March 1999

I'm Augusto Andrade from Raleigh, North Carolina. I'm originally from Ecuador, South America. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to share my experience during my 6-month Falun Dafa practice.

In order to achieve higher levels of cultivation, I had been practicing some other cultivation ways for about 24 years. I had always been trying to improve the health of my body, mind and spirit. For many years, no matter what I tried to improve the quality of my life, I always had a lot of tribulations, problems, misfortunes and miseries.

Fortunately one morning in September 1998, while walking around a lake, I saw a young man performing his meditation practice. I felt that I would like to practice that type of meditation together with him. Something stronger than my own wish was pushing me to talk with him, but I couldn't because I felt respect for what he was doing and didn't want to interrupt him. On the next day, the same thing happened. But on the third day I couldn't hold my strong desire any longer, and I decided to interrupt his exercise practice. I introduced myself to him.

After a short, exciting conversation, I asked him if there were books describing his exercises. Soon afterwards he gave me a set of books: Falun Gong, Zhuan Falun and one exercise tape. Since that day, thanks to Master Li's wonderful teachings of cultivation: Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance, my life has changed a great deal, in terms of my physical body, as well as my mind and my spirituality.

At present, I am an understanding person, and I offer my benevolence when I am mistreated in life. I think this is an opportunity to increase my forbearance, and to practice what I have learned from Falun Dafa.

For example, a few weeks ago, I was returning home from group practice in the park. I was driving on a road with two lanes merging into one, and I had the right of way. Suddenly a car from the other lane cut me off. Since I was comfortably driving under the speed limit, I had no problem controlling my car. Unfortunately another person tried to do the same, but he failed; and my car was hit on the rear right side. I reduced my speed to stop. This person was SO upset that he hit the back of my car again on purpose.

Both of us stepped out of our cars. As I was approaching him, he insulted me with a lot of bad words like a typical bully. At that moment I started to experience the reaction I had in a similar situation years ago, but this time my mind was thinking about Master Li's teachings on Forbearance. Therefore, with a sweet voice I told this guy: "I do not understand why you're so upset; it is my car which was damaged, not yours; besides that, it was your fault, not mine." He had no option but to calm down. When I was getting paper to write down his name and driver's license, he suddenly drove away so fast that I could not even see his license plate number.

I was thankful that, due to learning about forbearance from Teacher Li, I behaved in a different way from how I used to. I did not lose anything other than a few minutes and some scratches on my car. But at the same time I gained a lot of peace in my soul. I now know that it is indeed possible to love and forgive those who try to do bad things to us. I have been experiencing that my life is a lot better when my heart is practicing Truthfulness, Benevolence and Forbearance.

I also had great experiences in terms of my physical body. When I was in the army in Ecuador 40 years ago, I had an accident while I was doing some gymnastics exercises. My spinal column had been twisted since then. When I first sat down to do the meditation, it was almost impossible to do because of my back's twisted configuration. The pain I experienced in my whole back was extremely severe, and I couldn't sit for more than three minutes. Two months after practicing Falun Dafa, I was doing my meditation practice in the park one day when I heard some loud cracking throughout my spinal column. It was really amazing that, without any pain, my spinal column was stretched out after forty years. Now I can sit there for 45 minutes without the pain in my back.

Spiritually, I had been very dedicated to my beliefs, always hoping to get something better for my soul and spirit; but my improvement had been very slow. In my first month of Falun Dafa practice, my spirituality grew so much faster compared with my previous 24 years in other spiritual practices. Today I have complete control over my thoughts, and through the exercises I can drain out every negative thought that has entered my mind. Before, it was almost impossible to do so.

One of Master Li's teachings is: "Pursue nothing, and you'll gain naturally." How wonderful this teaching has been for me. It has been giving me peace in my mind, serenity in my heart and the power to let go of a lot of the negative things I couldn't let go of before.

Increasing my Forbearance in conjunction with Truthfulness and Benevolence is a great blessing that is enlightening my life, which allows me to share the peace that everybody wants to feel inside. Because of the above changes, today I am a peaceful, harmonious, healthy, and happy person, with a lot more tenderness, benevolence, love, respect, tolerance, understanding and forgiveness, not only for my family members, but for all of humanity.

In short, I think Falun Dafa is the greatest Cultivation System for body, mind and spirit. I wish, from the bottom of my heart, that every single person in our world will get the chance to learn about Falun Dafa.

Teacher Li, thank you so much for all you have given to me!