Study the Fa and Pass Xinxing Tests Successfully

Greetings to our great and merciful Master!
Greetings to my fellow practitioners!

I have been practising Falun Dafa since 1997. I have experienced quite a lot during those 15 years. The most important thing I realised was that I was not able to get far in my cultivation without the help from our Master and my faith in Master and Dafa.

Believing in Master and believing in the Fa

Two years ago I came to Europe, but I did not know how to cultivate myself in this new environment. The language and surroundings were totally strange to me, and the ways in which cultivation and truth clarification manifested were different as well. I could not fit in with the situation initially, as if I had landed in a totally virtual world.

But time for adapting was short, and within a month of my arrival, Shen Yun 2010 promotion kicked off. I took part in the promotion during the following five months. In this new environment, the biggest problem proved to be my laziness. I could not do enough Fa study, exercises and sending forth righteous thoughts; I felt it was very much harder in the latter part of the promotion, when I just tried hard using human methods. After the promotion period, my husband and I both underwent unprecedentedly harsh “tests” that occurred on our physical bodies.

We felt our bodies were connected to a certain type of pipe, where nasty elements continued to pour into our bodies. Subsequently my body became extraordinarily sensitive, and huge pressure made me feel cold, depressed and anxious. My face looked dark. In addition I had to look after my husband who suffered even more severely and could not get up from bed. He is the only child of his parents who are not practitioners. If he could not pass the test with his righteous thoughts, I would find it hard to explain to his parents, and that would have a negative impact on Dafa. Besides, I had to maintain a normal everyday life, to study language, pass an exam and do all the household chores, plus I missed my daughter who was still in China. It was really as in Master’s Poem (Tempering the Will): “Abundant troubles rain down together, All to see: Can you pull through?” At the time I felt like a canoe drifting in a raging storm at night which could be destroyed by the storm at any time. But still I was always able to think about our Master during this hard time.

I started to do more Fa study, exercises and to search inwards. I discovered many attachments of mine, such as seeking comfort, showing off, complacency and lust. But still the situation did not change. I sent forth righteous thoughts every day for 4–5 hours and could feel my energy field become clear. But nasty elements soon came back. Although my husband and I started to deny the persecution and to seek benevolent solutions with the beings in other dimensions, there wasn’t much improvement. Thus I felt confused and started to wonder if my inborn quality wasn’t good, if I was qualified to be a practitioner and if the old forces would destroy me and so on. Despair of being outside of cultivation haunted both of us, while our bodies still suffered. Our minds were ground down and tears were shed a lot. We nearly lost our confidence. We started to study the Fa every day. Our Master told us in Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference: “‛I’m Li Hongzhi’s disciple, I don’t want other arrangements or acknowledge them’ – then they won’t dare to do that. So it can all be resolved. When you can really do that, not just saying it but putting it into action, Master will definitely stand up for you.”

From my husband’s reaction, I could tell that all those negative ideas were imposed by the evil old forces, which was a fatal blow to a practitioner’s confidence and a form of most difficult suffering. On the surface level, the idea was meant to make him lose confidence in himself, but in reality it was meant to make him not believe in Master and not believe in the Fa. We must eliminate this sort of idea that could destroy us. Master says in Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference: “.... and it’s just a choice! This is the principle at high levels of the cosmos: you think someone is good enough, so you choose him – that’s the principle.”

From this, I realized we Dafa disciples were chosen by Master a long, long time ago, and accompanied Master to assist in Master’s Fa Rectification and saving sentient beings. We have long ago made our choices, but why does such a huge tribulation come? In Zhuan Falun our Master says, “At some point you’ll be made confused about what’s true and what’s false, and you’ll doubt that gong really exists, that you can cultivate, that you can really go up there in cultivation, that there are Buddhas, that they’re real ... You’ll experience this later on, and you’ll be given those false impressions, which make you feel that those things don’t exist and that they’re false, and it’s exactly to see if you can stay steadfast. If you say you want to steel your will, then with this thought, at that time you’ll really be able to do that, and naturally you’ll do well since your character has improved.”

I tried hard to get rid of and deny those negative thoughts that had tried to destroy me, and at the same time, I firmly continued to send forth righteous thoughts. Almost at the same time, I decided to save sentient beings by telephoning Chinese people. When I firmly denied the interference and decided to save sentient beings in such a difficult situation, Master gave me enormous encouragement. Inadvertently I saw Master’s image mercifully smile at me. I was shocked immediately and could not believe my eyes. Since this tribulation, I thought that I was not good enough and was almost desperate, so I really dared not to look at Master’s image. Thank you, Master, I now understood you. No matter what the situation was, I would definitely do the three things well. I sincerely felt gratitude towards Master’s compassionate care of his disciples!

Cultivating diligently in the process of making phone calls to save people

When I decided to clarify truth to Chinese people via making phone calls, Master immediately arranged fellow practitioners to pass me the telephone numbers of people who had previously received truth clarifying broadcasts. I telephoned those numbers for a few months, then fellow practitioners introduced me to the RTC telephone platform. Since then I started to practice diligently to save people.

As I sincerely wanted to save people, I overcame the attachments of being nervous, shy and afraid of making mistakes on the RTC platform, while at the same time I cleaned up huge interference to my body from other dimensions. I worked on the platform every day. When my cultivation status was not very good, I just listened to fellow practitioners making phone calls, and soon their righteous thoughts made me pick up my phone and overcome the trough. When my character needed to improve, my phone calling process could be very difficult.

During my phone calls to China, I always felt I did not have enough energy, and I desired to study the Fa. When I read the Fa, I could feel Master gave me energy all the time and revealed the principles of the Fa to me. Later the RTC platform introduced collective Fa study. In order to clarify the truth well, I persisted in studying three lectures from Zhuan Falun every day, and read Master's articles for another hour. Not doing the exercises enough did not help either. So every morning I got up early to practice the five sets of exercises. Initially it was cold in the winter early morning, and nearly every time I did the exercises half way through then went back to bed. Later a fellow practitioner practised the exercises with me by playing the exercise music online. By doing this I could do the five sets of exercises in one go. Sending righteous thoughts was even more crucial. Every phone call must be done with full concentration, and with righteous thoughts sent forth directly to the recipients. When I studied the Fa well, the recipients behaved as if they were controlled by me. Master's energy was passed to the recipients via me, and I could achieve with every phone call a successful withdrawal from the CCP.

During the process of making phone calls to save people, I overcame my hopeless laziness, and became a real diligent practitioner. The evil elements that tried to destroy me left as well. As long as I picked up the phone and saved people, I felt I was doing the right things and was content. If I did not tell Chinese people the truth via phone calls because I was busy with other things, I would soon feel lazy. When I picked up the phone again, the recipients either refused to quit or said nasty words to me. Sometimes I even dared not to pick up the phone. Master told us in Teaching the Fa in San Francisco, 2005: “To which I would respond: it's not enough if you only read the books, for Dafa disciples need to do the three things well, and you have done only one of them, so you don't sense any improvement. If you can do all of the three tasks and do them very well, you will feel yourself improving; it's completely different from before, in the stage of personal cultivation and Fa study. That is what's at work.” In reality that was the reason I could not practice diligently previously, in that I didn't do all the three things well. I either could not find the principles when I read the books, or didn't read the book or do the exercises when I was busy. Behaving like this would not work for cultivation improvement.

I really felt that everything came from the Fa, and I could understand more profoundly the saying: “cultivation is up to you, gong is up to the Master”. Thank you Master for taking me onto the RTC platform where I was encouraged to practice diligently to save sentient beings.

Study the Fa more and pass the tests successfully

Sometimes, a fellow practitioner and I became not so friendly towards each other and there was a bit of tension between us. The evil old forces took the chance to make further interference. During this tribulation it was as if every word from the fellow practitioner was targeted at me, and the only thing I could see was her mistakes and her various attachments. The situation then developed to such extent that when I saw her online I just tried not to speak to her. “If it doesn’t provoke you, it doesn’t count, it doesn’t work,”（from Zhuan Falun).

Having cultivated for over a decade, I knew that I should search inwardly and I should improve myself instead of avoiding her. Then I studied the Fa more, and sent forth righteous thought to clean up bad elements between us. Later I found that what I saw as her problems were actually my own problems. On finding out my attachments, I tried hard to eliminate them, but I still thought of her mistakes.

One day Master suddenly made me realise that her attachments were not hers but later acquired notions, which were not acknowledged by herself either. Those attachments also brought troubles and anxieties to her, from which she also suffered. I decided I must look at her good points; she didn't have weaknesses, as the weaknesses were not her. When my mind changed, I felt very good. When other people complained about her to me, I didn't join in. Instead I sincerely defended her all the time. Since then I became more careful about my attitude towards fellow practitioners, and tried to find out negative thoughts towards other practitioners and eliminate them, until I felt all my fellow practitioners were so amiable and respectable. If I cannot achieve this, then it must be my mistake. They are Master's disciples, the closest people in the world.

Master let me know my biggest loophole

I improved very quickly during the period of making phone calls to China, and my health was getting better and better, though had not fully recovered. I always felt tired and cold because of calling China. Recently I suddenly felt a toothache, and eventually a hidden hole in one of my teeth was found, which was a quite large one. I was shocked! What a big hidden loophole that was hard to find out.

A week later, a practitioner called me to share after Fa study, as she was trying to improve her character. It was easy to spot someone else's problem. When she asked me what the attachments were that underpinned her problems, I answered without hesitation: “Validating yourself, and being selfish, only looking out for yourself”. As soon as the words were spoken, I was shocked and suddenly realised that I was not helping her to improve her character; it was Master who made her a mirror for me to reflect upon myself, as I was too reluctant to see my own problems. I always showed off; was it validating myself? When I worked on the RTC platform, I was quite selfish, as I tried to save more sentient beings for my own world; that was why I was quite focused on the numbers. At that moment an image of a pair of compasses appeared in my mind; it seemed to tell me that however many people I saved on the RTC platform every day, it was just like the compasses drawing a circle – the base point was the same, selfishness. And only if the selfishness was removed could I immerse myself in the infinite Fa. That is why I always had limitations when I worked on the RTC platform.

Master told us in his Fa teaching that the old universe was founded on the basis of selfishness, and the new universe's principle would be selflessness. How could I assimilate to Dafa and enter into the new universe without getting rid of selfishness? Then a tree image appeared in my mind, telling me that “selfishness” was the tree root, while fame, material interest and emotion were the trunk and branches stemming from the root. Once the root of selfishness was removed, other attachments would no longer exist. Master, I understood that my two years of tribulations flowed from this selfishness! When I realised this, tears burst out as I looked at Master's image. I could not express my gratitude towards my Master.

Master, I must practise cultivation more diligently, to save more people, to accomplish my historical promise. I only wish to put a smile on Master's face.

The above is my cultivation experience from since when I left China. Please correct me with compassion if anything is improper.