(Clearwisdom.net)
My family has been going through tribulations that I think are very important to share with fellow practitioners. I believe that sharing these experiences is itself a learning process that will help me elevate my xinxing and improve my understandings in the profound principles of Dafa. This is the very first time for me to share with fellow practitioners, so please point out anything that is inappropriate so I can make further improvements.
Let me start by saying that my family (my sister, mother, father, and I) originally heard about the Fa in 2005. Falun Dafa was introduced to my family by a close friend of my father's all the way from England (we live in the US). At first, I had a very shallow understanding and was not too interested because the exercises are very slow moving and I thought that such things were for the elderly, not someone young like me.
I am a very active person who enjoys strenuous physical exercise, so after about a month, even after reading Zhuan Falun, I set Dafa aside. It was not until about a year later in 2006 that I truly started my cultivation path as a Dafa disciple.
I had noticed that I was getting more and more tired, even after my daily workouts. I decided to change my routine to alternate my physical workouts with the Dafa exercises. After about two weeks of this routine, on several occasions during meditation, I started to experience different phenomena. Teacher had opened my third eye and my celestial ear. I started seeing people, scenes and things, and hearing music and voices. I started to get apprehensive because I couldn't understand what I was going through. Upon the advice of my family, I decided to call Uncle Sam, the practitioner in England who introduced Dafa to us. He explained his understanding to me and advised that it was important that I study Zhuan Falun and Teacher's other lectures. Taking his advice, I was able to settle down. This is how my true path of cultivation began. Like many others, I am not an exception with regards to pursuit in entering the door of Dafa. The attachments of curiosity about phenomena, consistently seeking knowledge, and the health of family members were my motivation for entering the door of Dafa.
On my cultivation path, my emotional state has resembled that of a roller coaster. After enduring episodes of close family members being diagnosed with cancer (my mom had uterine cancer around 2000 and my husband had Hodgkin's Lymphoma in 2002), I started to realize that life is a sea of endless suffering and I didn't think that I could experience anything else that could be as moving or earth shattering. I do not mind hard work or being penniless, but to see people around me suffer is worse than going through the actual suffering myself. So by studying Zhuan Falun and Teacher's other Fa lectures, it was finally clear to me why people go through endless suffering and why sentient beings go through all that they do.
My husband was against my cultivation. He is an atheist. His relatives are Catholic. His relatives have tried many times to convince both my husband and me to become Catholic, but to no avail. My husband created many obstacles and tribulations for me. I believe that Teacher arranged things this way, and that this is my cultivation path.
During my first pregnancy in 1993, I had a peculiar dream that puzzled me for a long time. I dreamed that I saw Bodhisattva Guanyin in a portrait. In the portrait she had moved to the edge of the frame and then just disappeared as she moved to the edge of the portrait. When I woke up, I was puzzled as to why I had this dream. It was not until recently when I thought back to my dream that I enlightened that no Buddhas, Gods or Daos are taking care of sentient beings today. That is why Bodhisattva Guanyin disappeared from the portrait.
During the few years of my cultivation, I have experienced many wonders, beauties, enlightenments, and phenomenal incidents that Teacher has allowed me to experience. Every time I look back at my path and see how Teacher has taken care of me and my entire family, I cannot help but feel extremely fortunate. For the rest, there are no human words to describe the profound feelings I have for Teacher.
Recently, my father was discharged from the hospital. This is the second time that Teacher has helped him with severe karma elimination. We believe that he was not able to eliminate it all at o left nce because it was very strong and severe. Thus, Teacher arranged for it to be divided into two portions. The first was when he had blood clots that started in hisleg that traveled up to his lungs. The doctor said that it was a miracle that he survived it. My father had a procedure done to insert a filter in his veins. Because of the way his veins were structured, he needed two filters while most people only got one. This happened in November 2007.
The next time around, he was checked into the ER and the doctor told him that filter on his right side was clogged with blood clots. The hospital was new and did not have the equipment to do the necessary procedure, so it was delayed for four days while they transferred him to another hospital. A doctor injected him with a drug to unclog the filter and break up the blood clots, but said that my father had waited too long to have the procedure done, and that it should have been done the night that he was admitted to the ER. The doctor told us that he was in a very dangerous situation and couldn't believe that he was able to make such fast progress in just two days. The doctor claimed that in this type of case, usually the patient either loses their legs, or if the clots reach their lungs, they lose their lives.
I believe that my father will now be more diligent in cultivating himself. He was not diligent in the past because he was stuck and has a very strong attachment to fear and health issues. While practicing in front of Teacher's picture, I couldn't help thinking about how much Teacher has done for him and our entire family. I couldn't help my tears from welling up. While my father was in the hospital going through the long, drawn out ordeal, I knew deep down inside that he was going to be alright because I knew that Teacher was there with him every step of the way. Maybe because of what I went through with my mom's cancer and my husband's cancer, I cannot find words to describe the feeling I have. I just know that I have to be strong and forge ahead. I was always worried about my father because I know there is only so much Teacher can do to help him if he does not truly help himself by cultivating well. I believe that my father is one of the sentient beings that Teacher has been looking after from way back, since the beginning (I believe from even before this lifetime), because my father has on many occasions throughout his life been in accidents that should have taken his life and because Teacher has allowed me and my sister to see who and what role he played in history. On one occasion when he was in his early twenties, he was involved in an accident where he flew out of the windshield of an automobile and then fell to the bottom of a cliff. He said that it felt as if someone had carried him to the bottom of the cliff to buffer his fall. If it were not for Teacher's constant protection, I believe my father would not be here today with us.
There are many more incidents that I would like to share, but they will not fit in this article. I had thought about sharing on many occasions but always put it off. I recently had a dream, though, that encouraged me to write and share my experiences. My dream took me to a dormitory in a school. There I shared a room with other students. There were four beds, and while I was repositioning my bed to a suitable spot, I found numerous pens and pencils on the floor, even underneath the beds. I kept picking them up but there were so many I couldn't hold them all, even in both hands. This dream occurred the night after my father had his procedure done in the hospital. When I woke up, I was puzzled by my dream. Then, three days later, a fellow practitioner recommended that I should write articles to share my experiences. This is when I enlightened to my dream and understood what the pens and pencils represented: Teacher was encouraging me to share with others.
Before my father's incident, I noticed that the clock on my wall had stopped working. At first we thought that it was the battery that needed replacing. After replacing the battery, it worked for a day but stopped again, so my husband thought that the clock needed to be replaced. He went out to buy a new one. The new one worked for a day and then stopped. Again, we thought the battery was no good because sometimes my son puts used batteries back in the same box with the new. Once the battery was replaced again, the clock worked for a day and then stopped. All the while, the old clock sat on the table and we noticed that it had started to work again after the new one was installed. So, we ruled out the clock being defective and thought that maybe it had to do with something in the wall that was interfering with the clock. After thinking it over, that was also ruled out because our old clock resided on the same wall for over 4 years working perfectly fine. So again my husband went out to replace the clock. I have enlightened through this incident that Teacher has delayed time again and again to wait for all disciples to awaken and be diligent in truly cultivating ourselves well to reach consummation, because Teacher does not want to leave any one of us behind.
So, fellow cultivators, please treasure this most sacred time and do well the three things that we have pledged to do in history. Walk the last leg of our journey following Teacher closely until we reach home, because this is not our home. We cannot let Teacher worry or forbear all that he has for us in vain. Teacher can only help us when we are diligent and truly make the effort to cultivate ourselves well. It really pains me when I see sentient beings and disciples not awaken to the true purpose of their existence today.
This is my current understanding.
Heshi!
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Category: Journeys of Cultivation
