(Minghui.org) I started practicing Falun Gong in the spring of 1999 when I was 12 years old. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched the persecution a few months after I practiced Falun Gong, but Dafa had already been deeply rooted in my heart. Although twists and turns occurred, Master always protected me benevolently. He did not leave me behind. He kept protecting me until I returned to the righteous path to assist him in Fa-rectification.
Lost in the Mundane World
I lived in a village and started practicing Falun Gong following my parents. I only read Zhuan Falun and basically didn’t read Master’s other teachings. After the persecution started, my parents slacked in their cultivation. As a young child, I slacked even more, and the distance between me and the Fa became greater and greater. Despite this, Dafa was like a seed that had been planted in my heart that was waiting to sprout in the future.
I grew up in a relatively harmonious family and my life had been pretty easy. I studied well, so I got into a good university. After graduating, I found a stable job and attained recognition from my superior. Because of that, I felt quite capable among my colleagues of the same age. I also modeled my behavior on modern trends, such that I got into the habit of being proud and arrogant, overbearing, self-centered, and disliking different opinions. Some of my colleagues called me the “queen of the office.” Apart from my superior, basically no one would tell me if I did something wrong, because I would find many excuses for myself until the other party gave up.
Around that time, I entered into my first romantic relationship. The other party was a man who at the time I felt was a bit below my status. As such, he was always accommodating my requests and listening to me. This caused my self-centered character to worsen. Every day after work, I would think about where to have a nice meal, where to watch a movie or where to have fun during the longer holidays. What I thought about every day was how to enjoy life.
Resuming the Affinity with Dafa
After being in the relationship for more than a year, we were getting ready to get married. Two months before the wedding, the man’s cousin went to Beijing for his studies. His cousin is a dentist and suggested he could help me by taking a look at my teeth. My teeth had been pretty poor since I was young, and after the examination he said that my teeth were not good and he would need to pull four of my molars. He said that the bone for my molars was quite thin, so, before I could get any implants, I would need a bone transplant. He stressed that this was a hereditary genetic problem.
I followed the procedures and started to repair my teeth. By the time all of my back teeth were removed and bone had been transplanted on one side, the man I was engaged to suggested we break up. He said my genes were not good, and my teeth issues would affect our offspring.
I had just finished the surgery. Half of my face was swollen and I needed to be on an IV drip for three hours every day to reduce the swelling. I could not accept the break-up. I felt as though I was going to collapse and that I had hit rock bottom emotionally. He also told me that even if I could find someone to form a family with in the future, I would become that person’s burden. I had been a cheerful and optimistic person with confidence in myself, but after this happened, I thought about suicide, because I felt that living was too hard a chore, and I did not know the meaning of life.
I suffered from insomnia for nights on end and cried a lot. When I felt too sad, I would call my parents. Once, my father picked up the phone and I kept crying non-stop. He suddenly said, “Have you forgotten who you actually are?” This sentence was like an electric current that woke me up. I suddenly thought of Master and Dafa. I was like a small boat floating in the vast ocean amid the strong winds and tall waves and suddenly a shore appeared in front of me.
I started to look for Zhuan Falun to read. At the same time, I also went online to download all of Master’s lectures to read. I learned that Master had already published so many lecture books and I had not read them at all for all these years. It was already 2014. So after settling work matters, I used my remaining time to study the Fa. After work, I would return to the hostel and do the same. I would often read until the early hours and could not bear to go to sleep.
Within a very short time, I finished reading one round of the more than 40 lecture books that Master had published. During the process, I went through earth-shaking changes. I was able to face the loss of my romantic relationship calmly, as I understood that there must be some predestined relationships that needed to unfold. I also learned that how I had treated people and matters in the past had veered too far from Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. I don’t know how much bad karma I created during that period of time. Luckily, Master still gave me chances to make up for it. I want to start afresh and do well.
Changing the Notion of Protecting Myself
As I already had taken a management role in my department, I needed to attend the company’s meetings every week. At the meetings, every department would need to report their work progress. There were often debates. Some managers would make some comments about my department. In the past, I faced these comments nervously and would always rebut them with a nimble mind to defend my motives to show that “I did well and I did the right thing.”
As I continued to study the Fa, I felt relaxed when I faced these critics. My mind was no longer overactive. Sometimes, I would just listen to them quietly as they voiced their opinions. The strong urge to defend myself disappeared. I was later able to treat all the critics and questions with a rational and calm attitude, thus resolving them. My colleagues no longer referred to me as the “queen of the office.”
Our company offers overtime at 1.5 times the hourly rate for weekdays and twice the hourly rate on Saturdays. Everyone is thus generally willing to work overtime because they can earn more money.
But the number of people who can work overtime each day is limited, so in my original department everyone had queued up to work overtime, and everyone took turns to make sure that everyone else would have a similar amount of overtime work each month.
I later voluntarily chose not to report my overtime and gave my chances to claim overtime to my colleagues. Master teaches us to think of others first. Therefore it does not matter if there is some losses in personal interest.
One morning, I was working in the office when the computer of a colleague who sat in the front row suddenly sounded. The noise kept on and I felt a bit impatient about it. I thought, “Why don’t you turn off the computer? The continuous noise is so annoying.” The colleague tried to solve the issue himself for quite a while, but he just could not resolve it. Only after he called the IT personnel to come and repair it did the computer stop making noise.
When I arrived at the office the next day and just turned on my computer, it also started the noise just like my colleague’s computer the day before. I realized that this was because of my wrong thoughts. When my colleague was having his computer problem, I did not try my best to help or think of a solution to resolve the problem, and I even became irritated. I turned off my computer and said to Master in my mind, “Master, I know that I was wrong. I should not have looked at the problem that way. Master please help me return my computer to normal.” The computer returned to normal after I turned it on again.
Another time I went to the canteen with my colleagues. As we walked, they started talking about a person. Everyone was chipping in, so I wanted to chip into the conversation. I just spoke one sentence when I got the hiccups. I realized that I needed to guard my speech. I should not mix with the sentient beings to discuss other people’s rights and wrongs. I said to Master in my mind, “Master, I am wrong. I shouldn’t join their chat. I am not going to say things anymore.” The hiccups stopped. Cultivation is really miraculous. If you want to truly cultivate, Master is just by your side and he will remind you and protect you constantly.
I feel so honored and lucky to have become a Dafa practitioner. I can only cultivate more diligently and have no other desires.
Awakening My Parent Practitioners
By studying the Fa more and cultivating more diligently, my mental state and cultivation changed significantly. But my parents were still in a state of not truly cultivating. For so many years, our home had only one copy of Zhuan Falun and no other Dafa books. My parents also did not interact with other practitioners, and they hardly practiced the exercises, perhaps a few times during the whole year. After returning home, I shared my thoughts with them and prepared electronic books for them. I copied all of Master’s lectures onto the electronic books and also started a morning exercise regime with them.
I still remember the first day we did the morning exercises. It was around 6am, and we were doing the Falun Standing Stance when it was really like what Master said,
“Your surroundings might be pretty pleasant normally, when you aren’t practicing, yet the minute you start to, things get noisy and chaotic.” (The Sixth Talk, Zhuan Falun).
That morning alone, three groups of people knocked on our door. During normal times, our house seldom had visitors, much less having three groups of people come in turn and knock on our door early in the morning. I shared my thoughts with my parents that the evil element in the other dimension was using this method to disturb us from practicing the exercises, but it did not affect us. The three of us looked at each other and smiled.
From that day on, my parents have continued their morning exercise regime with basically no interruptions. They have persisted in practicing the exercises, studying the Fa and sending forth righteous thoughts every day. They later also started making calls with recordings to clarify the truth and save people over the phone. They actively joined the efforts to assist Master in saving sentient beings.
One night, my mother had a dream about a train which was about to depart. I was already standing on the train, while my father and my mother had yet to board. They were boarding it when she woke up. Both of them know the preciousness of their predestined affinity to cultivate in the righteous Fa, so they try their best to do the three things well, so they won’t let Master down for the pain he has suffered to save people!
Clarifying the Truth and Saving Sentient Beings
Through a lot of Fa study, I have come to deeply realize the responsibilities and mission of Dafa practitioners of the Fa rectification period. I thus said to Master in my heart, “Master, I am sorry, I did not do well. It took me so long to become diligent in my cultivation. I wasted so much time. I must do well much more in the future and save more people!”
I initially did not manage to get in contact with local practitioners, so I would go out to clarify the truth by myself when I got off work. When I took a cab, I would finish clarifying the truth before I got out. Then I would board the next one. I remember that once when I was clarifying the truth to a driver he said, “You Falun Gong people are very good. I once accidentally hit an old lady. At that time, I was quite scared that I had gotten myself into such big trouble. But the old lady got up and said that there was no problem.
“She said that she practices Falun Dafa so she would not ask me for any money. She said their Master teaches them to be good people, the CCP news that has been publicized is fake, and she asked me not to believe the news. She also asked me to remember ‘Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good’ so when bad things happen, I can remain safe and sound. At that time, I shouted ‘Falun Dafa is good’ once.” I was so happy for this driver. Dafa practitioners are one body. We are all validating the Fa and assisting Master to save sentient beings.
Once, a friend of my hostel roommate went to visit her. I clarified the truth to her friend and persuaded her to quit the CCP and its youth organizations. Initially, she was a bit hesitant, but when my roommate said that she had already quit, her friend agreed. She told me that there was a vendor in the village near our company. The vendor's family also practices Falun Dafa and she asked me to contact them. When I heard this, I knew it was Master’s hint to let me get in touch with local practitioners. After that, I went to find that vendor. After I got in touch with them, the wave to file complaints against the former CCP head Jiang had started so I joined in. I also helped practitioners tidy up their complaints. The small group of practitioners that I joined consisted of more than 10 people, and all of us filed complaints against Jiang. Thank you, Master, for this ingenious arrangement so that I did not miss out on this important aspect of my cultivation path.
One Saturday morning, I was about to go out to clarify the truth when a new person moved into our hostel. She was a few months pregnant, and because the hostel is relatively warmer during the winter she came to stay for a few months. At that time, the first thought that came to my mind was, “Oh, someone new comes to learn about Falun Gong.” I practiced the exercises and studied the Fa openly in the hostel, and my roommates all supported my cultivation. After the new person came, I went out and only came back at night.
I chatted with the new person, and she said that she was going to move to the second floor the next day. Hearing that, I knew that I had to clarify the truth that day or there may be no more chances to do so. I said that people who came to this hostel were all people with great blessings because I would tell all of them something different from the norm. She asked what that was and I said, “Have you heard about quitting the CCP and its youth organizations?” She was surprised and told me that we were the same. I was elated.
She had also practiced Falun Gong when she was young and did not cultivate anymore after growing up. Her parents still cultivate though. I thanked Master for bringing this former young practitioner to my side. The newcomer decided not to move to the second floor. So after work, the two of us would study the Fa and practice the exercises together at night. We also succeeded in persuading a few people who came to our hostel to quit the CCP and its youth organizations. She told me that she would never give up Dafa again. After hearing this news, her parents were very happy.
One winter, I went with some other practitioners to clarify the truth at a wholesale center. There were many people. As we clarified the truth, we distributed truth-clarification calendars. Gradually, there were a group of people who were waiting for a calendar. One of the passersby asked one of the people waiting what they were doing, and the person told her that this was for registering names to quit the CCP organizations and get a calendar. When it was her turn, she happily told me her name and what organizations she had joined before. She got a calendar and left satisfied.
Later, when the group gradually dispersed, I went shop to shop to clarify the truth. At one point, I was clarifying the truth to a person on my right. After that person understood, I asked him for his name to help him quit the CCP and its youth organizations to obtain peace and safety. In the end, the person on the left also understood the truth and snatched my book away to write his own name in it. He said that he was a Party member and he urged me to quit the Party on his behalf. I was really happy for these sentient beings who understood the truth and were saved.
I went with a practitioner to a construction site to clarify the truth. The leader was especially in agreement with us and asked everyone who was working under him to come to listen to us. We clarified the truth to them one-by-one and persuaded them to quit the CCP and its youth organizations. Later, a man in his 60s asked me why I believe in Falun Dafa when I was so young. I had yet to reply when the leader said, “Why are you so unreasonable? Why can’t young people believe in Falun Dafa?!” It made everybody laugh and I was really happy for this person. Sentient beings are awakening.
Another time I hitched a ride to another place. After boarding the car, I chatted with the driver about a lot of things. He was quite outspoken. Through our conversation, I learned that he frequently circumvents the CCP information censorship and so he knew many things. However, due to fear, he had yet to quit the CCP and its youth organizations. I told him in detail why he should quit and that quitting would not affect him negatively in his daily life. In the end, he took out his identity card to show me and asked me to help him quit the Party. I happily agreed. After arriving at the destination, he declined to take my money no matter what I said and sent me a message through the car service platform saying that the trip did not require any payment. I said that would not do, our Master does not allow us to do that. He said that Falun Dafa practitioners have had hard lives all these years, so he would like to do a little bit for practitioners too. In the end, I paid him half the fee and thanked him for his support of Dafa.
Sentient beings are all really awakening. They are gradually understanding why Dafa practitioners are sacrificing so much to clarify the truth to them. At the same time, they are also more and more willing to express their gratitude in their own ways.
Although I only became diligent in my cultivation and started to study the Fa seriously in the last few years, I have already experienced many touching stories. All that I want to say to sum up is one sentence: Thank you, Master, for your benevolent salvation, giving your disciples the predestined affinity and prolonging the time for your disciples to save sentient beings and giving them the mighty virtue.
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