(Minghui.org) I began practicing Falun Dafa in 1996 when I was quite young. I’m now middle-aged and as I look back on my cultivation journey, I feel so fortunate to have had the guidance of Dafa as I grew up. I’d like to tell you about some of my experiences and express my deep gratitude to Falun Dafa.
My family believed in the divine, and my parents are very simple and honest. They lived through the Cultural Revolution and were among those hundreds of thousands of youngsters sent to the countryside under Chairman Mao’s directive. My parents hated the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) because the best years of their lives were wasted. They doted on me as the only child in the family, but they were also very strict with me in terms of morality. They taught me to be a good person according to the traditional values of benevolence, justice, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness.
When I was a child, each time I did something wrong, I was immediately reprimanded. When I lied, my parents pointed it out. The first time I didn’t do my homework, I was called out by the teacher during class, and I felt embarrassed and ashamed. All these experiences made me feel as though someone high above was watching over me.
My father often chatted with me about things that made me think. For example, he said, “Modern science claims that exercise can lead to fitness and longevity, but why do tortoises live so long even though they don’t move much?” I also asked him a question, “The few major faiths in the world all originated in countries with ancient cultures, so there must be more faiths in ancient China aside from Confucianism and Taoism. China has five thousand years of civilization, would there have been a great faith that emerged in this long history?”
Around this time I happened to see a symbol carved on a classmate’s desk. I thought it was very mysterious and interesting, so I copied the symbol a number of times in my notebook. When I got home, I asked my father what the symbol meant. He told me that it was a swastika, an ancient spiritual symbol.
One day, my father handed me a book and said, “Take a look at this. No book has ever explained things so profoundly.” The book was Zhuan Falun, and when I opened the book, I immediately saw a big swastika, the Falun Dafa emblem. This is how my father and I began practicing Falun Dafa.
Soon after we took up the practice, the bone spurs on my father’s knees disappeared. As a child, I was always afraid of the dark and didn’t dare walk alone at night or sleep by myself. After I read Zhuan Falun, my fear of darkness was gone.
I read Zhuan Falun every day, even though I didn’t practice the exercises. I was a new high school student at that time, and there were always people at the school gate checking to ensure we were wearing the Communist Youth League badge. I always proudly wore a Falun Dafa pin instead.
The CCP started to persecute Falun Dafa in July 1999. When we saw the self-immolation hoax at Tiananmen Square broadcast on TV in early 2001, my father and I could immediately tell that those involved were not real Falun Dafa practitioners. At first we thought the government-run media reported the incident but did not investigate it. Soon afterwards, the CCP’s slanderous propaganda against Falun Dafa intensified in the media, and our relatives stopped communicating with my father for fear of being implicated. I had just started attending one of the leading senior high schools at that time, and due to a heavy study load, I did not read the Fa.
After I became a university student, I was really shocked to see the unhealthy trends on campus and felt that I was being dragged down along with them. When I went home on vacation, my father handed me the book Zhuan Falun again. This time, I truly felt the preciousness of the book and thought that only Dafa could prevent me from being polluted by China’s immoral society. I decided to practice Falun Dafa despite the persecution.
Because it wasn’t safe to carry Dafa books on trains in China, I downloaded Master’s Fa lectures on a MP3, and listened to them in my dorm every day. I conducted myself by the Fa’s principles and tried to be a truly good person.
I fetched hot water for my roommates every day, and never paid any attention to personal loss or gain. I never gossiped or spread rumors, and people felt comfortable talking with me about their problems. In our first final exam, I ranked first in the entire department.
In my second year, our department had quotas to study abroad and I signed up. However, my name was not on the list of those chosen, and everyone was surprised. I later learned that I was replaced by a student with the lowest score in the department as a result of bribery.
My mother and our relatives felt very angry when they heard this, and some said, “We also have connections, and we should fight back.” I remained calm and unaffected because I remembered what Master said in Zhuan Falun,
“We believe in letting things happen naturally. We know that we won’t bedeprived of what is rightfully ours, and shouldn’t labor to get what is not.”(Lecture Seven, Zhuan Falun)
I thought the opportunity might not be rightfully mine. In fact, something similar happened before during the previous vacation. I was selected to be one of the representatives of our university to attend an event in Beijing, so I was asked to get back to the university earlier than usual. However, just as I got on the train to leave for the university, I received a phone call informing me that there was a change and I no longer needed to participate in the activity. I learned later that I was replaced by someone else. I realized this was a xinxing test for me. I didn’t complain and I remained unmoved.
My head teacher felt rather embarrassed that this happened to me twice, and she didn’t know how to explain the situation. After she heard how I handled both incidents, she felt relieved and very touched, and praised me in class for not being attached to personal loss or gain. A classmate told me, “Everyone says you have a shining reputation.”
In the past, I was passive about the persecution of Falun Dafa, but later I understood that clarifying the truth to people was resisting the persecution, and helping people to stop doing bad things was also an act of kindness. I didn’t have any truth-clarification materials at the time, so I just talked to people. Thanks to my good reputation, many of my classmates trusted me and quit the CCP organizations they joined.
When I went home for vacation, I read a lot of articles on the Minghui website, and learned that some practitioners wrote messages on banknotes as a way to spread the truth. I also made truth-clarifying banknotes after I returned to university and did my best to tell people about the persecution.
One incident helped me gain a deeper understanding about what it means to ‘be a truly good person’. Because Dafa opened my wisdom, I was always able to achieve twice the result with half the effort in my studies, and was always one of the top students.
Cheating is common in schools in China. Because I always had good test scores, some classmates begged me to allow them to sit behind me because they didn’t want to fail exams. At that time, students could choose where they sat during exams. Once a classmate asked to sit behind me and said that I didn’t need to do anything. He said that he had good eyesight and would pass the exam by copying my answers. I agreed out of sympathy for him.
However, the next semester, four or five classmates wanted to book a seat behind me in advance of exams. I realized that what I thought was being “nice” to my classmate earlier was actually “preventing” him from studying hard to get good results and encouraging him and others to cheat. What I did was against the principle of truthfulness. However, many people nowadays think that “you are a good person if you are kind to me,” and the reason I didn’t decline my classmate’s request was because I didn’t want to offend him. I should measure my conduct by the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance instead of by what everyday people might say about me. With this understanding, I took a step forward and rectified my wrong thoughts. The incident helped me let go of attachments to saving face and my concern about what others thought of me.
In my third year, I signed up again to study abroad. This time, my name was on the chosen name list. In the last month before I traveled overseas, my university called me and said that my application for an overseas scholarship was approved. I was amazed, because I didn’t apply for a scholarship, and no one from our department in the previous year received one. I thought in my heart that Master was looking after me.
I didn’t lose anything when I was replaced by others in the past. On the contrary, I was offered opportunities to improve my xinxing, which is of the utmost importance.
After living overseas, I felt for the first time what it meant by being free. I no longer had to show my ID card when I went out to do something. The public security was good, there were no food safety issues, and people were friendly.
I contacted local Falun Dafa practitioners and participated in a parade to celebrate the “World Falun Dafa Day.” Then, I joined others collecting signatures on a petition in front of the local Chinese Consulate.
I thought that I had no excuse not to be diligent in an environment free of the CCP’s persecution. At that time, the CCP’s atrocities of organ harvesting had just begun to be exposed to the public. I felt very concerned and wanted to put all my energy into stopping the persecution, especially when I thought I didn’t do much back in China when the persecution was the most severe. Instead, I was busy running around doing everyday things, and neglected my responsibilities as a practitioner.
My mind was preoccupied with activities to end the persecution, and as for my own life, I thought it was enough just to get by. Such extreme ways of doing things often made me find myself struggling to make ends meet. Ordinary people tend to judge others by their level of education and financial conditions. I’m a Dafa practitioner, what impression would I leave with people if I settled for a life of poverty?
I realized I was going to extremes in my conduct. I thought: Dafa is all encompassing. If I can live a stable life, that is also validating the Fa. So, I resumed my studies and landed a good job after I graduated. I was able to meet predestined people at work, and I was able to clarify the truth to them.
When I was a child, my parents were always worried that I would be spoiled and unable to endure hardship. They talked about sending me to the countryside where I would experience life’s difficulties. I couldn’t understand why people had to suffer hardships, and thought: I’m happy with my life. Why do I have to look for hardships? After I started practicing Dafa, however, I understood why people suffer and I no longer objected to suffering.
In the early days after I came overseas, I had no one to rely on, and was very busy with studies, while doing odd jobs to make ends meet. I spent almost all my days off outside the Chinese Consulate, distributing truth-clarification materials to passers by. For a year, I felt I never had a day off. While petitioning in front of the Chinese Consulate, I experienced all kinds of weather. In winter, my hands and feet were so cold that they were numb, but I never took it as hardship because it was nothing compared with the suffering of fellow practitioners back in China. Each time I felt any physical pain and discomfort, I recited Master’s poem “Righteous Thoughts and Righteous Action” in Hong Yin II to strengthen my righteous thoughts,
“A Great Enlightened One fears no hardshipHaving forged an adamantine willFree of attachment to living or dyingHe walks the path of Fa-rectificationconfident and poised”(“Righteous Thoughts and Righteous Actions,” Hong Yin II)
In the early days, when we stood in front of the Chinese Consulate, the police weren’t very friendly and the environment wasn’t good. The weather was also often bad. After a few years I was often the only practitioner. It was a big test for me. I thought: Why do I keep coming here? Should I still come if no one else does? I also reminded myself not to complain about others. In the end, I decided to keep coming and do even better.
By then, I improved a lot in terms of English proficiency and my understanding of the local culture. I realized that my notions: “The police are not friendly, and they don’t want us to be here” actually formed a wall between us. Looking within, I realized that they behaved this way because we hadn’t thoroughly clarified the truth to them, and they also needed to be saved.
I noticed that each time I went there, there were four or five police on duty, and it seemed a group of them took turns. So there were actually quite a number of them in total. Isn’t it due to a predestined relationship that we meet them here?!
After I had this understanding, I started to change myself. Each time I arrived, I first went to the police booth at the entrance of the consulate and politely greeted them. I explained that I’m a Falun Dafa practitioner and I would be petitioning in front of the consulate that day. When it was the anniversary of the April 25th appeal or July 20th, the day when the persecution started, I explained why Falun Dafa practitioners across the world petitioned in front of Chinese Consulates on those day, and I gave them materials to read. When I finished for the day, I said goodbye to them. They became very polite and friendly towards me, and often reminded me to keep warm so that I wouldn’t catch cold.
In the past, we hung banners on the wall behind us. The police told us not do that, and we should hold the banners in our hands. Later, when I was on my own, I hung the banners on the wall, and the police did not tell me to take them down. They seemed to trust me and were very relaxed with what I was doing. One night, it was very cold and the officers on duty went inside the booth to keep warm. I was alone outside, sitting under the streetlights with my Dafa banners, surrounded by piles of snow. Of course I knew that Master was right by my side.
In addition to security police on duty, there were also local police. Each time a new officer in charge came, he/she would arrive fairly early. Sometimes I asked them if they knew what happened on July 20. Some of them would say, “I know, because I’ve done my homework.” I always made sure that they learned the truth.
One young female police officer said she wanted to know more about Falun Dafa, so other police introduced her to me. Over time, a mutual trust was developed between the police and me.
Apart from clarifying the truth about the persecution, I also shared in simple language how I benefited from Dafa cultivation in my daily life and work. The young female police officer also browsed the Epoch Times and Minghui.org websites, and learned about the situation in China. She was promoted rapidly and she is now the youngest officer of her rank at the police headquarters.
After I started to join the petition in front of the Chinese Consulate, the other practitioners told me that I might not be able to go back to China. I also felt that I could do much more in a free environment overseas, so I decided not to return to China. When I told my parents they did not object. My mother told me that she cried all night, but she still supported my decision.
My mother came overseas to visit me in 2009, and I was so happy to see her. My mother had health issues some due to living in the harsh environment in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. Coupled with stomach cramps and high blood pressure, she had blood in her urine sometimes and had to stay warm. I bought a blood pressure monitor so that she could monitor her health.
One day, my mother started to feel a bit unwell after dinner, and she was having stomach cramps again. Back home, each time it happened, she would suffer extreme pain and could only fall asleep after an injection to stop the pain. But she was overseas now as a visitor with no medical insurance, and it was in the evening. I suggested that she recite, “Falun Dafa is good, and Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” My mother nodded her head in agreement. After a while, her pain seemed to lessen, and we both fell asleep.
When we got up the next morning, my mother said, “After I went to sleep last night, there was a big round thing spinning in front of my chest. It was very powerful, and I was pulled to sit up.”
I said excitedly, “Mom, it must have been a Falun adjusting your body. You will definitely be fine!”
My mother was overwhelmed with joy. I took out the blood pressure monitor and checked her blood pressure. The reading was a perfect 120/80 mmHg. She was totally amazed by what happened. I checked my own blood pressure just to assure my mother that the reading was accurate and there was nothing wrong with the monitor. Since then, my mother’s stomach cramps and high blood pressure disappeared. When she began to do the Falun Dafa exercises she frequently saw colorful Falun shining with a golden brilliance. Just like that, my mother also became a Dafa practitioner.
It has been 28 years since I obtained the Fa. I feel that I’m most fortunate to have come across Dafa in my lifetime. Looking back on the journey I traveled, I can see improvements, as well as many shortcomings and regrets. In the past, I often felt depressed when I didn’t do well and I lost confidence. As a result, these negative feelings blocked me from being diligent. After I realized the problem, I got rid of my negative attitude. I now understand that when I didn’t do well in the past, it was because of my low cultivation level. Now I can clearly see my shortcomings and gaps, and I know this is because I improved and elevated in cultivation. I’m determined to make full use of the remaining time to do the three things well, and fulfill the vow I made long ago.