(Minghui.org) Editor’s note: The author is a practitioner who started practicing Falun Gong in 2018. While searching for the Dao in Nepal, he stumbled on a video exposing the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP’s) organ harvesting from a living Falun Gong (also called Falun Dafa) practitioner.
He was touched by the Dafa practitioner's steadfastness in her belief and began reading about Falun Gong, and eventually started practicing it. Below is his personal account of seeking the Dao amidst the fight for fame and wealth.
Life Before Falun Gong Cultivation
As a college student, I was young and ambitious and was exposed to and tempted by fame and wealth in the entertainment industry. I learned hip hop in my spare time and became part of a hip hop group composed of students from several colleges. Our group won first prize a few times at college talent competitions around the city and established a business connection with a local TV station.
I was cast in one of the programs that MTV produced. Later on, a producer from a Japanese company sponsored a talent recruiting event on Hunan Satellite TV, aiming to develop a market in China by forming a boys group like those in Japan and Korea. Friends at the TV station submitted the MTV to the competition on my behalf.
Driven by vanity, I abandoned school and entered the competition in Shanghai, and made it into the finals by luck, despite my amateur dancing and singing skills. I eventually lost the competition and returned to my city. The frustration and vanity of having been on TV made me put everything aside to learn to sing and dance better.
I went to Beijing to learn hip hop. I became acquainted with a broker through a friend and trained for a boys group in his brokerage company. The dancing teacher for the group was the most veteran dancing teacher from Korea, and his strict requirements exposed my shortcomings.
I was stubborn and narrow-minded and therefore had more and more conflicts with the teacher. The teacher wanted to kick me out, but I desperately strengthened myself in all kinds of extreme physical training to prevent that. I gradually developed depression, but my longing for fame and wealth was still driving me.
I tried looking for redemption and relief, but all I could find were words no different from the book Chicken Soup for the Soul. I also tried reading foreign psychology books. I finally was able to calm down and control my negativity.
Learning about the Mystical
I made a new friend and used his connections to go to Mount Wutai as a tourist. I got up early to attend the lamas’ chanting. I knew nothing about sitting in meditation, so I closed my eyes and listened. I felt good. When the lamas were moving outside for the fire offering ceremony, I saw a monk in his 70s in a patched gray robe kowtowing to the Bodhisattva statue in the temple.
My eyes lit up and I became curious. I approached him, which now I realize was a naive move, and asked, “Where do you live?” The monk did not look at me but responded softly, “None.” I was on the verge of tears. I had been fighting so hard in the city, but the monk in ragged clothes was so powerful, and his calm was as peaceful as the ocean.
I believed that there was something mysterious about him, but he did not tell me anything.
I asked him, “Where are you going next?” He told me the name of a place very far where he was going on his pilgrimage. I asked how he would get there, and he said he would walk. I was stunned and took out all my money, several hundred yuan (100 yuan= $14USD) in total. I kept a little for myself and gave the rest to him. He still did not look at me. I pushed the money to him.
When I was leaving Mount Wutai, the lamas gave me a pamphlet to chant every day. The pamphlet was full of classical Chinese verbiage, spells, and Buddhas' names. I found it very interesting and chanted for entertainment when I got back. Gradually, I found I could not live without the chanting. I wanted to chant whenever I felt bad. From then on, my depression was gradually resolved.
Facing the Mundane
As time went on, the Beijing dance company project failed, its members dispersed, and I was jobless. At the same time, one of my parents was removed from office and fined a huge amount due to corruption. My parents got divorced.
All these blows left me bitter: the ups and downs in my career, being betrayed in love, the distance between brothers due to fame and wealth, the volatility of the human heart, and the destruction of my family. I just wanted to get drunk to numb myself, but I still had to face everything when I sobered up. I almost wanted to die.
I sought help from books. I read a lot and observed a lot of people, but it seemed to me everyone was undergoing the same types of things, I was just running into them at a younger age. I was very surprised and wondered, "Why on earth?"
Looking for the Divine
I decided to look for the peaceful and compassionate spiritual power I saw in the old monk, but I didn’t know how to start. I knew one way to find the answers was from the great wisdom of a Buddha or a Bodhisattva, because I had experienced some subtle changes from chanting the pamphlet.
I continued searching for answers and gradually got into the study of Tibetan sutras, rules, and treatises. I spent several years studying them and attended a formal meeting in Tibet. I volunteered to work in Tibet doing jobs such as cleaning and emptying the garbage. I had no other skills, so I worked part-time while studying sutras, rules, and treatises as a Nyingma lay Buddhist.
I became aware of real instances of supernatural powers which, although they sounded mythical, were backed by hard evidence that science could not explain. I was deeply convinced and yearned for it.
My understanding reached a different level after I watched an American Discovery Channel documentary that featured a boy who sat in meditation for six years without eating or drinking. I sobbed as I watched the video and realized that what the Buddhist scriptures said was real.
In the years that followed, the boy would occur to me as soon as I started reading scriptures, and I wanted to find him and look for answers from him. I abandoned everything in China. With all the money I had saved from working and some from my family, I went on to look for the enlightened person in Nepal.
I found my way to Nepal, walked a day in the mountains, and finally arrived at a camp. I was told that the enlightened one was in a camp on the other side of the forest and that he would not receive visitors outside of the formal meeting. I got permission to stay in the camp where I was, so I set up my tent in the bamboo house the monks had built.
I started learning Nepali using the books I had brought with me. Most of the monks were teenagers and some could speak English. They were all dressed in blue robes. When the formal meeting was held, I went with the group to the other camp and met the enlightened one I had been wanting to meet.
I stayed in the central camp and worked as a volunteer. I met the guru a few more times. But due to my visa and financial reasons, in addition to some changes in my family, I couldn’t stay in that wonderful holy land for long.
I occasionally walked down the mountain to stroll in the town when I got bored. Once there I could find restaurants and WiFi. I could connect with my family on the Internet and log onto YouTube. There was no Internet blockade in Nepal, so I could watch things on YouTube that science could not explain.
Finding Falun Gong
Occasionally I stumbled on a video about live organ harvesting. At first, I thought someone was exaggerating, but watching the video, with my acting experience, I could tell the statements made by the repentant armed police officer were absolutely true, because his emotion and mood were not something that could be an act.
The police officer gave an unforgettable description: “As the knife went in, blood sprayed straight out. The woman shouted her last words, ‘Falun Dafa hao! (Falun Dafa is good!)’”
I burst into tears. The victim was an educated schoolteacher. Who could imagine, in such a materialistic age, that someone could be so steadfast in her belief in her master!
I thought Milarepa’s sufferings were ancient and would not exist today. But I was wrong. I shouted in my heart, “So remarkable! So remarkable!” I knew throughout history that the enlightened ones who had achieved consummation would rather give up their lives than waver in their faith, despite cruel suffering.
I thought such faith no longer existed in today’s world, because, just look at people today! I knew at least I couldn’t do it.
I wanted to learn what she had learned and find out what her master was teaching. Milarepa was a hero to me. I had never lost my direction.
I immediately searched for Falun Dafa on YouTube. Many of the search results were slanderous. I finally found www.falundafa.org and logged on. I couldn’t download the video for some reason, but I could download the audios. So I began listening right away.
As I was listening to Lecture One, my hair stood on end, “Good heavens! What have I been missing?” I continued listening and found the answers to so many of my questions, doubts, and things I did not understand. My heart was shouting out of excitement. I had never felt that way before.
Dimly, I recalled how shocked I was by the old monk 10 years before. Indeed, so many years had passed without my being aware of it. The government of Nepal was trying to please the Chinese authorities, so I couldn’t find a copy of Zhuan Falun.
I left comments on a Falun Gong website and knew someone would help me. Indeed, a practitioner saw my comments and mailed me the book. Unfortunately, the CCP confiscated Zhuan Falun when I was entering China from Nepal after my visa expired.
I had found the exercise instruction video online and learned the five exercises by myself before I left Nepal. I had also read Master Li’s (the founder) writings repeatedly and so many of my questions were answered. I didn’t know until then how remarkable the world is today--that gods and humans are co-existing!
I realized how petty I was to be dragged down by laziness and bad habits. I learned the deeper meaning of Master’s Fa after reading articles written by fellow practitioners.
I now have my heart set on practicing only Falun Dafa. I know Master does not give up on a single sentient being and has been laying foundations in the world for Dafa to be spread. Master has been enduring so much to enable us to get us out of the sea of bitterness and return home.
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