(Minghui.org) Greetings Master! Greetings fellow practitioners!
I started practicing Falun Dafa in 2017 in my hometown, in the northeastern part of Ukraine. Practicing Falun Dafa changed me and my path in life.
I Begin Practicing
I read a lot of different literature before I practiced Falun Dafa, but nothing satisfied my spiritual search. I tried to follow Christian teachings but didn’t feel any improvement, so I eventually gave it up.
The first time I read Zhuan Falun I felt it was the teaching I had been looking for. I found answers to many questions that I couldn’t find answers to in Christianity or anywhere else.
Before I started practicing Falun Dafa I easily became depressed for no apparent reason. I lived a healthy lifestyle, regularly worked out at the gym, ate healthy food, and didn’t smoke or drink.
When I woke up one day my depression was worse than usual. I felt a strong pain inside me because I realized that I was there, that “I” existed.
When meditating one day I felt completely opposite to the way I felt when I was depressed. Words can’t describe it; it was endless happiness and joy just because of one thought—realizing that I existed. There was no thought of any activity; it was just a feeling of ultimate happiness to be in this state.
I was naive to think I would feel this way every time I meditated. I later realized that Master let me experience this condition to strengthen my faith in Falun Dafa. From my understanding, a life experiences this condition before going down to the lower worlds.
Moving to Another City and First Cultivation Tests
Six months after I started practicing Dafa I moved from my hometown to Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. There’s a big group of Dafa practitioners in Kyiv, and they have regular group Fa study and group practice, as well as truth clarification activities.
When I got a job offer to work in Kyiv I knew that it would be better for my cultivation even though I had a comfortable life in my hometown. I knew that life in another, bigger city would be harder for me. My new employer helped me find an apartment, and moving to Kyiv wasn’t too difficult. Master arranged everything in the best way for me to help me on my cultivation way.
After I joined the Dafa practitioners’ group in Kyiv and started to take part in truth clarification activities, my cultivation accelerated tremendously. I felt big changes in my mind and body.
The first big hardship that I encountered was a strong feeling of loneliness, as all my social connections were left behind in my hometown, and it seemed at first like the other practitioners were ignoring me. At some point this feeling of loneliness started to put pressure on me. It pushed on me more and more until I got a strong thought in my mind that I would continue practicing Falun Dafa no matter what. At that moment I felt that something moved very deep inside of me, like some foundation was set. I had never before felt anything on such a deep level. Things around me subsequently started to change. Other practitioners started to get acquainted with me, and the feeling of loneliness disappeared.
During one truth clarification activity I was asked to replace a practitioner in the Chinese dragon dance team. I’ve never done anything like that before, and there was only one rehearsal before the event, so I didn’t feel confident and had strong notions about how I would look.
As I rode the subway to the activity these thoughts occupied my mind. I started to eliminate the unrighteous thoughts, and another thought appeared, that I was doing it not for myself, but for saving sentient beings.
I’ve never seen Master in person, only on videos and in photos. But at that moment I felt like Master was standing near me, and tears filled my eyes.
In my first year in Kyiv, I had a chance to go to the European Falun Dafa Experience-Sharing Conference that took place in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. The Old Town of Prague is a popular tourist attraction, and people from all over the world come to see it. Practitioners organized a big parade in this part of Prague to let people know about Falun Dafa and the ongoing persecution of practitioners in China.
As I was taking part in the parade I noticed many good-looking people enjoying life in a beautiful place. For me it was like a display of things that were worth pursuing in life, to compete and fight for. As a Dafa practitioner I realized that my life has to be dedicated to different things. But I still had many attachments at that time and had a heavy heart because of this.
However, compassionate Master encouraged me.
Nearly a month before the Fa conference in Prague, I watched a documentary made by practitioners, called “Candlelight Across the Street,” on the YouTube channel “Legends Unfolding.” It’s about the 24-hour vigil that Dafa practitioners have held in front of the Chinese Embassy in London since 2002. This documentary really touched me. But the story of one practitioner, who participated in the vigil at the embassy for many years, touched me the most. Once on one of London’s main radio stations the host shared his thoughts about the most beautiful building in London, and said it was the Chinese Embassy, the one that has a Falun Dafa vigil across the street. Unlike other petitions and protests that continued every day, only the Falun Dafa protest is long-term and peaceful, and this protest is the most powerful.
The next day after the parade, during a break in the conference, I saw a practitioner who looked like the practitioner in the documentary, whose story touched me so much. I approached him, and we chatted a bit. He actually took part in this documentary. This practitioner appeared to be a humble person, and said that his cultivation doesn’t go smoothly, and he has ups and downs like any other practitioner. In the end he gave me a hug. My encounter with him really uplifted me.
The biggest test after I began cultivating, however, was at my new workplace. I worked with an attractive girl who was recently divorced. I liked her, and she seemed to like me. Although she’s a good person, like many people in society now, she has strong attachments to worldly things. She made me understand that from her perspective, close relations between men and women start with sexual relations. At that time, my mother and sister put pressure on me to find a girl and get married, and told me that I should start a relationship with this co-worker.
This co-worker started to instigate me to fight and compete in our team, to take the role she saw me in. In other words, she wanted me to do things that I, as a Dafa practitioner, shouldn’t do.
At that time I was reading Teachings at the Conference in Europe. Master said:
“You may have a wife or a husband. This is the normal way of life for human beings. But you are committing a sin if you have sexual activity with someone who isn’t your husband or your wife.” (Teachings at the Conference in Europe)
One male practitioner, who had practiced much longer than me, said that he wasn’t strict regarding relationships between men and women in the beginning of his practice, and how much he regretted it later.
Somewhere deep inside I had a feeling that this was the crucial test for me as a practitioner, and if I didn’t pass it, my cultivation in Dafa would end.
So I did as Master teaches, let the thing go and let nature take its course. As I didn’t take any action this co-worker found one boyfriend, then another. My desk was just across the aisle from hers, and for several months I saw how she was happy in her relationships, while I wasn’t happy at all.
Benevolent Master didn’t leave me without his support.
One day at the office my mind was occupied with one thought—saving sentient beings. All other thoughts were somewhere on the outskirts, and seemed so insignificant. I felt enormous compassion for all people and other lives in this world, and the only thing I wanted to do was to save sentient beings. This state lasted nearly an hour and then I returned to my normal state.
I later changed jobs, no longer saw this coworker, and this test ended for me.
Cultivating During the War
The COVID pandemic lockdowns negatively impacted my cultivation. Lack of participation in group Fa study, practice, and truth clarification activities caused me to slack off, and I became depressed.
Looking back, I see that Master was providing great support to me in the beginning of my cultivation and removed many hardships for me, but as time passed I had to put in more effort to move forward in cultivation. However, I failed to do this because of my attachment to comfort.
So, when the war started in Ukraine, I wasn’t in a good cultivation state. I realized at that time that I wasn’t taking cultivation seriously, and when hard times came, I wasn’t ready for it. In many situations I acted just like an ordinary person.
The day the Russian military forces invaded Ukraine I was in my hometown which is only in 50 miles from Russian border. I didn’t leave because I couldn’t imagine that the situation would became as bad as it later did. In two to three days most parts of the town were surrounded by the Russian army. The Ukrainian military forces didn’t let them invade the town, and except for a few missile attacks on the city center, fighting took place on the outskirts of town. A few days later, Russian military aircraft dropped bombs on one residential building in the middle of the day.
I was in my parents’ apartment at that time, in a residential building, which was only half a mile from the building that was attacked. I felt the floor beneath me shake. At first, I didn’t feel any fear, just like Master said in Zhuan Falun. But fear shortly came, to the extent that I felt weakness in my legs. I started to do the exercises. I hadn’t done them much those days—I was trying to eliminate the feeling of fear. At one moment, while doing the exercises, I felt that my body consisted of many layers. There was no fear in the inner layers, but was in the outer layers, which I understood were not cultivated yet.
During an air alert I went to the shelter with other people. I only brought a backpack, my ID papers, and a few belongings.
Master said:
“Money is something external to this physical body.” (“Wealth with Virtue,” Essentials for Further Advancement)
While I was leaving the apartment I physically felt what Master’s teaching meant. There was me, and there were all these material things, that were not me. Everything I purchased over years in the apartment were worth nothing at that moment, as I couldn’t take them with me.
After spending almost two weeks in this war zone, I left the city and moved to another part of the country. More than a month later, the Russian military forces left this part of Ukraine, and I returned.
I’ve never had a chance to talk to practitioners from mainland China who were persecuted there. But the short period of time I spent in this war zone helped me to understand how it feels to be a Dafa practitioner during the persecution. In a city under military siege, there was a constant threat of death or of losing one’s property and livelihood. But practitioners in China who go out to clarify the truth voluntarily put themselves at risk and expose themselves to the police. They are forced to leave their homes, lose their jobs, and even be arrested and lose their lives in detention. They are truly amazing!
Even though the war continued in Ukraine, I was able to return to a normal way of living. But I felt that I couldn’t improve my cultivation by myself, and asked Master to help me.
Maybe that’s why I came to the U.S. I’ve read many times Master’s words that practitioners shouldn’t look outward. Despite this I had a thought that someone has to help me to improve my cultivation state. I realized this was a wrong thought, but I still couldn’t understand the deeper meaning of Master’s words.
When I saw how practitioners in the Chicago area selflessly helped each other while hosting Shen Yun performances, I finally understood that the right question was not how the cultivation environment could help me, but what I can do to help create a cultivation environment and help local practitioners in their efforts. After that my cultivation state started to change for better—I once again felt how I did when I first began cultivating.
Thank you, benevolent Master, that despite all my downfalls, you haven’t given up on me!
Thank you, fellow-practitioners, for providing a supportive cultivation environment!
Please kindly point out anything improper.
(Selected article presented at the 2025 Midwest Fa Conference)
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