job, I had more time to attend group Fa study. As a result, many problems in daily life were resolved by sharing with fellow practitioners. I had a deeper understanding of the two words “cultivation” and “practice.” If I got distracted when studying the Fa, I would get back on track immediately and eliminated those thoughts.
There was never a time when I did not follow the Dafa principles. Since I dealt with money at my workplace, I would never take anything that wasn’t mine. On the contrary, I spent more time giving than taking. Master said, “In this universe, there is a principle which says: “no loss, no gain.” To gain, one must lose.” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)
Ordinary people are attached to cellphones but I rarely use them. In order for me to be less exposed to cellphones, I bought myself a phone that did not connect to the internet, and a smartphone that did not have a SIM card. When the Minghui website published an article about not using applications like WeChat, I abided by it and helped more ordinary people understand the harm of using cellphones. I told them that cellphones are like “thieves stealing time from you”. When necessary, I would use my cellphone for important meetings or work purposes so my colleagues would not see me as abnormal.
Society nowadays is very complicated. To young adults, things like cohabitation, getting pregnant before marriage, and breaking promises are considered to be the new “normal”. I am able to distinguish good from bad and will constantly correct myself on my cultivation path.
A couple of months ago, I received a hardback version of Zhuan Falun. Upon seeing it, I was very excited since it was my first time having a hardback version. There were some Chinese characters that needed to be corrected. However, I felt apprehensive because the book looked very thick. How many pages could I correct in a day? Would it affect my studying the Fa?
This was a task for the divine and yet my mind was filled with negative thoughts. I stopped these thoughts immediately and began the task. When correcting the characters, one needs to be focused, concentrate, and be patient. No matter how busy I got, I corrected at least 10 pages a day. It took more than a month to correct all the characters.
I shared my experiences of correcting the characters with fellow practitioners, and gained further knowledge of the meaning of “solid cultivation”.
My celestial eye is not open, but I can sense things. A few years ago, when practitioners were letting people know about the persecution by distributing DVDs, my mother and I were on the way home. My sister started to yell and curse at my mother because we had been out distributing DVDs. Upon seeing this, I focused on my thoughts and said in my mind, “Stop being used by demons when you are talking.” (“Purge Demon-Nature” from Essentials For Further Advancement)
Almost immediately, my sister stopped and became quiet. My strong righteous thoughts that no one knew about, not even my mother, came into effect. I was amazed at the effect, and understood that Dafa practitioners have supernormal abilities.
Because of my attachments and emotions, I have not reached the level of other practitioners who always persist in doing truth clarification. I feel remorse. In the remaining time to come, I will raise my xinxing and be strict with myself, look inward, abide by Master’s requirements, and do well the three things. I will walk well this cultivation path, and be worthy of being called a “Dafa disciple”.