Validate the Fa with Righteous Thoughts and Actions
By a Falun Dafa practitioner from Northeast China
(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings to Master! Greetings to fellow practitioners! I am a practitioner from northeast China. I would like to share my experience
of validating the Fa the past several years from the perspective of harmonizing
my family, righteous thoughts and actions, and coordinating as one body. I was a manager in a business before I started to practice. I was busy doing
business and engaging in social activities. I ate out and drank alcohol all the
time; I fought for fame and gain; I said things I didn't mean and did things I
didn't want to do in order to get ahead. I was courted by many people and was
extremely popular. Excessive drinking caused me to become ill. I had heart
problems, stomachaches, rheumatoid arthritis, lower back pain, migraines, and
blood in my urine. I was short-tempered and my relationship with my family was
very tense. My husband wanted a divorce. I couldn't stand the degenerating
morality in society, hated my life and the fact that everyone wore a mask. I
thought about renouncing the world and becoming a nun. I read Zhuan Falun by chance and wept after I finished the
book. I wondered why I didn't get to listen to Master a few years earlier. I
lamented over my past and for not having found Falun Dafa sooner. Now I found my
destiny and the true principles that were more precious than life. My aimless
and empty heart finally found a "home." This was more valuable than
anything money could buy. I knew why I existed and the significance of life. I
was no longer short-tempered, and there was no more fighting, no excessive
drinking and no gambling. My neighbors said that I had changed for the better
and praised me in front of my family. My family lived in harmony and peace. My
life was full of sunshine, happiness and hope. The Persecution Started Suddenly and I Stood Up to Validate the Fa The persecution started on July 20, 1999, and unprecedented evil bore down. I
went to Beijing to appeal in 2000 and was jailed for 15 days. An ordeal for my
family started then. The police came to my home and tried to force me to write
statements renouncing Falun Dafa. I refused and was taken to a police station.
Three policemen were watching me. I thought to myself that I shouldn't be there,
and that I must go to Beijing to appeal. The Fa was not rectified yet, Teacher
was being slandered, and practitioners were suffering in prison. I eventually
escaped when the police fell asleep. The next time I went to Tiananmen Square I displayed a Falun Dafa banner.
When I returned home, my family criticized me, saying that I had lost my senses
due to practicing Falun Gong and abandoned my family and child. The evil
persecution had been going on for several years and my family would not listen
to the truth and they did not understand me. They claimed that a normal person
(i.e. me) became insane after practicing and abandoned her child and family. My
neighbors looked at me as if I were insane; my parents-in-law came to my home to
scold me; my sister-in-law spread rumors about me. The worse thing was that my
uncle, who adored me the most, slandered Teacher. My younger brother fought with
the rest of the family because he thought I was being treated unfairly. Facing all this, my heart sunk. The reason I went to Beijing was to save
sentient beings. Now my entire family, who were sentient beings as well, was
against me and wouldn't listen to the truth. They said that if Falun Gong was
good, I should just practice it at home and there was no need to go out in
public. They said that the government was too powerful for us to stand up for
our rights. Because of their attitudes, my heart hardened towards them and I
refused to clarify the truth to them. I went to Beijing twice and came back safely. Practitioners said that I had
righteous thoughts and wanted me to deliver truth-clarification materials. Not
long after that, the materials production site was broken into and I was
illegally arrested for posting truth-clarifying flyers.
Later I found that it was because I had an attachment to fame. Though I
eventually escaped from the police, I ended up having no place to go. After I escaped and couldn't go home, my husband was very angry. Facing
family responsibilities and emotional frustration, he wanted a divorce again. My
husband wouldn't listen to the truth and started to sell the house, as his
parents were inciting him to do so. No one was taking care of my child at that
time and I was too scared to go home. I didn't know what to do. I just felt sad
for my child. I thought of Teacher's compassionate salvation, the necessity to
upgrade my xinxing, and the sentient beings that needed to be
saved. So I decided to leave my family matters behind for a while. Since I couldn't go home, I clarified the truth wherever I went. I would find
practitioners who gave in to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and renounced
Falun Gong in other areas and read them Teacher's articles "A
Suggestion" and "Dafa Is Indestructible." I told them stories
about other practitioners' righteous thoughts and actions, hoping to help these
practitioners come back to the Fa. These practitioners would often return to Fa
rectification once they understood the truth. Other practitioners would praise me, saying I was doing very well in the
practice. I thus became big-headed and forgot "Cultivation depends on one's
own efforts, while the transformation of gong is done by one's master."
(Lecture One, Zhuan Falun) I went to a forced labor camp to rectify the
environment, and was arrested there. After a fifteen day hunger strike, the camp
released me on bail to go to a hospital. I didn't try to find my attachment
after I was released. Instead, I was moved by the attachment of fame, "See
how well I did. I was sentenced to one year, but was released in fifteen
days." I didn't study the Fa calmly after I returned from the labor camp. I
was very eager to do something for Dafa. I gave tens of thousand of yuan to the
materials production site. I would take as much material as I needed, and would
not hesitate to distribute truth materials and hang banners. The only thing I
wouldn't do was cultivate my xinxing. Soon the materials site
was destroyed by the evil and I again had nowhere to stay. I thought the
practitioners wouldn't be able to get online to read articles on Minghui
(Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net) or Teacher's lectures, so I took 10,000
yuan from home and planned to build a new materials production site. I had never been to a computer store. A practitioner went with me to a
commercial area to look for a computer. I walked around and didn't spend any
money because neither of us knew about computers. My physical condition was not
well because of my hunger strike in the forced labor camp. My legs were swollen.
I begged Teacher in my mind to help me find the best computer for saving
sentient beings. We walked around once more and stopped in front of a laptop. I
didn't want to move on because I felt very comfortable with that laptop. I
realized that it must be Teacher's hint that I buy it. After I bought the laptop, I bought a small printer. After I was done
shopping, I was very worried because I didn't know how to use the computer and
printer and I didn't know how to get online. I had no one to turn to. I was very
troubled and started to cry on the train. I got off the train, got settled in a
hotel, and then I started to look for a certain practitioner. I didn't remember where that practitioner lived because I had only been there
once. I walked around the entire morning and was tired and hungry. I asked
Teacher for help to find the practitioner and be able to use the things I
bought. Soon an old man came along and I asked him, "Mister, where is
so-and-so's home?" He stared at me and said, "Do you practice Falun
Gong?!" I was caught off guard and replied, "Oh, no, no. I just want
to buy something from him." The old man told me it was the house we were
standing in front of. I immediately regretted that I didn't pass the small test
and I dared not admit that I was a practitioner. I simply didn't have righteous
thoughts! I had been walking around the practitioner's home for half a day!
After I entered the house, I learned that just two days before, that
practitioner left his home and couldn't return because of the persecution. My
only hope was gone and I had no choice but to go home. Teacher had arranged everything. A month later, I found a practitioner from
the previous materials production site. I gave him the computer and printer I
had bought and rented a place to establish a new site. The production site
started to grow and a lot of practitioners frequently went in and out. Most of
the practitioners depended on us and passively waited at home for materials.
They would distribute whatever they got. There was no overall coordination and
improvement. We also had a security issue. I didn't study the Fa enough and was
just busy doing Dafa work without looking inward. The equipment kept having
problems so I just kept replacing it. I spent a lot of money and forgot that I
was a practitioner. I forgot that Teacher said that we must be practitioners
doing Dafa work. One day a practitioner was arrested while distributing truth-clarifying
materials. He couldn't stand the torture and told the police the address of the
materials production site we rented. We lost more than 200 thousand yuan worth
of equipment and 10 practitioners were sent to forced labor camps. I was
arrested too. The third day after the arrest, to escape the persecution, I
jumped from a building and injured my spine. As I was very close to dying, I
told Teacher that I couldn't die because there was a lot of Dafa work that still
needed to be done. I survived. At that time, all the diligent local practitioners were detained and the
materials production site was totally shut down. What I had on my mind was that
local practitioners couldn't read articles from Minghui and had no
truth-clarifying materials to distribute. I had to fix this. Later I was sent to
a hospital and a doctor said that I would be paralyzed without surgery. I
claimed that I was all right, but still cooperated and had the surgery. This
later brought trouble to my cultivation. While I was in the hospital, I read the entire book Zhuan Falun each
day. My lower back stopped hurting me and I was able to get out of bed three
days after the surgery. My doctor was a little hesitant and told me that a steel
plate in my back had not totally healed yet. I told him I was fine because I
practice Falun Gong. I left the hospital on day 12 and got out of the building I
lived in on day 15. I wanted to validate the Fa. My neighbor was shocked seeing
me out so soon after my surgery. Even the police who followed me whispered to
each other in amazement. Harmonizing My Family, Compassion Melts a Heart of Steel Because I was being unreasonable, my husband couldn't take it any longer. He
didn't come to see me when I was in the hospital and was smoking, drinking,
gambling, and going out with other women. I didn't know what to do after I got
home. My husband would not talk to me, and his mother tried to convince him to
divorce me and take all the money. I was moved by human sentiments, anger, hatred, jealousy, and feelings of
being wronged. I decided that I would not stay with him any longer. I drove him
away when he came home and complained that he was dirty. I could only think of
how kind and devoted I was to him and hence my anger was boiling. I was angry
when I saw him and felt lost when he was absent. I couldn't let go of my qing,
even though I knew it was a filthy thing human beings possess. The conflicts at
home grew and phone calls from other women never stopped. I suffered so much
from qing and couldn't overcome it. One day my husband moved out with our
child. One day my husband asked me if I really wanted to split up with him. My first
thought was not saving sentient beings, but that he was cheating on me. I was
determined to split up with him, thinking that I should take this opportunity so
no one would interfere with my cultivation practice and Dafa work. I bit my lips
and told him to leave and never come back. I stood by the window watching him
go. He lived with another woman. I was curious and wanted to see what she looked
like--was she prettier than me? I opened the door and I saw him cheek to cheek
with her. He had a big smile, and she was caressing his face. Our child was in
another room with no one caring for her. Teacher said, "You have had mothers who were human and non-human, and there are
too many of them to be numbered. It is also countless how many sons and
daughters you have had throughout your different lifetimes. Who is your
mother? Who is your son or daughter? No one knows it after one passes away.
You must still pay for what you owe others." (Lecture Six, Zhuan
Falun) I suddenly woke up from the dream of life. My heart was full of compassion. I
smiled and asked the woman whether she knew any Falun Gong practitioners. She
said no, so I gave her a truth-clarification pamphlet and a VCD. I told her to
cherish her life now because this was a predestined meeting. I took my child
home and called the woman and spoke to her about the truth of the persecution
for 40 minutes. My attachment seemed to disappear and I started to calmly study
the Fa, exercise, and send forth righteous thoughts at home. A week later, my husband called me and told me he broke up with that woman. I
felt nothing. After a while, my husband didn't do well in his job and also contracted a
terminal illness. I felt obligated and pitied him, so I took him home. His nose
emitted a putrid odor. The smell filled the entire room. I had to help him clean
out the nasal mucus and the smell was so bad that it gave me a headache. When I
recalled how he treated me when I was in the hospital, I was not happy. I took
care of him every day and went to visit the doctor with him. Seeing him lying in bed, I thought to myself, "As a Dafa practitioner, I
came here to save sentient beings and I couldn't even save a member of my own
family? Isn't this also the old forces' persecution?" I told myself to
validate the Fa and save sentient beings no matter how tired and how wronged I
felt. It was my cultivation. While I was trying my hardest to improve my attitude, my husband snuck out on
me and went to live in a prostitution house. I asked him to come out and with a
smirk he asked me to live there too. I told him sternly and with patience that a
Dafa practitioner would not live in that kind of place. He then began to shout
at me. My attachments arose and I got frustrated and wanted to just walk away.
After I calmed down, I realized that my worst attachments to sentiment were
jealousy and wanting to possess my husband. Because he was my husband, I wanted
him to be mine and listen to me only, and I wouldn't let him go anywhere. In the article "Cultivators'
Avoidances," Teacher said, "Those who are attached to affection for family will definitely be
burned, entangled, and tormented by it. Pulled by the threads of
affection and plagued by them throughout their lives, they will find it too
late to regret at the end of their lives." (Essentials for Further
Advancement) I found and let go of my attachment and felt relaxed afterward. At the same
time, his attitude changed. It is also a Dafa practitioner's duty to harmonize his/her family. I tried to
get him to read Zhuan Falun. I also read the book to him and taught him
the exercises. Since we were divorced and I was a practitioner, I couldn't live
with a man who was not my husband. In order to take care of him, and for his
family and friends to accept Dafa, I suggested we get married again. During this
time, I tried my best to do well and purify myself so he could understand the
goodness of Dafa from a practitioner's behavior. I was persecuted many times, hence my family suffered as well. I didn't
clarify the truth to them and caused them to hate Teacher and Dafa. After I
remarried my husband, his parents were moved by my benevolence and came to
understand that Dafa is good. Even the neighbors said that I was kind. The police hired my neighbors to monitor me. So I often talked to them about
everyday things and snuck the truth about Falun Gong into the conversation. My
neighbor's family started to practice Dafa. They all realized that Dafa is good.
Every time there was a warning from the officials, they would tell me to be
careful. When the police came to my home to harass me, my neighbors would
reprimand the police, "What's wrong with Falun Gong? See how kind she is?
Falun Dafa IS good and I dare to shout that openly in the street." My husband, through studying the Fa and doing the exercises, gradually
understood the Fa principles. He would come to the group practice every day. My
home became a cultivation environment. He withdrew from the evil CCP and took
the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party to work to show
his colleagues. Once, in a meeting he openly proposed that his colleagues
withdraw from the CCP. Sometimes a lot of practitioners would come to our house
and he would cook for us with no complaint. This gave me more time to do Dafa
work. Using Righteous Thoughts and Actions to Deny the Old Forces' Persecution Once a practitioner told me that the police were planning to take me to a
brainwashing center and wanted me to hide for a while. I thought, "Teacher
told us that we shouldn't avoid difficulties for they are good opportunities to
clarify the truth. I shouldn't have to hide. Don't practitioners deserve a home?
Since the police found me, I should do well and have firm belief in Dafa.
Practitioners should create their own environment." I would not acknowledge
the excuses the evil used to persecute me. I stayed at home without going to
hide at all. Three days after that, the police surrounded my house. I opened the door to
let them in and asked them what they wanted. They told me their supervisor
wanted to see me and I needed to go with them. I refused and called the director
of the police station and solemnly told him, "Whatever happens in my house,
YOU are responsible. What are you arresting me for? You will only get a dead
body from me. I have written my will and I will have my family sue you."
The police asked me whom I would sue, and I answered, "Whoever persecutes
me." I clarified the truth righteously and confidently and exposed the evil
persecution that had been going on for the past several years. The police
compromised in the end and said that I didn't have to go with them, but I had to
allow their supervisor to come talk to me. I refused. The police asked my
husband to persuade me. I told my husband not to trust them because many
practitioners were deceived this way and ended up being arrested. The police had
no more tricks. Before they left, they told me hypocritically, "We are just
doing our job. You shouldn't go to Beijing. Otherwise, we will lose our
jobs." I was sending righteous thoughts during the whole incident. Afterwards, I
felt the evil could no longer move me. I was enlightened to what Teacher said in
"Also in a Few Words," from Essentials for Further Advancement II, "However strong the righteous thoughts are, that's how great the power
is." More and more I could feel the power of righteous thoughts. I have been
making truth-clarification materials at home for several years. Because of
Teacher's compassionate protection, I have not had any trouble. Letting Go of Self and Looking Inward to Reach Overall Improvement After the last materials production site was destroyed, we didn't have a new
one for two months. Everyone was a little anxious. Through sharing, we learned
the disadvantage and security problems of a large material site. We decided to
go with small, family-based sites. I bought a computer and a printer and started to make truth-clarification
materials at home. Because I was persecuted many times and every time we were
arrested only I was able to escape, some practitioners started to think that I
was a secret CCP agent. They even spread this rumor among other practitioners.
Consequently, practitioners started to become afraid to take the materials I
made. At the same time, I also had family issues and that gave me a lot of
pressure. A practitioner even said with his finger on my nose, "I doubt you
are a real practitioner!" I almost collapsed. I felt I was so wronged. What kind of secret agent would
donate this much money to Dafa work? I couldn't stop crying and was very upset.
But then I realized that no matter how wronged I was, I still needed to deliver
materials to practitioners, otherwise they wouldn't be able to read articles
from Teacher and Minghui and wouldn't be able to keep up with the Fa-rectification
process. I studied three chapters of Zhuan Falun every day, sent forth
righteous thoughts and made truth-clarifying materials, but did not look inward.
I thought, "I didn't do anything wrong. I followed what Teacher said--it
was not wrong to expose the evil." I would work on my own if they wouldn't
help. I would get online and download articles myself. I wouldn't listen to
anyone. I measured practitioners based on how much Dafa work they did. I became
a flashlight that could illuminate others' attachments, but not my own.
Sometimes I said something was my fault, but what I actually thought was it was
someone else's fault. When I studied the Fa, I studied it for someone else,
trying to find what other practitioners' deficiencies were - "Oh, this
paragraph is pointing out this practitioner's problem and that paragraph is
pointing out that practitioner's problem." Eventually, I would yell and
fight with other practitioners like an ordinary person. I couldn't believe that
was THEIR xinxing level and I thought I did not have time to deal with this
since I was busy and I had to study the Fa and do Dafa work! The conflict grew
worse, and practitioners started to refuse to work with me. After making the
materials I had to distribute them myself. During this period of time, I helped practitioners in adjacent areas build
small materials production sites. For security reasons, I didn't want local
practitioners to know that I could get online. Practitioners who worked with me
for several years didn't know that I had a computer at home. But when I saw the
article, "Expose the Evil Happening Locally to the Local People (With
Master's Comments)", I realized that if local practitioners still couldn't
read Minghui's articles, they would really lag behind the Fa-rectification
process. I let go of my selfishness and invited local practitioners to my home
to read Minghui online. Now many practitioners use the Internet at my home and
the segregation of many years disappeared. I saw the bright side of
practitioners after I let go of self, and I saw my own insufficiencies when
attachments could no longer move me. I started to cry as I wrote about my experiences. They were tears from not
being able to meet Teacher's expectations and compassionate salvation and from
feeling ashamed of how I had treated other practitioners. After I put my
attachment of "working for Dafa" aside and looked at myself again, I
saw how weak my personal cultivation was. Though I studied the Fa, did the
exercises, and clarified the truth every day, I didn't look inward when I
encountered conflicts, did not improve based on the Fa, and did not seriously
look at every test. Even with practitioners pointing out my attachment, I looked
for excuses in the Fa to defend myself. Teacher said in Falun Gong, "You may not have heard it clearly. Xinxing covers a broad area, with
De being a part of it. It also includes Ren (forbearance), the ability
to bear sufferings, enlightenment quality, how you deal with conflicts, etc.
All of these are issues of Xinxing that also include the transformation of
Gong and De. This is a broad matter. How much De you have does not indicate
how much Gong you possess. Instead, it refers to how much your Gong can
develop in the future. Only through the improvement of Xinxing can De be
transformed into Gong." In "Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. International Fa
Conference" Teacher said, "That's as much as I'll say today. Your sharing experiences and
understandings is important, too. Under any circumstance, in any period, and
no matter how busy you are with your work, you can't stray from your Fa-study,
as this is what fundamentally ensures that you will improve and reach
Consummation. You can't do Dafa work without studying the Fa, or it would be
an everyday person doing Dafa work. It has to be Dafa disciples who do Dafa
work--this is the requirement for you. If everyday people help with Dafa work,
of course it's a good thing, but what I'm talking about are Dafa disciples.
You must be a Dafa disciple doing Dafa work, because your Consummation
is of primary importance. Right now, your Consummation is first and foremost.
Of course, your being responsible to Dafa and saving sentient beings is part
of your Consummation. I'll tell you this: you're all saying that Master is
saving all sentient beings, but when you all reach Consummation and look back,
you'll see all the sentient beings you saved back then. When you clarify the
truth you are saving sentient beings." (Guiding the Voyage) After I relinquished my selfishness and found my attachment of "working
for Dafa" and wanting fame, I looked back and I realized that all the
conflicts emerged from my attachments. Other practitioners were also looking
inward for their insufficiencies. The entire area then formed a harmonized,
unbreakable body.
Chinese version available at
http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2005/11/6/113023.html
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