By a Falun Dafa practitioner from Seattle

(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings, Revered Teacher! Greetings fellow practitioners!

I started practicing Falun Dafa in 1996. However, at the beginning, I did not truly realize the importance of Dafa. In 1999 I followed my friend to practice another qigong. I quickly found that they talked about qigong treatments and nothing about cultivating xinxing. It was surely not to be compared with Falun Dafa. Therefore, I quit. At that time the Chinese Communist regime had started persecuting Falun Gong. I was confused, although I believed Falun Dafa was good. Also, due to my attachment of fear and other attachments, I could not step out in public to clarify the truth. During that time, I always had a similar dream. Without any preparation, I entered an examination room to take an exam shaking like a leaf. However, I didn't realize the dream was a hint from Teacher.

Thanks to the Clearwisdom website, I finally understood what was going on after I kept reading Teacher's articles and practitioners' experience sharings. Then the wish to step out grew stronger and stronger.

Teacher said,

"They came when Dafa benefited them, but when Dafa was persecuted they ran away. They reaped the benefits, but while we are resisting the persecution, they are not speaking up for Dafa and don't want to validate the Fa. In gods' eyes that kind of being is the worst." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2004 International Fa Conference in New York")

On the other hand, I realized that if I kept being afraid of the evil like this, I would never be able to step out. In March 2006, I finally summoned the courage and asked my wife to call the local assistant. Thereafter, my wife and I finally stepped out and got in touch with other practitioners. I'm very grateful of and cherish Master's compassion and benevolence. In fact, the door to Falun Dafa is always open, and it is open to everyone. It is just a matter of whether you want to enter or not.

It was not long before I was asked to clarify the truth at a popular tourist spot. Although I said OK, I was really afraid. I dared not talk to tourists. When I distributed the flyers, if someone said, "No, thank you," I became very frustrated. As a result, for the whole afternoon, I walked with my son along the same street back and forth but passed out only a few flyers. Teacher arranged another opportunity for me. Every Friday I gave another practitioner a ride to the weekly group Fa study. That practitioner is diligent. She clarified the truth in New York City for several months. She shared many truth-clarification experiences and her understanding of the Fa with me and my wife. We learned a lot, especially me, about saving sentient beings. The reason I dared not clarify the truth to others was that I didn't put saving sentient beings as the first priority. Having realized this, I was no longer afraid of clarifying the truth. Many people were now willing to talk with me. Sometimes I felt proud of myself. But as soon as that attachment emerged, I forget what to say in front of people. After I realized and eliminated the attachment, I could continue to clarify the truth. Later I realized that the skills possessed by Dafa practitioners, such as good communication skills, or good computer skills, etc, are given by Dafa. And those skills are to help in validating the Fa and saving sentient beings. Thus we must not be cocky.

While I was trying to eliminate the attachment of fear, I realized that we should never treat the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a horrible enemy.

Teacher said,

"...cultivators have no enemies, and nobody is worthy of being Dafa's enemy." ("Turning the Wheel Towards the Human World")

Teacher also said,

"Purging evil as if but whisking dust away" ("A Will That Ebbs Not")

As Dafa practitioners, we should do the three things well as instructed by Teacher. On the stage of this grand pageant of history, Dafa disciples are taking the leading roles. The evil CCP just plays the supporting role, and the ugly one. Last year Hu Jintao visited the U.S. While we stood along a street holding banners, several people who support the CCP came and insulted us. I was kind of afraid, and meanwhile, I felt hatred toward them. Other Dafa practitioners, however, just talked to them calmly, saying, "Falun Dafa is good," "Truth, Compassion, Forbearance are good." Then those people left. Compared to other practitioners, I had a human being's thoughts rather than righteous thoughts. If I shouted back, it could cause a misunderstanding about Falun Dafa, and their friends and relatives would get negative feedback about Falun Dafa. This would contradict our purpose of saving sentient beings.

Last summer, I started taking part in the media work to clarify the truth. During that time, there were many activities regarding withdrawing from the CCP. While I reported those activities, I also went through many xinxing tests. One day when I was distributing the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party newspaper, a guy came up to us saying that statements from the Nine Commentaries are not true because he had never seen such things in China. "That's because you live too happy a life in China," I said sarcastically. But I instantly realized that I was wrong because there was no compassion in what I said. That guy was so angry about it that he wanted to beat me and the other fellow practitioner. So I apologized immediately and sincerely, which ended the potential fight. This has made me understand that in daily life if I cannot take lightly a trifle that suddenly comes up and even lose my temper, then I have failed to reach the standard of "Tolerance." Looking back, I found that there were many things I hadn't done well in terms of forbearance, especially when parenting my son. Sometimes when my son was naughty, I lost my temper and yelled at him. After it happened, I would apologize to him. This [way of tantrum/apology] had developed into a pattern. Sometimes I thought, "Why do I have so many troubles? If I were still single, I would have much more time to study the Fa." After studying Teacher's article, "Teaching the Fa in Canada, 2006," I understood that a Dafa practitioner cultivates in the human world, so family life and work life are integral to our cultivation and not at odds with studying the Fa and practicing the five exercises. If a Dafa practitioner cultivates well, then he/she will do well in everyday life. If coworkers, friends, or relatives don't think we do well on ordinary things, then we have a flaw in our cultivation. After I realized this, I experienced a big family conflict and I did well with respect to forbearance. That night, when I practiced the fifth exercise, my legs didn't hurt and I felt so great.

At the beginning when I was asked to do the media work, I was hesitant because I thought reporting community news was not directly related to saving sentient beings. I would rather clarify the truth face to face. Another fellow practitioner graciously shared her understanding with me. This reminded me that when the Sujiatun organ harvesting was reported last year, some practitioners couldn't understand why it happened to Dafa practitioners since Dafa practitioners are all protected by Teacher. I realized that our cultivation level was not high enough, so we could not see the real cause in other dimensions. This might cause confusion, but we should never doubt Teacher or Dafa, nor should we quit Dafa just because of the confusion. When our cultivation level improves, we will for sure understand our previous questions. Speaking of this, studying the Fa and attending group Fa study are important to help one understand the Fa. Whenever my cultivation state was not good, I always forced myself to attend the weekly group Fa study.

Teacher said in the poem "Solid Cultivation" from Hong Yin:

"Compare in studying, compare in cultivating"

Besides, if I haven't done well or have some questions, Teacher will use other practitioners' words to enlighten me. For example, when sending forth righteous thoughts, I kept repeating the Fa-rectification verses. Later, at group Fa study a practitioner gave me an article about how to send righteous thoughts correctly. I hadn't even asked her beforehand. Teacher knows everything.

During the past year, I often told my wife, "Hey, I realized this in the Fa," or "I realized that." However, recently I realized a more important thing, that if I realize the problem but do not manage to disintegrate it, then that is not real cultivation. For example, last Christmas we received many emails from New York asking for help to promote tickets for the New Tang Dynasty Holiday Wonders show. Although I knew it was very important to save sentient beings, I still understood the whole thing with human thoughts. There were so many tickets left, could we sell them all? On the other hand, I blamed the New York practitioners, wondering why they couldn't do as well as Toronto practitioners who sold the tickets without difficulty. As a result, I didn't do anything for the Holiday Wonders show. But it turned out the tickets for the Holiday Wonders sold very well. What Dafa practitioners do shouldn't be evaluated using human thoughts.

I often talk about "assisting Teacher in the human world." However, I didn't assist Teacher for the Holiday Wonders show. Cultivation is not just about what you realize from the Fa, but how you validate the Fa and give up your attachments. Even if I could recite the whole book Zhuan Falun, without solid cultivation, I would not be a true Dafa practitioner. After realizing this, I eventually joined the effort to promote tickets for New York's Chinese New Year Spectacular. I was very touched when I cooperated with other unknown fellow practitioners.

This reminded me of what Teacher said in "Teaching the Fa at the Fa Conference at the U.S. Capital (2006),"

"...Fa-rectification would definitely succeed and that nobody could stop it."

Looking back at the past 10 years, I obtained the Fa very early but started to truly cultivate very late, wasting a lot of time. Last year was a real cultivation year for me. Although I made much progress last year, I am still way behind compared to the requirements of the Fa. In fact, I felt ashamed of myself when I was asked to write this article, because I sometimes was diligent but sometimes not. Later I came to realize that there is no doubt that I should be diligent. The thought of writing an article only when I am diligent is not correct. This is finding excuses for my laziness. Since I have just talked about solid cultivation, from here on it's time that I live up to it instead of just talking about it.

Master said in the article "The Closer to the End, the More Diligent You Should Be,"

"Actually, if you think about it, the cultivators of the past didn't dare to slack off for even a second, and that was when it took an entire lifetime to complete the journey. So how can Dafa disciples--who are to achieve the Attainment Status of a being who is saved by Dafa and who have the most convenient cultivation way--not be even more diligent when they are given this most glorious honor of Fa-validating cultivation in a brief cultivation period that passes in the blink of an eye?"

Let's do better in this new year!

Thank you, Teacher!

Thank you, fellow practitioners!