(Minghui.org) I’m from Taichung and I began practicing Falun Dafa in 2020. The following are some of my cultivation experiences which I would like to share with everyone.
Before I began practicing, I lived on a houseboat at Sun Moon Lake. I was interviewed in 2011 for the New Tang Dynasty TV program, “Beautiful Heart Taiwan” because of my special home. After watching the program, many Falun Dafa practitioners visited my houseboat when they visited Sun Moon Lake. They practiced the Falun Dafa exercises on the boat and shared their cultivation experiences with me. Although I was convinced of the goodness of Dafa, I was living a comfortable, fairytale-like existence at that time. I wavered in my decision to practice until several extraordinary experiences caused me to change my mind.
In June 2017, I dreamed that I was imprisoned and about to be beheaded by an executioner. I woke up from this vivid dream just as the sword touched my neck. Afterwards, I found a growth the size of an olive on the left side of my neck, and my neck and shoulder blades became sore and painful. At this point, I recalled a dream I had more than ten years ago after a nearly fatal incident. Two Taoist women stood next to my bed and told me, “You can go home!” I followed them to a vast and beautiful place, before I realized I was on the verge of death. I told the two women that since my children were still young, I had to return to care for them. The women advised me to reconsider as I would suffer a lot if I went back. When I insisted on returning despite their attempts to persuade me, they told me they would return to pick me up after my children were older. When I woke up, I found myself unable to move my cramped and painful body.
Later, I had another extraordinary experience. During an afternoon thunderstorm in June 2020, a bolt of lightning suddenly struck the iron railing that I was holding onto. A strong electric current passed through me. I felt some numbness and tingling, but I was not harmed. I knew I could delay no longer and began practicing Falun Dafa in July 2020.
Elevating in Levels While Caring for My Elderly Parents
My parents are over 80 years old. My father had cancer and dementia, while my mother took sleeping pills for years; she suffered from hallucinations and was prone to self-abuse. A few months after I started practicing Falun Dafa, my parents’ health improved. After my mother’s recovery, she objected to my living in rural Sanyi Township, so I moved to Taichung City with my father.
For years my mother harbored a deep grudge against me, possibly as a result of karma from our past lives. She belittled, spread rumors and constantly made trouble for me. I sometimes failed to control myself, and I regretted my failure to meet Dafa’s standards. After accepting that she was acting out due to the karma I owed her, I reminded myself whenever my mother did something to anger me, “This situation is caused by karma, not my mother.”
As my xinxing improved, my mother’s condition improved by leaps and bounds. In an even more amazing turn of events, my father was cured of his dementia and said he wished to return home to Sanyi Township. The thought of traveling the distance back and forth between Taichung and Sanyi to care for him was horrifying, so I refused. Later, after studying the Fa, I realized this decision stemmed from my desire to avoid trouble and it was an attempt to interfere in the lives of my loved ones.
Master said,
“You are unable to interfere with the lives of others, and neither can you control others’ fates, including those of your wife, sons, daughters, parents, or brothers. Can you decide those things?” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)
I realized how I was interfering with my parents’ lives, admitted my mistake to Master and immediately made arrangements to send my father home. A few days later, I saw six udumbara flowers blooming at my workplace and I thanked Master for his encouragement.
Eliminating My Attachments and Paying Off Karma
One afternoon near the beginning of 2024, I accidentally fell from a height of two meters while maintaining a solar farm. The ladder I was attempting to use was not tall enough, and my feet were about fifty centimeters away from the first rung. I tried to slide down the remaining distance so my feet would land on the top of the ladder, but my off-center position caused me to slip past my target and graze the side of the ladder instead. The left side of my body hit a low wall before I fell to the ground like a bouncing ball. Despite the abuse my body suffered, I felt no pain. I looked up and saw my fall had forced the originally A-shaped aluminum ladder to form a 1-shape. Fortunately, the ladder remained standing, otherwise I would definitely have been struck by it. I thanked Master, checked my body and found no external injuries; I just had some pain in my left arm and head.
I then informed my company of my fall and requested they send assistance if I failed to report back to them within the next ten minutes. After recovering most of my senses, I reviewed the message I sent and discovered I accidentally substituted a homophone “帅”(handsome) instead of “摔”(falling down) in my message. Master was probably enlightening me to something, “It’s okay, handle this incident in a handsome manner!” I immediately sent a message to my company, “I’m okay now.”
Master said,
“If a debt is owed, it must be paid. Therefore, some dangerous things may occur in the course of cultivation. When these things take place, however, you will not be scared, and neither will real danger be allowed to happen to you.” (Lecture Three, Zhuan Falun)
I held firm to this righteous thought, “Yes, it’s okay! I repaid another karmic debt.”
I’m not sure if it was because of fear or pain, but my whole body started trembling the moment I got home. I could barely move, and my chest hurt so badly I couldn’t talk. I messaged a fellow Falun Dafa practitioner, telling her I had fallen from a great height while working and was now home. I expected this fellow practitioner to reply, “And how are you now? Are you okay?” Instead, this fellow practitioner quickly replied, “I am rooting for you!” and sent a heshi emoji. I felt somewhat disappointed, but soon realized this happened to eliminate my dependence and emotional attachment to another practitioner. My body slowly unfroze after I kept saying, “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.”
I also found piece of a bone protruding from my left elbow joint and recalled Master’s teachings, “I can tell you that those who truly cultivate themselves usually won’t suffer bone fractures.” (“Teaching the Fa and Answering Questions in Guangzhou,” Explaining the Teachings of Zhuan Falun)
I told myself, “It’s just a protrusion. It will rectify itself after I practice the exercises.” While practicing the exercises, my left arm was in so much pain that I could not lift it to the correct position despite my best efforts. After enduring the pain and finishing the exercises, I searched inward and found many attachments, including impatience, jealousy, the desire to show off, self-righteousness and the desire to hear only good things about myself. I firmly told myself, “These traits are not part of my true self, eliminate them!”
As my body was still hurting badly, I decided to lie down in bed for a while. Unexpectedly, lying down hurt even more, so I got up and started copying the Fa. As my copying progressed, I forgot about my pain and my protruding bone somehow returned to its original position! The pain was nearly unbearable; did Master take on all the pain for my sake? How can I live up to Master’s expectations? I resolved to maintain my righteous thoughts and adhere to Master’s requirements.
Despite the pain, I stuck to my normal schedule, delivering newspapers, practicing the exercises, and performing tasks related to Dafa activities before going to work as usual. Different parts of my body hurt each day, and I used this opportunity to examine myself for the human attachments I had yet to eliminate.
The day after the accident, my waist and arm started hurting badly. Enduring the pain, I used my right hand to lift my limp left hand to the handlebars of my motorcycle so I could deliver newspapers. I also felt excruciating pain whenever I drove over potholes. The rough movements jerked my body and made me scream in pain, but it was unseemly to shout like this throughout my journey. I told my motorcycle, “I can only control you with one hand today. You must keep yourself steady and drive on flat surfaces so we can complete this task of delivering newspapers together.” Miraculously, my journey became much smoother.
When I arrived at my destination, I saw my reflection in the building’s glass door, bowing with my waist bent 90 degrees because of the pain. I thought, “Isn’t this a hint for me to eliminate my pride and be humble?” My waist stopped hurting that evening after I corrected my thinking. On the third day after the accident, my chest started to hurt. I realized I needed to eliminate my desire for a comfortable life and face suffering with joy, so I went out as usual to promote Shen Yun. On the fourth day, my leg started to hurt, and I realized I needed to cultivate away my fear of hardship. No matter how difficult the task appears, as long as I bravely take the first step everything will be easily resolved. On the fifth day, I found that the left half of my body was black and blue, as though my karma had floated to the surface and was about to be transformed into virtue. By the seventh day, my body fully recovered.
Letting Go of an Old Attachment
One morning in August 2024, while delivering my last newspaper my chest suddenly started hurting. My head also started hurting as I made my way to the Falun Dafa practice site. I thought Master was helping me cleanse my body and I hurried to reach the practice site while the pain was still bearable so I could hang up our banner and prepare the exercise music on time. After completing the meditation exercises, my symptoms vanished.
After some thought, I realized this could not be accidental. Perhaps I had a gap somewhere. I recalled a wisdom tooth that had fallen out naturally three months ago, leaving my gums swollen and painful at cyclical intervals. After digging deep within myself for a while, I discovered my hidden desire to eating. I would find something to eat whenever I had time at home, while driving, and even while suffering from a toothache. I was addicted to eating.
That evening, I calmed down and dug deep until I found the root of my hidden attachment. When I was in elementary school, a classmate’s family owned a factory that made egg rolls. While that classmate often brought egg rolls to share with his good friends, I never got one and could only smell the fragrant egg rolls from afar. This longstanding grievance, coupled with resentment and jealousy towards my parents and classmates, remained strong despite the years that passed.
I purposely boycotted my elementary school reunions out of a sense of indignation. As an adult, I pursued jobs related to food, and because of my childhood experience continued to harbor a special love for egg rolls. After finding the root cause for my gluttony, I silently apologized to my classmates and reminded myself, “I’m a cultivator, I don’t want these false human thoughts and attachments.” In an instant, I felt something force its way through my nasal cavity to the back of my eye sockets, before dissolving. The swelling in my gums slowly subsided the day after.
Enlightenment from Copying the Teachings
When I first started copying the Fa, I set what I thought to be an easy target, to copy one page a day. Yet when I actually started, I found it hard to complete even a single page due to interference. After a while, I realized this was because my mind was not pure enough. I started reciting “Lunyu” before copying the Fa to calm my mind and I improved after that.
Sometimes while copying, it felt as though I was reading a certain part of the Fa for the first time. I knew I should write neatly while copying the Fa, but I had a habit of writing sloppily. I almost finished copying the first lecture before I realized my disrespectful behavior towards Master and the Fa! Thereafter, I made sure to write the characters neatly stroke by stroke and avoid touching the parts I already wrote.
Sometimes I would try to save my work and smudge out a stroke I added accidentally, but I discovered when I tried to copy the subsequent paragraph, I missed a few words, leaving me with no choice but to start the page all over again. Once, I re-copied the 151st page five times because I kept making mistakes towards the end of the last few lines.
I forced myself to stop writing and calmly examined myself, to see if I was just going through the motions instead of cultivating diligently. After correcting my thoughts, I resumed copying and felt a slight tingling in my hands. A warm current flowed from my Tanzhong acupuncture point, traveled below my armpit to my arms and fingers, and even to my head. It was a wonderful feeling. From then on, whatever teachings I copied would repeatedly surface in my daily thoughts. Copying the Fa has allowed me to internalize the Fa within my heart for daily use, allowing me to understand whatever Master’s tries to enlighten me to.
Conclusion
I’ve come to realize the miraculous arrangements Master made for cultivators. The difficulties and challenges we face are part of Master’s arrangement to help us improve. We should cherish every opportunity to improve, cultivate ourselves well, establish our own mighty virtue, fulfill our prehistoric vows and live up to Master’s compassionate salvation.
Thank you, Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners!
(Presented at the 2024 Taiwan Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference)
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