Illnesses Are Not Scary, But Drifting Away from Dafa Is

(Minghui.org) Falun Dafa practitioners may exhibit “sickness” symptoms during cultivation. I have witnessed three mindsets in dealing with “illnesses,” each with different results.

The first mindset is to firmly believe in Teacher (Master Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Dafa) and Dafa, and thus continue studying the Fa and maintaining strong righteous thoughts. The second is to waver in one’s belief and not study the Fa seriously. For such practitioners, instead of asking fellow practitioners to send forth righteous thoughts for them, they might take the sickness-like symptoms to be real, and treat themselves as an everyday person. The third mindset is to lose one’s diligence and righteous thoughts over time, thinking that Teacher no longer takes care of them. 

The following are examples of practitioners I know.

Quick Recovery Thanks to Firm Faith 

A sister-in-law of mine is 77 years old and started practicing Falun Dafa before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started the persecution in 1999. 

She began having issues last fall, and was unable to eat or drink. She was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. As her esophagus was blocked, the doctor suggested immediate surgery.

My sister-in-law thought, “I’m a Dafa disciple. All of these are illusions to test my belief in Dafa. I don’t need surgery. I want to go home.”

But her family insisted she stay in hospital and tried to arrange the surgery. She asked Teacher to help. Then she had high blood pressure and herpes all over her mouth, causing the surgery to keep being delayed.

In a dream, she saw her parents who had passed away. They asked her to go with them (leave the human world). 

“I won’t leave!” She told them, “I’m a Dafa disciple. My mission is to assist Teacher to rectify the Fa. I have not completed my mission yet, how can I leave?”

“If you don’t go with us,” they said, “We will kill you.”

She suddenly realized that these were evil beings disguising as her parents to deceive her. She sent forth righteous thoughts and immediately destroyed them.

My sister-in-law insisted on going home and the doctor agreed after two weeks. The doctor put a feeding tube into her stomach and advised her to come back for surgery after her condition improved. 

The first thing she did at home was to study the Fa. She said that besides taking in food (through the tube), sleeping, and going to the bathroom, she spent all her time studying the Fa, doing the exercises, and sending forth righteous thoughts. She also kept looking within for her gaps.

She found that this tribulation was due to her one thought. Her father passed away due to esophageal cancer. She said once that she didn’t want to have esophageal cancer when chatting with someone about her family health history.

A few months passed and my sister-in-law was fine. One day in March, she pulled out the stomach tube by accident when changing clothes. She realized immediately that it was time to take it out. She drank some of the thin paste that she’d been taking in through the feeding tube. Though she vomited some out, a fair amount still went in through her esophagus.

My sister-in-law survived this life-threatening test via her strong belief in Teacher and Dafa. 

Faith Wavered When Disconnecting from Dafa

Mr. Chen, 65, also started practicing Falun Dafa before 1999. But in the past few years, he rarely did the exercises, studied the Fa, or sent forth righteous thoughts, when his farm workload picked up.

He started feeling discomfort and coughing in early 2021. After several months, he started to cough up blood. He was worried and started to send forth righteous thoughts. 

Fellow practitioners urged him to study the Fa more. He said that he couldn’t get the meaning of Dafa when reading it – his mind was fully occupied with his discomfort and thoughts of how to resolve it. Later his family took him to the hospital. As he was no longer connected to Dafa, he followed everyday people’s thoughts to take medicines and I.V. injections, not treating himself as a cultivator any more. 

Don’t Ever Lose Faith in the Fa

Auntie Yang, nearly 90, also practiced Dafa before 1999. Because she was illiterate, other practitioners would read the Fa to her. She offered her home as an exercise site. Practitioners gathered there to do the exercises in the morning and to study the Fa in the evening. She even saw her home become a solemn and dignified temple.

However, her exercise site stopped after the CCP started persecuting Falun Dafa in 1999.

A few years ago, she experienced stroke-like symptoms. She then sat in a chair all day long afterward. She fell out of her chair last winter and had a big bump on her head. When her son carried her to bed, she sighed, “It’s not easy to live. Teacher does not look after me anymore!” 

Right after she said that, she saw a bright light in front of her and Teacher appeared, telling her that he had been looking after her all the time. 

The bump on her head disappeared the next morning.

Conclusion

Some Dafa practitioners, especially some elderly practitioners, didn’t have a solid understanding of the Fa. When they ran into “illnesses,” they didn’t know how to look within or improve through studying the Fa. Instead, they found excuses or complained, and some even stopped cultivating. 

That is not the right mentality. Let’s put down everyday people’s thoughts and study the Fa and do the exercises! If we keep our hearts on Dafa, Teacher will take care of us. He has always been looking after us.

Editor’s note: This article only represents the author’s understanding in their current cultivation state, meant for sharing among practitioners so that we can “Compare with one another in study, in cultivation.” (“Solid Cultivation,” Hong Yin)