To Truly Believe and to Truly Cultivate

I am from Switzerland. I obtained the Fa in 1997. I knew immediately this was what I had been searching for, for such a long time. I recall that my first session took place on a Friday evening and on the Saturday I spent nearly the whole day learning to do the exercises by myself. At that time we did not yet have the book Zhuan Falun in French and I was fortunate enough to be part of the translation group.

When the persecution started, I felt intensely the perverse pressure that tried to stop me from practising but my main consciousness finally woke up to revoke the arrangement of the old forces.

For many years I suffered from sleep crises: always fighting off sleep while reading or during a conference, with all my energy spent in the fight against falling asleep, with the result that one does not even know what one is reading or listening to.

It was a difficult period, with a three-year period of pain in my feet. In China, having painful feet is an indication that one is not on the right path. How could such a situation last so long? I looked within but found nothing; on the contrary, I pointed at others for their violence, lack of respect, and so on. How many times, while discussing with other practitioners who indicated with kindness my attitude, I replied: “Me? … I am like that?” I was extremely surprised, not to say annoyed.

Despite these major difficulties, it was always clear for me and deeply established that there was only this path and that I always wanted to follow Master. And Master was al-ways beside me: I recall that one day we had to make a long car journey to validate the Fa. It was still dark when leaving very early in the morning and it was snowing, the road completely white. I decided to leave despite everything and after 50 metres I saw on the snow-covered road circles without snow and perfectly formed Faluns.

The situation changed when we prepared Shen Yun in Geneva in 2008. Every day at that time practitioners gathered early in the morning to read a chapter of Zhuan Falun, standing up as soon as sleep came near.

Master has said to us: “Only by studying the Fa in depth can your righteous thoughts be sufficient and only by studying the Fa well can you accomplish the historical mission of a Dafa disciple.” (Dafa Conference, Brazil, October 2009)

And so I understood: without reading I could not have the wisdom that the Fa gives us. When I looked within throughout these years, I was comparing myself to ordinary people and not to the Fa and so I could not find what was out of place. By reading, I began to notice the attitudes and thoughts that are normal for ordinary people but unacceptable for a Dafa disciple; in fact the seemingly harmless thoughts or actions, if I dug a bit, were hiding places, which I could not see.

Preparations for Shen Yun

I work full time for the nuns in a Catholic convent. When I started this work in the spring of 2002, they were urgently waiting for my post to be filled. But just at that moment I was participating in the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. At my first interview I explained what Falun Gong was and asked permission to come back two months later while proposing to undertake certain indispensable tasks for them. They accepted and therefore immediately positioned themselves. And since then they have always granted me a great deal of flexibility.

During preparation for the first performance in 2008, I once again had an agreement for my working hours although no one stood in for me. There was an important task that absolutely had to be completed within the given time frame. The previous year that work had taken me one month. That year, it was completed within one week.

But I quickly saw that the agreement for my working hours was insufficient and so I asked the sisters for leave of absence and permission to make up the hours after Shen Yun. In September 2009, therefore, after the Geneva Shen Yun, I had 100 hours to make up in addition to my full-time work. It was urgent to complete the backlog of work that had been left for three months. Many things were happening at the same time; I was somewhat discouraged. But Master was always beside me. One day when I arrived at work an envelope was put on the floor in front of my door. I was really busy and did not pick it up immediately but went in to put down my things. Then, upon turning round, I suddenly saw that the envelope had been put on my desk. I thanked Master for reminding me that, as a Dafa practitioner, I had the capacity to do what I would not be able to do if I remained enclosed in my everyday concepts.

Preparations for Shen Yun 2012 in Zurich

Preparations for Shen Yun in March 2012 in Zurich began in June 2011. Zurich is three hours from Geneva.

At first, I was not working on Mondays and Tuesdays, spreading my hours over the other weekdays, then I withdrew also from Wednesdays. But still more was needed. All kinds of thoughts came up: you cannot ask for still more, you have major work to do which cannot now go forward and is blocking colleagues, etc. … I calmed down and chased away these wild thoughts, recalling the only reason for doing this and saying: Master, I want to follow you. Finally, I worked only on Saturdays and part-time on Sundays.

Over five years, then, the nuns have accepted my absence to prepare Shen Yun, agreeing to postpone some plans until my return. And three times several of them have come to see the performance. The sister superior has even seen it twice. Every year also, they tell me that they are with us in prayer, which for them is best and most sacred.

In retrospect, I see that these nine months of preparation for Shen Yun in Zurich have been a veritable stairway for our cultivation.

We had cheap accommodation in this very expensive town, typically Swiss accommodation: a civil defence shelter, and we lived for nine months in very rudimentary conditions: a dormitory for the girls, a dormitory for the boys; no possibility of cooking other than an electric kettle, sometimes no shower. The opportunity to detach from comfort! But also the immense good fortune to accomplish together and 24 hours day or almost, our mission as Dafa disciples, leaving aside all our business as ordinary people, establishing a very solid foundation of cooperation among practitioners, exceeding our conceptions, abandoning the ego to allow Master to arrange everything. We were completely immersed in a sacred environment to prepare Shen Yun. What immense good fortune! Master encouraged us as Udumbara flowers were growing all around our shelter.

Back home and at work, the pressures of ordinary life were deeply felt: this job hasn’t been done … there’s an important rendezvous to go to … this person doesn’t seem too happy that you are so often absent, etc. But during the journey to Zurich on Monday mornings all these things disappeared, vanishing like the illusions that they were, placed there to prevent us from accomplishing our mission.

It was, however, during this period that my husband told me he wanted a separation and wanted to sell our house. I had to fight against thousands of negative – and especially human – thoughts that then assailed me, and against fear also. I decided however not to be disturbed by this, for the preparation of Shen Yun, and helped by Fa Zheng Nian and reading the Fa I continued to go to Zurich. At that time, I took all this for interference.

Back home after Shen Yun, the problem had not gone away. My son said to me: “But mummy, in Falun Gong there is no divorce.” I replied: “That’s right, there is no divorce in Falun Gong, but when one isn’t in it, yes, one can divorce.” And I pointed at my husband. Ever blind, I imputed to him the major part of the wrong: there, he isn’t fair … nor there either … there he is interfering with what I am doing … all the while forgetting what Master requires of us, to look within.

I discussed the situation with other practitioners and thought it over: what my husband was reflecting was none other than that which I had within myself and had not corrected, that which I thought had been resolved several years ago but had not been uprooted. Not only was it a shock to see that I had still not understood and that it was I who was not fair but on top of that my attitude – in being unfair – had reinforced his own to the extent that he wanted to leave. And what was that saying after all? That it was, to some extent, I myself who was sending him away.

There it was staring me in the face, with my partner for more than 40 years; but what can I say of other beings? What then is my responsibility if, due to my inadequate cultivation, those whom I should save are not saved? Realizing that has been like a stab in my heart.

But our compassionate Master is always there to guide us: “Whenever you come upon disagreeable things, things which make you angry, personal interests, whenever your ego receives a knock, look within yourself, to cultivate yourselves, to look for your faults, even if you are innocent in a conflict, adopt the attitude: ‘Oh, I have understood, I certainly acted badly somewhere, even if in fact I made no mistake, it is also possible that it is about karmic debts that I owed in the past; I will do the right thing and pay back what I must pay back.’ By continually meeting such problems, such things, you are continually cultivating. Therefore, if a practitioner adopts such an attitude in facing problems - using righteous principles for self-cultivation - are not the disagreeable things that you meet among ordinary people good things?” (From 'Dafa Disciples Must Study the Fa', July 2011)

While our fellow practitioners in China are undergoing organ harvesting, while our Master is telling us that there is not much time remaining, it is imperative to seize the little time left to make our cultivation the top priority, reach the standard of true Dafa disciples and fulfil our vows. This is all we have to do: cultivate well. It is just like what our Master said in the poem The grace between Master and disciples (Hong Yin II): “If the disciples are filled with righteous thoughts The Master has the power to change the decision of the Heavens

At last, I would like to finish my experience-sharing with following words of our Master from Congratulatory statement at the New York Fa Conference, 2002: “… What history has bestowed upon Dafa disciples are all the most magnificent things. At present, all that you are doing is the most sacred, all that you are doing is for the sentient beings, and all that you are doing is creating the future. In history’s past, you brought to humankind the splendour it should have; in history’s present, Dafa has be-stowed upon you the mission of saving all sentient beings; in history’s future, everything of yours that is pure and righteous will be what ensures that the colossal firmament has formation and stasis, but not destruction. Walk your paths well. The beings who are saved are to be your sentient beings. All that you do establishes all that you will consummate.”

Please point out anything that is not correct.

Thank you, dear fellow practitioners, Thank you Master for your immense compassion towards us.