(Clearwisdom.net)
Learning the Practice
I started practicing Falun Dafa in early May of 1997. Teacher opened my celestial eye on the first day while I was doing the exercises. At 11:00 p.m. of the third day, when I had just gotten ready to go to sleep, I heard a sound of "hush" -- in another dimension an awl had penetrated my left foot, and then it went upward centimeter by centimeter. I was wet with sweat that night. The awl kept on penetrating until 11:00 a.m. the next day, and I had the feeling that something flew out of my head. At that moment, my whole body was very light, and I couldn't even feel myself, as if I stood on a cloud while walking. Also at that point, the symptoms left over from a stroke that had tortured me for one and a half years, the coronary heart disease and nephropathy of many years had all disappeared suddenly. Dafa is really wonderful. It's unbelievable! From then on, I studied the Fa with all my heart every day. I spent three hours on each lecture, and read word by word, and sentence by sentence. I felt as though I was reading the book with my heart instead of my eyes. I persisted in doing the exercises and never slacked off. Dafa's wonder manifested in me from time to time. I have been immersed in joy and wonder. Whenever I was walking among people, I felt that I am the happiest person in the world. I really want to let more people know and have everyone share this happiness with me. Therefore, I introduced the wonderfulness and divinity of Dafa to people whenever I met them. If anyone wanted to learn Dafa and practice the exercises, I would buy the book and give it to them.
Tempering
On July 20, 1999, the persecution started, and the red terror enveloped China. Many fellow practitioners were arrested. The police and patrols interrogated and searched the homes of practitioners one by one. They set a deadline to force practitioners to hand in their Dafa books and materials. My family was very scared, and I was also confused. Due to the poison that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) culture spread for many years, I firmly believed in the so-called "greatness, glory and correctness" of the evil CCP. Moreover, I was extremely timid by nature. Driven by fear, I surrendered all my Dafa books. Now, I regret deeply this wrongdoing I have committed against Teacher and Dafa.
During the following several days, I calmed down and started to think quietly: Is it really wrong to practice Dafa? As I listened to the accusations against Dafa and Teacher on TV, I realized what practicing Dafa meant. Teacher said,
"But I will cleanse true cultivators' bodies."(from Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Switzerland)
I realized that I had reached a state free of illness overnight, and used to be a person who could not go to work due to being seriously ill. It's impossible to get such a result in ordinary society no matter how much money you spend. However, Teacher didn't ask for one cent. Teacher opened my celestial eye, and I vividly saw wonderful scenes in other dimensions. I saw Teacher sitting on a lotus all over the heavens. I saw Falun rotating everywhere at the practice site, some as high as the roof. I saw Teacher's law body guarding the practice site, and I saw Teacher cleansing the practice site in my yard. I also saw many other things. Moreover, Teacher also let me see the form of opening the celestial eye, just like what Teacher taught us in the lecture. As I practiced further, miracles manifested in me constantly. I witnessed the existence of clairvoyance and teleportation. I found out that if a person practices a righteous way, those around him will truly benefit. All that Teacher said came true.
The CCP slanders Teacher and accuses him of deceiving people for motives like money, but what has Teacher ever asked of me? Nothing. I have not given him anything, but since I stepped into the practice of Dafa, Teacher has given me so much that cannot be bought with money. My own experience and feeling explain everything, so how can I easily believe others' vicious attacks? I understood that the CCP was bringing false charges against Dafa to slander Teacher and persecute practitioners. I no longer hesitated after realizing that I had not done anything wrong. Teacher teaches us to be a good person and to become an even better person. Being a good person is not wrong.
At that point, several fellow practitioners came to me, and we exchanged views about the suppression and what we should do. In the end, we agreed that the evil party has strong propaganda tools, but we Dafa practitioners have our own abilities and wisdom given to us by Teacher. We all have our relatives and friends, and we can tell them the facts about Dafa. If all of us practitioners explained the facts to twenty people, then the evil party cannot hope to continue. After that, I began my path of clarifying the facts face to face.
Solid Practice
During that time, many practitioners dared not to go out. I thought that if I wanted to tell people the facts about Dafa, I can't sit at home and must go out to create an environment for doing so. So I began to visit my close neighbors, friends and colleagues, and various groups of people to learn about their mindset in such a severe crackdown, their attitude towards practitioners, and common misunderstandings and concerns. Through talking to them, I cleared up questions and got to understand better how to go about it. People of today liked to think for themselves and were also interested in better health. In general, people were quite open to hearing first about the physical benefits of Dafa. I mainly focused on the following points.
1.Paying attention to my appearance. Before I go out, I dress carefully, put on light makeup, wear proper clothes, and give people a pleasant and fresh look. Practitioners' image is not only representing the individual, but also representing the image of Dafa, and it lays a foundation for people to accept the truth.
I am heading toward seventy years, but people often ask me if I am close to fifty or if I am going to retire. When I am together with my 20-year-old granddaughter, people would think that she is my daughter. I tell them, "It's a difference of one more generation." When my old colleagues saw me, they were speechless. I asked them, "Am I too old to be recognized?" They laughed and said, "Not too old, but too young to be recognized!" Whenever someone compliments me on my youthful appearance, I never lose the opportunity to validate Dafa with a smile. I would say, "Isn't Dafa good? Its characteristics let you look younger and younger. If you practiced, I am sure your skin will be better than mine, white with a rosy glow."
2. Compassionately treating everyone as if they were my family. I tell every person I meet about the facts and that I dare to do so because we have a predestined relationship. I also tell them that when they can hear these facts that I explain to them, they are very lucky, and that they will realize this in the future.
3. Taking the angle of expelling illness and keeping fit as an emphasis. People long to be healthy, and I have a personal experience of Teacher cleansing my body in one night to tell them. Many people said after they listened to me, "Elder sister, I also want to read the book." One person told me that it is great to see me being so energetic, while he had so many ailments. I replied to him, "Then I will give you a good method, read the book, and it will not take long until you will be energetic just like I am. Tell me what's the most precious thing at our age? Health! If you have good health, your quality of life improves. At least, I do not have to burden my children." Then he happily accepted the Dafa book.
Once I went to deliver some books to my cousin, but she was not home. While I was there, I happened to meet an old neighbor who I had not seen for many years. She invited me into their home and said, "Elder sister, we have not met for so many years, but you are still so young and beautiful. What is your secret?" I smiled and told her, "I will tell you my secret: I practice Falun Gong." Then I told her about my physical changes after I started practicing Falun Gong. She said, "You know I have worked as a shop assistant for over thirty years, and my legs are in bad shape from standing so much. You do not know how much pain I am in. I knock at them with a stick every day, but it is useless, can you let me read the book as well?" I told her, "You are so lucky, I happen to have one with me."
I went to see her a few days later and she was happy to see me, "Elder sister, after you left the other day, I washed my hands, locked the door, and read 69 pages in one sitting. At midnight, like you said, I was wet from sweating, and I thought that it had to be Teacher who was cleansing my body. The next morning, when my husband got up, he loudly cursed at me again. He just cursed at me with the worst language and without any reason, and he has done this for over thirty years. I was about to curse him back, but then suddenly remembered what Teacher has said, that practitioners should not fight back when being punched or insulted. I had to swallow my words, and my husband also suddenly stopped, and he has not cursed at me since." The second morning, Teacher opened her celestial eye. Her legs no longer hurt, and her whole body became light and comfortable. Very soon she helped her two younger sisters and niece to also practice Dafa. After practicing, her first younger sister could remove the oxygen cylinder, got up from the bed she had laid in for several years, walked downstairs, and became a healthy person.
The son of my colleague is a cadre who is responsible for human resources in a department. I went to his home to explain the facts one day. In the conversation, I talked about Dafa's spread, human morality, my personal changes both physically and mentally and the persecution of Dafa. With Teacher's strengthening, I talked for over three hours. During the conversation, he looked at me intently. When I finished, he said with emotion, "I have always thought that these practitioners were not ordinary. Today I listened to what you have said, indeed with a fine language, clear order and strong logic. With practitioners like you, your Teacher must be great." I sincerely said to him, "To be honest, among these practitioners, I am not the best. I still have many shortcomings and human notions, Teacher asks us to be a good person, more advanced than model workers, and completely think of others. I still have big gaps." He then told me that their workplace also had a Falun Gong practitioner, who is very honest. When the persecution began, the top authorities issued orders to dismiss him. One day, his wife went to his workplace for an unemployment slip so that he could find a job elsewhere. Their workplace happened to be in the process of retiring staff, so that the person I was talking to asked his colleague to handle this practitioner as one who is being retired. He kept all the materials of dismissal, and said that if someone should ask, he will take the responsibility. I said to him, "Thank you for treating a practitioner so kindly, and you will receive good rewards in the future." His daughter, who is in high school, asked me, "Grandmother, will I be admitted to a university?" I said with certainty, "You will for sure. From now on, you must think, 'Falun Dafa is good' every day, and you will certainly go to a university." Later, his daughter was admitted into a very good university. His critically ill father also recovered quickly. Dafa brought good fortune to his whole family.
4. Using the principle of being good people to create a good environment. In July 2001, our house received the requirement for reconstruction and relocation, so we rented a new place. Everything was different. How could we open up an environment for clarifying the facts here? I acted according to Teacher's words, starting from being a good person. First, we prepared materials and hired someone to install a new iron door at the yard for this row of rooms, which was to replace the tattered wooden door that had been there for decades. We leveled the ground inside and outside of the yard, giving it a completely new look. On the second day after we had moved there, I got up early to clean inside and outside of the yard, and the small paths nearby. The south side of my room was next to an old style open-air public toilet, and it had lots of debris accumulated over the course of many years. I cleaned them all and leveled the uneven surface. Actually, what I did were all small things that are not worth mentioning, but it caused a stir among people in the area. Some discussed it behind my back, and some praised me face to face. I just said simply, "It makes it more convenient for others, also to me as well." People started to contact me and wanted to chat. Not long after that, over twenty people around me started practicing. The other three households in the same yard as mine all ended up with practitioners in their families.
In the same yard lived a female cadre who had a strong personality. When I talked to her about Falun Gong in the beginning, she did not accept it. She told me that a colleague who sat opposite from her at work also practiced. She said that he was originally a good person, but now this couple was close to getting a divorce and this was affecting her perception of Dafa. I temporarily stopped talking to her about it. I tried to fulfill my daily housework, looked after my husband and kids, helped my daughter-in-law to take care of her child, made good meals, helped her clean the rooms, and even washed the bed pan for her. At the same time, I made the atmosphere in our yard very active. She saw all this and later said to me, "Elder sister, how come you are so good?" I replied, "My Teacher guides us to become good people, and even better people." She then said, "I will take you as an example, learn from you, and treat my son that well too." I answered, "Fine, then you can simply practice Dafa with me. You are a good person, and you certainly can become an even better person." Not long afterwards, she indeed began to learn Dafa. During the present severe persecution, in our yard, I can open the door widely and play Teacher's lecture video at any time. When people pass by the yard, I invite them in to watch and listen.
The process of explaining the facts is also a process of tempering myself. I unceasingly correct myself, often rethinking and summarizing where I have not spoken well enough, which methods are not appropriate, and what words are not suitable. The more I talk, the more methods I discover, the more wisdom I gain, and the more people will believe me. I started from talking to individuals, to later to a group of people, especially when I went to my workplace. Some colleagues said to me, "When I see you, I think about Falun Gong." Some said that someone referred them to me by saying that this practice is good. A middle level cadre at my workplace said, "If others tell me something, I will think about it. When you tell me it is good, then it must be good." I really appreciate Dafa giving me wisdom. I am truly happy for my former colleagues, who can easily accept Dafa.
I have been explaining the facts like this since July 20, 1999 in different environments and with different methods. Since September 1, 2004, over 200 people I know have begun to practice, while some others have not done so. However, this built a good foundation for them to withdraw from the CCP. When that effort began, I helped those people who had a predestined relationship with me as usual, and over 3,700 of them have withdrawn from the CCP or its affiliated organizations. I am still striving forward, trying to do even better. The above are some of my thoughts on clarifying the facts face to face.
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