(Clearwisdom.net) Best regards to our venerable Teacher! Best wishes to practitioners all around the world!

I started practicing Falun Gong in the beginning of 2002. Before practicing Falun Gong, I had arthritis, chronic pharyngitis, migraine, sciatica, ossein proliferation of the hipbones, and toothache. It was also very easy for me to catch a cold. I also periodically developed sores in my mouth and nose. Because of these diseases, I have constantly been taking many kinds of medicines for years.

All my brothers and sisters practice Falun Gong and many of their diseases have disappeared. Therefore, I started to have some interest in Falun Gong. At that time even though the government often used the media to fabricate rumors and slander Falun Dafa, in order to treat my illnesses, I still started practicing Falun Gong. After I read through Zhuan Falun only one time, I sensed that Teacher's Fashen [Law Body] installed in a Falun in me [Law wheel]. I was very happy about this. Whenever I studied the Fa or listened to Teacher's lectures, I could feel that Teacher was purifying my body. In less than two months, all of my diseases mentioned above were cured without receiving any medical treatment.

In the first half of the year 2002, Falun Gong practitioners were clarifying the truth and distributing truth clarification materials everywhere. However, I still had a seriously fearful mentality and a wrong understanding, namely, "I am not a Fa-rectification period Dafa disciple." I recalled the general meaning in one of the lectures Teacher gave some time before I started practicing Falun Gong: If there are new practitioners that learn Falun Gong, they would be the mainstay and the elite of future practitioners. I held this wrong understanding and kept studying the Fa and practicing the exercises on my own. I did not get in touch with other local practitioners either. Except for my family, very few people in the town I live in knew that I was practicing Falun Gong. All of Teacher's latest lectures and articles, and new truth-clarification materials also came from Weifang City and other neighboring towns. I then kept them at home after I read them and did not dare to go outside to distribute them to other people. In the end, many materials and truth-clarification videos piled up in my house.

I held onto this mentality until 2003 when I read "Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference."

Question: "Is it true that only those who obtained the Fa before the end of 2002 are considered "Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples"?"

Teacher: "I have never said that. Those good ones... haven't some entered in each of the different periods of time? Actually, there are still those who want to enter but haven't yet, and of course there are also those who've fallen."

At that moment I realized that my previous understanding was wrong, and as long as I cultivate myself well and diligently, and validate Dafa and tell the people the facts, though I started practicing Falun Gong a little later, I am also a Fa-rectification period Dafa disciple.

Later I studied the article "Fa-Rectification Period Dafa Disciples."

Teacher said,

"A Dafa disciple who fails to achieve the effect of safeguarding and upholding Dafa has no way of reaching Consummation, because your cultivation is different from that of the past and the future. Therein lies the magnificence of a Dafa disciple."

After studying this article, I deeply felt that if I do not do things to safeguard Dafa, I would not deserve the title of "Dafa disciple."

After I raised the level of my understanding of the Fa, I started to distribute the truth-clarification materials that had piled up in my home and new materials from other practitioners. I also started to tell the facts to other people. In the beginning, I started to clarify the truth only to my acquaintances and people with whom I had a good relationship. The effect was not so good because I talked to them with a great deal of fear. I searched inwards: The reason I clarified the truth was not that I had a compassionate heart to offer salvation to sentient beings. Rather, I was carrying the selfish mentality that if I do not do tasks related to Dafa, I will not reach consummation. Carrying the mentality to reach consummation is a selfish and egocentric mentality. However, Teacher wants us to cultivate ourselves to have the righteous thought and enlightenment of "giving up 'self,' putting others first." Comparatively, wasn't my cultivation the same as the cultivation of practitioners in the past? Wasn't I taking the path arranged by the old forces?

After I found the root of my problem, the effect of clarifying the truth to other people improved significantly. People became more willing to listen to me and my speech has become much smoother too. I have also developed the courage to distribute flyers. In the beginning, I distributed flyers only at night when no one was around. Later, I would give out flyers and clarify the truth in the market, on the road, and even at wedding festivals that I attended. As to sending forth righteous thoughts, I began to take it much more seriously. I realized that eliminating the evil factors is also a major aspect of offering salvation to sentient beings. Basically I have been persistently sending forth righteous thoughts 4 times a day for a long time. Whenever I encounter interference from the evil old forces, I would take extra effort and extend the time of sending forth righteous thoughts. During truth-clarification, if any one showed interest in learning Falun Gong, I would do my best to ask for help from practitioners to get copies of Falun Dafa books. After Teacher published the article to correct some words, I diligently corrected the words in the books I have and was able to help other senior practitioners, who do not know many words, to make the corrections. In addition, through practicing cultivation, I began to take money matters more lightly. Before practicing cultivation, I was preoccupied with making money. After practicing cultivation, I realized that money is a mere worldly possession, which one cannot bring along at birth or carry along after death. Only energy potency (Gong) is the most precious thing because it follows your main consciousness and you can bring it with you at your birth and take it with you at your death. Therefore, I did my best to spend more time studying the Fa, practicing the exercises, clarifying the truth and sharing experiences with other practitioners to improve together.

Looking back at my cultivation processes over the last two years, my Xinxing [heart or mind nature, moral character] has had some improvements and I have also accomplished some tasks of validating Dafa. However, comparing myself to other well-cultivated practitioners, I still have large gaps relative to them. I still have not clarified the truth even to some people around me. Basically, the fundamental root causes still lie in various human attachments, such as the mentality of seeking comfort, the mentality of fearing rejection, fear of losing face, and so on. Basically, the fundamental root causes are not studying the Fa well and not having enough compassion.

Teacher said in the article "On Reading Weathering the Storm":

"Born into a sphere of suffering
Man struggles just to survive
One day, behold, the Great Law gained
Cease not your steps on the path of return"

From now on, I will study the Fa more and more diligently, study the Fa well, closely follow the progression of Teacher's Fa-rectification to catch up with the final period of Fa-rectification, and do things that a Fa-rectification period Dafa disciple should do.