(Minghui.org) Master said in his 2016 lecture, “When I began teaching the Fa, there were so many that they looked like snowflakes falling from the sky. That many. I was thinking about these people’s ages, how long it’s been since I began teaching the Fa, and there are really many young people around twenty-five years old who have yet to be saved. They are divine beings who descended to this earth, and are spread throughout the world.” (“Fa Teaching Given at the 2016 New York Fa Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. XIV)
I am fortunate to be one of those young people Master referred to and I began practicing Falun Dafa. However, due the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution, I stopped for twenty years. I recently resumed cultivating and I’d like tell you about my experiences.
Fortunate to Receive Master’s Hint
My affinity with Dafa started when I was three years old. My mother began practicing in 1996, and I accompanied her to the practice site. She said I was able to meditate for an hour even though I was so young!
However, the CCP began suppressing Dafa in 1999. My mother was sent to a forced labor camp for clarifying the truth about the persecution, and she could not return home after she was released. I had no guidance from adult practitioners so I stopped cultivating. Later, influenced by fame, gain and emotions in the human world, I was lost and pursued fame, wealth and status. I also started to get into relationships. My mother advised me to read the Fa and do the exercises, but I just treated them as chores. I was not able to finish reading one round of Zhuan Falun even after an entire summer holiday! I only knew that Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion -Forbearance is good, but I forgot the long-cherished wish I had when I came to this mundane world, and thus I did not return to cultivation.
In 2016, I went overseas to study and I saw Falun Dafa practitioners doing the exercises and telling people about Falun Dafa. My soul was stirred. In my mind, I heard Master say, “Time is running out. Quickly return to cultivation.”
I eagerly began reading Falun Dafa books, and I read all of them within three months. I understood the purpose of life is to return to our original, true selves. Life passes in just a few decades. When we die we cannot bring all that fame, gain, and emotion with us, but only the virtue and karma we accumulated throughout our lifetimes.
Cultivation is the only way for us to return to our original, true selves. Through studying the Fa, I understood that cultivation is a process through which we eliminate our karma. It also helps us eliminate our demon nature and get in touch with our divine nature. Falun Dafa is the true law of the universe and offers us a ladder to Heaven. It truly cultivates our main consciousness. Master helped us eliminate large amounts of our karma and arranged a cultivation path for us, helping us to resolve all sorts of grievances with compassionate resolutions, so that we can complete our cultivation within one lifetime.
Dafa is boundless and has no form. Master opened a most convenient way for us. We are not asked to become monks or nuns or give up the material things in our mundane lives. He only asks that we cultivate our hearts. Through studying the Fa, doing the exercises, and measuring everything we do with the Fa, we look within, get rid of our human attachments, and assimilate to the standards of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance to become good people.
Improving Myself
With regards to studying the Fa, Master emphasized many times that we should be focused with full concentration so that our main consciousness is the one obtaining the Fa. However, it is not easy to have that level of concentration because we are bombarded with so much information that we need to process in our busy lives. After reading fellow practitioners’ cultivation experiences on Minghui.org about memorizing the Fa, I felt that may help me. I started to memorize the Fa.
Instead of sleeping late, I woke up early in the morning to memorize the Fa—my thoughts were clear and there was no one to disturb me. After persisting for a period of time I discovered that my thoughts were cleansed without my realizing it. When I woke up one morning, I felt my mind was not in the mundane world. I had no thoughts or emotion. I felt empty and clear, as though fame, gain and emotion were very far away from me. I think that this is the result of memorizing the Fa and Master was encouraging me to persist. He let me see the side of me that cultivated well. The feeling of having no emotion was so amazing. However, because I got busy with work, I relaxed in memorizing the Fa and I did not experience that feeling again.
After I was determined to cultivate I also had to keep up with doing the exercises as they strengthen the mechanisms Master gave us and increases the rate at which our bodies transform. Doing the meditation in full lotus position is still quite difficult for me. My body is very stiff. I danced when I was younger and I could not keep up with the teacher’s tempo. So, I pressed down on my legs every day. After about three months I was finally able to meditate in the full lotus position. I started from doing it for half an hour and gradually increased the duration over time. The big test was at the thirty-minute, forty-minute and fifty-minute marks. When I meditated the pain and numbness were beyond words. Every time I endured I felt relief and even a cool and refreshing feeling. I think this is the feeling one gets after eliminating one’s karma.
As I gradually increased the length of time I meditated and endured the pain, I was finally able to meditate in the full lotus position for an hour. A few times I experienced what Master said, “...feel wonderful and very comfortable as though you are sitting inside an egg shell...” (Lecture Eight, Zhuan Falun). It really felt as though my limbs were immobile but I knew I was meditating. I gradually eliminated my laziness, seeking comfort, fear of suffering and lack of forbearance.
Treasure the Opportunity to Cultivate
I had a vivid dream in which I was running desperately, trying to catch up with a spaceship that was about to leave. The ship was already a meter off the ground. Master caught hold of me and lifted me into the ship. I saw many people. There was only one empty seat in the second row and that seat was reserved for me. Master said, “The seats on this spaceship are the positions Falun Dafa practitioners had before they descended to the mundane world. The nearer the seats, the higher the levels that they come from.” I thought that this is Master taking the chance to enlighten me, so as to boost my confidence and also warning me not to slack off because this is the last of the last phase of cultivation during the Fa rectification period.
I also had many dreams about catching up with cars and taking exams. If my cultivation state was good, in my dream I was able to catch up.
I am very very thankful to Master for his benevolent salvation and I also understand my mission. As a new practitioner of the Fa-rectification period I cannot relax. My personal cultivation and Fa-rectification take place simultaneously so the requirement for my xinxing is very high. As we approach the last of the last phase of cultivation during the Fa-rectification period, Master is pulling me upwards. Therefore, my xinxing tests keep coming, and they require me to keep improving my xinxing. During the process, I also need to assist Master and save sentient beings.
The worldwide spread of Falun Dafa is not a coincidence. The universe is deteriorating and Dafa is here to rectify it. We are so lucky to be Falun Dafa practitioners during this historic moment! This is not just about our cultivating well, we need to assist Master in Fa-rectification of the human world.
There is not much time left. I hope that all the young Falun Dafa practitioners realize that they need to return to their original, true selves amid the hustle and bustle of mundane life and catch up with Master’s Fa rectification and not let themselves or the beings in their heavenly realms down!
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