(Minghui.org) I returned to Falun Dafa cultivation at the-onset of the COVID pandemic. Even though those two years of being on the cultivation path were short, they were rather difficult. I went from hanging on to my attachments, to being able to understand cultivation in a rational way as well as understanding the responsibility of a Fa-rectification period Dafa practitioner. I sincerely gave myself over to solid cultivation. With every improvement during that time, I could feel Master watching over me, safeguarding and enlightening me at all times.
Beginning on My Cultivation Path
I was born in the 90s and began Dafa cultivation in 2006. At that time, I was in my second year of junior high school. I’m different that some other young practitioners in that even though I was born into a practitioner’s family, I started cultivation on my own initiative. At that time, out of concern that I would be subjected to persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime, the practitioners in my family asked me not to cultivate, and instead simply be a good person who understands that Falun Dafa is good. They thought I should wait until the Fa rectifies the human world, and then cultivate. However, when I insisted on practicing Falun Dafa, they didn’t stop me either.
Checking sharing articles and reading the main book of Falun Dafa, Zhuan Falun, and Master’s new articles from the Minghui website, I came to understand that a Fa-rectification period Dafa practitioner needed to do the three things well. Thus, upon starting to practice, I tried to clarify the facts to my classmates and help them quit the CCP organizations. I sent forth righteous thoughts every day on my way to school and going home. When I ran into people on my way home, I also clarified the facts to them. After I finished my night study and returned home, I studied the Fa and did the Falun Dafa exercises before going to bed.
Local practitioners advised that the school management and teachers generally didn’t accept Dafa truth clarification informational materials. Therefore, they reminded me to pay attention to my safety when talking to people about Falun Dafa. In fact, when I clarified the facts to students face-to-face, even though there were people sneering and swearing at me, or refusing to believe what I told them, I never had anyone report me to my teacher. Some were willing to accept the truth and renounce their memberships in the Young Pioneers and Youth League. Every time I helped someone quit, I was so happy for him or her.
My class teacher and other teachers all knew that I practiced Falun Gong (also called Falun Dafa), and helped people quit the CCP. But they didn’t stop me, nor have a talk with me. I knew that Master was protecting me, and had arranged for me to have a stable environment for clarifying the truth.
When I was in my last year of junior school, udumbara flowers appeared on the wall of fluorescent tubes in our classroom. This was witnessed by my entire class. When I went home for dinner and mentioned this miraculous thing to my parents, my Dad said, “That’s because of you.”
During junior high school, I ranked in the top three of my grade throughout all the years in school. In the end, I was successfully admitted to a top senior high school.
Not Knowing How to Cultivate: Stuck in the Dye Vat of Ordinary Society
Remembering my cultivation during junior high school, the most regret I felt was that I did not understand how to cultivate or follow Dafa’s requirements to cultivate my xinxing. Even though on the surface, I was doing the three things—studying the Fa, clarifying the truth, and sending righteous thoughts—I did them mostly on impulse. I did not rely on a practitioner’s rationality. Thus, I gradually moved away from the requirements of Dafa cultivation, and became polluted in the dye vat of ordinary human society. My bad habits increased instead of diminishing.
I became short-tempered, fought with my parents, and indulged myself with online computer games. I also liked to sleep in, often ended up running late for my classes, had trouble handing in my homework on time, and other issues. Even though I understood the problem I faced, I didn’t do what I was supposed to do, and I couldn’t eliminate those attachments at the root.
I continued like this for seven to eight years, and never tried to change. Occasionally when I became conscious about my shortcomings, I also realized that I was running behind, and quietly said to Master deep down that I would do well later on. I knew that only by studying the Fa could I change myself. I also sent forth righteous thoughts at set times, but couldn’t clarify the facts to people.
Even though I still studied the Fa subconsciously, I only thought about how to catch up with study so as to excel in class again. This came down to the same desire as pursuing good health, which was an attachment. Thus, every time I made up my mind to cultivate well, my state would initially improve. However, it took only a few weeks for me to stop being diligent. Feeling depressed, I began to indulge myself in all kinds of addictions, and couldn’t snap out of them.
The pandemic broke out in 2020. At that time, I had just resigned from a company and was ready to look for a job close to my hometown. But because of the COVID situation, I couldn’t leave my house. During that time, I had ample time to study the Fa and do the exercises. I realized that Master had given me the opportunity to change my cultivation state.
However, this time it was rather different than before. To my surprise, when I studied the Fa again, I couldn’t see any Fa principles. The interference from thought karma was intense. Often enough, as soon as I finished reading one paragraph, I forgot all about what was mentioned in the previous paragraph. After I finished reading one chapter, I couldn’t believe that I had nothing in my mind, which had never happened before. I sadly thought, “Did I already lose my cultivation opportunity?” I worried that Master would also give up on me, the cultivator who didn’t work diligently.
At that time, my state got so bad that it was quite alarming. I didn’t take a shower for an entire month, and my room was untidy and dirty. I was extremely depressed, felt heavy to the point of being breathless every day, with a face so gloomy that I was unable to smile.
Recalling my state back then, I felt so ashamed, but had difficulty talking about it. Even though I’d obtained the Fa, I failed to do well in cultivation, nor was I even comparable to a good person among ordinary people.
I had the thought that I wasn’t a new practitioner, but I still did poorly. Many new practitioners can save sentient beings, why couldn’t I? Even though I didn’t do well, I shouldn’t interfere with saving sentient beings. No matter how poorly I did, rather than worrying about failing to reach consummation, at least I could help some people go to the new cosmos, and not be destroyed during the dismantling of the old cosmos. In Master’s new lecture, He kept emphasizing saving people. Why couldn’t I do that?
With that, I decided not to worry about how I cultivated, but rather what I should take on in terms of truth-clarification projects.
Considering that my appearance had been tainted by various bad habits in the past, in order not to leave a bad impression with ordinary people, I decided not to clarify the facts face-to-face for now, but rather to pass on informational materials indirectly. After thinking it over I decided to participate in sending truth-clarification emails. This project has high security requirements for one’s computer system, from isolating the entire machine and ensuring security measures, to searching and registering valid overseas mailboxes, how to collect and distribute mailboxes, and how to verify that the mails sent were valid. The whole process required a certain amount of computer knowledge and learning ability, and was thus suitable for young practitioners to participate in.
Following the tutorials on the technology forum, I bought a solid-state drive and installed the WTG system myself. I then downloaded the complete machine isolation tutorial and required software. Lastly, I started studying how to establish complete machine isolation.
A miracle happened that day. I suddenly felt that my body felt very uncomfortable, so I decided to take a hot bath. On the first day I began to research how to isolate the entire machine, I noticed a pile of garbage on the floor, so I ended up cleaning my room. I also got my flat sheet and quilt cover changed. The next day, I didn’t feel good about having my body exposed at home, so I decided to put on more clothes. I thus went through some changes every day.
Within a week, my surrounding environment had suddenly become clean and tidy. I was in high spirits, and the bad habits which had been with me for several years disappeared, one by one, without me doing anything intentionally. In fact, the whole process went so fast that I didn’t have time to think about it. This had never happened before. I understood that my thought of “saving sentient beings” from deep down, was right, so that Master helped remove my karma.
Improving Xinxing
I received a few truth-clarification emails when I was in college, but only found them in the junk email. The body text of them contained key words including the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, “A Breaking News,” “Understanding the Truth,” interspersed with truth links and anti-filtering gibberish.
After I thought about it, I felt that even though these emails could intuitively display relevant key information which achieved the effect of spreading the truth, they really resembled junk mail. The way they appeared in the inbox looked really bad, and sending them out in large quantities might be offensive to people.
In order to improve the success rate, I used a manual way to deliver them, as opposed to sending them out in bunches. This was because when I sent out some test emails, I realized that they only arrived at people’s inbox the first couple of times. After that, the majority would be treated as junk mail and ended up sitting in the junk mail folder. On the contrary, even though I could only send a few of them manually, it guaranteed that every email would be delivered to the person’s inbox. I felt that compared to pursuing quantity, efficiency mattered more. Therefore, I have since sent them out manually.
As I became more and more skilled at sending out the truth-clarification emails, the quantity that went out also increased. I went from delivering the initial 20, to 40 emails, to over 100 daily now. Compared to how many were sent, I placed more emphasis on whether every one of them was successfully delivered to people’s inboxes.
When it came to sending out truth-clarification emails, the first xinxing issue I encountered was suspicion. As I couldn’t see the real impact after an email was sent out, I’d become concerned that it wouldn’t achieve the effect of saving people, and would thus be a waste of time. On this front, I deeply felt Master’s benevolent enlightenment.
When I first started sending them out, I did so for a few days in a row and didn’t receive any replies. One day, since my family members knew what I was doing, they asked, “Do you think those emails you sent can achieve some effect?” I replied by saying, “They surely can.” Then they asked again, “Did you receive any replies?” I was stuck. Even though I understood from the Fa-principles that “You put in the effort and your teacher will handle the rest.” (The First Talk, Zhuan Falun)
As long as one follows a practitioner’s standard, and puts one’s heart into clarifying the facts to people, that should suffice. I didn’t have to see the effect with my own eyes. It was Master playing the main role. But even so, I wasn’t sure.
Perhaps because Master wanted to encourage his disciple, one day when I sent out truth-clarification emails, I was surprised to find a reply sitting in my inbox. It only said: Thank you! But still, I was so happy and quickly showed it to my family. Meanwhile, I was clear that I was indeed on the correct path, doing things to clarify the facts. Master was surely taking care of me.
I subsequently began to receive replies and feedback from time to time. Initially, most of them cursed at me. I chose to ignore this kind of reply. I thought, “You swore at me, but I won’t be moved. I won’t argue with you, and continue to do the things that I am supposed to do.” But after a while, I felt something wasn’t right. I was saving sentient beings. When they swore at me, didn’t it mean that I needed to clarify the facts to them?
When I later ran into this kind of reply, I began to reply to them seriously. I first thanked them for their reply, then reminded them to read the content in the attachment of the email. After I had replied to some emails, I realized that for those rude emails, except for some of who were deeply deceived by evil lies and couldn’t accept the truth, most of them thought my email contained a virus. Later after I explained to them in detail what was included in the attachment, they all understood and were keen to check out the attachment.
During the process of sending out truth-clarifing emails, I also experienced karma elimination. Sometimes I appeared to be lazy to the point where I didn’t even want to turn on my computer to send out emails. It was as if it was too much trouble. My body felt as if it was being held back by something, and felt very heavy and tired. However, when I made up my mind to turn on the computer, and began to send out emails, I suddenly felt my body beclme light, and I was in high spirits. After I finished sending them out, I felt delighted. Then on the next day, the same lazy feeling appeared. This state lasted for a while.
During the process of sending truth-clarification emails, occasionally I encountered interference, such as Internet connections constantly getting cut off. But as long as I sent forth righteous thoughts, this issue went away.
When I sent out emails, I tried to maintain a serious mindset, as opposed to only going through the motions. I understood that only by maintaining a practitioner’s state of mind could I do well when clarifying the truth. Truth-clarification is not simply a surface matter, and only by having the power from the Fa can one truly be saved.
Returning was not Smooth Sailing
Returning to cultivation wasn’t smooth sailing. I stumbled, and had to get back on my feet a few times. During this process, I realized that every time I paid attention to truth-clarification and saving sentient beings, I could move forward on my cultivation path. However, when I slacked off in truth-clarification, I was easily attracted by games, reputation, self-interest, and sentimentality. When the interference became serious, I realized I had to get back to where I was.
Why was that? I figured that it was because a practitioner came for assisting Master in Fa-rectification, and saving sentient beings. Only by treating “saving sentient beings” as the starting point, can one maintain the righteous thoughts of being a practitioner; only by being altruistic, can one cultivate with righteous thoughts and actions when facing with the old forces and interference from one’s karma, as opposed to drifting along with the current tide of ordinary human society. On this cultivation path of a human becoming a god, one should strive forward diligently.
Thank you Master again for your compassion!
Views expressed in this article represent the author's own opinions or understandings. All content published on this website are copyrighted by Minghui.org. Minghui will produce compilations of its online content regularly and on special occasions.
