I was leading a happy life as a civil servant, when one day in 1999 I was on the way to my office. It was around noon. I had just been practising some qigong (exercises for cultivating "qi" or "vital energy") in the recreation room. It had cost me more than a thousand US dollars to learn. I met a colleague on the stairway who practised with me before. She had been very diligent, but suddenly she just stopped coming. I was surprised, so I asked her why she stopped coming. She replied: "I am practising a better form of qigong now." A few days later, she gave me the book that contains the Falun Gong teachings, Zhuan Falun, and told me that Falun Gong cultivates both the mind and the body, and that those who practise Falun Gong truly cultivate themselves. While I was reading the book, I also learnt the five sets of Falun Gong exercises from her at the office. Soon after, I attended a Falun Dafa 9-day lecture class with a few dozen colleagues in the service department. From then on I started to practise Falun Dafa.
For a person who had never sat in meditation before, practising the fifth Falun Gong exercise was a big test. In the beginning, I could not sit with both legs crossed, but even with one leg crossed, the leg was upturned like an "anti-aircraft gun". I encouraged myself with Teacher's words in Zhuan Falun,
"When it's difficult to endure, you can endure it. When it's impossible to do, you can do it."
I extended the time of sitting with one leg crossed from half an hour to an hour; from sitting with both legs crossed from five seconds to five minutes. I improved day by day. Early one morning two years later, I endured pain that also made me feel dizzy when I sat in meditation with two legs crossed for an hour for the first time. For several years, I have strived to practise the fifth exercise for an hour every day with few exceptions. During my sitting meditation every day, although I still feel a lot of pain in the latter 30 minutes, I know clearly that I ought to endure it, because I do not know how much karma I have accumulated in my past lives. Teacher has eliminated most of the karma for me, and left me a little to pay back each day. It is already too easy. After I remind myself that cultivation is indeed hard and part of it involves paying back the karma that I had accumulated in the past, the pain in the legs seemed to disappear unconsciously, just like Teacher said,
"After passing the shady willow trees, there will be bright flowers and another village ahead".
Before I started to practise Falun Gong, I suffered from insomnia, pain in my waist and back, and even an irregular heart beat for a long time due to stress, and I took medicine for three years. After I practised Falun Gong, the illnesses all cleared away without my noticing. The changes in my moral character were especially obvious. In the past, if I saw others get promoted or make a lot of money from trading stocks, I would be envious and jealous. I even became sleepless when others made a big profit via the stock exchange. After becoming a practitioner of Falun Gong, I understood the principles of no loss, no gain. When you gain more, you will lose more. Practitioners allow things to happen naturally, and must give up all attachments.
Upon seeing the changes in me, my wife also started to practise Falun Gong three years ago. Since then, our lives have greatly improved and we are a lot happier. We get up at 4:30 a.m. almost every day and then together go to a nearby park to practise the exercises. We go to practise together, whether it is severe winter, hot summer, windy or raining, even in typhoon season. After practising the exercises, we drive to work in Taipei. During the one-hour drive, we listen to Teacher's lectures, and together recite Lunyu (preface to Zhuan Falun), Hong Yin (a collection of the founder of Falun Gong's poems) or Teacher's new articles.
At 11:55 every day, except for special reasons, more than ten other practitioners from my workplace and I send forth righteous thoughts in the meeting room. Every time I send forth righteous thoughts with my fellow practitioners, I feel the whole world to be full of peace and serenity. The energy seems especially strong.
We join other people who practise Falun Gong to read the Falun Gong teachings at a place that is close to my home once a week, attend the English reading on weekends, and join the reading in our office at noon every Monday. We study Zhuan Falun, share experiences and understandings, and improve together. After work, on the way home, I share what I have learnt with my wife. Sometimes we listen to Teacher's lectures together. When we get home, after dinner and clean up, we study the Falun Gong teachings together, and then translate articles. We go to sleep after sending forth righteous thoughts at 12:10 A.M. Our day is orderly and simple, but we are happy every day.
Since I started to practise Falun Gong, whenever I introduce myself, I proudly say I am a Falun Gong practitioner. I also tell people the benefits I have gained physically and spiritually. I carry Falun Gong materials with me, when I go abroad with fellow practitioners to introduce Falun Gong or for business meetings. I take opportunities to bring the wonderfulness of Dafa to people with predestined relationships all over the world, expose the truth of the persecution, and strive for the support of international justice, so this extremely cruel persecution can end sooner.
I hope the one hundred million Falun Dafa practitioners in China can also practise Falun Gong freely and happily, like the practitioners in Taiwan and other places in the world.
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