(Clearwisdom.net)
Good morning, Revered Master and all fellow practitioners:
I obtained the Fa in 1993. The deepest feeling of mine at the time when I listened to Master's Fa lecture in person was that this was just what I was searching for my entire life or even for all my lives. Owing to the difficulty in letting go of wrong thoughts in delusion, I didn't begin my real cultivation until 2001.
I didn't understand Zhuan Falun well when I read it in the beginning, but I insisted on continuing to read. When I came to my nearly fiftieth time of reading, I started to feel that I was seeing the profound connotations of Dafa.
I made up my mind to get more determined through continuous Fa-study, to improve myself in solid cultivation with the guidance of Fa-principles on various levels, and to immerse myself in the salvation of sentient beings and the validation of the Fa.
There are so many experiences and ideas I would like to share with fellow practitioners. Here I will only share with you on the issue of sickness karma. These are my personal experiences at my specific level in cultivation. Please kindly point out and correct any deficiencies.
One time, in my dream I was rowing a small boat and entered a different dimension. Maybe it was a certain level of heaven. People in that dimension seamed to bear no sentiment between men and women. An old man wearing the clothes of an ancient fisherman came to me, and brought me to his home. The village they lived in was just like what was described in the article Peach Blossom Shangri-la by Tao Yuanming (365 - 427 AD), a famous Chinese writer: tranquil and peaceful. The old man's son and daughter-in-law talked with me cordially. I found the characters they used were very close to the Chinese characters, but the pronunciation was different. When I was wondering about what I saw, I heard a loud and clear voice from the sky, "Different levels have different Fa, and the Fa manifests differently on different levels. Continue upgrading yourself in cultivation." When I woke up I felt like I was drifting down in the clouds and fog, but that voice kept lingering in my ears.
When I attained the Fa I was a healthy girl, I had my job, and I was gradually setting up my personal business. In those years I was so devoted to my business that I almost neglected my eating and sleeping. All I pursued then were everyday person's pursuits. However, everything in one's life is not arranged according to what he or she wants, but according to his or her karma. In 1998, I began to develop symptoms of so-called "rheumatism arthritis." The joints all over my body ached unendurably. My feet would get inflamed so fiercely that I couldn't put on my shoes. When I used the wash room, I even needed my mother to help me to pull up my pants. My mother then told me, "You can try practicing Falun Gong." I then went to the practice site. After less than two weeks of practicing, I could walk very quickly! Meanwhile, I realized that I was suffering because of the karma accumulated in my past lives, therefore I became more tolerant in xinxing cultivation. Sometimes I felt huge stabbing pains in my feet when I stood there, but I thought confidently, "Everything will be alright once my karma is repaid," but the happiness didn't last long. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched the persecution against Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, and our practice site was banned. I felt a great pain in my heart that such an elegant practice was banned, and just at the time that I had found the true goal in my life. However, I just followed the ban bewilderedly and stopped practicing. Soon after that I saw, in my dream, Master come to me sitting in the lotus position. I knew what Teacher was going to say, but I said, "I don't want anymore." Teacher looked at me silently, and then left me without saying anything. When I woke up, I had a deep feeling of loss. Now when I look back, I realize that my understanding of Dafa at that time was limited to karma repayment, and I knew nothing about higher Fa-truths at all.
I then went back to being an everyday person, seeking my fame and fortune. I would get the merciful hints from Master from time to time, but I was reluctant to think more about them, I therefore missed a lot of chances.
"It is because there is such a principle in the universe: Ordinary human affairs, according to the Buddha School, all have predestined relationships. Birth, old age, illness, and death exist as such for ordinary people." (Lecture One, Zhuan Falun, 2000 translation version)
In 2001, my pains came back and I was diagnosed with "rheumatism." After one week of infusions at the hospital, I almost passed out because of the over-use of medicine. I knew "rheumatism" was incurable according to medical science, and I became very desperate again. My mother told me one more time, "You should pick up your practice." I deeply knew that practicing was also a difficult thing, it really meant to me a choice between life and death at that time. When I calmed down, I eventually chose Dafa instead of fame, fortune and sentiment. Maybe at that time I did that still rather passively as I wanted to survive, but gradually I got determined in my continuous Fa-study.
During the process of doing the three things, Master opened up my Third Eye. One time, I became so attached to an everyday person's thing that I felt painful again at night, and sending righteous thoughts didn't help. Soon after laying down on the sofa, I saw that in a certain life, I had killed a person on a dark cobblestone road on a rainy and gloomy night, and then tied his body up and jammed it under an iron chair by the roadside. I was so afraid, and my heart raced wildly. Oh, I've killed a human being in a previous life, and I just send forth righteous thoughts only to be more comfortable now! There is no benevolence in this. I then understood Teacher's Fa-teaching better in "Teaching the Fa at the 2004 International Fa Conference in New York,"
"You can have this thought: 'During the Fa-rectification of the cosmos, I can make a reasonable arrangement for those of you who don't interfere with my validating the Fa; I can have you become beings in the future. Those of you who seek a benevolent resolution should leave me and wait in my surroundings. If you really cannot leave me, then don't have any part in interfering with me. In the future I will be able to achieve Consummation, and I will offer you a benevolent resolution. Those who are completely bad, who still interfere with me and who cannot remain will, according to the standards, have to be eliminated. Even if I don't eliminate you, the Law of the cosmos won't let you remain.' If you have that thought, it is tremendously merciful to some of those extremely low-level beings, and it will make it easy to eliminate those who still interfere."
This July, when I was about to go join others in sending forth righteous thoughts at the High Court, I felt extreme pain in my right foot and it got so badly inflamed that I couldn't walk. I lost my righteous thoughts again and thought, "It has come back." But after that, I thought of my "remedy" several times in the past: to listen to Master's recorded Fa-teaching. I finished listening to all 9 lectures, and felt much better on the following morning, yet that afternoon, my foot ached and inflamed again. I thought impatiently, "How can I go on distributing newspapers and dancing if things continue like this..." Then I thought of sending righteous thoughts again, and after sending forth righteous thoughts several times on the hour, it got slightly better, but the pain did not abate.
"As time passes by, one will begin to feel quite uneasy and then become rather restless. Suffering physically and mentally can make both the body and the mind quite uncomfortable." ( Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun, 2000 translation version)
When I felt almost unable to pass this test, I saw some scenery during a sitting meditation. In a palace in ancient Egypt, a man in white clothes and wearing a white kerchief was ordering his subordinates to cut off a person's feet. That man, was me in that life. Since I knew the reason, I continued my Fa-study. Although I knew I should not acknowledge all those arrangements and should continue my newspaper distribution, I still felt that I was lacking in righteous thoughts, and I could not help recalling my experiences in childhood. When I saw fellow practitioners could dance so swiftly I begged to Master repeatedly, "I want to attend dancing so that I can validate the Fa."
One day, when I studied Master's "Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Chicago Conference," I learned,
"Of course, we don't acknowledge any of the things that the old forces arranged--I as your master don't acknowledge them, and Dafa disciples of course don't acknowledge them either. (Applause) But after all, they did do what they wanted to do, so there's all the more reason for Dafa disciples to do even better and cultivate themselves well in the course of saving all beings. When you encounter ordeals during your cultivation, you have got to cultivate yourself and look at yourself--that doesn't mean acknowledging the ordeals arranged by the old forces and trying to do well amidst the ordeals they've arranged, that's not the case. We negate even the very emergence of the old forces and everything that they've arranged; we don't even acknowledge their existence. We're fundamentally negating all of their things, and all of, and only, the things you do while negating and getting rid of them is mighty-virtue. It's not that you're cultivating amidst the ordeals they created. Rather, you are to walk your own path well while not acknowledging them, not even acknowledging the elimination of their ordeals' manifestations. (Applause) So looking at it from this angle, what we need to do is completely negate the old forces. Dafa disciples and I don't even acknowledge the manifestations of their last-ditch efforts."
Yes, weren't all reincarnations and lives arranged? So isn't it acknowledging what the old forces arranged when I am feeling helpless in front of their arrangements? And the recollection of my childhood is just a manifestation of an everyday person's mentality. Merciful Master is forgiving all beings' errors in the past but the old forces are attached to what they want and are destroying beings... It was really dangerous, if I hadn't studied the Fa I really couldn't know about the Fa-principle on that level.
"The Fa can break all attachments, the Fa can destroy all evil, the Fa can shatter all lies, and the Fa can strengthen righteous thoughts." ("Drive Out Interference" from Essentials for Further Advancement II)
After I strengthened my righteous thoughts, I made up my mind to negate all arrangements made by the old forces, and whenever an ordinary person's thought showed up, I kept reciting Master's Fa-lecture,
"Calmly reflect on the attachments you have
Remove your human thoughts
and evil will naturally die out"("Don't Be Sad," from Hong Yin II, Translation Version A)
My feet then became much less painful. Even when they hurt sometimes, it could not touch my heart. I kept digging out the root of my attachment, and I found that the repeated pains I suffered in those years were also because of my initial thought. Initially I had the thought that Master would remove those minor attachments left in cultivation when we get close to consummation, then we can walk on a relatively easier path. That showed the selfishness in my heart. We need to cleanse ourselves of it. Only when we cultivate ourselves by each tiny thought can we save more beings
While I am writing now, my eyes are blurred with tears. Our merciful Master is once again printing the Fa-teaching in my brain,
"Compassion can harmonize Heaven and Earth, ushering in spring
Righteous thoughts can save the people in this world"("The Fa Rectifies the Cosmos," from Hong Yin II)
This is all I was enlightened to in the process of "sickness karma" repayment. Karma repayment, benevolent solutions, eliminating selfishness, and then the merciful salvation of all sentient beings---represent the continuous upgrading of a being's xinxing in the process of cultivation.
Conclusion: With indescribable joys that can only be experienced by cultivators, I, as a brand new being trying to bring niceness to others as Master taught, am expressing my most sincere appreciation to our benevolent and great Master. I will definitely do well all I need to do, and prove myself worthy of Master's merciful and arduous salvation.
Finally, let us encourage each other with two poems from Hong Yin and Hong Yin Volume II.
Nothing
No nothing, no emptiness, no anything
No goodness, no evil--
beyond the extremes
A forward move,
myriad things come into being
A step back,
all turns to nothing,
forever to be a mystery(from Hong Yin II, Translation Version A)
Delusion
Multitudinous are the lives that fill the Firmament,
Layer upon layer, each with its Heaven and Earth.
So incredible and wonderful the spectacle,
But the common man is too lost, caught in delusion.
How easy to say, it is, yet so hard to really see,
For cultivation is like climbing steps.
Only up high does the mist of delusion clear,
There the magnificent sight appears--
miraculous,
indescribable!(from Hong Yin, Translation Version A)
Thank you, Master,
Thank you, fellow practitioners!
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