Steadfast Faith in Every Word Teacher Says
By a practitioner in Beijing
(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings, revered Teacher! Greetings, fellow
practitioners! I have been practicing Falun Gong for eight years. In retrospect, the most
important lesson I have learned in my personal cultivation and my cultivation
practice during the Fa-rectification period is to have steadfast faith in every
word Teacher says. 1. Having the great fortune to obtain the Fa shortly before the persecution
began I obtained the Fa at the end of March 1999, shortly before Jiang Zemin and
the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began the suppression of Falun Gong. I was overwhelmed with one disaster after another in 1998 and 1999. In the
summer of 1998, my sister-in-law had an operation. When I returned to school
that summer, I rushed to the train station directly from the hospital. When I
returned home from school during the winter vacation of 1999, I went directly to
the hospital because my mother had just had an operation. However, the
unsuccessful operation left my mother with a life-threatening infection. I was
both mentally and physically drained throughout the entire winter vacation
because of my mother's infection. When I returned to school, I started to suffer
discomfort. Sometimes I felt as though I would collapse. I took a lot of Chinese
herbal medications, but nothing worked. In fact, they made me feel even worse.
Oftentimes I dared not close my eyes at night. I feared that I might not wake up
if I should fall asleep. I was overcome with the fear of death. A classmate of mine (who had been practicing Falun Gong for years) had told
me about Falun Gong before, but I didn't cherish the opportunity due to my
acquired notions. When the fear of death struck me, I began to contemplate the
meaning of life: What is the meaning of life? What is mankind's purpose? I asked
her to obtain a copy of Zhuan Falun for me. I read Zhuan
Falun from cover to cover for the first time in two hours. (Now that I think
of it, it was truly a miracle.) When I finished studying Zhuan Falun, one
thing came to my mind: "Having heard the Tao in the morning, one can die in
the evening." ("Melt Into the Fa" Essentials for Further
Advancement) That night, I fell asleep as soon as I lay my head hit the pillow, and I
slept very well. After I obtained the Fa, I met with many forms of interference. Two incidents
are particularly memorable. One day I went to a fellow practitioner's home to
pick up some books. A thunderstorm began. I shielded the Falun Gong books with
my body and my clothes and ran back to school. By the time I arrived at the
dormitory, I was soaking wet. Yet the books were completely dry. Another
interference came from my school's outdoor broadcasts. Every time we practiced
the Falun Gong exercises as a group, my school would broadcast audio programs. I
had just obtained the Fa at the time, and the broadcast was so loud that it was
impossible for me to enter tranquility. One day the speakers were damaged by a
thunderstorm and were in repair for more than a month. Afterwards, I was
impervious to the loud broadcasts. Studying the Fa became my primary interest. I spent at least four to five
hours a day doing so. Often I spent the entire day studying the Fa. I just
didn't want to put the book down. Shortly after I obtained the Fa, all sorts of
notions popped into my head. The thought of doubting the Fa often popped up, but
I completely ignored it. Deep down in my heart, I knew Falun Gong was good, so I
resisted and repelled any doubt as soon as it popped up. On the 40th day after I
obtained the Fa, all these bad notions were eliminated. Since then I am rarely
interfered with by any notions. 2. Remaining diligent and safeguarding the Fa together Shortly before April 25, 1999, I heard that fellow practitioners in Tianjin
had been illegally arrested and beaten by the police. I felt kind of
nervous. On the morning of April 25, 1999, I planned to go with several others
to the State Appeals Office near Zhongnanhai. We studied the Fa and exchanged
our insights in Beihai before we went to gather at the State Appeals Office.
Unfortunately, my adviser called me and asked me to work on something, so I had
to finish before I could go. By the time I finished the work, I was all alone.
Without another practitioner to go with me, I wondered if I should go or not. My
xinxing level did not rise to the occasion right away,
but I knew I should go. At the dormitory I repeatedly studied Teacher's articles
and repeatedly recited a passage of the Fa. Teacher said, "Disciples, you should bear in mind that Dafa is harmonizing you and
you are also harmonizing Dafa." ("The Fa Rectifies the Human
Heart" in Essentials for Further Advancement) Finally, I let go of the thought of myself and decided to go to the State
Appeals Office. I went to the group exercise site first and met two
practitioners who were also interested in going. Together we took off on our
bicycles. Despite our earnest appeal on April 25, 1999, the CCP began its suppression
of Falun Gong several months later. On July 20, 1999, I was at another
practitioner's home when I heard many fellow practitioners were unlawfully
arrested and detained in Beijing's Fengtai Stadium. We decided to go to Fengtai
Stadium to be with our fellow practitioners. When we were about to walk out the
door, one practitioner received a phone call from an armed police officer, who
told us that they were fully armed and waiting for an order from a top-level CCP
leader to start the attack. On the way to Fengtai Stadium, we really felt the
threat of death. I can still recall that feeling to this day. Under the circumstances, I felt nervous whenever I heard a public broadcast.
But I refused to watch or read the CCP's hate propaganda on the Chinese media. I
believe in only one thing: Teacher is righteous. Above all, I have learned in
the process of studying the Fa that Teacher is righteous and the Fa is good. At first, when the CCP's suppression of Falun Gong was fierce, fellow
practitioners faced a tremendous amount of pressure. We lost the environment in
which to study the Fa and exchange cultivation insights. Some practitioners even
gave up practicing Falun Gong. I had access to a small room where local
practitioners and I continued our group Fa study and group exercise practice
after July 20, 1999. Every day we saw two security guards or plainclothes police
sitting on a stone bench downstairs. We didn't notice them at first or wonder
what they were doing there. Now that I think of it, they were probably spying on
us. Some fellow practitioners began to doubt Teacher and Falun Gong. I tried to
communicate with them according to my own understanding about the Fa and helped
them reinforce their righteous faith in Teacher and the Fa. 3. Changing my concepts and beginning my journey to Godhood Local practitioners and I didn't know how to respond to the persecution.
Practitioners from another area gave us a truth-clarification flyer
they had made, so we too began to explain the truth about Falun Gong to people
by distributing flyers, sending emails, chatting on the Internet, etc. For the past few years, I had a strong feeling that I was clarifying the
truth about Falun Gong like an everyday person doing volunteer work. I didn't
feel I was doing something sacred. Why? I finally realized it was because of the
poisonous education instilled in me by the wicked CCP. Although I was not an
atheist, I didn't have a clear concept of divine beings. Falun Gong
practitioners are cultivators on the path to godhood and doing the divine deed
of saving sentient beings. If I didn't believe in divine beings, then I was
merely believing in the Fa superficially and didn't have a steadfast faith in
the Fa, let alone melting into the Fa. When I identified the interference, I
began to ask myself: "Do you believe you came from heaven? Do you believe
in divine beings? Do you believe that Falun Gong is the Buddha Law of the
Universe? Do you believe in Teacher's Fa-rectification?" One by one I
eliminated the unrighteous notions and atheistic concepts to rectify myself.
Finally, I realized the root cause of these problems came from a fundamental
question: "Do I have a steadfast faith in every word Teacher says?" After I purged these notions, I finally experienced the meaning of Teacher's
words: "Cultivators are on a journey to divinity." ("Teaching the
Fa in San Francisco, 2005") I realized that we should try to save sentient beings out of a divine being's
compassion and not out of an everyday person's feelings or emotions. When I am
standing against the suppression of Falun Gong, I no longer think that it is
people persecuting other people, because I know it comes from manipulation by
evil beings in other dimensions. When people refuse to listen to the truth about
Falun Gong or when people are not receptive to the truth about Falun Gong, I no
longer think that the negative attitude is their true nature, for I know it's
evil beings that are interfering with them. When I send forth righteous thoughts
to eliminate the evil beings in other dimensions causing the persecution and
hampering sentient beings from their salvation, I know I have been bestowed with
boundless and unlimited divine power. Now that I have rectified myself, I have endless respect for divine beings. I
now know that divine beings are the greatest lives in the universe and that
Falun Gong practitioners will ultimately attain divinity. Practitioners are
taking the journey to divinity and must have the compassion, the way of
thinking, and the power of divine beings. Eventually we shall reach divinity and
obtain the Fruit Status for having validated the Fa in the human realm. 4. Conclusion Looking back on my cultivation practice, I realize that it is because I study
the Fa diligently and have a steadfast faith in Teacher and the Fa that I have
traveled this far. Now the Fa-rectification is progressing rapidly. Every one of
us must completely assimilate to the Fa and melt into the Fa. In order to
completely assimilate to the Fa, we must have steadfast faith in every word
Teacher says.
Chinese version available at
http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/11/9/165255.html
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