(Minghui.org) I am a 30-year-old Falun Dafa practitioner. After my mother began practicing Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) in 1999, she told me that the practice is good and that was how I obtained the Fa the same year. At that time, I was only four years old, but the seed of Falun Dafa had already been deeply rooted in my young heart.
I entered primary school at age six. It was 2001 and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was defaming and persecuting Falun Dafa. My teachers believed the CCP’s lies and propaganda so they said bad things about Dafa in class. After hearing all that, I really felt like what Master said:
“...there was a huge difference when the tribulations had just started. Some were shocked. Some were contemplating, “What kind of person is Li Hongzhi?” Some were thinking, “Is this Fa righteous?”” (“Fa Teaching Given at the Western U.S. Fa Conference,” Guiding the Voyage)
At that time, I also considered this matter carefully: Is my mom correct or are my school teachers correct? Is Dafa really good? At that time, I had yet to understand rationally that Master and Dafa are righteous, but deep down I knew my mom would never lie to me. Since Mom said that Dafa is good, Dafa must be good. I thus followed my mom and started my cultivation in Dafa gradually.
When I was in middle school, my teacher once put me in charge of distributing new books to my classmates. During the process, I saw a new book that had a lot of glue on its cover, making it look ugly. I thought whoever got this book would be unhappy. So I kept that book instead of distributing it, thinking that if there were extra new books, I wouldn’t need to distribute it. However, toward the end, I realized we had the exact same number of books as classmates, so there were no extras.
Just then, I started to feel conflicted. I wondered if I should quickly distribute the “ugly” book to someone else, since there were only a few books left. It would be so easy to get myself a good book since the teacher had let me be in charge of book distribution. However, another inner voice seemed to be telling me, “Have you thought clearly about this? Do you really want to do that? Have you forgotten that Master taught us that we should “consider others first, so as to attain the righteous Enlightenment of selflessness and altruism” (“Non-Omission in Buddha-Nature,” Essentials for Further Advancement) when we do things? After struggling for a while, I finally chose to listen to Master. I distributed all the books, which I thought were good books, and kept the “ugly” book for myself.
After a period of time, some pages in a few of my classmates’ “good books” dropped out while my “ugly” book did not have that problem. Through this experience, Master improved my xinxing and helped me realize that I had the notion of “seeing is believing.” I could make use of this opportunity to get rid of it.
When I was in high school, since I went to a boarding school, I could only go home after class on Friday afternoons. Before the final class even ended, my classmates could barely contain their excitement. With just a few minutes left and the teacher still lecturing, many had already packed their bags, waiting to rush out the door the moment the bell rang.
I knew that my classmates were all eager to rush home. Some of them took a school bus, so if they were late, there may not be any buses available. However, someone needed to do the housekeeping work for the classroom after school every Friday. Therefore, I followed Master’s requirement to think from the perspective of selflessness and putting others before myself. I volunteered with our homeroom teacher, Mr. Huang, saying, “Teacher, let the classmates who are in a rush to go home leave first. I’m not taking the school bus, so I can stay behind to tidy up the classroom!” From then on, I voluntarily took on the responsibility of cleaning our classroom every Friday after school. Mr. Huang was deeply moved and grateful for my sacrifice for the class.
I tried my best to do well in my studies. The high school schedule was already quite tight, plus I lived quite far away from school, so I would make use of the time on the road to do my homework on the public bus sometimes. My grades were always good, and I ranked first in my class multiple times.
Once, a classmate asked Mr. Huang to help her find a student to take an exam in her place, and she would offer a financial reward. This was because she had failed a subject and retakes were allowed. She was worried that she would fail again, given her current grades, so she wanted to find someone to retake the exam for her.
Under the premise of ensuring the safety of the student who would retake the exam for her, and considering the amount of income that doing this would bring, Mr. Huang knew that my family’s financial condition was quite bad, so he looked for me first. After hearing his explanation of the situation, I thought of the matter based on the Fa and felt that helping someone retake the exam does not meet the requirement of “Truthfulness.” I thought that I should never do bad things for personal gain. Thus, I rejected his offer. This surprised Mr. Huang a lot and he felt that I was different from other students. Even after many years, he still said frankly that he admired my moral character when he recalled this matter.
The high school that I was studying in had a tradition. Every semester, every class had an allocation for a “Moral Education Exemplar” award. Every class would submit the chosen student’s name to the school and their name would be announced during the entire school faculty and student meeting. The school would take photos of these students and put up their photos on the school’s notice board in recognition of their achievement. When I heard my name during the meeting, I realized that Mr. Huang had given this award to me, and that continued for many semesters after that. Mr. Huang even invited my father to share with everyone during a meet-the-parents session for our class about how he raised such a good child with excellent character and academic performance.
When I first got to know Mr. Huang, he was deeply deceived by the CCP’s lies and spoke badly about Dafa in class, repeating what the political textbooks said. After he acknowledged my moral character and voluntarily wanted me to be his goddaughter, I invited him to our house. My mom clarified the truth to him and helped him quit the CCP. She also told him why my words and behavior were different from the other classmates: because I practiced Falun Dafa.
In our future meetings, I gave him Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, The Ultimate Goal of Communism, Zhuan Falun, and Master’s new lectures “Stay Rational,” and “How Humankind Came To Be.” I told him to take a good look at these books and lectures. He accepted them every time and said that he knew what I did was good for him, and that what I gave him were all good things. Mr. Huang changed from a CCP member who repeats the Party’s lies to a person who agrees that Dafa is good. It’s because I followed Master’s requirements all the time when I was interacting with him. He witnessed the goodness of Dafa through my words and actions.
During my time in high school, I also overcame a serious illness tribulation with great benevolent Master’s empowerment.
During the winter of my second year in high school, my skin started to itch. When I absentmindedly scratched it, I noticed silvery-white scales on the itchy areas of the skin. Upon scratching them away, I found red patches underneath the surface. Initially, I thought that this was Master helping me eliminate my karma and cleanse my body so it was all good, so I did not tell my parents about it.
However, as time passed, the red patches on my body not only did not heal, they actually showed a tendency to gradually expand, while more areas of my skin started to develop the silvery-white scales. From winter through summer, this condition grew progressively worse. Things were still manageable during the winter since I wore long sleeves and trousers and others would not notice anything unless I mentioned it to them. But things became far more severe once summer arrived. By then, the thick scales not only appeared on my arms and legs, but even on my face and scalp.
By summer break, this condition could no longer be concealed in the slightest. Although I realized that while Master was helping me eliminate my karma, he was simultaneously helping me to get rid of my attachment to “saving face” and fame. As a 17-year-old-girl at that time, I felt immense inner pressure. This pressure stemmed both from my own anxiety about my physical condition and also imagining how the other students would view me.
As the summer break ended and I started my third year in high school, Mr. Huang saw my condition and insisted on taking me to a clinic near the school. I went with him to see a doctor and the doctor said after examining me, “This is a small clinic so I can’t treat her. Her condition is too serious. I suggest that you quickly take her to a big hospital for treatment!”
My parents then took me to the best hospital in the city. After examining me, the doctor diagnosed it as psoriasis, explaining that while the condition could be controlled, it could not be completely cured. He then prescribed an ointment for me to apply after I returned home. By then, I had completely lost all my righteous thoughts, so I followed the doctor’s instructions to take leave from school, return home, and start applying the ointment. This continued for a period of time. Luckily, I had more time to study the Fa when I was home. Through studying the Fa, I found that I had the attachment to watching television programs. Since I had found this attachment, I thought that my physical condition should improve. However, when it still did not improve, I understood that I must have done something bad in one of my past lifetimes so now I should suffer from this condition on my body.
Falun Dafa provides salvation to both ourselves and others, as well as to all beings. Master told us to clarify the truth and save the sentient beings, but I could not even overcome this small problem on my body. I finally realized that as a cultivator, this was a tribulation that I must overcome sooner or later. I was determined to overcome it and thus stopped applying the medication.
Of course, after stopping the medication, bad thoughts would pop up in my mind from time to time: “What should I do if these red patches on my body continue to spread to my whole body? Will I die?” I realized that these thoughts appeared because I still had a fear of dying. I had already obtained the Fa, so what was there to be scared about?! I thus let go of my fear of dying and handed my fate to Master.
After a period of time, Mr. Huang called me, saying that Year Three intense training was about to start and asked me to return to school. Hearing that, my father hurried me to get me back to school as soon as possible, even though I had yet to fully overcome the illness tribulation. I thus returned to school. After that, the illness symptoms on my body gradually disappeared until everything returned to normal.
After more than half a year, under Master’s empowerment, I finally overcame this tribulation. After going through this period of body cleansing by Master, my skin became more fair and refined than before. My mother said that my complexion looked much better than before too, fair, with a rosy glow. Twelve years have passed since the day I stopped taking the medication. Although there were times when similar symptoms appeared on my body again, they were just a very small few. I did not take them to heart and never applied medication again and overcame them.
Thank you, benevolent great Master! Now when I recall the time when I was going through the tribulation, I did not feel any pain in my body. There was only itchiness in the skin and I was still able to eat and sleep. I cannot imagine how much Master suffered in place of me!
When I was in university, I still followed Master’s requirements. During usual times, I was happy to help others and would often help classmates by bringing them their meals when they needed it. After some time, we became friends. When they later came to my house for a visit, my mom clarified the truth to them and all of them quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations. During the pandemic, I told them to recite the phrases “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good” sincerely, and one of them even passed my words on to her family members, asking them to also recite the two phrases.
I have now been working as a teacher for a few years. During this period of time, my father witnessed the goodness of Dafa from the words and behavior of my mom and me, and he started cultivating in Falun Dafa too. This is something that I have never would have imagined in the past. Before cultivating, he drank alcohol no matter how my mom tried to persuade him to stop. After he began practicing Dafa, he got rid of his addiction to alcohol voluntarily. Now, when he is resting at home, he will study or listen to the Fa, listen to cultivation experience sharings, and do righteous things with us.
Over the past few years, I have persisted in joining group Fa study. Through group Fa study, when everyone exchanges cultivation experiences, and also through reading cultivation sharing articles online, I have all the more realized the urgent nature of our time to cultivate, and the gap between me and fellow practitioners.
I am grateful to Master for his benevolent salvation, for allowing me to encounter Falun Dafa and cultivate in Dafa, and for bestowing upon me such a sacred responsibility and mission of being a Falun Dafa disciple during the Fa-rectification period. I feel like it is the luckiest thing that has ever happened to me in this life. In the limited time for cultivation that is left, I will try my best to do the three things well, assist Master in Fa-rectification and saving sentient beings, fulfill my vow, and treat this as the most important thing to be accomplished in my life.
The above are my limited understandings. Kindly correct me if there is any room for improvement.