I would like to express my warmest greetings to everyone. My name is Christine Loftus. I am 20 years old and from Barrie, which is about an hour North of Toronto. I attained the Law in September of 1998, so I have been cultivating for nearly two years. Today I would like to share with you some of my most recent experiences.
About one month ago I got a job at a Tim Horton's coffee shop. On my first day my manager warned me that there was one employee that I would be working with that didn't seem to have the patience for new employees. She said that a previous new employee complained about her and never came back, so to let her know if I have any problems. It didn't take long for me to discover who she was speaking about. This fellow employee wasn't kind to me. She made fun of me and picked on me. Even if I tried to start a casual conversation with her, she would be rude or ignore me. I realize that this is a precious opportunity for me to improve myself, therefore I'm polite to her no matter how she treats me. I do find that sometimes thoughts enter my mind such as, how can she be so nasty? But I realize that I have to push those thoughts aside. I know that that is my human heart which is clinging to my image and to sentiments.
Before working at Tim Horton's I had a job as a Hostess at a Chinese Buffet restaurant. My job was to greet newly arriving customers and then to seat them. During my shift there would be three waitresses working, two serving on the large side of the restaurant and one on the smaller side of the restaurant. I had to try to keep the number of customers that I sat equal for the waitresses. Often times, one waitress would complain that she had to many customers so I would seat some in the other section which would often then make a different waitress complain too. Sometimes they would get really mad at me and weren't very nice to me. Sometimes it bothered me and other times I could let it go but I always tried to be nice to them. I offered them rides home, lent one money and gave them my uniform when I left because I knew that they didn't have alot of money. One time a girl tried to give me money for driving her home. I refused but she still left it in the car, so I put it back in her coat pocket the next day.
Since February, I have been taking OAC Calculus at night school. In my class I met a 16-year-old boy who just moved to Canada from Singapore and that skipped some grades because he excelled in school. We sit at the same table together. During class once he asked me what I had done the previous weekend. I mentioned something about Falun Dafa. He was very surprised because his uncle in Singapore is a practitioner and had given this boy's family some Dafa books and an exercise video. He told me that his uncle told him that he sleeps better now that he is a practitioner. Although my new friend presently isn't interested in practicing himself he does help with spreading Dafa to my peers in the class. Sometimes, if I do something nice for someone, immediately he will say you did that because of Falun Dafa!? Also because he knows that I'm a practitioner often he restrains himself from doing bad things. For example when another student wanted his help to study for a math test that he already wrote, he was going to give her his old test to study from. Then he looked at me and suddenly changed his mind and said something like "no that's wrong, I can't do that"; I didn't say anything at all, it was the Law that helped him change his mind. He has also said that he wants to be a better person.
Before the United Nations meeting began my brother and I made an appointment with the Member of Parliament in our area in order to provide her with information about the situation in China. I had a petition letter to collect signatures from people that I planned to present to her. I had a few pages of signatures from students and teachers at my high school but I wanted to use this opportunity to introduce Dafa to more people and see if they wanted to show their support by signing it. I decided to bring the petition to my night school class and to my two jobs- the Chinese Buffet restaurant and another restaurant that I was working at. This was difficult for me because I cared so much about what others thought of me. When presenting the petition letter to people at my school before, some people reacted not so positively and I found it hard to approach them. I think I was being selfish. When I was able to put these thoughts aside I felt excited to talk to my night school class and to share Dafa with them. I talked to my teacher before class and he agreed to let me say a few words to the class. I didn't feel very nervous. A couple of people asked questions and at the end of class more then half of the class signed the petition.
At the side of my house we have a compost bin where we put fruit and vegetable scraps. Last year I noticed that at least one mouse decided to live in our composter and since then I believe that they may have multiplied into a family. I have never really been fond of small rodents. Whenever I took out the compost I would be cautious and watch for them. I convinced myself that since I was now a practitioner, I was no longer afraid of them and that I now realized that they were living creatures and I should have compassion for them. A couple of weeks ago, while emptying my compost container into the bin I dropped the lid. It fell behind the bin. Realizing that I was going to have to reach back there to retrieve it, I noticed that my attachment was not gone at all. I looked behind the bin and noticed that the lid was moving, I heard squeaking sounds and heard movement in the pile of leaves next to the bin. It was really hard for me to grab that lid. This experience helped me realize that Master Li knows more about myself then I do. Even simple attachments that I think don't exist anymore or maybe don't matter, he will show me so that I can try to overcome them.
A couple of months ago I was practicing the sitting meditation in my room with my Mom. I felt something come up through my throat which made me unable to breath very well, but I didn't feel scared. I felt like coughing but I couldn't. A tear came down my face, but I wasn't crying. I didn't want to move. Then my head felt full and later I felt my headache and something squeeze through my Tianmu. My understanding is that this was Xuanguan Shewei. This experience gave me extra encouragement in my cultivation. Knowing where I was in my cultivation and actually feeling and experiencing the progress really touched my heart and deepened my understanding in the sacredness and seriousness of the Great Law. Every test I pass really does mean progress, and every test that I fail actually means regression.
I can feel myself becoming calmer and letting things happen more naturally. On my Chapter Six unit test at night school I did poorly and I was struggling with understanding the concepts in chapter seven. I know this called for alot of time and effort to do my work properly and to understand the concepts being taught in chapter seven, but also my time for reading and practice was very limited. I found that whenever I tried to do my homework or read Zhaun Falun my eyes would close and my head would start to fall. Even when my Mom picked me up from work I would start to fall asleep in the car and we only live seven minutes away. Usually when this happened in the past I would not feel very balanced in my heart and I would become stressed and feel that I wasn't doing well. But this time I felt calm. I thought that I shouldn't be attached to anything. If I'm working hard and trying my best and things still don't go right then isn't this a good thing?
I actually don't live directly in Barrie. I live in Midhurst, a really small town on the outskirts of Barrie. Sometimes it's difficult to find transportation to go to Barrie to practice the exercises in the park because we don't have buses that come out to Midhurst and I don't have my own car yet. Since it is important to do the exercises in public parks so that others can see, I often felt sad that I couldn't do more. A couple of weeks ago I realized that there is a park around the corner from my house that I could do the exercises at, I'm not sure why it took me so long to realize this. While practicing there I noticed that the park was in the center of the block and the surrounding houses were on a bit of a hill and that there were about nine houses that had a perfect view of the park. Then I recalled Master Li's words at the end of the first lecture, such stuff is now provided in front of you, and you probably have not yet realized it. You have been everywhere to look for masters with much money spent, and you could not find anything. Today, it is offered to you at your doorstep, and you may not have realized it!? (Pg 45-46). I have only been able to go to my neighborhood park a few times, but people have been stopping by and picking up fliers already.
Everyone's cultivation is unique. I think that as a 20 year old female Westerner in Canada, I have certain attachments that stand out more than others, such as going to University, moving out on my own, getting married, pursuing and planning in various aspects for my future, the sexual desire, etc. I think that if I attained the Law as a child maybe my attachments would be to simpler things, such as, ice cream and colouring books. If I attained the Law as an elder gentleman maybe my attachments would be to my children and grandchildren and maybe I would be stuck in my ways of doing things and hold on to my concepts. If I attained the Law as a young teenage girl maybe I would be attached to what my peers thought about me and to fitting in. I think that everyone's situation and environment is different but maybe in a broad sense very similar. It's almost like we are placed in rooms and on the walls are pretty pictures of apartments and Universities and colouring books and children and peers, depending on who we are in society. But we all have to knock down the walls to see what is behind the paintings, because that's all they are, are paintings.
I hope that we can all make great advances in our cultivation and give up all of our attachments so that our hearts will be good again. Thank you for your attention.
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Category: Improving Oneself
