[Minghui Net] If a practitioner tries to strengthen his or her resolve in Falun Dafa cultivation practice by listening to other people's cultivation stories instead of rationally rising to a genuine understanding of Dafa and thus regaining the "indestructible and unchangeable" righteousness of Dafa, this would be an omission. My real life stories before my cultivation in Dafa are told below. Hopefully, they will help some practitioners who still cannot attain their immovable righteousness in Dafa. Let's all cherish this cultivation practice in conjunction with the Fa-rectification of the whole universe, which you may not be able to come across again through many ages.
When I was 14 years old, a master found me and taught me his school of cultivation. At that time, I was a little girl in Junior High, while the master had been living more than 500 years. He would frequently teach me the Fa. Though he might elaborate an issue for several months, I was still not quite clear. My Celestial Eye opened at the very beginning of my cultivation in that School, so I could see foxes, weasels, ghosts, and snakes possessing the temples. There weren't any Buddhas on the Buddha statues. Those terrible scenes often frightened me so much that I kept asking my master to close my Celestial Eye.
When the Cultural Revolution occurred, all the others went to Beijing, while I, at the age of 26 or 27, went to Emei Mountain alone. I got to know a Buddhist abbot who was over 70 years old in a temple halfway up the mountain. I implored him to let me stay overnight. The old abbot said to me, "Lay Buddhist, you went in the wrong direction. You should go toward the North." I hastened to explain, "I didn't. The North is for worldly people. I came to the right place for me." The abbot was happy to hear these words, and we became bosom friends.
After I stayed there for two days, I asked the abbot for the way to summon the monkeys, because I knew that the monkeys on Emei Mountain were supernatural. The abbot told me, "Just shout toward the valley 'Saner, hurry back for a meal.'" I chose a place with an echo and shouted towards the valley, "Saner, hurry back for a meal." In a while, several hundred monkeys showed up, singing and dancing and looping in front of me happily. The eldest monkey came over and embraced me, kissing me constantly, and getting his saliva all over my face. Then he spit out a Dan from his mouth, and gave it to me. I dared not to eat it because I felt it was so dirty. The abbot said, "Lay Buddhist, you still have an obstacle in your heart. It has cultivated for several hundred years for this Dan."
Then, the monkeys built a monkey bridge over the valley (the monkey behind seized the legs of the monkey in front, one by one). And the old monkey picked me up and we went over the monkey bridge to the other side of the valley where there was another group of monkeys. The abbot told me, "In all of history, only a person whose surname was Hu was accorded such a courteous reception. You're the second. And you have got two more things--one is the Dan given to you by the old monkey, the other is the fact that the monkeys escorted you across the boundary to the other side of the valley. Usually, the monkeys are not allowed to cross this boundary."
There are many people cultivating the Tao on Emei Mountain, but ordinary people can't see them. They have the supernormal ability to hide the places they stay from the outside, just as it is portrayed in some fairy stories. Starting halfway down from the Mountaintop were those who had cultivated for two to three hundred years; the longest was just under five hundred years. This was the largest group, and their Gongzhu (Energy Column) could only reach a little higher than halfway up the Mountain.
In the community of cultivators, the Master selects a disciple instead of a disciple choosing a Master. It is in vain for people to make efforts to find them. Above the halfway point of the Mountain, the number of cultivators became gradually less and less, while the cultivators became older and older. They had all been cultivating for over 2000 years. Their Gongzhu's were all beyond the Milky Way, and some had even gone beyond the level of Tathagata. But they were still cultivating, as they had not yet reached consummation. Among them was my previous master. Later on, I learned that when our great Teacher, Mr. Li Hongzhi, went to Emei Mountain, all the cultivators there turned out to welcome him. At the time, their Gongzhu (Energy Column) danced across the sky like colorful fireworks.
There was a Taoist priest who had been cultivating for over 4000 years on Qingcheng Mountain. He wanted me to be his disciple. I declined by saying that I'd already had a master, and wanted to find a School in which I could attain Buddhahood in this lifetime. He told me that he had been here when Sakyamuni, Jesus Christ, and Laozi reincarnated into the human world, and had witnessed how they spread their Fa and offered salvation to humans. Our Teacher, Mr. Li Hongzhi said in teaching the Fa that, on his way from Sichuan Province northward to Xi'an City, many cultivators came from the mountains and asked him why his disciples cultivated so fast. Teacher asked them, "My disciples have been cultivating from two months to two years. How do they cultivate compared with you?" They believed that quite a few of them could catch up with his disciples. Then Teacher allowed them to listen to his Fa lectures. Among these cultivators was the Taoist priest who had been cultivating for over 4000 years.
By the end of the Cultural Revolution, I went with another cultivator to the Kangzhang Region, hoping to find in Tibetan Tantrism the School through which I could attain Buddhahood in this lifetime. It was well known in the community of cultivators that the current form of Tantrism in Tibet had long since been mingled with politics and lost the essence of cultivation. The true Tibetan Tantrism was in Kangzhang instead of in Tibet. When we arrived there, we met with a person who had gone kowtowing all the way from Changchun to Kangzhang, seeking for the righteous Fa. Together, we found a monastery where a great Lama was teaching the Fa. When we arrived, the great Lama asked me alone to sit beside him and listen to his teaching, which was a very rare and courteous reception in Tibetan Tantrism. He then asked us why we came to Kangzhang for the Fa, and we told him that there weren't any righteous Fa in the interior of China; instead, there were many temples possessed by animals like foxes, weasels, ghosts and snakes. So we were looking for the righteous Fa here. The great Lama calmly said, "It's not true. There will be a Dafa that one may not be able to meet again through the ages that will be spread in inland areas soon. And it will be spread right from Changchun. You can go back and wait for it." Upon hearing this, I hastened down the mountain and reached agreement with my company that whoever first found the Fa should let the others know. But the person from Changchun didn't believe it and stayed in Kangzhang.
In the early 80's, lots of children with supernormal abilities appeared. Some could read with their ears, some could see with their hands or from the back of their heads. I believe you can still get an impression of the situation at that time. We cultivators knew it was true, and that these supernormal abilities couldn't be taken out to show others. Therefore, I found many such children, and told their parents the reason why they couldn't take out their kids' supernormal abilities to show others. As a result, all these children were protected and later on began cultivating in Falun Dafa. And those who were taken to show off their abilities in different places by their parents were all ruined in the human society and brought very bad influences into society. As for the so-called critics of supernormal abilities, they were just some clowns the gods used to restrain such phenomena from interfering with human society. The more people don't believe in the existence of gods, the less supernormal phenomena the gods will allow people to see. If gods permit you to see, it is only a sample of something marvelous to change your thinking. Yet, humans still feel so proud of their modern science and technology.
Why are there similar fairy tales in almost every country? There wasn't any modern communication equipment back then. It is because humans don't believe in the existence of gods that the true stories of gods become "fairy tales" to mankind. The kids I was protecting told me at that time, "The master of the universe will offer salvation to the earth." Until the early 90's, I felt so sad because I still couldn't find Dafa. I knelt in front of a Buddha image one day and made a promise, "I'm determined to find a righteous Fa which cultivates both mind and body, one through which I can attain Buddhahood in this lifetime, and then offer salvation to all sentient beings." When I was meditating that night, my Main Spirit (Zhu Yuanshen) flew out and sought in every dimension, one by one, asking, "Is there any righteous Fa which cultivates both mind and body, one in which people can attain Buddhahood in one lifetime?" There're many cultivators in every dimension, yet none of them had heard of such a good and righteous Fa. They told me, "If you find such a good, righteous Fa, make sure to spread it to us and offer salvation to us!" Then my energy potency was not sufficient to go any higher. One of my previous masters gave me a crane, and it took me further up, looking for and asking for the righteous Fa in every dimension until we couldn't go up any more. All the cultivators in every dimension sincerely hoped that I could find such a good and righteous Fa and offer salvation to them.
I felt upset and desperate. Suddenly a lotus flower flew down to me from the sky and picked me up. It took me to a splendid and magnificent palace where a great Buddha was giving a lecture on the Buddha Fa. There were layers upon layers of Buddhas listening to him. The closer the Buddhas sat to the great Buddha, the bigger their bodies were. The Tathagatas were at the outmost layer and their bodies were the smallest. I saw lots of Tathagatas, including Laozi, and Confucius. And I was surprised to see Jesus was there also.
However, the conference ended just when I came to the Buddha palace. I felt very sorry that I had so little predestined relationship with the Buddha Fa. The Lotus flower brought me to the great Buddha and my body grew bigger with the power and help from the great Buddha. The great Buddha made hand gestures to me. All at once, thousands of golden rays came out with copies of shining scriptures. I was so glad and I tried to catch the scriptures. The first two scriptures that I caught were Zhuan Falun and China Falun Gong (Revised Version). I wondered, "Where could I find this great Buddha down on earth?" The great Buddha immediately changed to the image of Master Li in a business suit. He looked just like the picture in Zhuan Falun. I was brought back to my flesh body the next second.
I waited eagerly for the Fa, and the waiting period was unbearable. In 1995, I came across the friend with whom I went to the Kangzang region. Her face was glowing with a fair and rosy complexion. I said, "Ah, you must have attained the Fa! Show it to me now." I urged her to take me to her home, and it is hard to describe how excited I was. Once we got to her home, I saw the book China Falun Gong (Revised Version) on a table. It was just what I had been looking for! I grabbed it and held it tightly, but my friend wouldn't let me go with the book and said it was the only copy she had. I said, "Then tell me where you got the book and I'll find it." She gave me the address of a bookstore and I hurried there. However, the bookstore was closing. I asked the bookstore owner whether they still had the book called China Falun Gong (Revised Version). He told me it had been sold out, "Wait until next time." I didn't believe it, so I searched the bookshelves myself. I found nothing but still I didn't want to give up. Finally I opened a chest on a bookshelf, and there I found two shining copies of China Falun Gong (Revised Version). I bought them immediately.
I began to read the book as soon as I got home and all of a sudden I became clear minded. Those masters that I met before taught me many things, including the heavenly circulation, placement of the mysterious pass, celestial eye, the supernormal capability of precognition and retro-cognition, etc. Sometimes it took them more than a year to explain just one question to me, and I still didn't fully understand it. But our Teacher only used a few sentences in China Falun Gong (Revised Version) and made everything so clear and easy to understand. Why do people think the book is too profound to believe? Why do people think our Teacher talks big? The reason is that our Teacher plainly showed us the secret of secrets that others treasured so much but nobody ever really talked about. How could a human brain be able to easily accept such a profound thing? Even a god doesn't have the capacity to hold it. That is why some people think our Teacher talks big.
Later a practitioner made a cartoon story based on my experience and showed the story to our Teacher. He said, "This will be the legends for future human generations."
I spread Dafa in the Kangzang region to the children that I protected from showing off their supernormal capabilities and to the cultivators in the Mountains. They all came back to the ordinary human world to practice Dafa. Sometimes a younger disciple would attain the Fa first. He then would spread the Fa to the older disciples. Then the older disciples would spread the Fa to their master. Finally they all attained Fa. Many monks got directions from a Bodhisattva the night before our practitioners went to Emei Mountain to spread Dafa. Those monks came down the mountain and knelt down at the side of the road to welcome the book Zhuan Falun. Master said, "All the gods know that I am spreading Dafa, only human beings don't."
I made a list of the reincarnated disciples of Sakyamuni. Then I found them and spread Dafa to them. However, some of them are too lost in the human world to be able to learn the Fa any more. Not everyone is qualified to attain the Fa. There are many people who have been cultivating for thousands of years and haven't reached consummation. They all wanted to get the Fa but they couldn't. Attaining the Fa is the most fortunate thing that could ever happen in thousands of years, but ordinary people don't cherish the great Fa of the universe! All the gods know that it is an unpardonable sin to persecute Dafa.
What I have related is only a tiny portion of my experience, yet I am only a common practitioner of Falun Dafa.
Written in Mid-Europe on February 26, 2001
