(Minghui.org) I started practicing Falun Dafa in 2021, but my attachments of laziness, fear, and vanity kept me from sharing my cultivation experiences. After reading others practitioners’ articles on the Minghui website, I realized that sharing my experiences was an opportunity to improve in my cultivation.
I hope that fellow practitioners kindly point out any of my shortcomings.
My mother started practicing Falun Dafa before 1999. I saw the positive changes in her personality and knew Dafa was good, so I wasn’t deceived by the lies and propaganda spread by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) state-run media. I understood that Dafa was being framed and persecuted.
When I was in elementary school, my mother was illegally sentenced to one year in prison. While my grandmother was tidying up the house, she found a copy of Zhuan Falun, the main book of Falun Dafa, I hid the book and said to myself, “When my mother comes home, she can still study the Fa and practice Falun Dafa.”
That night, I dreamed that people dressed in black were chasing me and urinating on me. Then, Master appeared, and the people in black disappeared. I saw a star fly into the sky. It was getting farther and farther away, and then it vanished. When I woke up, I was very happy, although I didn’t understand why.
Throughout my junior and high school years, school was never too difficult for me. Everything came naturally. I completed my daily schoolwork and always ranked at the top of my class, even though I didn’t care much about that. After high school, I passed the college entrance exams, got into a university, and earned a master’s degree. After graduation, I landed a well-paying job.
At that time, I hadn’t taken cultivation seriously, so I didn’t realize why everything had gone so smoothly for me. Little did I know that it was Dafa that had given me wisdom and brought me blessings.
My mother was detained for 15 days in 2021 when someone reported her to the authorities. I was working in another city, and my family, who are not practitioners, didn’t want to worry me, so they didn’t inform me immediately. It took a week before I was told that my mother had been detained.
Although I knew Falun Dafa was good and occasionally read Zhuan Falun, I hadn’t really started to practice given the distractions of everyday life. After learning that my mother had been perseucted, I was terrified and felt powerless. Worried for her safety, I looked at Master’s picture in the Dafa book, crying, and said, “Please, Master, strengthen my mother’s righteous thoughts. Help her get out of the detention center.”
I sent a message to the Minghui website detailing the persecution of my mother. Following instructions from Minghui, I began sending forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil forces persecuting her.
After reading Zhuan Falun, I realized that Falun Dafa is the Fa of the universe and that our purpose on this planet is to spread the Fa. When I heard about my mother’s situation, I had a clear thought: “I want to practice Falun Dafa. I need to seize this rare opportunity and not be distracted by mundane matters and risk losing the chance to cultivate Dafa.”
The day my mother was released from the detention center, I picked her up. I encouraged her to keep practicing and told her that I, too, would begin practicing Dafa. Compassionate Master cleared away the evil forces interfering with my cultivation, and, given his arrangement, this misfortune turned into a blessing. I began my cultivation and became a Dafa practitioner.
My mother faced opposition from relatives after she began practicing Falun Dafa, because they believed the CCP’s lies and propaganda. I was a child when she was sentenced, and my grandmother took care of me during that difficult year. The hardships I endured back then continued to torment me, leading me to resent my mother—I resented her for practicing Dafa, making me always fearful and stressed out. I thought she didn’t care enough about my feelings.
These negative thoughts left me feeling inferior, sensitive, and full of hate. I didn’t know how to express my pain, so I closed myself off emotionally.
As I got older, I often thought about that year, and I would burst out crying, not knowing how to release or express my emotions. The memories were so painful.
I believed that my mother was the cause of my suffering, but I knew she lived by Dafa’s principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance and hadn’t harmed me. This internal conflict left me not knowing what to do.
After I started to practice, I realized that I needed to hold myself to the standards of a cultivator. I had to eliminate my fear and my resentment of my mother, and deny the persecution and the arrangements by the old forces. I opened my heart and talked with my mother.
Letting go of my resentment was a long process. When I read Dafa books, did the exercises, or sent righteous thoughts, strong feelings of resentment often disturbed me, making it difficult to achieve peace. Sometimes, small conflicts with my mother would trigger my resentment, jealousy, and fear of being persecuted. But, by persistently studying the Fa, Master helped me and my mother eliminate the root cause of my attachments. Gradually, this strong resentment was dissolved by the Fa.
During the past three years, I’ve cultivated alone in another city. Often, I wasn’t strict with myself, seldom studying the Fa and doing the exercises, and my focus when sending righteous thoughts had been weak. After work, I indulged in distractions, like browsing on my cell phone, reading romance novels, and seeking comfort, encouraging bad habits like laziness and overeating. I knew my cultivation state was wrong and I was anxious about my lack of diligence. But due to attachments and not wanting to endure hardship, I couldn’t break through it and go out to clarify the truth.
Even though I know time is precious, and I should seize every moment to help Master save people, I have been caught up in ordinary life and have felt negative and disheartened. I knew I wasn’t doing well.
As I was writing this sharing article, I realized that I was still trying to hide my vanity and attachment to appearance. I asked myself: “Will fellow practitioners lecture me for my lack of diligence? Will Master give up on me because of these attachments?” The answer was clear: No.
All my worries stem from my attachments to vanity, pride, and laziness. Isn’t cultivation about eliminating attachments? So I will strive to be a righteous Dafa practitioner in the Fa-rectification period. By looking within, learning from diligent practitioners, believing in Master and the Fa, and eliminating negative thoughts and attachments, I will do the three things practitioners are supposed to do, assist Master in Fa-rectification, and continue forward in my cultivation.