(Clearwisdom.net) I started practicing Falun Gong in early 1999 during my graduate school years. Due to my own serious loopholes in my practice, I was persecuted by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and taken to a labor camp for 18 months in late 2001. ( I had a girlfriend from my college days and we were intimate. Thus I did not control well myself and did something that a practitioner must not do. Also at that time, I did not realize it and thought that after all, we were getting married. Thus I did not think it was a big deal.) At the detention center, my heart was moved and I was "transformed" by the CCP. When I returned home, I was very afraid, even afraid to read Dafa books. Being muddleheaded for several years, I led an ordinary human life and my fear was even utilized by CCP spies.

However, deep inside my heart I still could not really abandon Dafa. I often thought about those peaceful days before July 20, 1999, when I was advancing in cultivation with fellow practitioners. Also, I remembered experiences during the early stages of the persecution: Through Fa-study it dawned on me that I should step forward and go out to defend Dafa. Several times, I broke through the interference of my family and went to appeal for justice for Falun Gong in Beijing. On my way to the capital city, I slept on the roadside and was once chased out of the house of a practitioner by a misunderstanding family member. Although bearing so much hardship, I was never lost or hesitant, as I always felt that Master was around protecting disciples and arranging our paths.

While writing this, tears suddenly started to flow, because I feel Master's incomparable benevolence. It is possible that my divine side can see Master's painstaking care, who is helping me to elevate. I cannot express my sincere appreciation with words. I have to take the righteous path so that Master will not have to worry about me.

Amid the confusion of those several years, I have been helped by fellow practitioners to identify my mistakes in my Fa cultivation. Gradually, I made up my mind to return to the righteous practice process.

Because my cultivation was on hold for several years, when I re-started the practice, I encountered lots of interference. Frequently without any reason, I felt depressed and was in no mood to study the Fa; or I could not focus while reading and did not have a good understanding of the Fa principles, as I did before. I also had a previous habit of reading novels via the Internet at night and did not sleep. I could hardly control myself and suffered badly because of this. Every time I did this, I blamed my weak will. After each incident, I not only wasted time and did not catch up with Fa study, but I also felt guilty and was depressed, but still did not read the Fa.

This state of mind continued to bother me until one day when the following happened:

One night when I came home from work around 8:00 p.m., I thought I had enough time to study the Fa. I hurried up to cook a meal, and while eating, I picked up a magazine and read it. After eating, I was so attracted to this magazine that I could not stop reading it. Although an inner voice told me to drop it, I still could not control myself and when I finished reading it two hours had passed. Then I felt bad and thought "Gosh, today is wasted again. Okay let me go to bed and I'll study the Fa tomorrow". At the moment when I was prepared to give it up, I suddenly sensed the following: Why did emotions so easily control me and stop me from learning the Fa? This state of mind is not right. I realized that I had to carefully search inward and find the root cause of this interference.

Therefore, I reflected upon every thought and deed during the whole process of my life. Then I found one issue. During my student days I had been studying diligently. On my first day in college, my father told me a saying, which was, "Bearing hardship after hardship, you may be a man above men." Originally, I did not know that this saying came from the cultivation culture; it really means that by bearing suffering, one can cultivate to a righteous, enlightened life. I took it as an ordinary motto for seeking fame and gain. I suppressed my wanton desire to be better and above others. The long-term effect of this suppression caused me to be depressed, waste time and thus I was not in a good mood to do anything for a few days.

Now back to cultivation. On the surface it seemed like I frequently used my time well in studying the Fa; but in reality it was a similar pattern to my earlier days. I tried hard not to waste any time so as to read Fa books. But if the suppression of my desires failed, I felt down and could not study the Fa. As I remembered, the reason for studying hard during my student days was for getting good grades. Working overtime at a job, was for pleasing the supervisor so as to get rewarded or promoted. Then what is it for, when I use my time well to learn the Fa? It is to get whatever ordinary people cannot get. If that is so, then what a dirty, selfish heart! This was the reason why, while reading Fa books, I constantly checked how many pages were left to finish the chapter, or how much time had passed, as well as how much I could finish at that time. That was the reason why I usually was in a hurry when studying the Fa. I then completely understood that this is the same as counting how many benefits I could gain, according to the amount of time I spent reading Dafa.

Therefore, once detected it, I decided to get rid of this dirty heart. Deep inside, I told myself: Today I do not care how many minutes are left for me to study the Fa. I'll just calm down and read the Fa word by word, no matter how many pages there are. In this way, I was able to do it well. In no time, I finished one chapter and my heart felt good about it.

Several days later, I realized that I no longer had the urge to read novels on the Internet, and they were no longer attractive for me. I realized that after I had gotten rid of this dirty heart, Master helped me to get rid of my old pastime. I also learned an important lesson: before, I tried to improve my willpower so as to better control my laziness, but that was difficult and not effective. Only by following the requirements of our Master and searching inward for the root cause of interference, can one eliminate a bad heart, and thereafter nothing can affect one's heart.

I have not done well for a long time, but now I really know what genuine cultivation is. When others talk about me and I feel upset, or when people do not like to accept the truth-clarification material I give them, I simply search inward for the reason. So at this stage in my life, I feel myself elevating extremely quickly. My righteous thoughts are becoming stronger and those people who were unwilling to listen to me earlier,are accepting my information now. Before that, I wondered how fellow practitioners could briefly and effectively convince people to withdraw from the CCP, but I was always had difficulties. Now, I know that when our cultivation level is elevated, the power of Fa will automatically appear.

In the following, I am giving one more example from my own experience about searching inward

during truth clarification.

On a weekend not long ago, I received a phone call from my father saying that his unit was sending him to southeast Asia for some engineering project and he had to to transfer airplanes at the city I live in. As I am working out of town, my father and I usually do not see each other except during the holidays. I thought, isn't this a good opportunity to clarify the truth to him?

My father knows that the CCP is evil. The last time, when I showed him the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, after reading it, he said that everything in there was accurate. Then I helped him to withdraw from the CCP and their organizations. But my father was concerned that I might be persecuted again by the evil beings, therefore, he did not want to listen to me when I tried to tell him the truth about Dafa. Also he had been poisoned by the party culture and thus could not really understand why Dafa was being persecuted. Of course this had something to do with me and not being able to correctly clarify the facts to him.

When my father arrived and I went to greet him at the airport and accompanied him to the transit. We had only a short time to visit. I first gave him a Shenyun Performing Arts DVD so he could watch it when he was abroad. My father took the DVD and did not say anything. Then I started to talk about the following: Today the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong is even more severe than the historical slander and persecution of the Christians by the Roman Emperor Nero. Nero's sins led to the fall of the Roman Empire. Then will today's sins get punished by heaven and lead the Chinese people into an abyss? Different from before, this time my father listened quietly without interrupting me. Finally I said, "I am worried about your health, while you are abroad. What if you get sick in a foreign land and may not get good care. Let me tell you the best method that can protect you: When you are sick or in a terrible situation, please remember to say sincerely in your heart, 'Falun Dafa is good. Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.' This way it will turn any bad situation into a good one."

I also gave him a Falun Gong amulet and told him to carry it in his wallet all the time. But father did not use a wallet and so he just put the amulet into his shirt pocket. Then I asked father to give my best regards to fellow practitioners abroad, if he ever saw any. He promised to do so.

After we finished our snacks, I took my father to get his boarding ticket and then we waited for his co-worker, who was traveling with him. Father put the ticket into his shirt pocket for easy access. When he took out the ticket to look at something, unintentionally the amulet fell out. My father caught it quickly and put it back into his pocket. Seeing his action, I thought about something a fellow practitioner had mentioned: A mother and her child were waiting in line at the airport security check. The amulet the child had carried in her pocket was detected by the police and caused trouble for the mother. At this moment, I started to feel uneasy and worried that my father could be careless and thus expose the amulet at the security check. I was considering whether I should remind my father to put the amulet into his carry-on bag and also regretted that I forgot to tell him to pack the DVD in his luggage, which would not be checked so carefully.

As I was thinking about this, I suddenly sensed that this thought was wrong. The Shen Yun DVD and the Falun Gong amulet have the boundless power of Dafa. They are shining with golden light for thousands of feet, as seen in another time-space. The evil beings will be afraid to see them and will run away. Then how could these evil beings try to persecute them? It is always due to our hearts not being righteous that we inhibit these Fa instruments from functioning well. Then I remembered the words from Master's article:

"Whenever a tribulation comes, you do not see it with the side of your original nature but view it completely with your human side. Evil demons then capitalize on this point and inflict endless interference and damage, leaving students in long-term tribulations. As a matter of fact, this results from an inadequate understanding of the Fa by your human side. You have humanly restrained your divine side; in other words, you have restrained the parts that have been successfully cultivated and have prevented them from doing Fa-rectification. How can the uncultivated side restrain your main thoughts or the side that has already attained the Fa? Having humanly fostered the evil demons, you allow them to capitalize on the loopholes in the Fa. When a tribulation arrives, if you, a disciple, can truly maintain an unshakable calm or be determined to meet different requirements at different levels, this should be sufficient for you to pass the test. If it continues endlessly and if there do not exist other problems in your xinxing or conduct, it must be that the evil demons are capitalizing on the weak spots caused by your lack of control. After all, a cultivator is not an ordinary human. So why doesn't the side of you that is your original nature rectify the Fa?" ("Expounding on the Fa" from Essentials for Further Advancement)

and,

"Some disciples said: "What's there to fear? My body would still sit there even with my head cut off." When you compare them it's clear at a glance how well they cultivate." ("Huge Exposure" from Essentials for Further Advancement)

I then asked myself, if the evil beings came to persecute me, could I maintain my dignity and use righteous thoughts to disintegrate them? I thought that I must do this and can do it. Therefore, I sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate my fear and to disintegrate the evil in other dimensions at the security check, so that the Shen Yun DVD and the Falun Gong amulet would not be confiscated, and could help people.

I also thought about the issue that my father is not a Falun Gong practitioner. If I were to remind him to hide the two items I gave him in order to avoid trouble, wouldn't he be afraid to carry them? Therefore, I concluded that as a practitioner, I should have righteous thoughts, rather than asking an ordinary person to be careful.

I left after escorting my father and his co-worker to the airport security check line. On my way home, I kept sending forth righteous thoughts. Before arriving home I called my father and he told me that they had passed the security check and were waiting to board the airplane.

I now realize that only when I constantly maintain righteous thoughts, can I do better in saving the people of this world.