(Minghui.org) My health began to deteriorate after I started working. No matter where I looked for treatments, it was in vain. A few colleagues practiced Falun Dafa, and told me about its amazing effects of healing illnesses and keeping fit. Thus, I decided to practice Falun Dafa.
Given Fa study, I gained some basic understanding concerning the meaning of cultivation. However, I obtained the Fa just before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started the persecution of Dafa in 1999, and did not have a solid understanding of the Fa. Therefore, under pressure, when the persecution began, I handed in a guarantee statement to stop practicing Dafa. After that, I went to different hospitals and received treatments. I also had to work, take care of household chores, and babysit my child every day. Life was rather bitter and tiring.
In the spring of 2000, I thought of returning to cultivation. I presumed that Master Li (Falun Dafa’s founder) didn’t want to give up on me, and called me back. I tossed away all my medicine and took out Zhuan Falun, the main book of Falun Dafa, that I hid in the past. At the moment I made this decision, I felt my every cell cheering. In addition, the illnesses that had tormented me for a while disappeared that afternoon.
After I returned to cultivation, I treasured the opportunity to cultivate even more. I studied the Fa diligently every day. Immersing in Dafa and Master’s immense compassion, I felt that I had improved very quickly. I could feel Master pushing me upward.
Master published several articles in 2000, to guide practitioners on their cultivation paths. I thought of going to Beijing. However, when I really wanted to take a step forward, it wasn’t easy. News of the CCP's cruelly persecuting practitioners was often heard on the news. To step forward to seek justice for Master and Dafa was a life-and-death trial for me. I wondered: Could I still come back home if I were to go? Even if I could, what if I lost my job? My child was only a baby and needed to be looked after. My husband was not a practitioner. I knew that he would divorce me because of my cultivating.
When Master saw my wish to validate the Fa, yet I lacked righteous thoughts and determination, He used other people’s words to enlighten me. Sometimes He used a dream to help build up my confidence and strengthen my righteous thoughts. I finally made up my mind to go to Beijing with other practitioners.
It happened to be that my husband would go on a business trip, and my in-laws would come to my home to help babysit my child. I knew Master made the arrangement for me, so I left home and boarded the train to Beijing. While reciting the Fa deep down inside, I got over my fear. Without thinking about my child and family, I only had a sense of pride for following Master to validate the Fa.
After arriving in Beijing, a few of us opened up the banners and shouted from our hearts, “Falun Dafa is good! Falun Dafa is a righteous Fa, Restore Master’s innocence!”
I was later illegally arrested by the Beijing police and held in a detention center. After being transferred to a few places, my family came to take me home.
Twenty years later, whenever I recall this experience, I feel gratitude toward Master. In that evil environment, I could let go of myself and make up my mind to go to Beijing to validate the Fa. At a Beijing detention center, I felt righteous, and talked to the guards and inmates about Falun Dafa; I could be fearless in that harsh environment, and follow fellow practitioners on a hunger strike to oppose the persecution. These actions were all empowered by Master.
Before that, in a dream, I always felt that I couldn’t catch the train. So I ended up seeing the train disappearing into the distance while I was still standing on the platform. Since I came back, in my dream, I got on the train while holding my child in my arm. I knew when I failed to get on the train, it was Master’s spurring me on and urging me.
Powerful thought karma and foreign messages from other dimensions played havoc with my mind after May 2018. The old forces targeted my attachments to fame, self-interest and sentimentality, throwing negative thoughts into my mind every day, creating all kinds of illusions. Any person or subject that I got in touch with, could be used to create interference for me. A sentence that a passerby said, or a display board that I happened to notice while walking on the road, could trigger all kinds of negative imaginations, which were all evil and unkind.
I didn’t dare browse the Minghui website, read the sections of “Entity Attachment”, “The Fear of Practice Going Wrong”, “How Practicing Provokes Evil” and “How the Mind Can Lead Astray” in Zhuan Falun, as it targeted me. The old forces made me feel that they were very powerful, and Master couldn’t destroy them at will.
Sometimes, I couldn’t fall asleep for a few nights in a row, yet I had to go to work just the same. At work, I had to keep dispelling and negating those negative thoughts and try my best to harmonize my family and working environment. Every day I felt my head was bloated, and I was muddle-headed. Often enough, I was in a state of fear and feeling uneasy.
A very strong negative thought came to my mind: If I were to continue to cultivate, I’d go down a deviant path and end up discrediting Dafa. This shocked me so much that a positive thought emerged: Dafa is so wonderful, I could never do that to Dafa.
Then some human thoughts emerged. If I couldn’t get over this tribulation, I’d pause for a while, and resume my cultivation after I got through this period of time. I was so tired and only wanted to call my cultivation off for now.
I had a dream that night, in which I stood inside an elevator that was going down very fast. It was as if it would never reach the bottom. I shouted, “Master, please help me!” Then I awoke. I understood that Master hinted that I had let Him down, and should never give up on cultivation.
I don’t know how many times I cried in front of Master’s portrait. When I felt that I had reached the end of my endurance, I begged for Master’s help. Master has looked after me at every moment to empower my righteous thoughts. When I had many evil thoughts popping up in my mind, I was very scared. I had a clear dialogue with a voice in my mind:
A voice asked, “Is this what you want?”
I replied, “No, it’s not.”
“If that’s the case,” it continued, “what are you afraid of?”
I became clear that it was Master telling me that none of those thoughts were mine, I shouldn’t be scared and should dispel them.
Every time when I couldn’t keep up any longer, Master’s words echoed in my mind,
“The worse you might feel, the closer you are to the turning point...” (The Second Talk, Zhuan Falun).
I looked inward, and in the past few years, I slacked off in my cultivation. I was dragged down by all kinds of attachments and couldn’t cultivate diligently. With one hand holding onto divinity, I couldn’t let go of humanness with the other. In some areas, I wasn’t even up to par with a regular person and couldn’t treat cultivation seriously. For a lot of issues, I couldn’t stand in the Fa and see myself as a practitioner, but rather messed around in Dafa and treated Master’s compassion as child’s play.
As a practitioner, I should do my best to do the three things well to follow the progress of Fa-rectification closely. However, I often couldn’t take the Fa in my heart during Fa study. Fundamentally, I couldn’t obtain the Fa because of that. I could barely finish all five sets of Dafa exercises, because of my strong attachment to comfort. Moreover, I slacked off in clarifying the facts these past few years, as I didn’t know the urgency and ended up wasting lots of time entertaining myself. I also didn’t pay enough attention in sending forth righteous thoughts. Consequently, there were a lot of demons nourishing in my dimensional field. Lastly, I was indoctrinated in CCP issues, which I failed to negate with my righteous thoughts.
By continually looking inward, Master hinted every time I didn’t do well and arranged for a practitioner to get me to participate in a Fa study group. For all these years, I had cultivated alone. Fear and many notions hindered me, therefore, I wasn’t willing to join a Fa study group. Thus, I lacked an environment of cultivating with other practitioners, which was also a reason why I couldn’t solidly cultivate for a long time.
Continually rectifying myself in cultivation, I gradually snapped out of my tribulations. Practitioners in the Fa study group were all very diligent, and I got to see my gap from them by looking at my shortcomings. I felt that I only began to cultivate diligently during the recent couple of years. Now I’m able to cultivate my every thought, let go of my attachments, put more time in cultivation, and work on the three things Master asks us to do.
Through this tribulation, I came to truly realize the importance of cultivation. Hence, I treasure my cultivation even more, as well as Master’s immense compassion.
Thank you, Master!