(Clearwisdom.net) I began my cultivation practice in Falun Dafa in 1998. All my family members are practitioners.
My father-in-law suffered from many illnesses. Through cultivation practice, he regained his health. My mother-in-law had the same result. I think it was Teacher's arrangement that I became a practitioner. As I recall, the word “cultivation” was unfamiliar to me. I was physically weak and fell ill pretty often. Furthermore, I had a lot of work, so there was really no time to consider cultivation. One day my mother-in-law put the book, Zhuan Falun into my hands and said, “You have bad health and temper. Falun Dafa can cure you and does not cost you money. Why not just read it?” I thought reading it certainly could not hurt.
That afternoon I read the book quietly for more than two hours. Although I did not understand all the principles, I did understand some of them, such as what Teacher said in Zhuan Falun,
“So I have to purify your body. I only purify the body for people who’ve truly come here to learn the practice, who truly come to learn the Law.” “Buddhists believe that saving people has no conditions attached, it’s done at whatever cost, and they can help him unconditionally. That’s why we can do a lot for our students.” (“The First Talk, Truly Guiding People Up to High Levels”)
After I started cultivation practice, all my illnesses disappeared. I thought that I should tell my friends and relatives about this great cultivation method. At that time, we brought recorders and banners with us and offered to teach people the exercises. In less than half a year, we had more than one hundred people practicing Falun Dafa. My husband noticed that his parents and I were in good health after we started practicing Falun Dafa, so he joined us in February 1999. Thus, every one in our family became a practitioner.
The days when we were spreading the Fa were the most rewarding. We just went out in the evening and found a place to play Teacher's video lectures. Many people came to watch and learn the exercises. At that time there was no persecution by the evil Chinese Communist Party (CCP). A harmonious atmosphere permeated everywhere. People had a lot of respect for Falun Dafa and cultivators were respected by the common people as well.
After July 20, 1999, the CCP began to persecute and slander Falun Dafa. They lied about Teacher in order to fool people. My family had no peaceful days either. We were arrested, imprisoned, and sent to forced labor camps. Our family's home was ransacked many times and we lost over one hundred thousand yuan.
In 2004, through studying Teacher's new lectures, I understood that we should do the three things, improve our characters, and save more sentient beings. I am a businesswoman. I work with money every day, and am sensitive about benefits. It was easy to forget the time to send forth righteous thoughts, especially when someone was in my store. Through studying the Falun Dafa principles, I understood the importance of sending forth righteous thoughts. We must remove all the evil elements in order to reduce the persecution by the CCP, and the interference around ourselves. Hence, it is an important responsibility for every practitioner.
Knowing the importance of sending righteous thoughts, we decided to follow the four times a day routine. To avoid possible conflicts in conducting business, we cut our business hours short and closed our store every day before 6:00 p.m. After a few years, people knew about our business hours and adjusted their shopping accordingly.
We do the exercises every day and study the Fa every evening for two to three hours. In our area there is only one other practitioner. This practitioner is more than three miles away and cannot come to study the Fa with us very often. Hence, in most cases our group study consists of only family members. At the beginning each one of us read a paragraph of the Fa and no one fell asleep. Then, tests appeared. The elderly members made mistakes when reading. They added more words, left out some words, or mispronounced some words. When we brought up these issues, they attempted to correct themselves but that lasted only a short time. The situation was very frustrating. I thought that since they did not have enough understanding to study the Fa seriously, there was no point to continue studying this way. We decided to study the Fa individually.
Later, I found the following statements in Teacher's article, “Fa-Lecture at the Conference in Florida, U.S.A.” in 2001. Teacher said,
“You must have a lot of questions. I think that through studying the Fa you'll be able to resolve all of them. Many specific questions and problems can be resolved as long as you study the Fa. Also, you need to pay attention to one issue: you are Dafa disciples, so you should always look within whenever you run into problems--it's guaranteed that many of the problems are your problems, whether you want to look at yourself or not, or whether you think of them or not.”
This reminded me that I needed to look inward. I realized that pointing out errors in elderly practitioners could involve a negative emotion of assigning blame or complaining about others. The idea that when studying with them it reduced the number of pages that could be covered meant that I looked down on other practitioners and had a critical mind. With these selfish human notions it was not possible to make much progress when I studied the Fa by myself. Furthermore, when all of us studied by ourselves, everyone was taking it easy and some fell asleep, especially the elderly, who tried to listen to audio lectures instead of reading the book. Recognizing the problem, I recommended group study again. The elderly understood the serious nature of Fa study. They also corrected their mistakes.
In February 2005 Teacher published the article, “Turning the Wheel Towards the Human World.” We know the CCP is the evil party, which is persecuting practitioners. Heaven will eliminate this party. Hence, it is necessary for people to withdraw from the party in order to survive. We understand the importance of getting people to withdraw. There is a parking area in front of our store. Many people come to our store while waiting for their transportation. We take this opportunity to tell them about the importance of withdrawing from the CCP and its affiliated organizations. Because we hold on to the idea of saving sentient beings, Teacher led many people with predestined relationships to come to our store. On average, we get more than ten people to withdraw from the CCP every day. Once they do, we give them materials that further clarify the facts about Falun Dafa.
At times we went door-to-door and talked to people face-to-face. I started by asking whether they had heard of Falun Dafa. They usually said no or had heard about it on television. I said to them sincerely, “I have been a practitioner for eleven years and all my illnesses are gone. It is important not to go against Falun Dafa, because it asks people to follow Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. How can learning to be a good person be wrong? Everyone should try to be good. The communist party, however, uses its power to persecute Falun Dafa practitioners. They staged the self-immolation incident, but that has been recognized worldwide as an attempt to frame Falun Gong. This party has conducted many political movements that were harmful to the common people. In particular, it has destroyed human morality. Hence, heaven will eliminate it. To avoid being eliminated along with this evil party, it is necessary to withdraw from it.” In most cases, people agreed with what we said and withdrew from the party.
I believe in the Fa and Teacher. Learning to be a good person cannot be wrong. We only need to do the three things well and our advancement is guaranteed. Under Teacher's protection, our family's economic condition improved very smoothly and quickly. I know we have benefited from practicing Dafa. Other than normal family expenses, we use our money to save sentient beings. We never ask fellow practitioners for money, because Teacher has given us what we need. Even the flowers in our home are growing very well.
Since my level is limited, please point out anything that is improper. Heshi.
