(Minghui.org) I’m 66 years old and began practicing Falun Dafa in 1995. During the past 20 years on my cultivation path, there was joy after having passed through tribulations, and regrets after having stumbled. What’s more, is the immense gratitude I have for Master’s saving grace. Starting from when I first began up until today, I have treasured every opportunity to improve my xinxing that Master has bestowed upon me.
The Tribulations and My Looking Within
I experienced two tribulations of losing my memory. The first time was last June. One morning, as soon as I woke up, my mind went blank, I couldn’t remember anything. It was only after my husband began reminding me bit by bit, that my memory gradually returned. I took the occurrence as something natural and didn’t take it to heart.
The second time was in July. After I finished the four standing exercises and was about to do the sitting meditation, I could only sit in the full-lotus (cross-legged) position and conjoin my hands. Other than that, I couldn’t remember what else to do. This alarmed me, and I quickly went to a practitioner’s home, where I found the two coordinator practitioners. I explained what happened and asked them to give me a hand. They both helped me dig out the root cause of the problem.
One of them said, “In our cultivation, we cultivate one’s main consciousness. If your main consciousness is gone, what are you cultivating? But mind you, your cultivation state before this occurrence was good.”
Before then, I would study one chapter of Zhuan Falun every day, plus Master’s new lectures at night. I had recited Zhuan Falun five times and copied it two times, and I had also recited Hong Yin and Essentials for Further Advancement multiple times. Moreover, I kept up with doing the exercises and sending righteous thoughts. And I did well in clarifying the truth.
Everything changed when I was arrested, and my home was ransacked in March 2022. Some practitioners in the same Fa-study group were also illegally sentenced because they were implicated for associating with me. After I was released, the authorities came to my home to harass me multiple times. I also had people always following me and depriving me of my personal freedom.
Reaching My Limit of Endurance
After the lockdown was lifted, my husband tested positive for Covid 19, he developed many symptoms, one after another, and he was even hospitalized a few times. After one illness was healed, there came another. He was diagnosed with many health problems, which included brain lesions and cerebral infarction. He also had frequent toothaches, high blood sugar, and abscessed gums. He often spit out pus in large quantities. The dentist told him, “You have to reduce the inflammation before we can extract your teeth.”
My brother-in-law had bile duct cancer, and he went through a surgery to remove it last April. After he returned home, he constantly fought with his daughter. My husband and I once went to break up their fight. His daughter said, “My dad used a knife last night. If he were to do it again, I’d use it to kill him first!” I said, “If you were to do that, your family would be ruined.” My sister-in-law said to her, “Your dad is already so ill, why don’t you and I just tolerate him? After all, we’ve tolerated him for all these years.”
During that period of time, my son called home and said his wife was in a lot of discomfort while being pregnant, and he asked me to help her feel better. At the time, my husband had such a painful toothache that he often shouted out something incomprehensible. I felt I had reached my limit and screamed, “Do you guys want me to live or not? I might as well find a place to crash and die.”
A practitioner told me, “It’s because you no longer go to Fa-study groups, so you have no one giving you feedback. Was anything you said something a practitioner should say? You made them frightened, so they had to stop fighting. But this was using an unrighteous way to deal with the problem. Our practitioners cultivate compassion and are kind to everyone. Please look inward to examine your xinxing.” I replied, “I also felt that something was off recently, which made me anxious.”
My husband is a kind person who has a positive attitude towards Dafa. During the many years of the persecution, he suffered a lot. When the police came to harass me, ransack our home, or have me arrested, he would try to protect me to the best of his ability. Under Master’s protection, I managed to escape time after time.
In our day-to-day life, he would often create opportunities for me to improve my xinxing. I understood that he was helping me, so I should thank him. However, I just couldn’t endure it, and I would often become upset. I also developed resentment and jealousy because I lacked compassion. When I got upset with him, I had already reacted like an ordinary person. Should a practitioner be upset with an ordinary person?
When I was in that state, I would forget all about cultivating my speech and say whatever I wished to say. When a practitioner says something, he or she carries energy. How many bad substances did I add to the dimensional field of my husband and family? Wouldn’t I be taken advantage of by the old forces? His illness karma illusions were used to temper me, to have me not find enough time to study the Fa and do the exercises, and fail to do the three things well. Even if he wanted to change for the better, he’d have been bound by those bad substances. I’m a cultivator, I should treat saving sentient beings as the first priority.
Master said,
“When the Dafa disciples’ righteous thoughts are a bit stronger, everything will be changed by the Dafa disciples and the evil will be eliminated. Then what will the bad people amount to?” (“Teachings at the 2005 Conference in San Francisco”)
I should look more at my family’s strong points, affirm their kindness, and praise their kind actions to help them change for the better. With that, both their bodies and minds would change for the better.
I looked inward and dug out several attachments, such as jealousy, a competitive mentality, a show-off mentality, zealotry, and resentment. Especially when it came to cultivating my speech, I didn’t do well, and I began to examine why I said those harmful things. I found there were all sorts of reasons, which were cunning and hard for me to detect. Those words were nowhere near what I should say, nor what I intended to say. Amidst reciting the Fa, I realized they were traps set up by the old forces. They used my family to play tricks on me, to the point where I couldn’t stand it anymore. I was deceived by those illusions to go against what Master and Dafa teaches, so they could drag me down.
I was able to see through the nature of the old forces while reciting the Fa. I looked inward to cultivate myself and have tried to refrain from saying harmful things. I have now exposed and negated it completely. I will do the three things well by studying and reciting the Fa, and doing the exercises. Master has empowered me to continue on my cultivation path and be able to take the Fa principles to heart.
My husband recently got better, and when he went to the hospital for a checkup, the shadow of the lesion on his brain was gone. The dentist told him before that his eight teeth would need to be extracted after his swelling went down. He was now fine and didn’t need to have any extractions. My brother-in-law’s family returned to harmony, and my daughter-in-law also stopped getting upset. The root cause lay in me, and after I rectified myself, everything changed for the better.
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Category: Improving Oneself
