Greetings, Teacher! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
I was born in Hong Kong, and I have lived in Canada for 28 years. My brothers and I own a jewelry business. In April 2004, I received a flyer from a Falun Gong practitioner and then started my cultivation in Falun Dafa. Since then, my view of life has gradually changed, which caused huge changes in my life. My mind has also gradually elevated.
In February 2005, because our business was not going very well, I only worked for two hours a day. I felt bad being paid for doing nothing for six hours a day. I also felt it was a waste of time. At the time, my understanding as a cultivator was that I should not get paid for doing nothing. I also wanted to prove that I could do a job that others didn't want to do.
I asked my brothers for a five-month long vacation: I wanted to use the time to learn senior care. My older brother is the big boss of the business, and I was the second boss. My brothers were all surprised that I would give up my position as a boss to learn senior care, that is, helping seniors to take care of themselves, including helping them to take baths and using the restroom. Because my English was not very good, I picked a small school run by Chinese people. The teacher in the school used to be a doctor in China. The other 10 students in the class were all from Mainland China: some of them had worked as nurses before, and most of them were new immigrants. They all spoke Mandarin, which I didn't speak well. As a result, they rarely talked with me.
One day I told them I was a Falun Gong practitioner. The teacher and the 10 other students all looked at me in surprise, as if I had two horns growing out of my head. None of them understand the truth about Falun Gong and the persecution. After that, whenever they talked about the wrongdoings of the Chinese Communist Party, someone would say, "This is a national secret!" They did not want me to know the details because I was from Hong Kong and because I practiced Falun Gong. When I talked about the truth of the CCP massacre of students in Tiananmen Square around June 4, 1989, only one of them believed me. I asked him, "How do you know the truth about this?" He told me he was in Germany at the time and thus had access to factual information. I then gave him a copy of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party and told him, "Now that you are away from the CCP's control, you should renounce it in your mind as well. Hurry up and renounce the CCP!" He gave me a bitter smile and went away. I felt very bad for those people from Mainland China: they think people from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Falun Gong practitioners are all anti-CCP, and they refused to listen to me.
During the course of our classes, whenever I got a chance to speak, I explained the changes in my body and mind after I started my cultivation. They were interested in listening to me. After a while, they once discussed Falun Gong. A lady from Fujian Province told the teacher, "I had a neighbor who practiced Falun Gong. The practitioner read (Falun Gong) books out loud every day (which bothered me)." I knew she was reminding me that one should think of others and not be too selfish. The last session of the school was about how to write our resume. Although I had been working for 30 years, I had never written a resume before. The teacher taught us how to lie about our past experiences and knowledge in order to get a job. I refused to write such things. Instead, I wrote that as a Falun Gong practitioner, I practice Falun Gong exercises for at least one hour every day; I don't smoke, drink, or gamble; and I am very energetic.
In April 2005, the three-month-long course was over, and I went to a senior center for my residency. When I left the school, I wanted to give a copy of Zhuan Falun to the teacher. She said she did not have time to read it and refused, but she did ask me to give her the web address of the Falun Gong website so that she could visit it. I then gave her a bookmark with the website's information. There were three large characters on the book mark: "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance." She said she loved the three characters.
In June 2005, after two months of residency at the senior center, I soon found a job with my honest resume: caring for old gentlemen at their homes. It has been exactly five months since I left the jewelry business. One day, an old customer from the jewelry store called me and wanted to meet with me. When we met, he asked me to work for him and said he would pay whatever salary I asked. His business with my family company is about 500f our total business. If I worked for him, my pay would be much higher than before, but it would hurt my family company's business very much. Between my personal interest and my responsibility toward my brothers, I had to choose. I lost sleep that night thinking about the issue. Finally I thought: "I am a cultivator and thus I should not let an ordinary person's issue bother me. I shall stop thinking about this." I immediately fell asleep and had a dream:
1. I was on a cliff with a monk.
2. The monk asked me to jump off the cliff, and I did.
3. After I jumped down, I thought: "Wait, he is not my Teacher, so I should not have listened to him. I should go back up."
4. I went back on top of the cliff.
5. By the time I got back to the top of the cliff, the monk was no longer there.
The next day, I made up my mind because of the dream. I decided that I should not listen to my old customer and go to work for him. I called him and told him that if he had business orders, I would handle them from my family company. Thus, I had two part time jobs, and I still had time on my hands. It was summertime, and there were many Dafa activities, all of which I participated in.
In November 2005, the weather turned cold, and fewer Dafa activities were held. Some practitioners called for us to go to Manhattan in New York City to clarify the truth there. It was a difficult task for me: my spoken English is poor, and I have a hard time making myself understood. The re-enactment torture exhibitions were held by female practitioners, and I did not know what I could do. I volunteered to go despite all of the above. On a Wednesday, a practitioner called me and asked me if I could drive some practitioners to Manhattan the coming weekend. I agreed. It was the first time we had ever driven there. We departed on Friday evening and arrived there around noon on Saturday. With no break, we participated in the re-enactment torture exhibitions. Because I had been driving all night long, I was sleepy all that day and did not know much about what was going on. Around 6 p.m. we packed up and headed toward our place to stay. I followed the other practitioners onto a train. I fell asleep on the train and by the time I woke up, I found myself alone. All my fellow practitioners had gone. Because I did not know where we were staying and I was not familiar with the place, I got on a train going in the opposite direction, hoping that I could find my fellow practitioners. I got off at every station but did not find any practitioner. Then I remembered a female practitioner talking about going to the 59th Avenue station. I looked at the map and found the 59th Avenue station in Brooklyn. When I arrived there, I still did not find any practitioner. I looked at the map again and realized that there was only one big transfer station on our way to the place. I said to myself: "With so many practitioners in New York City, I will for sure be able to run into one or two at this big transfer station." So I went there and opened Zhuan Falun with confidence. In about five minutes, my fellow practitioners came to look for me. It had been about an hour and a half since I had gotten lost. Next day, we headed out after breakfast. I practiced the exercises and waited for other practitioners to arrive. When the truck arrived and delivered all the materials for the torture exhibition, the older ladies acted very quickly to set up everything. I realized that they were very capable and were the major component of the torture exhibition. I fell short in this regard. But when I thought about the fact that they could not have been able to come without a driver, I agreed to stay and continue to be the driver, all the way until the Chinese New Year Gala was finished, and Manhattan no longer needed help from practitioners from other areas.
In February 2006, I finished reading all of Teacher's books and articles from the past 10 years. I found that since Teacher started to spread Falun Dafa, there has been a change every three years: from 1992 to 1995, Teacher spread Dafa in China; from 1996 to 1998, Teacher spread Dafa outside China, and Dafa practitioners promoted Dafa inside China; from 1999 to 2001, practitioners validated the Fa and made efforts against the crackdown; from 2002 to 2004, practitioners tried to stop the persecution and clarify the truth; since 2005, practitioners have been spreading the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party and persuading people to renounce the Communist Party. Of course, these are just my understandings and imagination, because I have not experienced them. I only wanted to understand how the veteran practitioners have walked their paths.
Looking back at my own cultivation, it has been an entire year since I left my company. During this time, I left my own business and career to gain experience in Fa rectification and to validate and enlighten to the Fa. By studying Teacher's article "Teaching the Fa in San Francisco, 2005," I realized that I should work well using my skills--this is also cultivation and elevating levels. I quit my nursing job and went back to be the second boss of my company. However, I changed my area of work: I dropped the administrative and pricing part and focused on jewelry production. I paid close attention to product quality with good results: all of our customers have commented that the quality of our hand-made jewelry has improved. I found that when I put my heart into my work instead of bearing the mentality "working for money," my realms and skills elevate together.
Thank you, Teacher. Thank you, fellow practitioners.
Views expressed in this article represent the author's own opinions or understandings. All content published on this website are copyrighted by Minghui.org. Minghui will produce compilations of its online content regularly and on special occasions.
