by a Western practitioner in Australia

I was born in Australia in 1971. Being the youngest of three children in the family I always felt that I was given much attention and affection from devout, loving parents, who had migrated from Italy when they were in their mid twenties. As a very young boy, seeing mum and dad happily doing everything together always filled me with a sense of profound joy and security. In a way, my happiness always seemed to be governed by my parents feelings towards each other.

Sadly, dad was killed in a work accident shortly after I had started grade school. Watching mum's pain whilst trying to cope with her loss of dad was agonizing, but we always did our best to show her we were ok. I feel that the loss of dad was the first experience in my life, where, although I suddenly felt abandoned and unsupported, I began to truly acknowledge and appreciate other people's feelings.

From my early teens, like many other people, I'd sometimes ponder unanswered questions in life, such as "why are we here?" and "where did we really come from?", "where will we go after this life?" etc. Although being respectful of my Catholic upbringing, the concept of God that was taught to me, and the associated conduct one should try to follow, I did not truly feel a sense of complete faith from within. There had always seemed to be enough worldly distractions in life to easily shift my focus from what spiritual paths had been made apparent to me at the time.

After completing high school and tertiary studies in fine art, I eventually found myself working in the unlikely industry of global communications within a large multi-national company, which was a little odd since I had never felt an aptitude for this line of work. The environment around me seemed to be very nurturing and supportive regardless of my perceptions though, and this company would turn out to be a fulfilling career platform.

During the course of different projects within the company I had the opportunity to establish some great relationships with many people from various countries. On one particular project, I was introduced to a fellow Australian who was based in the Taiwan office of the same company. We had teamed up for the project in the Australian office. I recall during a lunch time walk, mentioning to my Taiwan-based colleague that I sometimes go for a run during the lunch break, then I asked whether he had any fitness pursuits. He responded with a "No", and then went on to add "but I do Falun Gong". After hearing the two words it seemed like everything paused within me for a moment. I prompted him for more information and was compelled to get close to Falun Gong after hearing about it's most beautiful and noble underlying principles. I didn't express the appropriate gratitude to my colleague; I had no concept of what I had received at the time.

Within days of being introduced to Falun Gong, I had purchased the book Zhuan Falun and begun to study it. A week or so later I was then shown the exercises whilst visiting Taiwan. Practitioners at the Taiwan practice site, and Australian practice sites were very responsible towards me as a new practitioner, I have, in turn been able to assist new practitioners using my learning experiences as a guide.

Two and a half years into the practice, I can sense now that Master Li's Falun Gong has been continually giving me the wisdom to better understand how truly fortunate I am to be cultivating during this period. Falun Gong has helped me come to the understanding that all of our life experiences serve to create a corridor leading us towards the Fa. Under guidance from our most supremely revered and compassionate Master, I hope my understanding will continue to broaden towards the current phase of Fa-Rectification and saving sentient beings.

Posting date: 8/17/2007
Original article date: 8/17/2007
Category: Personal Cultivation

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