(Minghui.org) I wrote this article about my cultivation experiences over the past few years, and I hope they provide some reference for other practitioners.
My husband had an affair while I was imprisoned for practicing Falun Dafa. I learned about it after I was released in 2020. This news filled me with resentment, and I was often angry with him. He retaliated by accusing me of having a mental illness. He not only said this to me at home, but also said it in front of our relatives and neighbors. The more he said this, the angrier I became. I was determined to fight him and my attachment to competitiveness grew.
A neighboring villager had a daughter in her early twenties. She was a young and charming college student, and everyone in the village praised her beauty. However, it wasn’t long before I started hearing her yell and scream, both day and night. Her voice was so loud that the entire village could hear her. My mother also lived nearby, and one day when I visited her she said, “That child developed a mental illness while she was at school. What a pity! She’s so beautiful!” My mother told me that her family consulted numerous fortune-tellers and shamans, but no one could help her. Eventually, the girl’s mother said they felt they had no choice but to move away. At the time, I didn’t think much of it, nor did I think about how it was related to me.
A practitioner came to my home to practice the Falun Dafa exercises with me. My husband opened the window while we were doing the second exercise and the sounds of the girl’s screams filled the air, followed by a swarm of flying insects. Unable to endure the noise any longer the other practitioner stopped and said, “I cannot practice anymore! It’s so noisy, I can’t concentrate!” But I didn’t move. I remembered what Master said:
“Throughout history the Tao School has considered the human body a small universe: It believes that the exterior of the universe is as immense as its interior, and that its exterior looks the same as its interior.” (Lecture Eight, Zhuan Falun)
I realized that what happened outside was a reflection of my inner self. I began to wonder whether other people’s behavior was also a reflection of my inner state. I seriously thought about this and I looked inward to identify my own attachments.
When I heard the girl shout, “Bow to Heaven and Earth,” I recalled that this phrase was used during traditional Chinese weddings. I wondered what the corresponding human attachment was. After thinking further, I thought this was related to the marriage of husband and wife, which led me to acknowledge my own lustful thoughts and the need to let them go.
She had a really loud voice, which made me think of my own behavior. I recently began yelling at my husband and I realized my behavior reflected the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) culture. I knew I needed to change. When she shouted I looked inward to find my attachments. When I identified my attachments I told Master in my heart that I was wrong, and I promised to correct myself and remove these human thoughts. I continued to search within for over half an hour. As I continued to look inward her voice gradually became softer until she finally stopped shouting.
After this experience, I clearly realized that the problems in my surrounding environment were actually a reflection of my cultivation issues. They surfaced in order for me to recognize them.
The girl started yelling again. This time I responded to each of her cries by deeply examining myself to find the root of my attachment. Although I recognized my lustful thoughts I realized that the root of the issue hadn’t been completely eradicated, and I needed to continue working on it. When she acted out I often saw snakes crawling in the grass whenever I went outside. After my father had surgery my mother asked me to help her pull weeds. I went to one end of the field, and when I parted the weeds, I saw dozens of finger-thick snakes piled together, mating. I was terrified and ran away.
I wondered why I kept seeing snakes. I finally understood that the word “snake” has the same pronunciation as the word “lust” in Chinese, and seeing snakes was a sign of my lustful thoughts. As I looked deeper within myself, I found that I still harbored resentment about my husband’s affair. I hadn’t fully let it go which showed that I was still attached to lust. I often felt inexplicably irritable and lost my temper with him. These were severe manifestations of CCP culture. I knew I needed to work diligently to suppress these thoughts and continually eliminate my human attachments, and purify my mind.
After more than six months of looking inward, cultivating my mind, and eliminating lust, I could clearly feel my thoughts becoming increasingly peaceful, and everything around me gradually changed. The mentally ill girl slowly returned to normal; my husband no longer called me mentally ill; his sexual desires gradually faded; and I no longer saw snakes when I went outside.
With further Fa study and self-cultivation, I realized that the my surroundings in this dimension reflect my inner self, and reflect changes to my inner state. Because I held onto attachments, those bad things manifested in my surroundings so I could see them. As I improved, my inner self was purified, and the external environment - my reflection - began to change.
A practitioner came to my home to discuss her situation. She said her niece developed a mental illness, so I shared my experience of how the neighbor’s daughter recovered after I began seeing it as a reflection of my cultivation, and used it to cultivate my xinxing. I advised her to cultivate herself. She returned home and searched inward, and just like that, her niece returned to normal three months later. Looking inward is truly amazing; it’s a magic tool for practitioners!
The Mice in the Yard Disappear
After I was released from prison, I was filled with resentment for a long time. A relative took some expensive clothes from my closet, and I hated her every time I thought about it. I constantly complained about her to my husband. Why did she steal my things? I never thought that her stealing had anything to do with my attachments.
I believed I was imprisoned due to the bad feng shui in my home. I wondered why this happened to me, while many other practitioners were not persecuted. Then I asked my husband to secretly bring some copper coins from the factory to change the feng shui at home. That same day, my mother had a dream that the police came to my house. I was frightened when I heard this. I looked inward and reflected on my recent behavior, examining whether anything I did was not in line with the Fa. Finally, I realized that stealing copper from the factory was inviting evil. I also recalled that when I worked at a swimwear factory, I quietly took home discarded clothes without asking my supervisor, assuming no one wanted them. I realized that this, too, was a form of stealing.
Because I harbored that selfish desire to steal, my surroundings began to change in response to it. My son started stealing money from home. I often heard people mention that someone’s finger or arm was chopped off by machines. When I thought about it, I realized they had one thing in common: they had stolen things from factories. These were the consequences of their thefts in this life time. Realizing my wrongdoing, I felt deeply guilty.
That winter mice lived in my yard. They dug holes all over the place. I knew that the loopholes in my cultivation were the cause of this!
I realized that what I experienced externally was closely related to my inner self, my cultivation. The impurity in my own dimensional field was responsible for the inappropriate situations I encountered. After realizing this, I began to eliminate my selfishness, actively removing any thoughts of taking advantage of others. Whenever such thoughts surfaced, I immediately eliminated them. I also returned all the clothing I took from the swimwear factory. To compensate the factory owner for the copper coins, I provided equivalent gifts, such as local specialties like bean buns. I was determined to repay everything I owed and ensure that I owed nothing to anyone.
After I let go of my selfishness and my attachment to stealing, my surroundings started to gradually change. My son stopped stealing from home. My husband paved the entire yard with cement and our dog began catching rats. From then on, the rats were no longer an issue. Even when we piled up all the corn we harvested throughout the year in the yard, we didn’t see a single rat during the winter. People were amazed that rats did not steal my corn.
My Husband Stopped Gambling After I Changed
I always disliked smoking, drinking, and gambling. Ironically, the more I detested something, the more I encountered it. It wasn’t until I got married that I discovered my husband was like this. He gambled every New Year’s Eve, either with family members or others. Because his behavior deeply irritated me, I was constantly angry at him during the more than thirty years we were married.
When I first started practicing Falun Dafa, he took our son to a gambling place. While he gambled inside, our son played outside with other children. After I learned this, I complained to him, “I will see what you do if your son falls through ice.” That day our child actually fell through the ice. My husband still couldn’t shake his gambling habit. I felt powerless to change him.
This past Chinese New Year, I suddenly realized that as a practitioner, I shouldn’t be attached to other people’s attachments. I should let things unfold naturally and allow him to be himself. When I saw him preparing to go out, I asked, “Are you coming home for dinner?” He replied, “Of course.” I asked, “How come you’re not gambling this year?” He said, “I can’t do it; my back hurts.” Hearing this, I inwardly smiled, realizing he changed because I let go of my attachment.
Looking Inward in the Face of Huge Ordeals
I was shocked to learn that the CCP was using a former Fei Tian student, Zhang Junge, to sue Shen Yun, Fei Tian, and Master in the U.S. This news deeply saddened me. Everything that happens around us stems from our cultivation state and our impure hearts. So, what exactly is the cause of this situation? I think it ultimately comes down to our failure to properly respect Master and the Fa, which led to this incident.
Master said in Zhuan Falun:
“They will be able to go from seeing things vaguely to seeing more clearly, and they will go from being unable to use it to knowing how to use it.” (Lecture Nine, Zhuan Falun)
At first, few practitioners paid much attention to the importance of respecting the Fa and Master. For example, some practitioners did not cherish Dafa books, neglected to look within themselves, and didn’t take Master’s teachings seriously. As a consequence, the persecution escalated from nothing to the current situation. In light of this, each of us practitioners must seriously examine ourselves: Do we truly respect Master? Are we truly following Master’s teachings and listening to his words? If we each focus on cultivating ourselves and eliminating even the slightest thought of disrespect for Master or Dafa, such incidents would not occur again.
If each practitioner does well, our energy fields will unite, becoming a powerful energy, and the outside world would become a better place.
Conclusion
In the past two days, “Assisting the Fa” from Hong Yin often appeared in my mind. I know Master is enlightening me, asking me to share my experience of realizing the importance of looking inward with other practitioners. If we all take action, purify our hearts, and send forth righteous thoughts, then all the negative elements will naturally be eliminated.
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Articles in which cultivators share their understandings typically reflect an individual's perception at a point in time based on their cultivation state, and they are offered in the spirit of enabling mutual elevation.
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Category: Cultivation Insights
