(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.

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.

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.

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.

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.