(Minghui.org) The 2024 Brazilian Falun Dafa Cultivation Experience Sharing Conference was held at the Transamérica Executive Perdizes in São Paulo on October 27. Practitioners from across Brazil attended the conference.
Fourteen practitioners talked about their journey of practicing Falun Dafa in their daily lives, and how they continued to improve their character while participating in projects to introduce Falun Dafa and raise awareness of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution. They also discussed how they apply the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.
Practitioners talk about their cultivation experiences.
Maintaining Faith and Positivity in Facing Challenges
Odete is a 71-year-old practitioner from Porto Alegre in the south of Brazil. She described how she was able to maintain her faith in Falun Dafa and Master when her knee was injured.
Odete enjoyed walking long distances. However, one day when she was walking down a stairway, she felt a severe pain in her knee and couldn’t put her foot down. Days passed, but the pain did not go away. At one point she had to stay in bed for 5 days. She studied the Fa every day and as the days went by, reminded herself to stay positive and not become depressed.
“I should treat myself as a Dafa disciple, remain confident and everything will work out,” she thought. On the sixth day, she woke up and realized that everything had passed. “The pain was almost gone. Surprised, I moved my leg because I was in disbelief and the pain was reduced a lot. After four or five more days I was able to walk again.” She attributed her quick recovery to Master.
Realizing the Dangers of Resentment
Rula talked about her experiences while volunteering during the 2024 Shen Yun season in Brazil. She realized that to some degree, the practitioners in Brazil were all nurturing resentment and blaming each other during the various activities related to the promotion of Shen Yun. These negative thoughts, she believes, formed bad substances that caused friction in their work.
“Even if the old forces are interfering, the bad stuff we may be producing makes their interference possible. If this is indeed the case, then it really is time to stop blaming each other. The negative effects that this kind of negative thinking has on the Fa-rectification process has already been widely addressed by practitioners in China,” said Rula.
She believes that in the aftermath of the difficulties during the Brazilian leg of the Shen Yun tour, and the impact it had on the salvation of beings, each Brazilian practitioner should look inward, identify their own faults, and correct them through cultivation. She added, “I think that’s what Master expects of us. May we strive more and more to help Shen Yun save all beings and clarify the truth to those we meet in our daily lives, in order to live up to the hopes Master has for each of us.”
Understandings on Looking Inward
Peng talked about the importance of looking within. He said that it’s important because it should be the practitioners’ first reaction, no matter the circumstance. He believes that even though a cultivator may have done his best, he can still identify several aspects or specific situations where he can improve. “I think it’s very unlikely a practitioner believes that there is no room for xinxing improvement. Perhaps thinking like this is a sign of urgency to look a little inwards,” he said.
Peng also talked about resentment. He believes even though a person can do something with the best of intentions, without any selfishness, and with benevolence, if the party receiving the message isn’t willing to look inward and consider that the other person might be right to some degree, a gap has already opened up for bad feelings to grow. Among them, resentment is perhaps one of the most damaging, because it can generate aggressive responses. This fact can serve as a trigger to grow other attachments, causing a vicious cycle in which the parties start to focus solely on proving a point.
In Peng’s opinion, there is a simple way to avoid creating this vicious cycle: “Looking at others as our mirrors.” “In other words, I try to look at all the bad, annoying or inconvenient things I see in other people as if they were reflections of myself; when I really manage to do this, with a calm mind and I’m aware of the standards necessary for a cultivator, I can usually quickly identify a huge list of deficiencies that are in me and that have caused me to be annoyed by what I’ve seen in others. By doing this, I can start to see the best in others and continue to cooperate and do the job well,” he said.
A Rewarding Conference
Group photo of practitioners who attended the conference
The practitioners said that by listening to other practitioners’ experiences, they learned about looking inward to improve their xinxing when facing conflicts in the ordinary human environment. Gisele said that she realized many practitioners are facing tribulations in their cultivation practice but continue to persevere, owing to the fact that they all share the same guidance from Master’s teachings.
At the end of the conference, the attendees took a group photo to express their gratitude to Master for his great compassion.
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