A New Practitioner’s Cultivation Experience

Greeting, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!

I began practising Falun Gong early this year. It is a great pleasure and excitement for me to attend the sacred European Fa Conference and I would take this precious opportunity to share my cultivation experiences with you, my fellow practitioners.

Meeting with Falun Gong
In 2010 I went to watch Shen Yun in Sweden as suggested by a veteran Falun Gong practitioner who shares an apartment with me. My eyes were flooded with tears when I was in the theatre. Before the curtain lifted my ears was massaged by the flute song Snowy Plum Heralding Spring and my eyes were stung with floods of tears, as the melody electrified my heart. I asked myself why I was crying when the performance was so splendid. I was very moved by the steadfast faith of the victimized Falun Gong practitioner that was reenacted in the performance, where a police officer cruelly beat her. After the show I made up my mind that I would be a good person and be kind to others.

In 2012, after a long wait, I went to watch Shen Yun again. Like a colourful painting, the performances vividly revive the divinely inspired Chinese culture of 5,000 years on the stage and present it to the audience. After I watched the show I felt greatly relieved and trouble-free. From then on I began to read Zhuan Falun and I never put it aside. Actually, I tried once to read Zhuan Falun after seeing Shen Yun the first time, but I only got halfway through the book.

Having obtained the Fa, I read this paragraph from our Master in Lecture at the First Conference in North America to: “Especially when you new students read the book for the first time, if you can’t finish reading it in its entirety, you will find that from now on you won’t have the time or opportunity to read it. Even when you have time you won’t remember to read it again. Why? Everyone has thought-karma, which is selfish and bad. When it finds that the Dafa you study is so righteous and good, and that [the thought karma] will be eliminated, the karma will become afraid and will try to stop you from studying and reading the book. If you stop reading the book halfway through, that thought-karma will try to prevent you from having another opportunity to read or touch the Dafa book.”

I understood the real obstacle that stands in my way to Dafa: the karma that I possess. Two years ago I missed the chance, but Master did not relinquish me and was looking after me all the time. Thank you, Master, for your compassionate salvation.

Another thing I needed to do immediately after I watched Shen Yun was to urge my family to withdraw from the CCP and its organizations. I called my elder sister in China, whom I think was less stubborn. As I expected, she followed my suggestions. She asked: “Am I your first empirical mouse for you “three withdraws” experiment?” I was quite tickled by her humour. Several days later, I sent the software that breaks the Internet firewall in China to my family, hoping my father could read the other information rather than the CCP’s newspaper. I called my father asking: “Are you a member of the Chinese Communist Youth League? If you want to quit it, just say yes.” But he bombarded me with his bad temper. Each time I called him, he cut off our chat only two minutes after we had started.

Filled with misgivings I shared with a fellow practitioner. She said: “No one urges people to do “three withdrawals” in your way.” Then I studied the Fa and got more understandings. Master tells us do truth clarification well. My father was not aware of the truth. But I knew that Dafa is good. Due to my poor understanding of the Fa my words could not penetrate enough to move my listeners to tears.

Group Fa study
Fellow practitioners suggested me to join the group Fa study. I went with the understanding that group Fa study and exercises are the best environment available for Falun Gong practitioners. The Fa study was multilingual and I found it hard to concentrate and was so distracted that I often had no idea what I was reading. After the Fa study, some practitioners started to argue about something in a discussion. I said to myself: “What is going on? Group Fa study is not as good as my doing it alone home. I will not go there again.” After some sharing with other practitioners, I understood it was a tribulation to test my heart and to prevent me from going to group Fa study. It was nothing more than a Xinxing test for me.

I learned to sit double lotus from fellow practitioners. Soon I could sit for 30 minutes in double lotus doing the 5th exercise. Some practitioners told me I was fortunate, as they had gone through very hard times when they started. Their words made me quite content. Later, I found it to be an attachment of self-content. I was surprised that I could be attached to such a minor thing.

Going out and validating the Fa
On May 13 we had a candlelight vigil. The night before I wondered if I should go, thinking that I might not be allowed to go back to China if I am filmed by the Chinese embassy. I was ridden by such thoughts for the whole night.

The next day, on my way back home from work, I thought about the matter again and traced my selfishness and attachment of being afraid, which made me only want to benefit from Dafa while unwilling to do things for Dafa. I decided to go with other practitioners to the activity. As Dafa practitioners, we have to make choices when tests come up and I certainly need to be tempered by going through them.

One day I went to a tourist resort to clarify the facts about Falun Gong. Prior to setting out I imagined a scene where I was surrounded by people who wanted to listen to my truth clarification. When I was there, some people did accept my newspapers and some even listened to my truth clarification. A retired officer who had done the “three withdrawals”, said to me sneakily: “I understand you and you have my support.” I was quite moved by his words and nearly cried.

There were also some Chinese who were quite hostile towards us. They crowded around us and scolded us, while I took the opportunity to give them newspapers. At the time I could not send forth righteous thoughts because I did not know about sending forth righteous thoughts. The retired officer came and said to me: “Do not care about what they say. They are brainless monkeys.”

Master said in Fa Teaching Given at the Epoch Times Meeting: “Which side a person stands on, and whether he will make it—these are all things placed along the way as Dafa disciples go about interfacing with ordinary people in various capacities, and you shouldn’t attach too much importance to those activities in and of themselves.”

“Don’t take any such things to be a big deal, for with something as significant as saving sentient beings you should just do what you are supposed to do, going about it in a composed manner. When you encounter things that don’t sound so good or that aren’t what you hoped for, don’t take it to heart, and just nobly and confidently do what you are supposed to. If you don’t let the evil’s interference sway you, bad factors won’t arise from you, the evil will become trivial, you will become towering and massive, and your righteous thoughts will be ample. That’s truly the case.”

Truth clarification face to face is challenged by the bad elements that manipulate the listeners. By taking part I get rid of my attachment of being afraid and my tendency to be moved by harsh words and disrespect.

Sales work for Epoch Times
Because the Epoch Times needs staff with language capabilities, I joined its sales group but I found it really hard to arrange my time, especially at the beginning. I have to work, study the Fa, do the Falun Gong exercises, go out to do truth clarification and do the sales work for the paper. A practitioner told me it was common for Falun Gong practitioners.

Selling adverts for Epoch Times to western companies is different from sales to Chinese. It is also different from clarifying the facts to Chinese. Our Master said in Fa Teaching Given at the NTDTV Meeting: “There are differences among you, but every link in the chain is critical. If you consider the case of those who are a bit older and who don’t have much schooling, or who don’t know how to do anything else, the most effective thing they can do is to pass out fliers. For those of you who are well educated and adept at writing, however, you can play to your strengths and do writing. The truth of course is that all of these are ultimately the same. Whatever form it may take, if what you are doing saves people it is magnificent.”

I was enlightened by this teaching. In fact, we need to clarify the facts about Falun Gong to all people, be they Chinese or westerners. It is not merely a matter of sales. It is a matter of saving people. It would be fine if we had clarified the truth and done what we must do, even if we fail on the business side.

I have cultivated in Dafa for a few months, but I feel a long time with Dafa has passed, perhaps ten thousand years has elapsed. After thousands of years waiting, I am now a Dafa disciple and I have now a Master!

Thank you, Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners!