(Clearwisdom.net)
Greetings, revered Teacher and fellow practitioners!
April 26, 1994, was a day that my family of six will always remember. It was the day that we attended the first of Master Li Hongzhi's nine-day lecture series in Changchun City.
Teacher said,
"I think that whoever gets to hear me transmit the exercises and teachings in person, I'd say he's really... later on you'll know, and you'll feel really glad about this period of time."(Zhuan Falun, Version 2003)
My Journey from Seeking Fitness to Practicing Cultivation
Before I attended Master's lectures, I had hepatitis, stomach problems, and a lung infection. After Teacher's lectures, my body felt light and all of my symptoms disappeared. At that time, I only knew that doing the exercises daily was important; I knew nothing about studying the Fa and cultivating my mind.
My enlightenment quality was poor at that time, so when I felt unwell, I did not regard it as a good and necessary part of the body's purification process. As a result, I began to worry. About six months later, my hepatitis relapsed and I went to the hospital for an examination.
Although all of my test results were within normal ranges, my whole body had a yellow hue to it, including my eyes. Following the doctor's order, I checked myself into the hospital. But whenever the staff tried to give me an injection, my legs would cramp up.
One night, I dreamed that Teacher was sitting next to me, watching me with a stern look on His face. When I awoke, I suddenly enlightened to the fact that I was experiencing the symptoms of hepatitis because Teacher was cleansing my body, and that I should not have taken any injections or pills. Indeed my enlightenment quality was poor! I left the hospital immediately.
For a long time after, my urine looked like soybean oil, but I was not concerned because I knew Teacher was cleansing my body.
Later, when I attended group Fa studies, I noticed that my enlightenment quality seemed to have improved. Whenever I experienced any ongoing symptoms, I realized that, as a practitioner, I had no illness and that it was Teacher cleansing my body.
Teacher said:
"If you can change your thinking at its very core, we can do this for you, and more, and later on you'll know it. I've really given something to each of you. And again, we don't do healing here, but what we will do is totally rebalance our students' bodies, and make it possible for you to practice." (Zhuan Falun)
Going to Beijing to Appeal for Falun Gong
The Chinese Communist Party began persecuting Falun Gong on July 20, 1999. Teacher was falsely accused of many bad things and practitioners were routinely tortured. I went to Beijing on two separate occasions, at the risk of being persecuted by the Party's thugs. I went there to tell the government the real truth, and that practicing Falun Gong had benefited me both physically and spiritually.
The first time I went to Beijing, I was arrested and taken to Fentai Stadium in Beijing, where thousands of practitioners were already being held against their will.
The second time I went to Beijing to appeal, I was arrested along with 11 other practitioners as soon as we arrived at Tiananmen Square. We were taken to the Fenglong Hotel, where we met with the police from our respective local districts and were taken home. When we arrived in our hometowns, we were all taken to detention centers.
At the time, it was indeed like Teacher said: "Abundant troubles rain down together, All to see: Can you pull through?" ("Tempering the Will" from Hong Yin, Translation Version A).
The detention center in our city was filled to the brim with practitioners who had gone to Beijing to appeal. Fellow practitioners and myself recited the Fa every day.
The police used all sorts of tricks to get us to write guarantee statements promising to stop practicing Falun Gong. Some practitioners wrote these documents against their will. Some families used their connections to get their loved ones released, while other families were forced to pay large sums of money to insure their relative's release.
Out of all the practitioners who were arrested, only I and a few others who refused to write the statements were detained. A month later, the police released me after extorting 1,000 yuan from my family.
After I returned home, I called the head of the Political and Justice Department of my local police department and demanded that he return the money he had extorted from my family. I told him, "If you don't give me back the money, I will go to Beijing to appeal again. I'm serious!"
He called the police chief immediately, and then the chief called the mayor, saying, "A Falun Gong practitioner is threatening us. If we don't return the money, he will go to Beijing again tomorrow. Please tell us what you would like us to do." The mayor said, "Return the money tomorrow."
A police officer called me back, saying, "You can come to the police station to pick up your money, but don't tell the others." Instead of listening to them, I told everyone. The next day, a dozen of us showed up at the police department demanding that the police return the money that they extorted from our families. We all got our money back. Those who dared not go, never got their money back.
It is as Teacher said, "If thoughts are righteous, evil will collapse." ("What's to Fear?" from Hong Yin Vol. II)
Help Teacher to Rectify the Fa and Save More People
I began distributing truth clarification materials in 2001. The first time I did it, I climbed the stairs of a tall building. I was so scared that my legs were shaking. Then I suddenly recalled Teacher's words:
"...real Buddhas are guardians of the cosmos and are responsible for all righteous elements in the cosmos." ("Teaching the Fa at the Western U.S. Fa Conference," Guiding the Voyage)
I thought to myself, "Since I am trying to cultivate into a Buddha, I should follow the spirit of the Buddha. I must rid of myself of the attachment to fear." From then on I was no longer scared while distributing Dafa materials.
In 2003, the practitioner who was responsible for delivering Dafa materials in our area moved away, and nobody stepped forward to take his place. When the coordinator asked me to assume that role, I said, "Sure, I am a veteran practitioner, it is my responsibility." I have been handling this role ever since.
In the past eight years, no matter how difficult it was, I went out to distribute fliers whenever I could. I felt that saving people could not be delayed, as saving sentient beings depends on them learning the facts.
The Good Thing about a Bad Fall
Earlier this year, after I finished distributing Dafa materials, I fell down while crossing the street. I was unable to get up by myself, so some bystanders had to assist me. As a practitioner in her 70s, I felt fortunate that I practiced Falun Gong; otherwise I would have been in big trouble. I endured the pain and walked home, climbing five flights of stairs.
I looked inward to see why I had fallen and what I had done wrong. Reflecting on several things that had happened to me recently, I found that my xinxing had not improved for a long time. I was the type of person that Teacher described: one who explodes as soon as they hear any criticism.
One day my husband, who is also a cultivator, found some Falun Gong related pamphlets in the stairway. As soon as he walked in the door he asked, "Did you distribute the fliers that I found in the stairway?" After telling him that I hadn't, he remarked, "It must have been you."
Similar situations had happened in the past. I answered him in a defiant and loud voice, "So what? What are you going to do about it?" He has been worried for years about our safety and whenever he found truth clarification materials in the stairway, he would fight with me.
So, when I heard him complaining about the fliers, I became very agitated and argued with him. That night when I studied the Fa, I read:
"As gods see it, for a cultivator to be right or wrong in the human world is not important in the least, whereas eliminating the attachments that come from human thinking is important, and it is precisely your managing to eliminate those attachments rooted in your human thinking as you cultivate that counts as important. If you can manage to handle things calmly no matter how wronged you may feel, if you can remain unmoved and not try to come up with some kind of excuse for yourself, then with many things you won't even need to argue. That's because on your path of cultivation there is nothing that is by chance. So, when you get into a heated exchange and it stirs things up in you, or you get into a conflict over something that concerns your vital interests, perhaps the factors behind it were put there by Master." ("Fa Teaching Given in Manhattan").
Reading this, I suddenly realized that arguing with my husband about who was right or wrong on this issue made us both wrong. Elevating xinxing is the most important thing.
Although Fa-rectification is coming to a close, I still haven't gotten rid of many of my attachments. I need to look inward and work hard on improving my xinxing.
The sacred relationship that I share with Teacher was formed ages ago. Today, although I am in my 70s, my respect and gratitude toward Teacher knows no bounds. I truly miss Teacher and want to take this opportunity in the Seventh Fa Conference to send my greetings to Master.
Since I have limited schooling, a fellow practitioner helped me edit what I wanted to say. Please point out anything inappropriate.
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