(Minghui.org) I began to cultivate in Falun Dafa after I discovered Zhuan Falun at a bookstore. It was as if a light bulb went off in my head. Many questions I had about life were suddenly resolved. I was later taken to a park, where I could join a group doing the Dafa exercises.
I have loved to read books since I was a child. When I ran out of things to read, I often read the next semester’s textbooks as if they were storybooks. I did very well academically, and was admitted to Tsinghua University in the early 1980s.
My performance in other areas of study at college was also very good. People were envious of me for ranking at the top of my class. However, I became numb to the recognition after being number one so many times. I felt I was still the same person, and a person’s life was rather mundane. Those high officials or the super rich may enjoy feeling successful, but such a feeling actually meant nothing for me.
There was an article in the magazine Chinese Youth at the time that started a big discussion around the nation about moral values and the meaning of life. I paid great attention to the matter, but did not see any viewpoints that were revolutionary.
My head was filled with atheism and evolution at the time. I treated life as something occurring by chance, and I believed one’s life was just this lifetime. I became very depressed, feeling that it made no difference whether I lived long, and that pursuit in life is meaningless.
Fortunately, the library at Tsinghua University had many books on traditional culture, which opened up a completely new realm of thinking for a science and technology student like me. I first came in contact with Taoist scriptures, followed by Buddhist scriptures. I read a large number of books during the eight years I was at Tsinghua.
Although I could not understand everything, I learned that Chinese traditional culture is a study of the human body and self cultivation; the purpose of a human life is to return to one’s original true self. However, I only knew this in principle. I had no way to actually engage in it.
The qigong boom was at its peak in the 80's. Especially in the Zhongguancun area, many qigong masters came to Beijing University, Tsinghua University, and the Chinese Science Academy to give lectures. More of them were about Taoist qigong, and some belonged to the Buddha school. Many of my classmates were interested, and we attended the lectures in large groups. We discussed the teachings and mimicked the exercises after returning to the dorms.
The qigong boom was significant since it unbound the close-minded Chinese from modern science and let them see that the human body possessed many secrets that science was unaware of. This indeed had the effect of paving the way for Falun Dafa's introduction to the public. I came across many terms at that time that I later read in Zhuan Falun.
The university advisors, however, seemed to think that I was a good candidate for the communist party, because they sent me to learn Marxism during the summer. After studying it, however, I found that Marx did not discover any great truths; they were just awkward conclusions that appeared to be true with many prerequisites. This was particularly true of the theory of surplus value. It did nothing but create conflict and resentment between different social classes. This made me give up Marxism from the bottom of my heart.
It was exactly Chinese traditional culture that let me see life’s meaning beyond atheism and evolution. I felt I still had time to answer the ultimate questions of a human being in my remaining life: Who am I? Where was I from? Where am I going? What is the purpose and meaning of life?
After graduation, I kept up my habit of buying books at the bookstore. I mainly bought books on science and religion, in hope of finding the truth and the meaning of life. By 1996, I had three understandings: 1) Virtue has a physical meaning. 2) The human culture has its purpose. 3) Major events happen for a reason.
In my continued study of science and religion, science disappointed me more and more. Generalizing from a point and applying it to a plane to learn about the workings of the universe is like the story of the blind men who tried to figure out an elephant’s shape by touching it at different parts. The study of science had already reached its end, and had no more guiding value to my search for the meaning of life.
When I look back, after I learned Falun Dafa in 1997, I found everything was carefully arranged. I know Master Li was taking care of me before I even learned Dafa because I survived several near-death accidents. I could distinctly feel the cultivation path that Master had arranged for me.
It appeared that my life before finding Falun Dafa could be easily seen through all the way to its end. It was nothing but a life of becoming a social elite who enjoys a house, a car, and savings in the bank. I might have become a millionaire judging from some of my classmates’ situations.
The life arrangement in cultivation practice, however, emphasizes converting one’s virtue and good fortune over to the other side of one’s human existence, to one’s true home. It is sufficient if one has just enough to live on. One needs to suffer hardship to repay the karmic debts one previously owed. So I basically did not have many comfortable days during my 25 years of life since I became a Dafa practitioner, particularly during the time I was persecuted by the CCP.
After all these years of Fa study and cultivation, I not only solved all of my questions and ultimate problems in life, but have also seen the grand picture of the celestial bodies that Master has explained to us. I learned about the history of the cosmos and cosmic bodies that are even more distant. I understand that Master brought Falun Dafa, which he created, to solve the problem of formation-stasis-degeneration-destruction of the old cosmos, thus ushering in cosmic renewal. This is a feat that the countless beings in the cosmos who can remain through the process of Fa-rectification will never be able to repay.
We are fortunate to follow Master to validate Dafa, to cross over from the old universe to the new universe, and to become witnesses of this great period of history. We are fortunate to know things that even gods didn’t know in the past, and are even more fortunate to be able to assimilate to the standards of the universe’s ultimate characteristic of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
Fa-rectification is in its final stage. Saving sentient beings has reached the most critical moment. Master saved us and created everything in the future for us. We must fulfill our oath to save more sentient beings and prosper in the future universe.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Falun Dafa’s spread to the public, and I want to commemorate it with this poem:
In the vast universe going through eons,Traveling through time and space to the Three Realms,Having reincarnated for thousands of lifetimes,Only to become enlightened in this lifetime.
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