(Clearwisdom.net) Under Teacher’s infinite grace I have been cultivating Dafa for the last ten years. I am grateful for the opportunity to enter Dafa cultivation and I will fulfill my duty to save sentient beings, just as Teacher requires us to.
Since childhood, my health has been poor. I stayed home from school so often that I lagged behind in my schoolwork. Even after I started working and got married, I was still in poor health. After I started Dafa cultivation, the profound Fa purified my soul and caused a tremendous change in my body. Before 1999, like other fellow practitioners, I was immersed in peaceful and happy self-cultivation. My home was a study site and many practitioners came to my home every day to study the Fa. I improved very quickly. I often recall with fondness those happy days.
After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started to persecute Falun Gong, our group decided to establish a material production site in order to clarify the truth to people. In the beginning, we were unable to produce enough materials to meet demand. We tried to produce more materials every day, but still couldn't meet the demand. We were very anxious, and we kept producing materials nonstop and even lagged behind in our Fa study. As our personal cultivation fell behind, we couldn’t comprehend the profound meaning of Dafa. Our righteous thoughts became weak and many human notions started to surface.
As we were working with such gusto, I suddenly felt fearful. I thought: Because we work so heartily, the evil will not leave us alone. Having that thought meant that I was actually asking for it. Shortly after, the evil exploited my loopholes. A dozen policemen came and ransacked my home and took all the truth-clarification materials away. My husband and oldest son were arrested, and I was sent to a forced labor camp, which left my young son alone at home. Some police officers went to my son's school and attempted to arrest him. Under Teacher's protection, they didn't succeed. The police frequently came to my home and harassed my son so often that he was forced to leave home and had to stay away from school. It was like the sky was falling for him. Because I lacked righteous thoughts, the evil was able to take advantage of my gap. I deeply understood what Teacher’s said:
"No matter how well you’ve cultivated, as long as you still have everyday people’s attachments, those are what demons can use, and when you’re not paying attention they can be used at any moment." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Boston")
Only when we get rid of our attachments, can we save sentient beings. It is very dangerous to use human thoughts to do things.
When I returned home, I began to seriously study the Fa. Learning from the previous painful lesson, I did my best to watch how I spent my time. I would memorize Hong Yin in the morning while I did housework. I utilized every moment to study the Fa.
My husband and I would go to smaller towns at night to distribute truth-clarifying materials. We suffered much hardship during this time. For example, the country road was slippery and bumpy in winter and muddy in summer. One could fall into a hole if not careful. One late night it was pitch dark. Our car fell into a ditch and sank deeper and deeper into the soft ground. I tried to push the car from the back while my husband steered, but we couldn’t get the car out of the ditch. My whole body was covered with mud. My feet sank into the mud and I was unable to pull them out. We then asked for Teacher’s help. Soon, a man driving a tractor came towards us and helped us get our car out of the muck. It was in the middle of the night and there wasn’t anyone around, why would someone driving a tractor suddenly appear? We knew Teacher had been with us all along.
One late night when we were driving home, we suddenly saw a minivan stopped on the road in front us with two people pushing it. As I slammed on the brakes, the car behind us hit us, which caused our car to slam into the minivan. The people who had been pushing the minivan were knocked to the ground and the car behind us fell into a ditch. We got out to inspect our car, and found that there wasn’t any damage, not even any scratches to the paint. Teacher had protected us.
One time, when we were distributing truth-clarifying material, we heard a police siren heading towards us. As the sound became closer, I hurried towards a main road. As the police vehicle was about to catch up to us, my mind became unsteady and I felt fearful. I kept looking back, thinking that we mustn’t be caught by the police. My husband was also anxious, but he said to me loudly, "Don’t look back. Just send forth righteous thoughts!" I sent out a thought: We are doing the most righteous thing. The evil is not qualified to test us. We are not afraid! When I looked back, the police vehicle was not in sight. This experience once again proved that we must lay down human notions when we are validating the Fa. When our righteous thoughts are strong, there won’t be any danger.
The evil is everywhere. Sometime earlier, my husband was so busy with his work and Dafa projects that he neglected to study the Fa without realizing it. Soon many human notions such as focusing only on doing work and complacency started to surface. He even had the thought: Teacher has said that we are extraordinary and we have saved so many sentient beings. When his complacency surfaced, he suddenly had pain in his stomach and spat up a mouthful of blood. He also had blood in his stool. He couldn't eat anything and would throw up even if he only drank water. The symptoms got worse that night. He was in such pain that he couldn’t lie still in bed, and I was also exhausted. Why were we being persecuted so severely when we were doing the most sacred thing? It had to be that we had a problem. We looked inwards, but not deeply enough. The situation lasted for a while. One day my husband started to study the Fa seriously, he started to cry and said he finally found what his problem was. His instantly became well and his appetite returned.
Humans and gods are thousands of miles apart. When we lay down our human notions, we become gods instantly. Can gods get sick? We also found the attachment of a show-off mentality. My husband would show-off in front of people sometimes. He often said to others: "Look how healthy I am. I have practiced Falun Gong for ten years and I have never taken a pill." It sounded like he was completely impervious.
Teacher once said,
"Why don’t you stop and think about it: Why is someone interfering with you? Why is it able to interfere with you? Is it because you have an attachment, or because you have something you can’t let go of? Why don’t you look at yourself? The true reason lies with you yourself, and that's the only reason it can exploit your gap! Don't you have Master watching over you?" (From "Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference")
Teacher said in Zhuan Falun:
"Cultivation practice itself is not difficult, and neither is upgrading one’s level itself difficult. It is because they cannot give up the human mind that they call it difficult."
It is dangerous even if only one attachment remains. It will be an obstacle to your advancement. We cannot achieve righteous thoughts and righteous action by just saying so. We need to study the Fa in order to raise our levels. Righteous thoughts are a god’s thoughts.
I had a strong sentimentality towards my sons and I always worried about them. During a summer evening after we went to bed, my oldest son called to say that his brother had been in a car accident. Without giving me any details about what happened, he hung up. I was very frightened and hurried to the accident scene. It turned out that my son had hit another car. Both cars suffered severe damage, but no one was hurt. My son had a Falun Dafa amulet with him, and Teacher had protected him all the time. This incident once again exposed my human mindset.
After the publication of Teacher’s article, "Turning the Wheel Towards the Human World," I was thinking that we should encourage my family to withdraw from the CCP. But my human mindset surfaced again: I was afraid that my young son wouldn't want to do it. I told my husband not to talk with our son just yet, but my husband is an impulsive person. As soon as my son got home, my husband talked with him. My son became very upset and lost his temper. He was so angry that he banged his head on the wall and wanted to leave home. I held him so that he couldn’t leave. My son pushed me to the ground and tried to get out of the house. I blocked his exit. My husband was sending forth righteous thoughts in another room during this time. This situation continued until after midnight, when we all ran out of energy and stopped. My husband then came over to talk to my son patiently and candidly. He told him the vital importance of quitting the CCP. My son started to really think about it and then agreed to withdraw. He told us that he wasn't against quitting. He was just worried about what the CCP would do if they found out.
Looking back, I know I had too much sentimentality towards my son. I didn’t treat him as an ordinary sentient being or clarify the truth to him accordingly. This is why he acted so irrationally.
Because of fear, many family members of fellow practitioners haven't withdrawn from the CCP. Fellow practitioners need to treat their families like other ordinary sentient beings and clarify the truth to them. When they get rid of their fears, their families will understand. When we study the Fa well and let go of our human attachments, we will be able to validate the Fa with righteous thoughts. We will be able to do every thing well.
Category: Improving Oneself
