(Minghui.org) I have been practicing Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) for over 20 years and have been conducting myself according to Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started persecuting Falun Dafa, fellow practitioners and I have been keeping up with the progress of Fa-rectification by doing the three things practitioners should do, and helping Master save people.
Although I have been in a seemingly stable state, I have, without knowing it, slacked off in cultivation. I have actually been more focused on finishing tasks than on cultivating. A few years ago, I was stuck in cultivation and wasted a great deal of precious time. Today, I’d like to reflect on what happened and my renewed perseverence in walking the last leg of my cultivation path well.
It all started with a fellow practitioner who used to be a good friend of mine, and we cared for each other. However, after she was put into a forced labor camp as a result of the persecution of Falun Gong, then released, she has been hostile toward me. She was mean to me, and took every opportunity to make it harder for me to continue cultivation and do the work related to telling people the facts about Falun Dafa.
For example, she cut off my contact with other practitioners, created conflicts among us, and tried to kick me out of Dafa truth-clarifying projects to isolate me. Other practitioners believed she was harming me, but no one was willing to talk to her.
When she was arrested again, I accompanied her family to the Domestic Security Division to demand her release. When she returned, she continued what she had been doing, except that she was less obvious. I tried several times to confront her, but she shied away every time. I found her cunning behavior revolting. In late 2019, after she kicked me out of another truth-clarifying project, I no longer wanted to have anything to do with her.
In fact, prior to that, my xinxing had already developed a serious problem. I found my cultivation environment too complicated and the politics among practitioners exhausting. I found many practitioners’ behaviors unacceptable and suspected they were not in a correct cultivation state. I often found myself asking, “Is this a practitioner? Is this a practitioners’ group?”
Even though I did not say anything, my mind was full of negative thoughts toward others. I was deeply disappointed in my fellow practitioners and began to feel discouraged.
My state was extremely dangerous, as it could ultimately shake a practitioner’s righteous faith in Master and the Fa. So, when this practitioner did those things that hurt me, it became the last straw that broke me. My heart could no longer bear it, and I was on the verge of collapse. That period was the lowest point in my cultivation.
Even when I was illegally detained, I was not that discouraged, and even when I was persecuted by the police, I did not hold resentment toward any of them. But during this time, I was tormented by bad thoughts, mostly resentment and jealousy, and could not break away from them.
I came across Master’s articles about how one should look inward when being treated unfairly, and couldn’t help complaining, “Master, should I look inward in front of the person who is trying to make me stumble in cultivation and force me into a dead end?” I knew the thought was extremely disrespectful to Master, so I realized something fundamental was wrong with my cultivation.
I had let Master down and caused him so much worry. With immense mercy, Master restored my thoughts of compassion, helped me get out of danger, and let me return to a cultivator’s correct state.
One day, I was riding in a car with my family. My niece was looking at her cell phone, giggling. I asked her, “Kiddo, what is it that you’re watching that is so funny?”
She told me it was a musical called “Stepmother Tea Party.” In Disney animations such as Snow White and Tangled, every princess had a stepmother who harmed her. In this musical, all the stepmothers gathered together and declared how they had educated and treated the princesses kindly. She found their insincere behavior ridiculously amusing.
My niece said, “The princesses are so good. I want to be a princess too!” I asked her why, and she replied, “Because they’re kindhearted, brave, and compassionate.”
I asked her, “Isn’t kindhearted and compassionate the same thing?”
She said it wasn’t, and added, “Because each princess had a stepmother who harmed her, but the princesses did not mind. They did not mind it and did not hate their stepmothers.”
The child’s words touched me deeply and made me ponder on it. She asked me, “Auntie, do you want to be a princess?”
I paused, then replied with a smile, “I have fallen far short.”
The child’s expression suddenly became very serious. She looked ahead and said firmly, “Princesses are princesses. They have exceptional character.”
Hearing the words “exceptional character” loud and clear, I burst into tears. I knew very well that Master was using the child’s mouth to point out my problem! Master hoped I would have an “exceptional character.”
Because of the accumulated resentments, even after I realized I had them, I didn’t immediately remove them. When other practitioners mentioned the practitioner who was treating me poorly, I couldn’t help but add negative comments. I knew I shouldn’t badmouth anyone, but my heart was filled with negativity even if I didn’t say anything. Thankfully, our merciful Master had made further arrangements for me.
During the several years of the COVID pandemic, the local authorities launched several rounds of large-scale persecution. They arrested and sentenced many Falun Gong practitioners, and quite a few practitioners passed away, causing some Fa study groups to dissolve. In addition to the pandemic lockdowns, the interactions and communication among practitioners were significantly reduced.
In late 2020, as a round of lockdowns had just ended, I read a Minghui report about a local practitioner being sentenced to prison, and decided to visit her 90-year-old mother, who was bedridden most of the time. To my pleasant surprise, the relative who opened the door for me was a fellow practitioner I used to know.
The mother looked very sad. Although she had learned Falun Gong before, she stopped practicing after her daughter was persecuted, and her health seriously deteriorated. The relative, who was in her 70s, had recently suffered sickness karma, and after being discharged from the hospital, had difficulty speaking clearly. She had nearly forgotten all the words in Zhuan Falun, making Fa study impossible for her.
Seeing their helpless situations, I realized that they needed me. I understood why Master had arranged for me to pay this visit. I suggested that we study the Fa together, and they were thrilled. We made a schedule and followed it. It was not difficult to imagine how hard it would be to study the Fa with two practitioners who were half literate, but we persisted until the daughter was released from prison and came home.
In the spring of 2023, I got in touch with another practitioner who had just been released from prison. We used to work on Dafa projects together, and I found her admirable. I visited her and found out that she was suffering from serious sickness karma. Her family watched her very closely, and she could not practice freely. I felt I needed to help her.
To do that, I would have to bring her to stay with me, and she agreed. With the help of other practitioners, we spoke with her family and finally got them to agree as well. Although the practitioner eventually passed away, her family witnessed our selfless efforts and changed their attitude toward us for the better. They told us that the practitioner’s life had been extended by almost a year.
In fact, the practitioner started practicing Falun Dafa when she was on the brink of death, and Dafa had actually extended her life for over 20 years.
These experiences taught me to appreciate how hard it is for every life to have come this far. Compared with illiterate practitioners, with those who were imprisoned, and with those who were suffering sickness karma, I felt I was extremely lucky. My so-called difficulties were really nothing, but I had unnecessarily taken them seriously instead of taking them lightly.
Moreover, I felt happy for putting effort into helping others, and learned to appreciate life and cherish fellow practitioners.
My years of complaining about how fellow practitioners had entangled me in negativity sealed me up like thick ice and separated me from others. During these past few years however, Master’s arrangements for me have crushed the ice time and time again, allowing my true self to thaw. I could feel the bad elements in my body being reduced, and the power of compassion gradually increasing.
Since Master brought me back from danger, I have been pondering about what was the fundamental reason that I developed such a serious issue. I realized I was too busy, and my Fa study was merely going through the motions. I did not learn the Fa by heart, and did not obtain the Fa. Without the Fa in my heart, I could not use the Fa to guide my cultivation.
I began to strengthen my main spirit, and if I noticed my mind slipping away during Fa study, I would read the sentence again. I told myself to make sure to learn the Fa by heart. I might not have gained any new understandings, but my righteous thoughts were increasing. Besides this, I resumed memorizing the Fa. With the deepening of my Fa study, I was gradually able to clearly identify my problems.
I was born into a rather traditional family. From my elders, I learned the moral principles of how to conduct myself and develop myself. I possessed some good behaviors, but that was how I was brought up and how I presented myself in front of others; it wasn’t my true realm. In other words, on the surface, I behaved as a practitioner, but deep down, I was not the same. I had not truly assimilated to Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
I was faking it without knowing it. For small matters, I passed the tests okay, but my attachments were not removed. When conflicts overwhelmed me, my accumulated human thoughts blew up.
I was also upholding human-level moral principles, instead of those at higher levels. I failed to realize that the principles for humans and those for practitioners were completely different. For example, human virtues include integrity, kindness, and the ability to discern good from evil. But a practitioner’s realm goes far beyond this.
I was a person who had clear likes and dislikes. It wasn’t until after I started cultivation that I realized this was a typical manifestation of having been poisoned by Communist Party culture.
There are various kinds of people—good and bad, kind and evil. As practitioners, we do not need to deliberately distinguish or treat them differently. We are kind to everyone, without liking or disliking any person. That’s a practitioner’s supposed realm.
Besides that, the human principles had formed stubborn notions in me, making me feel proud that “I am a good person,” and had a good opinion of myself. I was aloof and self-important, stubborn and overly concerned with being right, and I looked down on others. As soon as I saw the manifestation of others’ bad sides, I tried hard to hold back my anger. In reality, this was a deep hatred of evil and a strong sense of jealousy.
At the same time, this mentality of self-righteousness and lack of humility could easily trigger the negativity in others and lead to competition and infighting among practitioners who hadn’t let go of human attachments.
The main reason I developed resentment was that my sense of self was too strong. I took my likes and dislikes as the standard, and when things did not conform to my preferences, I became upset.
I was not open enough to express my thoughts amid conflicts. In my childhood, when I was bullied I just swallowed it and did not dare to argue or fight back, so I developed a timid personality. After I grew up, I was also afraid of conflicts and afraid of being hurt, even though I felt wronged and that I was treated unfairly.
I also very much cared about saving face and was concerned about confrontation with others, thinking that if I had conflicts with others, my image might be damaged. This was my attachment to fame at play.
I was also able to sense that those years of entanglement between this fellow practitioner and me involved a deeper cause-and-effect relationship that had been exploited and arranged by the old forces.
More than 10 years ago, I happened to see the look in this practitioner’s eyes as she looked at me, and the hatred in her eyes seemed strangely familiar. I shuddered all over and couldn’t help but shiver. Deep down, I strongly felt that in a past life she had treated me the same way and destroyed me.
I have since been very careful to maintain a distance from her. I was polite to her on the surface, but was afraid of her and disliked her. I did not dare to open my heart to her and share my understandings, fearing that I would be hurt. I knew that I had not cultivated genuine compassion toward her. As a practitioner, I should have transcended the cause-and-effect relationship and maintained righteous thoughts.
Actually, I should indeed thank her. This process of cultivating my xinxing has helped me mature greatly, and it was precious.
After several years of wasted time, with Master’s help I have finally broken free from the swamp. One day, Master showed me the process of saving me in the form of a dream: I was standing at the bow of a boat sailing in the darkness. Suddenly, a huge wave swept over me. I was lost at the bottom of the pitch black, deep ocean and did not know which way to go.
Suddenly, a beam of light shone straight down from above, opening a path of light for me. I swam and swam upward along the path toward the light until I made it to the surface. When my head was above water, I saw Master! Master was standing on the water waiting for me, and a gentle light radiated from his entire body. Behind Master was a white staircase leading straight to the heavens.
Master bent down and pulled me out of the water, saying, “My child, I have been waiting for you for too long!”
I woke up from the dream, weeping. I was deeply grateful for Master’s merciful salvation! Master did not give up on this disappointing disciple, and I cannot give up on myself.
I began to put aside the human principles that used to dominate me, and began to cultivate with a true heart, gradually changing my human notions and looking at things from a practitioner’s perspective. At the same time, I began to take myself lightly and learn to follow the course of nature, trying not to be emotionally impacted by external manifestations, and striving to persistently maintain my righteous thoughts.
I once again found the true meaning of cultivation as when I first started, and regained the joy and sense of fulfillment I had at that time. Going forward, I will work with my fellow practitioners, encourage one another, do the three things well, and advance diligently together!