(Minghui.org) I am a veteran practitioner who has cultivated Falun Dafa for more than 20 years. With Master’s protection, I have been able to make steady progress.
When I first started to practice, I did not study the Fa much, but I gradually understood how precious it was and how rare it was to have an affinity and opportunity to cultivate in Dafa. I also came to a greater understanding of Master’s profound benevolence. It would not be an exaggeration to use joyful to describe my mood at that time. I did the exercises on time every day and squeezed in time to study the Fa. Before long, Master cleansed my body, and my skin became fair and smooth. A few of my friends saw the changes in me and also started cultivating.
After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to persecute Dafa in July 1999, the few practitioners that I knew gave up their cultivation out of fear. At that time, the cultivation environment was really difficult, but I was very steadfast. I remained firm in my belief in Master and Dafa, and I had no fear, so my heart never wavered. I cultivated alone at home. I later went to Tiananmen Square by myself to validate Dafa. I unfurled a banner and shouted out to clear Master’s name. I returned home in an open and upright manner. Through my years of cultivation, due to Master’s protection, my identity has never been disclosed to the CCP.
Back then, to clarify the truth to people, I bought a VCD player and took it on the bus to the homes of friends and relatives to play the video that explained the Tiananmen Square self-immolation hoax to them. They all understood and chose a wonderful future for themselves. Aside from that, I mainly distributed Dafa informational materials in residential buildings. I later spoke to people face-to-face to encourage them to quit the CCP and its youth organizations. I started with my neighbors. Because I had talked to them about Dafa before, it was easier for me to persuade them to quit the CCP. Most of them were willing to. I sometimes went out with fellow practitioners to a market where there were more people to talke to about Dafa and try to persuade them to quit the CCP. I was busy every day.
Another practitioner once asked me to clarify the truth to one of his relatives. His relative, a construction foreman, was a little arrogant. He said, “Let’s have a debate. If you are able to persuade me, I will be convinced.” I was not moved by his attitude and remained very calm. Dafa had given me wisdom.
First, I clarified the fundamental facts about Falun Dafa to awaken his compassionate side. I told him that Falun Dafa talks about Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance and that Master Li has asked us to be selfless and to consider others first in whatever we do. I then told him about the evil things that the CCP does. I said, “The CCP’s persecution of Falun Dafa is even worse than you know—they harvest Falun Dafa practitioners’ organs while they are still alive and sell the organs at exorbitant prices. When the Party is brought to justice, whoever has not quit the Party and its affiliated organizations will be implicated.”
He listened quietly and then said, “What you said makes sense.” Unfortunately, just then his wife told him they should leave and would not let him hear anything else. Despite this, I believe that I laid the foundation for him to accept the truth. Master will arrange for other practitioners to save him next time.
One day when I gave a man a calendar, he said, “If it is from Falun Dafa, I will take it. If it is from anyone else, I won’t. You see, I still can’t raise my arm.” I asked him what had happened and he replied, “I take care of the plants and trees along the highway. One of our trucks was ferrying tree branches and I was sitting on top of them. As the truck was speeding down the highway, I was thrown off. I knew that this accident was meant to take my life. Luckily, I’d learned about Dafa and had quit the CCP before that, so Master Li saved me. Otherwise, I would be dead now. I was only lightly injured, so I am so thankful to Master!” I was really happy for this person.
We discovered that people who have understood the truth about Falun Dafa usually look peaceful. When we mention Falun Dafa, joy and pride show in their faces, and they will smile and say, “We learned about Falun Dafa and quit the CCP long ago.” That gratitude for and excitement about Dafa from the bottom of their hearts is hard to forget.
I think the hardest part of cultivation is getting rid of attachments. The longer I cultivate, the more attachments I discover. From the Fa, I know that the more I cultivate toward the surface, the worse they get, but they also become weaker. However, when I cannot differentiate them from myself, I am troubled. I felt that I was not cultivating well, so that was why I could not get rid of those attachments. I always felt inferior and depressed. In actuality, this is caused by attachments, too.
Especially when I just could not get rid of my attachment to losing my temper. Every time I lost my temper, I would regret it, but I still couldn’t control myself the next time. I once even felt that it was impossible for me to overcome this test, and I lost my confidence in cultivation.
Master then gave me a hint in a dream. I was standing in the clouds, high in the sky, with a few other people. A thought told me that I was the third. I wondered how I was able to get so high and was very surprised. Then I started to drop down from where I stood until about in fifth place, just above someone who was carrying a school bag. The fact that he was carrying a school bag meant that he was burdened, which meant that he had many attachments. I dropped till I was below him. When I woke up, I knew that the thought of losing confidence was wrong, so I dropped in my cultivation level. Cultivators should get rid of attachments when we discover them. When our main consciousness is able to differentiate the attachments, we are actually cultivating. Therefore, it is a good thing for attachments to surface.
I realized that my habit of losing my temper was caused by the CCP culture I’d been brought up in, so I sent righteous thoughts to cleanse myself of that culture. One night, I had another vivid dream. I heard someone pasting something on the outside of my door. When I went to open the door, they held onto it and refused to let me pull it open. I forced the door open a little and saw that there were several people standing outside. I asked them what they were doing, and one of them replied, “Aren’t you a member of the CCP?” This meant that they were pasting the mark of the CCP on my door. Them they said, “You are not allowed to remove it!” I thought, “I will take it off when you leave.” After I woke up, I knew that this had happened because I had sent righteous thoughts to clear out the CCP culture, and the evil beings were scared. They did not want me to send righteous thoughts to get rid of them. I also understood why I did not say anything out loud to them, just to myself, was because, deep down, I still feared the CCP. That was why I did not dare to say it aloud.
One morning, I heard water dripping and discovered that water was dripping from a leaky tap and the flow was increasing. That made me recall that I had been thinking about a practitioner who’d been arrested. His house had been ransacked, and some of the equipment used for Dafa projects was confiscated. I’d felt that this practitioner’s xinxing was lacking, so I didn’t think he should participate in this project. Recalling this, I knew that this thought was wrong and that the leaky tap was a hint from Master. Master arranged the project that the practitioner had joined, so what right did I have to think that? I evaluated the good or bad of that practitioner’s xinxing based on my own notions, and my notions might not be aligned with the Fa. Even if that practitioner’s xinxing really wasn’t good, he could correct himself through Dafa. The confiscation of the equipment was not Master’s arrangement, it was the old forces’. Weren’t my thoughts standing on the side of the old forces?
I apologized to Master and admitted that I should not think like this. The tap immediately stopped dripping. Cultivation is a really serious matter.
When my daughter-in-law was in confinement after giving birth, I was refilling the powder for the printer when she called out that the baby had soiled its diaper. I thought that I should finish refilling the powder before helping with the baby so I wouldn’t have to wash my hands again—it was hard to wash the toner ink off my hands.
When I didn’t reply right away, daughter-in-law got angry and called for my son. She cried and made a fuss, saying that I did not care about her. I knew that I was in the wrong, so I apologized to her sincerely. She did not understand why I insisted on making the truth-clarification materials when she was still in confinement, so I told her that I had made an agreement with another practitioner who lives out of town and collects the materials at fixed times every week. If I did not get them made in time, he would waste a trip. My daughter-in-law was a reasonable person, so after hearing my explanation, she was no longer angry.
When my daughter-in-law was in confinement, I would wake up to help change the baby’s diaper every night before sending forth righteous thoughts. When I woke up in the morning, I would help change his diaper before doing the exercises. That way, my daughter-in-law could get more sleep.
One morning when the baby was a few months old, he couldn’t stop crying. My daughter-in-law was not happy about it and complained. I did not maintain my xinxing and chided her a little: “He’s still a baby. Every mother will go through this hardship.” She was not willing to listen and changed her clothes, preparing to leave. I shouted for my son to not let her go. The next day, I apologized to her and said, “Next time, I will definitely cultivate my speech and not scold you.” My daughter-in-law was very touched and said, “I was also in the wrong. My demon nature is so strong.” With that, we made peace.
My son later moved to a new house quite far away, which made it inconvenient for him to come home and eat. My daughter-in-law told me a few times that her neighbor kept asking her what her mother-in-law was doing at home, meaning why wasn’t I at their place making meals for them. I replied, “In the past, I made several meals for you every week. Now, because you live far away, you cannot come back for a meal. Have you forgotten about that?” She flew into a rage and led the child away. I thought that it was because I still did not do well. Wouldn’t everything have been fine if I had not said that? I kept regretting it after getting home. Perhaps my compassionate thought moved my daughter-in-law. She later apologized to me, saying, “Please don’t get angry. Your health is good and we don’t need to worry about you. With that, we are satisfied.”
As a cultivator, I know that I need to be on good terms with my family members. It is very difficult to handle everything well, but if I do not nurture those relationships, my family and relatives who have yet to cultivate will be affected, they will not be able to understand Dafa, and my behavior will ultimately negatively influence their perceptions of Dafa, affecting their being saved. If we are able to handle things well, we can validate Dafa and naturally clarify the truth. If we place too much emphasis on family relationships, that will definitely affect our doing the three things that a cultivator needs to do. I sometimes find it very difficult to handle all these relationships well.
However, no matter how hard it may be, the principle that I hold onto is that Dafa is the most important and that I must treat everything around me with compassion, which is what a cultivator should possess. I try my best to be as kind and righteous as possible to them, so that I have a clear conscience. If they are still not satisfied after that, I will treat the issue with righteous thoughts. I will not go along with their unreasonable requests without limit. If I did, they would disturb my cultivation and that would be a wrong deed. For so many years, my family and relatives have always gotten along well with me.
Recalling my cultivation path, every step of improvement was possible only because of Master’s benevolent protection and hints. No matter how far much further there is to go on my cultivation path, only by truly cultivating in a diligent and solid manner and doing well the three things that we should do can we be worthy of Master’s painstaking salvation.