(Shared at 2001 New York Conference)

Hello, my name is Michele Goncalves. I am a 29-year-old practitioner from New Jersey and I have been practicing Falun Dafa for a little over 1 year. Today I would like to share my story with you.

I grew up in a very dangerous city in Northern New Jersey that was full of crime and drugs. When my family moved there initially, it was a nice town, but my family says that the very year I was born, things started to change for the worse. As a result, I experienced a very difficult childhood.

I was one of a few white people in my school. Therefore, I was constantly the center of attention. Kids at school were always threatening to beat me up. They called me all kinds of names and would throw things at me during class. You get the idea. I even had homeless people following me to school and harassing me almost on a daily basis. But the funny thing was I never once fought back. I admit, this was partly because I was too scared, since they outnumbered me, and partly because I didn't want to be like them.

I was also repeatedly taken advantage of in an "intimate" way by two neighbors of mine when I was 7 and again when I was 12. I can remember crying my heart out and asking God why was this happening to me? What was the reason for all of this horror and misfortune that I had to endure? The only thing that I could come up with at the time is that I was just full of bad luck. But somewhere deep inside I knew this was happening for a purpose, and I just wasn't able to understand why.

Throughout all of these ordeals I was attending a church with my mother and did have a strong presence of God in my life, which helped me somewhat with my problems. However, I never connected with this religion, because it never gave me the answers that I was looking for. It was too caught up with enforcing rituals and rules that didn't make sense to me. For example, we had to give the church at least 10% of our income as a minimum offering; women were not allowed to wear make-up, and we were encouraged not to socialize with others outside of our church. Later on in my early 20's I was put under extreme pressure from the church to pursue baptism and attend the college that they built with our "donations," but from the bottom of my heart I declined both. I just wasn't happy there. Eventually, I left the church after a new person took over and declared all of the rules and rituals that I had been forced to obey for the past 15 years as "obsolete." At this point in my life, I was done with religion, and I vowed that I would just try to be the best person I could be, and that would be enough.

Roughly 6 years later, during a business trip to Shanghai, China in December 1999, a colleague of mine introduced me to Falun Dafa. All she told me was that she did meditation exercises and felt so good and had so much energy. That was enough to get my attention, since at the time I was suffering from panic attacks and I lived on caffeine to get me through the day. She also started recalling portions of Zhuan Falun to me in the conference room we were working in--like explaining how plants have feelings! I was in shock with what she was saying; it all sounded so weird and so fascinating. And even though at times it sounded really far out there, I believed every word she was saying and I had to know more. She gave me China Falun Gong to read when we returned from the trip, as well as the videotape of the exercises. I quickly asked her for Zhuan Falun after finishing the first book in one day. I couldn't get enough of this. I was in amazement with every word that Master Li was saying. I remember I felt that I had been given access to a secret book that finally explained all of the mysteries of the universe and of human life. There was one part in particular of Zhuan Falun that I even earmarked so that I could find it easily to re-read over and over again because it was just so profound. It was in Lecture 4, the section entitled, "Upgrading your Xinxing." It reads:

"To the great enlightened people, the purpose of man is not to be human, and a person's life is not meant to be a human being. It is meant for you to return to the origin. Man suffers a lot of hardships. A great enlightened person thinks that the more one suffers, the better it is for him. In so doing, one will speed up repaying his debts."

I can't tell you what a sense of relief reading that statement brought to me. It was as if the weight of the world was lifted from me. I finally understood why those terrible things happened to me when I was a child. Now it all made sense. It wasn't done to me in vain! There was a purpose. And that purpose was to allow me to eliminate my karma that I had accumulated in my lifetimes by harming others. I was able to forgive those that had abused me, and it no longer represented a sense of grief or shame for me. I was at last able to make peace with it and move on to bigger and better things--my cultivation practice.

During the first weeks of my cultivation, I encountered many interesting experiences when reading Zhuan Falun for the first time. When I read the section on Tianmu, I immediately felt my forehead opening up. The pressure was so strong that it scared me terribly! I was convinced that this was no ordinary book I was dealing with. I began to see tiny lights shining quickly and brightly while reading the words. I also started feeling energy pouring into the top of my head and moving all around me when doing the exercises. Whenever my colleague would ask me "so how is it going, how are you doing," all I could reply was, "This is special."

Shortly thereafter I started to see things while I was in a semi-dream state at night, which convinced me even further that the subjects discussed in Zhuan Falun were all very real and not some fairy tale. For example, I saw my real eye blinking before me, which was scary, and I saw a very vivid Falun in black and white rotating. I even demonstrated many inborn human abilities (which our society calls supernormal powers) in many of my dreams and would very often be moving things around, opening and closing doors, etc. with my mind and flying/floating myself around in the air. Enough of these things happened during the first few weeks to make me believe even more firmly in the power of Falun Dafa and Master Li. I was then able to fully embrace Falun Dafa as the path I would follow.

But soon after these wonderful things started, so did the tribulations. They were quite plentiful so I will just share some of the bigger ones with you:

• I was asked by a close friend to testify in court against a person that I had known for many years in a domestic abuse trial.
• I was asked to provide a statement condemning a manager in my company on a sexual harassment charge.
• My wallet was stolen and I lost a lot of money.
• My car was hit by someone while parked in the garage at work.

All throughout these trials I kept telling myself, "O.K. Michele, this is good. My Xinxing (or mind/hear nature) needs to be improved. Don't get upset. We are in a maze. These flesh eyes don't see the truth. Here is a chance to eliminate some karma.

Master says in lecture 4 of Zhuan Falun, under the section called "Karma Transformation:"

"Accordingly, in your future cultivation practice you will run into all kinds of tribulations. How can you practice cultivation without these hardships? If everyone is good to one another without conflicts of interest or interference from the human mind, how can your xinxing make progress by your only sitting there? That is impossible. Therefore, from now on when you come across a conflict you should not consider it a coincidence. As long as you treat yourself as a practitioner, you can handle it properly."

Using these words as my foundation, I found that my cultivation had been going quite well for many months. I was making good progress for some time, passing the tests that were presented before me. And then all of a sudden out of nowhere, I felt as though I started a downward spiral. I was really struggling to let go of certain attachments that I had in this world such as:

• Gossiping about people with my friends or coworkers
• Giving up drinking alcohol and getting that buzz at the Happy Hours after work
• Giving up my burning desire for the fur coat, diamond earrings, and silver BMW that I had always longed for to impress my family and friends

I became so obsessed and upset over what I was missing out on in this world that I began to question whether or not I wanted to pursue Falun Dafa. It was going to deny me all of the things that I loved to do in this world! I had truly reached a fork in my cultivation path: did I want to stay at an ordinary level of thinking or did I want to set these thoughts and desires free so I could reach enlightenment and find tranquility?

I of course continued reading Zhuan Falun and focused again on the parts that explained how we are all living in a maze, and how all that we see with these flesh eyes is an illusion. I tried to make myself snap out of this. Also, I read the articles of the horrible torture that our fellow practitioners were enduring in China. I felt sad for them, and I thought it was horrible what the Chinese Government was doing. But I felt disconnected from it, just as I had felt prior to learning Falun Dafa about all the other horrible things that have happened in this world like the catastrophes in Bosnia and Kosovo a few years ago. At this time I pretty much stopped reading and doing the exercises. I had even reverted back to my old exercise routine of aerobics, and I had set a new goal for myself. I was going to lose 10 pounds for the upcoming summer swimsuit season. However this only lasted for about 3 days. At this point I had hit rock bottom and had drifted far away from the Fa and the very characteristics that define our universe: Zhen, Shan, Ren which I had embraced so strongly only a few weeks earlier. But our great and benevolent Master was watching and intervened just in time.

On the third night of my return to this "ordinary thinking" I had a dream that I was high up on a wall and I was slowly trying to make way down. I finally ended up on floor and then found myself locked in a room. Master Li appeared and handed me a piece of paper. I opened the paper and it had the number 4 on it. Puzzled by this dream, I told my colleague at work what happened the next day and she thought that the number 4 maybe stood for "Florida." You see the Florida experience sharing conference was to take place that coming weekend, and for a lack of a better explanation as to what "4" was about, I took it as a sign that I needed to be there. I quickly got on the Internet and booked my hotel with no problem. I then started to look for the airfare. It was SuperBowl weekend, a big sporting event here in America, and lucky me it was taking place in Florida and of course the New York Giants were in it. This caused the airfare from the New York area to Florida to reach almost $1,000. I thought to myself, boy that is a lot of money just to spend a day and a half in Florida. I hesitated and thought about it for about half a day. I then made up my mind that no matter how much it would cost me, I would go. So I entered my information into the computer and the minute I hit the button to process the transaction, a notice came up. It said "the airfare had just dropped to $500. Do you want to accept the new price?" I started laughing out loud because I knew that Master Li was testing me to see if I would let go of my money. I booked my tickets and finally arrived in Florida.

Attending that experience sharing conference changed me. It helped renew my commitment to defending, promoting, and cultivating Dafa. I felt so light and so peaceful the entire weekend and for days afterwards. Even though I had only a few hours of sleep during that weekend, I had never felt so refreshed in my life. It was a wonderful feeling having so many practitioners around me. After hearing all of the practitioner's stories I had this overwhelming urge to share Falun Dafa with everybody and anybody I could. I did things I have never done before, like leaving money on my pillow for the maid, along with Falun Dafa flyers from the conference under it. I was even given an opportunity to inform my taxi driver about Falun Dafa on the way to the airport. A few minutes after getting in I started telling him about my experiences at the Florida conference. He was very interested. He then made a comment to me saying, "Miss, please don't think that I am trying to pick you up or be fresh, but you have a beautiful aura. I can really feel your positive energy." Just as we were saying goodbye, he said that he was going to get back into practicing meditation again after leaving it for many years, and it was because of me that he was doing it. It felt good to share Falun Dafa with him.

This Florida experience enabled me to catch a glimpse of how majestic the Dafa is and how kind, patient and benevolent our Master is with us all. I really believe now more than ever that Master is always watching and guiding us, never letting us wander too far off track. No matter how selfish, materialistic, and ordinary I had become again in my thinking and behavior, He was there to bring me back.

Right now, I feel that I am much more solid in my practice than ever before. I no longer complain in my heart that my weekends are being "taken up" by Falun Dafa activities. In fact it is quite the opposite. I can't wait to go to the next experience sharing conference or to help spread the Fa at the next local activity. I truly feel like a particle of Dafa for the first time. However, I still feel like I have so many attachments yet to let go of. They are all so ridiculous when I really think about it from a practitioner's standpoint, and I feel ashamed to have them. Letting go is the hardest part of cultivation, but the consequences of not letting these attachments go are frightening, and the rewards that await me and all of us if they are let go are so extraordinary. I am determined to do whatever it takes to reach Consummation.

I have found that the words of our Master in the article "Towards Consummation" have really helped keep me focused during this critical time. I'd like to conclude my experience sharing by leaving these words with you.

Master says, "Studying the Fa with attachments is not genuine cultivation. Yet during the course of cultivation a person may gradually become aware of his own fundamental attachments, rid himself of them, and thus meet the criteria for being a cultivator. Then what's a fundamental attachment? Human beings acquire many notions while in the world and are, as a consequence, driven by these notions to pursue what they yearn for. But when a person enters this world, it is karmic arrangements that determine his course of life and what will be gained and lost in it. How could a person's notions determine each stage of his life? So those so-called "beautiful dreams and wishes" become pursuits that can never be realized, despite painful attachments.

...the time of conclusion has been repeatedly postponed so as to wait for those people to recognize their own fundamental attachments. This is because many among them are predestined and have the potential to reach Consummation. Do you know that one of the biggest excuses the old evil forces use at present to attack Dafa is that your fundamental attachments remain buried?

Disciples are waiting to reach Consummation, and I can wait no more. Everyone's behavior----good or bad----fully reflects the outcome he or she will obtain. Sentient beings, your future positions are chosen by you, yourselves."

Thank you.