(Minghui.org) Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
I was young when I began practicing Falun Dafa 30 years ago. For the majority of those years I cultivated with my celestial eye closed. But two years ago, Master opened it. I would like to share with fellow practitioners the inner journey I went through—from being immature when my celestial eye first opened to gradually realizing how I should cultivate.
When my celestial eye first opened, I had some doubts. I wondered if I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing or if what I saw was just my imagination. I thought that if emptied my mind and still saw the images, then it would mean that what I saw was real. I first told a few practitioners who were close to me about this, including one of my relatives, Tong. I reminded them not to tell anyone else. I didn’t want people to know, mainly because I feared I might not handle it well.
When my celestial eye first opened, I saw some things I experienced before descending to this world—including Tong’s past lives as well as the lives of other practitioners I knew. I saw how the evil beings controlled certain police officers behind the scenes when we sent forth righteous thoughts, and how fellow practitioners used their divine powers when they sent forth righteous thoughts in a group, and how we cooperated in eliminating evil factors.
These kinds of things interested everyone, so at first I shared what I saw with a small circle of practitioners who knew my situation. This provided some encouragement to fellow practitioners in their cultivation. But after a period of time, I began to feel uneasy. Every time I talked about it, my heart felt unsettled, as though I shouldn’t talk about everything I saw. I wondered whether what I was doing truly conformed to the Fa.
After Tong learned my celestial eye was open, she began to rely on me more. One day she would tell me about some situation and ask me to send forth righteous thoughts; another day she told me a practitioner was going through illness karma tribulations and ask me to send forth righteous thoughts. She also asked me to describe what I saw so she could tell the practitioner who was going through illness karma, hoping it would help them. I finally told her, “You can’t rely on me like this. It’s not right. Every practitioner has this ability. You should all send righteous thoughts yourselves, instead of just having me do it.”
I wondered if I was responsible for this situation. Did I say too much, which made the other practitioners depend on me? So I talked less about what I saw.
Some practitioners noticed this and told me, “You can’t just stop talking about what you see. What you see can really help other practitioners get through tribulations. Their reliance on you is their issue, and that’s where they need to improve. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t talk about it. If no one talks about what they see, then why would Master open your celestial eye?”
I became increasingly confused about whether I should talk about what I saw. Moreover, I sometimes doubted what I saw. I wondered if what I saw was real or something that was caused by my mind-intent. If I told others something that was merely an illusion formed by my own mind, wouldn’t I be interfering with them?
At one point I asked Master to close my celestial eye, because I felt the situation was too difficult for me to handle. I constantly wavered between sharing and not sharing, wondering whether what I saw was true or false, whether I handled something I saw correctly, and whether I’d made a mistake. It all felt extremely difficult, and no one could help me. Then I thought that maybe I should memorize the Fa. That way, when no one could help me analyze things, if I could recall Master’s teachings, I could handle things better and make fewer mistakes. So I began memorizing the Fa.
During this process, I found some of my deeply hidden attachments. When I worried about whether I should talk about what I saw, I discovered I was selfish: I was afraid I’d say something wrong and my cultivation level would drop. Even when other practitioners who were going through severe illness karma asked me to help, my first thought was not whether I could truly help them, but rather, “Is it okay for me to do this? The practitioner’s situation is so serious, maybe this time it’s fine to speak and it won’t make me drop in level, right?”
After I identified my selfishness, I reflected and asked myself if I had a show-off mentality. I didn’t think so. I thought, “I don’t really have the urge to talk about it. People with a show-off mentality wouldn’t be timid like me.” Then, I met an elderly practitioner whose celestial eye was open intermittently. That day we all went to send forth righteous thoughts near the evil factors. When we returned, the fellow practitioner excitedly talked about what he saw while we were there. I looked down on him and thought, “He is a veteran practitioner. How could talk about what he saw with such excitement? His words carried a strong show-off mentality.”
I reflected on myself. Looking down on others is a manifestation of jealousy. Fellow practitioners are our mirrors. If I saw his show-off mentality, then I must have it, too. Otherwise Master wouldn’t have arranged for me to see this. But I still didn’t realize how my show-off mentality manifested, because I always spoke calmly and even tried to avoid talking about what I saw. I didn’t want to stir up fellow practitioners’ curiosity or have more people know about it. On the surface, I seemed to be doing well. But I knew Master wouldn’t let me see others’ attachments for no reason—I must have the same issue, I just hadn’t seen it.
Once, while sending forth righteous thoughts for a practitioner who was illegally detained, an old force deity told me, “Look at the practitioner you want to help. His cultivation path has long been arranged. What he encounters at each stage has all been following the written script. Therefore, I’m acting in accordance with Heaven’s will.” He waved his hand and a scroll opened, but I couldn’t see the characters on it clearly.
I said, “What Heaven’s will? Your so-called arrangements were arranged by the higher level beings of the old universe and their goal was to save themselves. These aren’t Master’s arrangements. Falun Dafa practitioners only follow Master’s arrangements and we don’t acknowledge yours.” I destroyed his scroll. He was furious and shouted, “You cannot destroy this! Something terrible will happen!” I ignored him and eliminated him, too.
Then a higher old force being came and said, “Even if you destroy one person’s scroll, can you destroy them all? And even if you destroy them, the mechanism is still running. Here, look at the arrangement made for you.” He unfolded a scroll in front of me. A translucent film lay over it. If I looked, it would open and reveal everything. I said I would not look at it. I recalled Master’s teaching:
“Your altered path of life is not allowed to be seen by others. If it is seen by others or if you are told when you will have a tribulation, how can you cultivate? Therefore, it is not permitted to be seen at all. Nobody from other schools of cultivation is allowed to see it, either. Even fellow disciples from the same school of cultivation are not allowed to see it. No one will be able to tell it correctly, because a life like that has been changed and is one for cultivation.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)
When he saw he couldn’t tempt me, he began to attack me.
I shared this experience with fellow practitioners. One said, “You have studied the Fa solidly. If it were me, I might not recall that teaching in the moment and I might have looked. It is indeed very hard to cultivate with one’s celestial eye open. It’s really hard to find the right balance.”
Although I didn’t feel much about fellow practitioners’ praise at the time, I did have this thought: “Isn’t studying the Fa well something every genuine disciple should do? If you can’t do it, it’s because you aren’t diligent enough.” I still didn’t feel I had a problem.
Another time, I went to send righteous thoughts for a practitioner experiencing severe illness karma. I shared with her what I saw with my celestial eye and my thoughts based on Master’s teachings. Many practitioners were there, and after we sent righteous thoughts, the field was especially strong. I felt that her righteous thoughts were rising and that she was able recognize her attachments, so I thought she would gradually get better. But within two weeks, I heard she’d deteriorated and had again lost her righteous thoughts. I complained, “She’s a veteran practitioner. Why can’t she have the determination to break through?” I was frustrated, which made me not want to go back and talk with her again.
Later, while memorizing the Fa, I came to this passage:
“I was able to learn Teacher Li’s Falun Dafa and have studied it so well, better than all the others. Perhaps I’m also not an ordinary person.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)
I suddenly became alert: Looking down on practitioners who show off, thinking others don’t study the Fa well, judging practitioners who struggle with illness karma—all of that was placing myself above others. What right do I have to judge whether or not someone cultivates well? All practitioners follow the same Fa and are Master’s students. Master saved us all from hell, so who can be considered better than anyone else?
Master used these three incidents to reveal my deeply hidden arrogance.
Another time, a deity told me he had predestined ties with me and that he would reincarnate as my child to obtain the Fa. He said, “Remember my name. Remember it.” I asked, “When will you come?” He said around March or April of the following year. When I asked if he had anything else to tell me, he said, “Don’t fall into emotion. Be diligent.” I told my husband, “How about giving our future child this name?” He said that it was a great name and asked me how I came up with it. I smiled and didn’t answer. Because my husband liked it, I felt the name must be predestined. I became slightly attached, and I began to calculate backwards: If he comes in March or April, then I must conceive by June. But June passed and I wasn’t pregnant. Even though I wasn’t strongly attached to it, it was still on my mind.
Master said,
“Also, some people are always interfered with by foreign messages in their consciousness, and they believe whatever they are told by foreign messages; this problem can also take place.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)
I suddenly realized: although he appeared as a deity, for a cultivator, that was still a foreign message. I had been interfered with! Whether a child comes or not, and when, is all arranged by Master. I cannot be attached, and I cannot act according to what the deity said. I must follow the Fa.
Each time I found an attachment that was mentioned in the Fa, I trembled inside, because Master’s teachings about this are very serious. Looking back at my journey after my celestial eye opened, it felt like I was walking a tightrope. Those attachments could have caused me to deviate from the Fa and be destroyed. After I let go of them, when I shared what I saw with practitioners again, I felt calm and steady inside.
Once, while sending righteous thoughts, I entered a very special dimension. The supernormal abilities and Fa-tools I normally used could not be used there. The only thing I could use was a sword, but it wasn’t very powerful. I was like an ancient martial arts hero who had to fight evil beings one stab at a time. But, those who were possessed by the evil factors were able to regenerate. When I cut off a hand, it grew back. Their main consciousness were locked in cages by evil and could not control their bodies. I wondered how I could fight like this. I even asked Master if he could help me get back my supernormal abilities, but he didn’t respond.
I suddenly had an idea. I asked a guardian divine being, “If we don’t attack, can the evil harm us?” He said it could not. I said, “Then this is easy.” I told the main consciousnesses trapped in cages, “Listen carefully. You all recite with me, ‘Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.’ Then you can break free from the evil’s control, return to being yourselves, and go back to reincarnating normally.” The moment I said this, one of them said, “I want to get out! Falun Dafa is good! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good! Please save us!” And they all awakened. The evil could no longer control them.
In that instant, I understood Master’s teaching:
“Supernormal capabilities are basically small tricks,Dafa is essential.” (“Pursuing a Righteous Fa Course,” Hong Yin)
All divine powers came from the Fa. I had placed too much importance on supernormal abilities, thinking they were needed to eliminate evil. But the Fa is the root of everything. With the Fa in one’s heart, any difficulty can be resolved. Master taught me this through that experience.
Many times, Master used situations I encountered while I was sending righteous thoughts to help me enlighten to Fa principles in Zhuan Falun. For example, while I was eliminating evil factors near a jail, a deity said, “I’ve waited for you for so long. Today we will fight to see whose abilities are stronger. If you win, I’ll stop persecuting practitioners.”
Before he finished, I recalled Master’s teaching:
“Another kind of practice is one of both internal and external cultivation. It requires the practice of martial arts and internal cultivation. This kind of practice is commonly seen in the Tao School. Once a person studies this practice, he will often run into this demonic interference that is not encountered in ordinary practices, except for the practices of both internal and external cultivation, or those of martial arts. That is, there will be people who seek him out for a fight. There are many Taoist cultivators in the world; many of them are students of martial arts or of internal and external cultivation. A student of martial arts can also develop gong. Why is this? If a person removes other attachments such as to reputation and personal gain, he can also increase gong. Yet his attachment to competitiveness will take time to abandon, and it will be abandoned quite slowly. Therefore, he will easily do this kind of thing, and it can even happen at certain levels. While sitting in trance, he will know who is practicing martial arts. His Original Soul will leave his body to challenge another person for a fight to determine whose martial arts are better, and this fight will then break out. These things also occur in another dimension where someone may also come to him for a fight. If he refuses, the other person will really kill him. A fight will thus break out between the two.” ( Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)
So I said, “If you’re willing to commit wrongdoings just so you can beat me, then I will give up. I acknowledge you’re stronger. I lose. But please stop persecuting practitioners. Committing such crimes harms your future. Winning or losing means nothing to me. If my losing can make you stop committing crimes, I willingly lose. But continuing to persecute Falun Dafa practitioners? Have you thought about your own future? Aren’t you assisting the evil forces? Turn back now, and admit your wrongs to Master.”
As soon as I finished saying this, a silver energy enveloped him. Perhaps it was the power of compassion. He looked at me and said, “You’ve changed. I thought after being in the human world so long, you would only become worse. But you’ve become better. This time I lose, and I truly submit. I have never beaten you before, but I never felt you were better. Yet this time, you made me concede.”
Through this experience, Master let me understand that compassion is an immense and unshakable force in the universe, far greater than any supernormal ability or Fa-tool.
I would like to say that, by memorizing the Fa, I frequently gain enlightenment to the Fa’s principles. And because I’ve gained enlightenment to the Fa principles, I feel more and more deeply how precious Zhuan Falun truly is. Sometimes I feel like a vessel that is eagerly filled by the Fa, and I’m being refined and purified by it. There is a strong inner wish in my heart to cleanse myself and become a better person.
The above is only based on my current understanding. If anything is not in accordance with the Fa, please kindly point it out.
(Selected submission for the 22nd China Fa Conference on Minghui.org)
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