(Minghui.org) Greetings compassionate Master! Greetings fellow practitioners!
In the past two years the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has launched wave after wave of transnational repression against Falun Gong through foreign media outlets and social media platforms, especially by using former Shen Yun performers and former practitioners to slander and attack Dafa. This has had a negative impact on people and some practitioners.
I would like to take this opportunity to share my journey of how I went from being an atheist to being a cultivator. I want to talk about the miracles of Dafa, my own cultivation journey of learning to look inward during tribulations, continuously rectifying myself, and believing in Master and the Fa. I hope this will serve as mutual encouragement for fellow practitioners, and we can cultivate diligently together. If there’s anything inappropriate, please kindly point it out.
Master Helps Me Remove the Notion of Atheism
When I was in high school I read a magazine article that said Tibetans donated most of their family wealth to temples, leaving themselves in poverty, and that they prostrated themselves every three steps, making their way to Jokhang Temple in Lhasa from their hometowns. Because I was brainwashed by atheism since childhood I simply couldn’t understand this. I thought such behavior was foolish.
When Dafa was widely spread in China, I didn’t know about it. In April 1999, in order to prepare for the graduate school entrance exam, I cut off all means of retreat and became the first person to resign from the Inner Mongolia government. Three months later, the CCP launched the nationwide persecution campaign against Falun Gong. While preparing for the exam in Beijing, I had no time to watch TV or read newspapers, so I wasn’t influenced by the overwhelming lies.
Looking back now, I believe this was the path Master arranged for me. Otherwise, as an atheist, I would have undoubtedly accepted the CCP’s lies. Since I worked in a provincial-level government office, very likely I would have been swept up in it all, and would have been one of those who attacked and slandered Dafa.
in September 2000, I was admitted to the China University of Political Science and Law, just as I had hoped. I became close friends with my roommate, Mary, who told me that she practiced Falun Dafa. At that time, defamatory posters about Dafa could be seen all over campus. I didn’t really look at them because I had no interest in getting involved.
My mother suddenly passed away in March 2001. Some of the things that happened afterward made me question atheism. On June 23, 2001, I decided to practice Dafa. Within a week, after I read Zhuan Falun two or three times, Master helped me break through my notions of atheism.
On the afternoon of June 30, when I fell asleep I had the test of lust. In my dream I reminded myself of the Fa in Lecture Six of Zhuan Falun where a 30-year-old man passed this test. I had the thought, “Since I now practice Falun Dafa, I shouldn’t have any attachment to desire or lust.”
When this righteous thought came out, I opened my eyes and saw a large eye appear before me, staring right at me. It had wide double eyelids and long eyelashes that curled outward. Just as I was finding it all unbelievable, I suddenly felt a strange tingling sensation all over my body, as if I was being pricked. Then, I saw golden light continuously flashing outward from my body. The length and thickness of the rays were about the same as large sewing needles.
The scene before my eyes left me utterly shocked, as if my notions of atheism had collapsed in an instant. I realized I’d been deeply poisoned by atheism, and Master had revealed to me the scenes in other dimensions in real ways, helping me break down the notions of atheism completely.
What happened next was that Dafa showed the miraculous effect of changing the condition of my body, achieving the goals of healing and health. A year before the college entrance exam, I had developed severe chronic fatigue. My hair fell out in large clumps, I suffered from insomnia every night, and I took many medications. After entering the university, the symptoms lessened somewhat, but they still came and went unpredictably.
After I started working I developed chronic throat inflammation and nasal problems. Whenever I caught a cold I had difficulty breathing. It was extremely painful. After I began practicing, all these symptoms disappeared.
Master’s Protection While Facing Ordeals with Righteous Thoughts
Three years after I began practicing I experienced my first tribulation. I was working at a law firm in November 2004. I printed out truth clarification materials myself and looked for opportunities to distribute them on my own. Because I wanted to avoid a hassle, I printed large batches and stored them on a bookshelf, often taking several days to finish handing them out.
One night, I thought that my husband would be returning from a business trip the next day, so it would be best to stuff some of the materials into envelopes before he got home. I had a mindset of “just getting the task done,” so I didn’t bother to dispose of the misprinted pages. I simply folded them and placed them on the bookshelf, along with another stack of printed materials.
Early the next morning, before dawn, I left for work carrying a large bundle of truth clarification materials, and took the elevator downstairs. The lobby lights were bright, and it was easy to see inside from outside. I also noticed a security guard standing by the entrance. The mailboxes for the entire building were located in the lobby. With the same “getting the work done” mindset, I didn’t send forth righteous thoughts, and just numbly stuffed the materials one by one into the mailboxes.
The security guard then suddenly approached me and asked what I was putting in the mailboxes. My heart jumped. In a panic, I blurted out that they were promotional materials for my company. Fortunately, all the mailboxes were locked, so the guard couldn’t open them.
My heart was pounding like a rabbit trapped in a cage, but I forced myself to remain calm. I held the materials as if nothing had happened and walked out slowly and steadily, trying not to reveal any nervousness and flaws. Only after I had walked out of the gate of that neighborhood did I start to have righteous thoughts, “I’m Master’s disciple. If there’s anything inappropriate in my cultivation, it would be rectified in the Fa. No beings are worthy of persecuting me.” I continuously sent righteous thoughts on my way to work.
At that time, the law firm was handling a major case, and everyone on the project was busy. After arriving at work, I didn’t have time to dwell on what happened that morning, nor did I call my sister, who was at home helping take care of my one-year-old daughter. I managed to find a moment to call her at around noon, and remind her to watch out for her safety. To my surprise, she told me that around 10 a.m., someone came and claimed they were inspecting the heating system to trick her into opening the door. She opened the door, only to have over ten people enter the apartment. They searched every room and asked where I worked. Amazingly, they didn’t notice the misprinted papers or the stack of truth clarification materials on the bookshelf, despite the fact that they were plainly visible.
The Fa has different requirements at different levels. I later enlightened that as a new practitioner who had only been practicing for three years, I met the standard and requirements at my level when I had the righteous thought of firmly believing in Master and denying the persecution, and Master protected me as a result.
The security guard who reported me was actually quite familiar with me, and used to play with my daughter. After that incident, I felt uneasy every time I saw him. But I knew that mindset wasn’t right. Based on the principles of the Fa, this only happened because there were some problems in my cultivation, so that loophole was exploited. People are in the state of unknowing, which is why they are manipulated by the old forces and report on practitioners, and in turn create large amounts of karma for themselves. I needed to let go of “self” and develop compassion. After some time, I was able to greet him calmly. This ordeal temporarily ended, but I was on the CCP’s blacklist.
I was in a very bad cultivation state around 2009, and I couldn’t focus when reading the Fa. My mind was restless when I sent righteous thoughts. Thought karma caused overwhelming distractions, and I couldn’t let go of attachments to fame, material interest, and emotion. I was attached to time and schedules. I had a strong attachment to fear, which manifested physically, in the form of fever-like symptoms, and I felt constantly sleepy.
In the winter of 2009, when the glass coffee table at home suddenly shattered I knew I had a serious problem in my cultivation. However, due to lack of righteous thoughts, there were a lot of disruptions, and I felt numb inside. Although I tried hard to adjust my cultivation state, within a few days I was back to where I was. This continued until May 2010.
On the evening of May 6th, my seven-year-old daughter sent forth righteous thoughts with me. She said she saw many snakes, and urged me to quickly eradicate them. On the morning of the 7th, when I opened the door to get milk for my daughter, the police broke in and I was illegally arrested.
By the time I was transferred from the police station to the detention center, it was already afternoon. I hadn’t eaten all day, yet I didn’t feel hungry. That evening, as I sat on the hard bunk in the cell, surrounded by nearly thirty criminal suspects of various kinds, my uneasy heart finally calmed down. I had truly lost my freedom. I couldn’t go home.
After a day of turmoil, things finally quieted down. I thought of my family, as I didn’t know how my husband and seven-year-old daughter were doing. I felt deep sorrow, and tears were welling up. At that moment, a thought struck me, “Who is your wife? Who is your child?”
As soon as this thought came out, the intense emotional grip on my heart instantly weakened. I very clearly felt a heavy substance being lifted from my chest. I suddenly felt light and relieved. Afterwards, I became enlightened that even when facing persecution, as long as practitioners can maintain righteous thoughts, and can look at the problems with the Fa, Master will take care of them.
Because I passed this test of emotion during the two years I was illegally persecuted, and wasn’t consumed by emotional pain, this allowed me to view the solemnness of cultivation and the sinister intent behind the persecution with greater rationality.
In addition, under Master’s protection, I also passed an illness test.
In the fall of 2010, while I was locked in solitary confinement in the labor camp, I experienced back pain, chest tightness, shortness of breath, and discomfort in my heart. The first time these symptoms appeared, my first thought was, “It’s over. Something’s wrong with my heart.” But I immediately denied that thought, started sending righteous thoughts, and asked Master to strengthen me. I could distinctly feel a hand grasping and shaking my heart. My mind remained undisturbed, and I kept sending righteous thoughts to deny the persecution. Just like that, under Master’s compassionate protection, the illusion of heart disease disappeared.
Master Enlightens Me to Work on Compassion
I’m a self-disciplined person, and have high expectations of others as well. My facial expression is often very serious. When I was in China, my husband used to tease me, saying I looked like a “discipline director,” and my daughter agreed. Every time he called me that, my daughter burst out laughing.
I also tend to speak very directly. I see this as a good quality, but I failed to realize that judging from my own perspective and speaking bluntly without considering others’ feelings is actually a lack of compassion. And it’s hard to notice, because I feel I’m doing it for the benefit of others.
I had three dreams in a row while I was in the detention center. In the first dream, I saw a child even younger than my daughter, and I wasn’t very kind to her. In the second dream, I saw the child of the director of the law firm, and again, I treated the child with a poor attitude. When I woke up, I didn’t understand why I dreamed of children twice in a row.
Then I had the third dream. In that dream, I was released and returned home. I walked quickly into a room where the Dafa books were, to get Zhuan Falun. My daughter was there. She was very happy to see me and ran toward me, but I pushed her aside and headed straight to the bookshelf. At that moment, a powerful voice echoed from the sky, “Kindness is essential.” I woke up suddenly.
I finally realized Master was showing my lack of compassion through my attitude toward children. But even after three dreams in a row, I still hadn’t realized it. Master saw this, and so used the dreams to spell it out for me, “Kindness is essential,” to awaken me to the importance of being compassionate.
I’m ashamed to say that even after more than ten years, I still haven’t done well in this regard, and have hurt my family and fellow practitioners. Here, I sincerely apologize to Master, to fellow practitioners, and to my family: I’m sorry. I will keep working on it.
Learning to Look Inward and Believing in Master and Dafa
I would like to talk about the importance of believing in Master, and believing in Dafa. Especially when one is experiencing ordeals, when one can’t determine where the problem is, and can’t pass the test after several trys, one might get frustrated, and one’s belief in Master and Dafa could be undermined.
After I was detained, I thought about what Master said:
“I am rooted in the universe. If anyone could harm you, he or she would be able to harm me. Put simply, that person would be able to harm this universe.” (Lecture One, Zhuan Falun)
I kept asking myself, why was I getting picked on? I’ve been looking inward every single day to find my problems. In the two years without freedom, I formed a habit of looking inward. During that time, I could see all kinds of problems from fellow practitioners around me. I could also see my own human thoughts and all kinds of attachments.
For example, when I was in the detention center I practiced the exercises every day. I refused to cooperate with the guards, refused to wear the uniform, refused to recite the rules, refused to sit motionless (sit on the hard bunk for more than ten hours every day without making a single move). But I did clarify the truth to the inmates in my cell. However, behind the “righteous thoughts,” what I displayed was a strong attachment—a deep attachment of pursuit to get out.
At the time, I thought that as long as I didn’t cooperate with the evil, and maintained righteous thoughts, I could make it through. But my understanding of righteous thoughts was flawed—it was driven by my pursuit, and it was not pure.
I met a practitioner who was in her fifties, and we spent a few days together. Her righteous thoughts and righteous actions encouraged me, but my strong attachment to wanting to get out made me overlook the fact that righteous thoughts and righteous actions come from a solid xinxing foundation. What’s behind my righteous thoughts was a pursuit of results, a pursuit of wanting to get rid of the persecution. This is not only a self imposed, but also contained a strong attachment, which Master could see clearly, as did the evil.
This practitioner appeared to have dangerously high blood pressure, but she was actually very healthy. I saw her again when she was transferred from the lockup to the detention center, and learned that she had once been sent to the labor camp, but refused admittance because of her supposedly high blood pressure.
We were both sent to the labor camp on June 8th. On the way there, she taught me how to recite the Fa. I could feel that her righteous thoughts and righteous actions were strong and pure, unlike me—I felt nervous and powerless inside.
When we arrived, the labor camp once again refused to accept her, and she was sent home. I had heard of such cases before in articles on the Minghui website, but this was the first time I had personally witnessed one. Unlike me, who appeared to have righteous thoughts—I was illegally given two years of forced labor.
I would like to share my understanding of the relationship between the attachment of fear and the belief in Master and the Fa.
When I was persecuted in the labor camp, I went through all kinds of tribulations and tests, especially the constant tests about my attachment to fear. Every day, I was engaged in a battle of wits and willpower with the police. Sometimes, when my righteous thoughts were strong, I could resist; other times, the righteous thoughts weren’t enough. Righteous thoughts and my attachment of fear clashed back and forth within me.
A few months before I regained my freedom, I kept asking myself why I was afraid. Finally, one day I understood the origin of the attachment of fear on a certain level.
On one hand, it was selfishness; I didn’t want to let go of the things I cared about and was attached to. On the other hand, I didn’t firmly believe in Master and Dafa, or my belief in Master and Dafa was shaken. When one’s human attachments can’t be eliminated the tests keep coming. If I can’t pass these trials and tribulations, and this goes on for too long, my confidence will be worn down, and problems will arise.
Fortunately, the ordeals I went through were not in vain. Through these tribulations I learned how to cultivate. I developed the habit of looking inward, and came to understand how to examine each thought and intention based on the principles of the Fa. That’s how I’ve followed Master and made it to where I am today—despite the stumbles, and at times, the difficulty of each step.
Thank you Master! Thank you fellow practitioners!
(Selected article presented at the 2025 UK Fa Conference)
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