Cultivation in Daily Life

I obtained the Fa in 2006. During the past 6 years, I have not experienced any major tribulations or painstaking tests. When I was asked to write a sharing, I was startled. Compared to other practitioners, what I have been through are only minor things in life, and not worth mentioning. However at this time it seems I cannot escape, so I accepted.

I have been living in London for over twenty years. I am the youngest in the family, and I have a sister who is 11 years older than me. My home environment in China was comfortable, so a lot of people have asked me why I decided to come to London to seek a new life when I was not even 20 years old, plus I did not know anybody here. I said I did not quite know myself, maybe it is like the old Chinese saying: a newborn ox is not scared of facing a tiger. I have had my ups and downs in life. But it seems every time I encountered difficulties, there was always someone there to help me. I was very close to my sister. My decision to come to England made us feel oceans apart. A human being has to experience life. I have experienced pain in being parted from my family. I always ask myself: is a person’s life pre-arranged? What on earth did I come here for?”

At the beginning of 2006, recommended by my best friend, I started to read Zhuan Falun. My progress was slow and I did not quite understand because of my family background and upbringing. When I read “Zhen-Shan-Ren is the sole criterion to discern good and bad people” and “Some people evaluate themselves with the declined moral standard. Because the criteria for assessment have changed, they consider themselves better than others” my heart was moved. Isn’t it addressing me directly? I blushed. I felt embarrassed of my zealous attachment to any personal gain that came my way.

I did not quite understand what cultivation meant, but I felt it was something quite sacred and far away. In Zhuan Falun, it says: “Once this person thinks about taking the path of cultivation practice and once this thought occurs, it shines like gold, shaking the world in ten directions,” and “If a person wants to return from this dimension to his origin, the Tao School says that he must practise cultivation to return to his original, true self. If he has the heart for cultivation practice, it is his Buddha-nature that has emerged. This heart is considered most precious, and people will help him. Under such difficult circumstances, this person is still not lose and wants to come back. As a result, people will help him and unconditionally give him a hand-they will help him with anything.” When I was reading this, a wish arose in my heart: I wanted to cultivate.

My mother-in-law lives with us. Living with the in-laws is one of the most difficult issues people have to deal with. I never thought one day this circumstance would happen in my life. I like to go to work because I can temporarily forget about the headaches at home. When it was time to go home, my heart sank. I sighed: now I have to go back and get an earful again.” When I arrived home, my mother-in-law has dinner ready for us. I wash the dishes after dinner. She always stands next to me to supervise: “You should wash this way, and that way.” This always annoys me and I thought to myself that I am old enough that I do not need anybody to teach me how to wash the dishes. My face dropped and did not speak a word. After doing the washing up, I would go upstairs to my bedroom and close the door. At the weekend, I often go to my friend’s house and moan.

One day when I got home, my husband whispered to me: my mum just complained to me about you. So I unhappily asked: “Excuse me?” “She said you do not do housework and treat her like a maid." I was fuming and not to mention very upset. Whenever I clean the house, she would ironically say: “I did that yesterday.” Sometimes when I shifted her things slightly while I was doing the cleaning, she would nag me. I asked her if we could throw away some old stuff that had not been used for a long time. She replied angrily: “You throw everything away, do you want to throw me away as well?” I felt really hurt and found living with her difficult.

When I said to myself I want to cultivate, it became a big test for me to learn to deal with the relationship between us. I realized that I had tolerated with anger. I did not consider her feelings or her point of views. I could not change her. As a practitioner, I realized that I should conduct myself according to higher principles. Therefore, I must change myself first. Whenever she starts moaning, I would absorb it with a smile and not take it to my heart. I became more compassionate towards her and more considerate. Within a very short period of time, her attitude towards me made a 360-degree turn. This is something I never thought would have happened.

My husband used to own a restaurant business and worked round the clock. However he had always pondered for the true meaning of life. When I was reading Zhuan Falun, he always asked me: What is this book about?” I said it is about qigong. His Chinese is not so good. He always wanted to ask me questions about the book, but I impatiently told him: I have not finished reading yet, you can go online and read the English version yourself!" He stopped reading even before finishing the first chapter, as he could not understand. I asked him if he wanted to practise the exercises with me, he said no. He said he must stay vigilant. If he sees me enter the state of cultivation insanity, he would pull me back. When my best friend Wendy came to our house, we would sit together and read Zhuan Falun in Cantonese to him. He listened and started to show some interest. Then he went back to read Zhuan Falun again on the Internet. And this time it drew him like a magnet. Every day after work, he would sit in front of the computer to read Zhuan Falun. Even when his mother called him for dinner, he did not want to get off the chair. One day, he suddenly said to me: I want to do the exercises. Then he entered the door of Dafa cultivation.

Both of us have started Dafa cultivation practice, but how about my mother-in-law? She was a Hong Kong immigrant in the 1960s. She is in her 70’s now. She is illiterate and does not understand Mandarin. We can teach her the exercises, but this is not enough, she needs to study the Fa. We managed to find Master’s Guangzhou Lectures DVD in Cantonese from a fellow practitioner. Then she can start doing the exercises and at the same time to study the Fa. Shortly after that, one day we came home from work, she was lying on the sofa feeling ill. She was feeling chills and fever all over her body and did not want to eat. She asked us to get her some medicine after dinner. While I was eating, I thought to myself: she only just started, could it be that quick for her to eliminate karma? Should I bring her the medicine? When Mother-in-law is feeling sick, it would seem quite odd not to bring her medicine.”

When I was washing the dishes, I overheard my husband say to her: Mum, you have now begun to practise, master is helping you to eliminate karma. Try to forbear the discomfort as much as you can, I will bring you the medicine if you really cannot withstand the pain any more.” After hearing what he said, I immediately brought in Zhuan Falun and read out the page where it mentions eliminating karma. She listened and suddenly stood up from the sofa and said: “Ok, I will listen to Master. I will not take medicine. I want to eliminate karma.” So we asked her to have an early night. Next morning, we were still a bit concerned, so we went to see if she was ok as she gets up early every day. She happily told us: “I slept very well all night. I felt as though I never had any illness last night. I am feeling so strong this morning that I could fight a few tigers.” Whenever she meets her friends, they tell her how well and healthy she looks. She would reply: “Come and practise Falun Gong quick. Falun Dafa is good!”

In my work place, I get on well with all my colleagues. My boss is also satisfied with my work. Sometimes I speak to my colleagues in China and find an opportunity to clarify the truth, and help them to quit the CCP. I also sent them the 9 commentaries DVD and truth clarification newspapers together with the parcel we send to our China offices. My colleague emailed me back saying: “Thanks for your information, shocking and astonishing.”

From 2008 I began to participate in Shen Yun promotion. I am a very shy and introverted person. I never thought that one day I would stand on the street leafleting, and even talk to strangers about Shen Yun. When I understood that those pre-destined sentient beings who come to see Shen Yun have the opportunity to transition to the future, I would brace up myself and talk to them.

Since last year’s Shen Yun performances, Master has raised the standard and requirements for us. We cannot promote Shen Yun using methods like selling things at a market. So what can we do to promote Shen Yun as a well-known brand to mainstream society? I felt I should firstly have a deeper understanding of Shen Yun. I spent a lot of time on the Shen Yun website. After taking part in the training for Shen Yun presentations, I spent a lot of time to write a presentation draft and practised every day over and over again. I even asked my husband to become my audience for feedback. He said, “You sound like you are reciting a book, you need to work harder.”

When we were at the shopping centre for promotion, I would listen carefully how other practitioners introduced Shen Yun to people and learned from them. It was a long day to do promotion at the shopping centre. The costume and headdress made me feel heavy and dizzy after a while. Over time, I could not stand with my waist straight up; I could not keep my face smiling. So it was very encouraging to see other practitioners talking to people continuously with very strong righteous thoughts. From each event I found that if I am pursuing selling tickets that day, I cannot sell many tickets or even none at all. Because of my attachment and impure heart, ordinary people would feel I just want them to pull their wallets out and spend money right now to buy tickets, so they would hesitate.

One day at the Putney shopping centre promotion, I met a Chinese lady. She has been living here for many years. Her son was born and brought up in UK. But she is a little disappointed with him because he is not interested in Chinese culture at all. I talked to her for at least an hour, starting from China’s 5,000 years of divine culture, then onto the destruction of China’s traditional values by the CCP, then from China’s current situation to Falun Gong and Shen Yun. At the end of the conversation, she looked at the Shen Yun posters and said: “You all are really remarkable. You are bringing back China’s traditional culture to the whole world using such a beautiful art form. You are all Gods, you are all Gods! I will go home and talk to my husband and son and buy the best tickets to see Shen Yun!”

One Shen Yun promotion took place at a flower show. I met an English lady who was in her 60’s. She looked kind and educated. I spoke to her for a little while and she decided to buy tickets. At the day of the show, she bumped into me and recognized me among so many people. She asked me to leave her my email address, as she wants to keep in touch. After Shen Yun we met up. She said she enjoyed the show very much. She told me she had tears in her eyes when she read the lyrics from the 2nd performance of the show. She told me that she hadn’t planned to go to the flower show. But during the night, she tossed and turned and could not sleep, wondering if she could go. So she followed her instinct and went to the flower show. There she saw our stand and bought tickets to see Shen Yun. She told me she felt she had known me before. Isn’t it right that master will bring pre-destined people to us?

This year’s Shen Yun in London has been a success; of course, there is still a lot we can improve on. Master has mentioned in various Fa conferences: there are bound to be conflicts and arguments among practitioners. We should not always see others’ weaknesses. If you find that others have not done a good job, and you quietly help to make it better even though your own ideas haven’t been adopted, that is being a Dafa disciple.

These are my cultivation experiences that I would like to share with you all. If there is anything improper, please kindly point out and correct me.

Thank you, Master.
Thank you fellow practitioners.