Latvia: Finding Dafa, cultivating solidly without letting up

Greetings Master! Greetings fellow practitioners!

I found the treasured book, “Zhuan Falun”, by chance at the beginning of March 2021, and since then I entered cultivation practice in Dafa. After obtaining the Fa, I always regretted having found my predestined relationship with Dafa so late in time.

Why didn’t I have any thoughts on this at an earlier time? Later, after reading Master’s other Fa lectures, I realised that this was all the Old Forces deliberate blocking, separating many sentient beings from Dafa. Nowadays when Dafa disciples clarify the truth and save sentient beings, it is to allow sentient beings to connect to their predestined relationship with Dafa, and it is also fulfilling their missions.

How lucky one is to come to understand the truth and enter cultivation practice in Dafa during this lifetime! One should really cherish this lucky chance! Therefore, from the day I obtained the Fa till this day, I have been making a great effort to cultivate myself. Although I am in a situation whereby I am cultivating all by myself, in my heart, however, I have Master, I have Dafa, and I feel very much at ease. I can also share experiences with other practitioners, and I have benefited greatly. I would like to take this opportunity to write out my experiences for the European Fa conference, to report to Master, and to share experiences with other practitioners.

1. Waiting for the predestined time to obtain the Fa

The Buddha school talks of predestined affinity, and that everything should follow the course of predestiny. Originally, I felt that I had a predestined affinity with Buddha, because my family all believed in Buddha and respected Buddha, and from a young age I used to repeat out loud the Buddha’s name mantra with the older generation. The grown ups used to say that my foundation in believing in Buddha was good, and that I had spiritual intelligence. In the early 90s, I heard that there was a certain Buddha school practice method training class, so I went with my friend to study. After that I practiced that very diligently for a period of time, but I did not become aware of anything, and after following a change in my living environment I set aside practice of it. Afterwards, I followed society and drifted with the tide.

Later on, when the CCP started persecuting Dafa, I came to know what Falun Gong was. In 2014, I followed the big wave of emigration with my husband and came to Latvia. At that time, although I knew of Falun Gong all along, I didn’t have an opportunity to directly encounter it. Then in 2017 when I discovered the Epoch Times website, and through the Epoch Times I came across some news and items that interested me, that I had never come across before. However, my predestined time with Dafa had still not arrived.

One day in March 2021, when I was searching for news online, I inadvertently saw a website, and after opening it I saw for the first time the book “Zhuan Falun”. I was full of curiosity and started to read it.

Not long after coming to Europe to live, I started to have problems with my eyes. One after another I went through two surgeries. And because the medicines I had been taking for a long time were unsuitable, it had harmed my optic nerves, making my vision blurry. I almost couldn’t see at all. Therefore, at the time I couldn’t look at a computer screen for a long time. Not being able to use my eyes really was a very painful experience, and it seriously affected my daily life and work. So, it took me roughly a whole week to read “Zhuan Falun” once.

My husband was afraid that my eyes could not take it and was worried all along, however I actually felt quite alright, and my eyes were not uncomfortable, and I even thought I would continue to read it again one more time. At the same time, I also started to learn the exercises. As a result, I was reading the book, and at the same time starting to learn online the exercise method according to Master’s instruction video. After about two weeks, I had finished reading “Zhuan Falun” for the second time. And at the same time, I had learned how to do the first four exercises, but at the time I couldn’t yet sit with my legs crossed for the fifth exercise.

At the time I was very pleased in my heart and felt very good. I also hoped that my husband would practice together with me, that we could share experiences with each other, and that we could benefit from it together. Although he learned how to do the exercises with me, because people from mainland China have been brainwashed very severely whilst growing up, he found it very difficult to accept the Fa principles of Falun Gong. But I felt that it was very good, and couldn’t really stop doing it – perhaps this was my predestined relationship that had arrived. In this way, after persisting in studying the Fa and practicing the exercises for over 3 months, I discovered that when I went to put the drops in my eyes, my eyes did not feel comfortable, so I stopped taking the medicine. To this day it has been two years, and I haven’t used the eye drops since.

2. Entering cultivation practice, and coming to enlighten to Fa principles

Master, in his selected Fa teachings, often told us to study the books more, and how each time we read the book it seems different, and I experienced this. When I read it for the third time, I started to realise that the traditional value system that my family originally preserved was good, and furthermore I had found the crucial reason why those things that I had learned postnatally from school and that had been instilled into me from society were in conflict with my family education. After reading Master’s selected teachings from around the world, I was truly moved, and realised that this is actually the truth of the universe! The more I read, the more I could not stop reading. I did not want to read the news anymore that I was interested in among everyday people and would look at everyday, and I just wanted to read Master’s Fa teachings. It was as if a completely new understanding of the origin of the world, universe, celestial body, and life, and a new explanation of the true meaning of cultivation practice for a human life had been opened up for me. I immersed myself in Fa study and exercise practice, and wondered why there wasn’t enough time.

At that time my husband began to worry that I would experience “cultivation insanity”, because he had never seen me get so absorbed in and put so much effort into something like this before. He had many worries in his mind. I told him that Master had taught in one of the lectures that “cultivation insanity” doesn’t exist whatsoever, so I read it to him. Frequently I would encourage him to listen to Master’s Fa lectures with me, but he would feel sleepy, and would say he couldn’t take it. However, I was very happy in my heart, because I was happy that I had finally found what I had always been looking for and had come to understand many things that I didn’t understand before. And it seemed like I had found the real reason why I had become more and more conflicted and had felt a contradiction more and more between body and mind the more that I had lived previously. This indeed was the real predestined relationship with Buddha during this lifetime!

3. Experiencing tribulations, passing through tests and difficulties

Just when I had finally started to completely immerse myself into obtaining Dafa, during the time when I was happily cultivating and practicing by myself, during the end of 2021 my husband suddenly died of illness! When I had not yet even completely accepted the reality of his passing away, many problems of life and living that I was required to face by myself came one after the other, and I felt very stifled. In my innermost mind and heart, I felt a lot of suffering, very lonely and full of despair. The life that I had originally thought was stable and that I was used to had come to an end.

At that time, because of my eye disease, messages from my professional work on my mobile phone and computer were, usually, mostly dealt with by my husband, so actually I didn’t know how to use even the most simple operating system or communication software. So, I would silently recite in my mind continuously: Falun Dafa is good! Truthfulness Compassion Tolerance is Good!, these nine true words. Every time I would hear the music of “Pudu” or “Jishi”, my mind would become somewhat calm, and I felt very comfortable.

So that I could get in touch with other Dafa practitioners, I specially went to buy a local mobile phone, but was not successful. At this time, my eyes, which had originally basically recovered through cultivation practice once again started to have problems, and my vision started to become blurry again. That was just when the pandemic was at its worst, and everybody was feeling insecure, and the government was continuously issuing all sorts of prohibitions. Therefore, I could only stay at home and continuously listen to Master’s Fa lectures and practice. After practicing and studying for a period of time, I could already start to do exercise 5 with my legs crossed. It started with ten minutes, to fifteen minutes, to twenty minutes, until finally I could sit for 36 minutes in tranquil meditation.

Master started to instruct me, and sometimes in my dreams He would appear, and my mind would be lucid, but at the time I didn’t enlighten to it, and just did things without awareness, following what I felt. However, very miraculously, the series of programs that Dafa disciples had done broadened my train of thought about cultivation practice, making my faith and righteous thoughts in cultivation practice more steadfast. I also came to a further understanding of the difficulties that Master has encountered in imparting the Fa, as well as of the efforts Dafa disciples have put into validating the Fa, as well as their enormous hardships, which have left behind shining examples for the world.

I unknowingly came to understand that although I currently live by myself in a foreign country, I am not lonely in heart and spirit, however, because I have Master, I have Dafa, and have other practitioners.

Following my continuous Fa study and increase of exercise time, I have been unknowingly making changes to my mind and body. I am no longer swept along by suffering and despair every day and am able to handle all sorts of matters with a calm and tranquil state of mind. Master also started to arrange those with predestined relationships to help me handle various matters left over from the passing away of my husband, enabling me to practice cultivation with ease. These are also things I enlightened to after going through many things.

In the beginning I would feel very tired when practicing every morning and evening, until later on I would feel uncomfortable if I didn’t practice for a day, it really was a qualitative leap. In the beginning, I would sweat all over when doing an hour of standing exercise. Often my clothing would be soaking wet, and after finishing the exercises, my whole body would feel light and comfortable. When doing the sitting meditation I would experience bone piercing pain and aching torment, and I would also feel a warm current diffusing from the top of my head downward to my thighs, from the depths of my body outwards. That feeling was truly wonderful! Many bad states in my body were also unknowingly readjusted, it really was splendid.

After about a year, I started to emerge from the shock of my husband passing away, and started to realise that everything was related to my karmic retribution, and it was also the first major test that I had encountered in my cultivation practice. Not only is cultivation practice serious, sometimes I also felt that it was very difficult indeed. No matter how difficult it was, I should face it, and shouldn’t evade problems, and even more so I shouldn’t look for excuses for not passing tests and tribulations well. At that time, I continuously encouraged myself to persist, to hold fast, and to be steadfast. I gradually came to experience the realm of tolerance or forbearance, a special spiritual realm that people who practice cultivation have.

4. Miraculous things that I experienced during cultivation practice

My first miracle was that, whilst continuously shedding tears, my eyes were not blurry anymore. Because I was not able to see the computer screen clearly, I listened to Master’s Fa lecture every day, and when I was sitting there, I would yawn continuously, tears would flow, and it was like this every day, and I didn’t know where so many tears came from. My eyes nonetheless felt very relaxed, and the pain in my optic nerves gradually faded. Also, once when listening to Master’s Fa lectures, tears were flowing while I was asleep, and before I had even opened my eyes, I saw that from my right hand side temple flew out seven or eight black coloured things that looked like moths, and what I saw was very clear.

When I was practicing the standing exercises I would also yawn, and tears would stream forth, although not as many as when I would listen to the Fa. Sometimes, when I was reciting Teacher’s “Hong Yin” poems from memory, tears would also stream forth, and it was completely beyond my control. Sometimes I would also think, wasn’t this showing that more than seven years of eye drops were being expelled out of my body? Anyhow, when tears flowed, I would feel very comfortable, and gradually my eyes were not blurry anymore, and I could see characters clearly again, and I could also read Master’s Fa lectures online again.

The second miracle was that it seemed as if my eyes were being reassembled anew. Since last February, my eyes started to become blurry again, all the way until around June when they recovered. All along the corner of my left eye, which had been operated on, wouldn’t open, but after cultivation practice, when I would cry it would feel comfortable. Otherwise, it would feel dry and coarse, and feel tight, and it felt very uncomfortable. So at the time I didn’t have any thoughts, but just placed cultivation as my priority, listening to the Fa, practicing the exercises, and listening to experience sharing of other practitioners on the Minghui website, searching for and comparing myself against the situations where I had not done well, and corrected myself in time. In this way, unknowingly, when doing the fifth exercise one day at the end of October, I found I could do it for an hour. After having practiced for about 40 minutes, suddenly my eyeballs, eye sockets, and all around the eyes started to pulsate, very intensely bringing about the shaking of half of my head. This continued for about ten minutes, and within my eyes I could hear a snapping sound, as if an electronic hand was assembling something. Upon the conclusion of the exercise music, it stopped. After a while, I gradually opened my eyes, and my left eye, which I had had trouble opening in a regular fashion, opened immediately in a very relaxed way. I quietly cried and felt grateful for our merciful and great Master!

5. Concluding words

After I had decided to practice cultivation, and to move from being an everyday person toward being a cultivator, different sorts of everyday people’s distracting thoughts, and attachments, like countless intangible small mountains, continuously obstructed my faith and willpower. Especially being a practitioner who practiced cultivation by myself, and who wanted from my inner being to integrate with other practitioners, and to walk into a cultivation environment, I, however, did not find other practitioners. As a result, I especially experienced the difficulty of passing tribulations by myself, and I also felt that persisting in being diligent in cultivation was an added difficulty. So, I often encouraged myself to practice cultivation well, because Master most certainly knew of my sincerity and determination, and that this was to improve my enlightenment quality, and for me to follow my own path in cultivation practice. Master enabled me to feel that He was by my side strengthening me on many occasions, teaching me, and blessing and protecting me.

Slowly I began to form a habit in my mind, not only to chant: Falun Dafa is good, Truth Compassion Tolerance is good – in my mind, but also to repeat the phrase: Assimilate to Dafa. Bathed in the Fa’s light, steel your will, eliminate karma and sever attachments. After regularly repeating and repeating these phrases in my mind, I could persist in cultivation practice, and didn’t find passing trials and tribulations to be so difficult anymore.

On my path of cultivation practice, I deeply felt that Master had arranged everything for us so well, with such a good standard, and that everything that we need is all there, and that it is just a matter of whether we find it, enlighten to it, and in the end obtain it.

Master said in his poem called “Falun Dafa” in Hong Yin:
“Cultivating gong has a path
Mind is the way
On the boundless sea of Dafa
Hardship is your ferry”

From the day Dafa has been spread to this day, it seems as if it is not difficult to hear about Dafa and to come to know what Dafa is about, but to truly come to understand Dafa and to walk into cultivation practice is not actually that easy. I felt how Master has enabled us to realise the importance of saving sentient beings, and also felt that I have a mission. I deeply thank Master for his merciful saving grace!

Heshi

(Selected article for the European Fa-conference 2023 in Paris)