(Minghui.org) I was born into a family of Falun Dafa practitioners, as my parents cultivate in Dafa. Immersed in Dafa’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, I grew up very happily. My academic results were very good and I was always willing to help others. The teachers and parents liked me very much, and my fellow classmates wanted to be friends with me.
My thoughts were gradually influenced by this materialistic society, however. When I was young, I learned to play online games. When I was in primary school, I did not have a computer, and my parents did not allow me to play games, so I played computer games at home secretly. Coming into contact with the Internet was unavoidable since I was playing online games.
Therefore, over time, I learned to search for anything that interested me on the Internet. I gradually started to read online novels and watch video games. There were many times when I knew that I was not doing the correct thing, but I was addicted. I gradually started to play online games, and read online novels. I naturally tried to hide this from my parents.
When I was in junior high school, I had my own tablet and smartphone. This made it easier for me to go online. I sometimes chatted with someone on QQ late into the night, or I would read online novels until dawn. My thoughts were being polluted. It was just that the effects were not yet that visible.
When in junior high school, I experienced two dangerous incidents due to my addiction to the Internet. The first was when I had read online novels until dawn, and thought that I could just catch up on my sleep after that. However, when I lay down,my body could not move, and I was losing consciousness. Therefore, I immediately used all my strength to shout, “Falun Dafa is good! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good!” Although I was using all my strength to shout, I could hardly make any sound. However, after shouting for a while I started to recover my senses.
The other was on a morning when I reached for my tablet to start watching game videos while I was half asleep. As I watched the videos, I started to feel that my body was not able to move again. I quickly begged Master in my heart to save me. After thinking like that for a while, my body suddenly started to relax, and everything returned back to normal.
This experience made me realize how solemn and precious cultivation is. I also experienced Master’s benevolence and Dafa’s powers. I therefore deleted all the entertainment software from my tablet and decided to cultivate from then on. During that week, my cultivation state was quite good, as my cultivation, learning, and everyday life improved quite a lot. I also felt the goodness when my cultivation state improved.
Once the weekend came, however, whenever I had some time off, I went online to find things that interested me. My addiction kept me in its thrall. Thus, my cultivation state returned back to the state before that week. I was not able to let go of the Internet during my junior year in high school. Deleting the game from my tablet many times was not effective.
In senior high school, the interference from the negative content that I had come across during my surfing the web was becoming more and more obvious. At that time, it had become a habit for me to play online games and watch interesting videos online every day, and these habits were affecting my studies.
When I was in my first year of senior high school, I felt lightheaded and had a headache after playing online games for a long time. I thus no longer felt like playing. I uninstalled the games and decided to truly quit online gaming. My grades improved. However, I knew that if I did not persist in following the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, I would not be able to maintain a better cultivation state.
My cultivation state was the worst when I was in the second year of senior high school. When the pressure from my studies piled up and I could no longer complete the assignments, I indulged myself in the Internet. This allowed all the bad content that was stored in me previously to interfere with me. I often felt sleepy in class and could not listen fully to what the teachers were teaching. I was also slow in doing my homework because I felt sleepy.
I watched online videos during the weekend for a few hours, and lost energy whenever I tried to do anything else. Not only did my academic results take a deep dip, I felt that I had a problem communicating with people. I sometimes even felt that I did not know how to communicate with others.
The things that I had come across online filled my mind, and some very negative content directly affected my understanding of the outside world. I often felt very depressed and was in agony. I also treated my grandfather and grandmother coldly, and did irrational things.
That was a very depressing period, and I became more and more agitated. My parents did not know why was I in such a bad state, and I did not dare tell them about the things that I had done.
In the second half semester of my second year in senior high school, my parents changed schools for me and my academic workload was reduced a little. My mother spent a lot of effort trying to help me become more diligent in my cultivation.
Not only did she read Zhuan Falun with me, she even found many experience-sharing recordings from practitioners on Minghui Radio. I listened to many very good cultivation sharings. The high-level behavior and mentality that these practitioners displayed through assimilating to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance touched me deeply. At that time, I was not able to understand much about the Fa, thus these practitioners’ experience-sharing about their understanding of the Fa inspired me and helped me a lot.
I then even listened to the special program “Recalling Master’s Grace,” and was very touched by the dangers and difficulties that Master faced when he was spreading the Fa, as well as the miraculous incidents that brought goodness to people along the way. I sometimes could not help but cry, and blushed with shame for being in such a bad state at that time.
Despite the interference in my mind, I also needed to expand a lot of effort to study Zhuan Falun. It took me half an hour to read two pages. My behavior was still affected by my attachment to the Internet, but I was able to lead a more fulfilling life, and I no longer felt that interested in the Internet programs I used to watch.
My cultivation state started to improve and my mind was no longer so cluttered. My mood subsequently improved, and my academic results also improved significantly.
Practitioners sometimes reflected in their experience sharings on how they did not follow the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. This prompted me to look deep within to find the negative thoughts and opinions that I had, and eliminate them, so that I could keep improving my xinxing.
I decided to list everything I had done that violated the Dafa principles since I was small, and show it to my parents so that I could take a further step to fundamentally get rid of all that was not within the Fa.
However, it took me two months before I finally had the courage to start writing. During the process, I kept reinforcing my understanding about this matter and treated it as a chance to cultivate “Truthfulness” and be determined to eliminate all the bad habits in my behavior that I had accumulated over these years. I finally had the courage, wrote all of it down, and gave the list to my parents.
My parents were very shocked, but my mother was glad that I took that step, was willing to cultivate, and abide by the requirements of the Fa voluntarily. Master has been looking after and guiding me throughout this process, and my cultivation state has improved greatly.
As my cultivation state started to improve, my mind got cleansed by the Fa principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. The thoughts that interfered with me disappeared, and my learning speed improved a lot. I started to look within, and used the Fa principles to guide me.
I now realize the preciousness of Dafa, and have experienced the change for the better – physically and mentally – when I abide by the principles of Dafa and cultivate myself. I know that I need to be responsible to myself. I really and truly benefit from Dafa.
In this modern society, there are many people my age that are trapped in their desires for computers, cell phones, and the Internet. Many of them want to be rid of these traps, but find it difficult. I hope that my experience can help young people of my age see the greatness of Dafa.