(Minghui.org) I officially started to cultivate Falun Dafa in 2014, although I had read Zhuan Falun in 1996. I sincerely thank Master Li for protecting me and not giving up on me – a practitioner with low enlightenment quality.
The Power of Dafa: Overcoming Tribulation
I moved to Japan to attend school in March 1992, so I didn’t know much about the spread of Dafa in China or the persecution.
My mother started to cultivate in 1996. She used to suffer from heart disease, a herniated lumbar disc, and eye problems. She recovered and returned to good health after she started to practice Dafa and turned into a happy person. She sent me the book Zhuan Falun and asked me to read it carefully.
I thought that Falun Dafa was merely a qigong practice for healing and fitness. I was young and healthy, and I was busy with work. Although I read a few sections, I didn’t understand what Zhuan Falun was talking about. I put the book aside until I experienced a tribulation in 2014, during which Dafa demonstrated its amazing power. In almost unendurable pain, I picked up Zhuan Falun again.
I had sent my two sons to China to learn Chinese and was there visiting on March 20, 2014, when there was a gas leak in their room. Both of them were poisoned. The older one was lifeless, while the younger still showed some signs of life. The doctor said the treatment was to use high-pressure oxygen to push the carbon monoxide (CO) out of his body. But he could not breathe on his own, so they could not do anything.
The boy was transferred to another hospital and put on a ventilator. The lab results showed that the concentration of carbon monoxide in his body was still way too high. The doctors guessed that his organs and nerves had already been damaged and the chances of successfully reviving him were very low. I was told that there was no good treatment in this case and that all they could do was to go in through his trachea and suck all the bad air out of his lungs. And even if he did live, he might end up nonresponsive. The doctors asked us if we were willing to have the surgery. Of course, yes. We already had lost one child. Even if the other ended up in a vegetative state, we had to try to save him. We signed the consent.
I was in agony. I knew that my dying boy needed me to be strong, but I could not pull myself together.
My mother rushed to the hospital the next day. She kept reciting, “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” As she did, I saw that my son’s eyes move a bit, and I told her. She continued to recite the phrases.
After a while, he opened his eyes that were filled with tears. The next morning, he was conscious. When we called his name, he opened his eyes and could move his hands and feet. The doctors were surprised and canceled the surgery.
The next day, they removed the ventilator. He was able to sit up and talk. On the surface, he looked normal, as if he had just woken up. Soon, he could walk to the bathroom. The doctors believed that he had recovered well and moved him into a regular room on the 10th day.
In the hospital I saw a 20-year-old young man who’d had surgery in his trachea after he was poisoned by carbon monoxide. It has left his nervous system damaged. When his family changed his clothes, he screamed due to the pain. Yet my son had recovered in just a few days. It was really amazing. He is now a healthy 18-year-old. From the bottom of heart, I thank Master for saving my son’s life.
Although I had such an amazing experience, I did not become a cultivator right away. My mother told me, “It was Master Li Hongzhi who saved your son.” But I didn’t quite understand this, due to the long-term indoctrination by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). But I also thought that it was a miracle.
After I left returned to Japan, I didn’t have the energy to think about all this, because I was still in such anguish at losing my other son. I started to think about life and death. I wondered why a 15-year old boy would pass away. I wanted to know where he went. I blamed myself and felt deep regret. I started to read books on spiritual topics, including Buddhism, and books about life after death. I didn’t know what exactly I was looking for.
My health started to deteriorate. I had headaches from crying all the time. My vision became fuzzy. The physical and mental pains made me think of Falun Dafa and the changes in my mother after she started to cultivate. I also wanted to know why my younger son survived. So, I started to read Zhuan Falun again.
From reading Zhuan Falun, I understood the purpose of human life and the real cause of sickness, and I finally understood why my mother said this was not an ordinary qigong book. Eighteen years after I first read the book, I started to cultivate.
My Cultivation Journey
My journey of cultivation was not straight and trouble-free. At first I read the Fa teachings and did the exercises by myself. I could not even finish the 30-minute second exercise. My legs started to hurt terribly 15 minutes into the sitting meditation. This lasted for one year. I didn’t know how to cultivate, so I didn’t read the Fa or do the exercises every day. My mother told me that I should join practitioners at the local group exercise site. When I did, I felt like a homeless child who’d finally found her home.
From the other practitioners, I learned that I must read the Fa more and improve my xinxing. I quit eating my favorite food—sashimi—and drinking a little wine at dinner. Although I didn’t completely understand the significance of sending forth righteous thoughts, I still found time to do it. I also participated in all kinds of Dafa activities.
Then I attended the Fa conference in New York in 2016. I witnessed that Dafa had spread all over the world and saw our revered and benevolent Master. Listening to Master lecture, I was very grateful. I told him in my heart: “Master, you didn’t give up on me because of my low enlightenment quality. You guided me and gave me hints until I truly started to cultivate. I cannot call myself a diligent practitioner, but I will try my best to become a genuine disciple.”
Doing the exercises with other practitioners, I was able to do all of them. Although my cultivation state has not been steady, with Master’s protection and fellow practitioners’ help, I have walked this path until today.
Clarifying the Truth
I knew that a genuine practitioner must do the three things well. I experienced tests when clarifying the truth about Dafa. I don’t live in a tourist town, and there are only three practitioners. Every year we hand out truth-clarifying materials to international students who take an exam at a center. We also hold free exercise workshops at a local community center. Some local residents attended them, but they didn’t keep practicing. Although they stopped coming, they learned the truth about Dafa. I realized that cultivation is not easy, but I understood how precious the opportunity to cultivate is and how fortunate I am to have obtained the Fa.
I knew I had not done enough and wanted to do more to clarify the truth and awaken the conscience of more people. But I didn’t know what to do. Last year, I tried to clarify the truth to the Chinese people in my area. I thought that they were my friends, so it should have been easy to convince them to quit the Party. To my surprise, I could not make my points clear when I spoke to them. I, myself, was not familiar with the truth of Dafa, which kept me from convincing anyone else. Most of them didn’t quit the Party. I was frustrated. I believed this was because I wasn’t cultivating well and that I should cultivate myself first and then go out to clarify the truth. Thus, I stopped doing so for a long time.
My daily job is tiring and I need to learn a lot of new things. This became an excuse for not being able to read the Fa every day. I wanted to make a breakthrough, so I joined the project to call people in China. There are many Chinese practitioners on this project, which helped me discipline myself. Now I can read one lecture of Zhuan Falun every day. After my cultivation state improved, I wanted to go out and tell people about Dafa.
Pandemic Outbreak
The pandemic broke out at that time. Local practitioners started to call people in China to awaken their conscience. I wanted to do the same. Right after I had this idea, a fellow practitioner told me that there was a training for the RTC project and that anybody could attend. I believed that Master arranged this for me, so I attended the training.
At the training I learned details about Dafa’s spread, the truth behind the CCP’s propaganda attacking Falun Gong (also called Falun Dafa), and the facts of the state-sanctioned organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners. I enriched my mind with the truth and gained a lot of righteous thoughts.
Even so, I still experienced great tests when making phone calls to China. The first test was my own fear. My heart beat fast when I picked up the phone, and I was nervous when I talked to people. Many of them hung up after I just started, and I was frustrated. Fellow practitioners encouraged me and told me that I should use a soft tone of voice and talk to people as if we were friends, which would make it easier for them to accept what I had to say. I started to pay attention to my tone when reading the Fa every day and listened to the audio recordings of other practitioners’ phone calls to China. Gradually I felt better.
I wrote down my speech, but many people still hung up on me after only a few sentences. I thought that I didn’t have a good talking point to attract them, so I revised what I wanted to say many times. The project leader later told me to stay with one version and to get familiar with it. She said that I would gradually enrich the content of my speech and would be able to convince more and more people.
An Impressive Conversation
I recently had an impressive conversion on the phone with a man who sounded peaceful. I said that it was not a coincidence that it had snowed in northern China in the summer—it was a sign from heaven.
I said, “The pandemic is not a coincidence either. It is heaven punishing the people who are morally corrupt.” When I asked him if he was willing to quit the Party, he said he had only joined the Young Pioneers and was happy to have a chance to quit it.
Then I told him that some people had recovered from virus infections after they sincerely repeated, “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” I also talked about the amazing healing power of Dafa, how it has been embraced all over the world, and the truth behind the propaganda that the CCP churns out to slander Falun Gong. He listened carefully. In the end, I told him to remember to recite those phrases when facing a crisis and then he would see the power of the Buddha Fa
When I was about to hang up, he still wanted to talk, so I asked him if he had any questions and he said, “Please tell me if Falun Dafa truly has amazing powers.” I said, “Let me tell you about my own experience and why I started cultivating. I used to be like you—an atheist, because I had been indoctrinated by the CCP.” I then told him how Dafa saved my younger son. I could tell that he was moved, too. His tone became more gentle.
I then told him of the many terrible things the CCP has done and asked him to pass on what he’d learned today to people he knew. He said, “It would not be easy to convince my friends to quit the Party, because I am a policeman.”
Revealing his identity showed that he really understood the truth. I said, “If you run into Falun Gong practitioners, please treat them well and protect them.” We spoke for 21 minutes.
I have been part of this project for 15 months. I am very grateful for the effort that the team has made to help me to do better. The team helped me overcome the difficulties when I first started. I also thank the IT team for fixing computer problems for me again and again. My cultivation state has changed. I prioritize cultivation as the most important thing in my life and no longer surf the internet or watch television. I have more time to cultivate. I’ve become busy and happy. I know that my enlightenment quality is low. Without Master’s protection and fellow practitioners’ help, I would not be able to stay on the path of cultivation.
Thank you, revered and benevolent Master.
(Presented at the 2020 Telephone-Calling Group Online Fa Conference)
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