The Cultivation Experiences of Falun Dafa Practitioner Lao Zhao

Lao Zhao and his wife Lao Zhu were delighted to know that I would write an article about Lao Zhao and his experiences whilst practising Falun Gong. Lao Zhao told me “My daughter insisted that I write down my own experiences to give people a chance to see that Falun Gong is good, otherwise I am being selfish.” Lao had a genuine understanding of his two fatal tests of life and death. He also had thought about sharing his experiences in an article, but hadn’t put his thoughts into words for fifteen years.

Lao Zhao is aged seventy six and his wife is sixty five. Both of them started to practise Falun Gong in 1997 in China. In April of 1999 they travelled overseas to visit their two daughters. It was during their visit that I came to know them. Because they lived near the location where we practise the Falun Gong exercises, they made contact with me. In our first meeting we had a long chat. I was deeply impressed with their sincere belief in Falun Gong. After we had encountered each other on several occasions we participated in some activities to promote Falun Gong in our city. Shortly after that, they moved to another city.

At the end of November in 2001, my fellow practitioners and I arrived at Frankfurt Airport to welcome several German Caucasian Falun Gong practitioners who, among the thirty six practitioners, had just participated in the demonstration activities in protest against the persecution of Falun Gong on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. Among the crowds of practitioners to welcome the arrival of the western practitioners, I spotted Lao Zhao and Lao Zhu. I was surprised to find that Lao Zhao was emaciated. He seemed to have just experienced some serious illness. He told me that he had just gone through a fatal test of life and death.

Lao Zhao had never encountered any hardship ever since he had started to practise Falun Gong. Life had been very smooth for him. It was even such that he would not experience any pain during two hours of the fifth Falun Gong exercise, the sitting meditation. The others told him that his personal cultivation was good so that he did not encounter any tests. But he wondered, “There is neither karma elimination nor hardship; does it mean that my cultivation is good?”

In July of 2001, he felt extreme pains in his abdomen. Unable to eat anything, he rapidly lost weight. His two daughters insisted that he go to see the doctor. Being informed of his situation, some fellow practitioners suggested that he go to see the doctor to ease the worries of his family; otherwise the conflicts between him and his family would be intensified. Lao Zhao was advised to take it easy, and everything would turn all right. At last he agreed to see the doctor.

He was so seriously ill that an ambulance was called to send him to the hospital. After the examination, the doctor told his daughters, “The illness is incurable, he is entering the final phase of colon cancer.” The daughters dared not tell their parents the real situation. They prayed for their father’s health. They even prayed to Master Li Hongzhi to save their father. Lao Zhao was seriously ill. What’s worse, when physically examining the patient, the doctor found strange spots on his liver. The family and doctors could do nothing about his illness. The patient was even arranged to have a consultation with many medical experts and even medical specialists from America. Finally the doctors reached an agreement to operate on the diseased colon. Seeing a ray of hope, the daughters agreed with the surgery. Meanwhile, Lao Zhao felt gloomy, but he still insisted on studying the Falun Gong teachings, reciting the poems in Hong Yin and sending forth righteous thoughts. The practitioners that used to practise the Falun Gong exercises with him at the visited him in the hospital, giving him potted lotus flowers and sending forth righteous thoughts with him. One of the fellow practitioners whose Celestial Eye had opened told Lao Zhao that he had seen a Law Wheel rapidly rotating inside his body to get rid of the black substances in his body. Upon hearing these words, Lao Zhao was deeply moved. Once in a while he still doubted if Teacher was taking care of him. The fellow practitioner’s words made him feel at ease. The doctors performed surgery on him to remove one third of his colon, but he was still unable to eat anything in the hospital and looked bony. He came to realise that he should not stay in the hospital any more and thus decided to go home. After having been hospitalised for less than one month, he returned home. Pretty soon, he miraculously regained weight and weighed more than sixty five Kilogrammes. His family felt this was incredible. If he had not been practising Falun Gong, his life would have been hopeless.

Several months later during the former Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin’s visit to Germany in April of 2002, Lao Zhao and his wife, not fearing the freezing wind, participated in all the demonstration activities organised by practitioners. Who could imagine that Lao Zhao had been struggling for his dear life several months ago? His personal experiences no doubt validated the miraculous power of Falun Gong to people.

Around this New Year I met Lao Zhao and his wife again in a gathering to study the Falun Gong teachings. Last November I was told that both of them took part in the Manhattan Falun Gong Conference and the activities to promote Falun Gong there and had the pleasure to see Master in person. I felt happy for them. This time when I saw them, they smilingly told me that they had seen Master three times in New York. Once when they were walking on the road, a car stopped next to them, and then the car door opened. Wearing a merciful smile on his face, Master stretched out his hand to shake hands with them. “I felt so excited that my tears just flew down my cheeks,” Lao Zhao told me with excitement.

I noticed that Lao Zhao was still very thin though his facial complexion was quite good. Being curious, I asked him the reason for his weight-loss. He just nodded his head, saying nothing and looking gloomy. His wife next to him could not help but tell me, “This year in 2004 he was confronted with another test between that of life and death, the process of which was marked by hardships.” I was surprised at this because his previous tribulation was quite horrifying. I was curious about his second test.

According to Lao Zhao, his physical condition had been quite good since his prior tribulation. It was in March of 2004 that he started to feel something wrong with his body. All of a sudden he could not walk and suffered from malnutrition and drastic weight-loss. His daughters noticed his worsening physical conditions and insisted that he have a physical examination at the hospital. After the examination, the doctor found that he was infected with diabetes and his body was weakening because of serious dehydration. Normally one’s blood sugar index should be about one hundred, but his reached six hundred. Not until that moment did his daughters tell him that three years ago his illness had already developed into the final phase of colon cancer. But this time he was suffering from serious diabetes and his liver was found to have cancer cells. This time the doctor blamed the daughters for not having arranged any medical treatment or examination for their father in the past three years. The doctor decided to perform surgery on him to cut out the diseased part of his liver. To be absolutely sure of his condition, the doctor arranged another physical examination for him and unexpectedly found cancer cells in his lungs. The doctor said that the cancer cells in the lungs must first be treated by chemotherapy. Then further surgery would be performed to remove the diseased part of his liver. Over the past two months Lao Zhao had undergone numerous physical examinations, which exhausted both him and his family. The daughters kept complaining about the doctor who postponed performing the surgery. Meanwhile, Lao Zhao and his wife came to the understanding that Master was telling them indirectly not to have any surgery. But his daughters insisted that he receive the treatment of chemotherapy. Just as last time Lao Zhao hesitated, but finally agreed with the chemotherapy.

The treatment of chemotherapy lasted for two months during which Lao Zhao had been physically tortured. To everyone’s surprise, he was still in high spirits. A young man who had been treated by chemotherapy together with Lao Zhao was so exhausted that he had no choice but to lie in bed all day long. Unlike the young man, Lao Zhao still went outside to practise the Falun Gong exercises and hand out materials containing information about Falun Dafa and the persecution taking place against hose who practise it with his fellow practitioners, though it was very cold. He insisted on reading Falun Dafa books and sending forth righteous thoughts. During the two month period he stayed in hospital, Lao Zhao and his wife had corrected the wrong words in over forty Falun Dafa books. His family saw the difference between him and the other patients and understood that practising Falun Gong made a tremendous difference. After the two-month treatment of chemotherapy, the doctor physically re-examined Lao Zhao and was nervous about the patient’s physical conditions. The doctor found that the diseased part in his liver had not improved, but on the contrary it had worsened. When being informed of the bad news, the daughters felt overwhelmed and helpless, their minds were blank. Lao Zhao’s wife was suddenly awakened. “Isn’t this some enlightenment from Master? A practitioner will not come down with any disease. What appears is false.” She thus dumped away all the medicine as well as the herbal medicine that her relatives gave her. Lao Zhao also came to the awareness that Master had been waiting for his upgrading his enlightenment. He immediately stopped his chemotherapy. The doctors could do nothing about this, knowing that even surgery could not prolong the life of a patient who was infected with this incurable disease.

After being released from the hospital, Lao Zhao miraculously regained his health within one month. His blood sugar index dropped down to the normal range without the help of the medicine. When the doctors asked the daughters about their father’s health, they replied in merriment, “Father has recovered from his illness.” The doubts on the doctors’ faces revealed their disbelief. After regaining his health, Lao Zhao planned to participate in the activities in Manhattan with other practitioners. In last November, they decided to visit New York. His daughters were worried about his health, and asked him to stay at home to rest, or his body might be unable to stand the fatigue of long-distance flying. He told his daughters, “I am not travelling to New York for fun, but rather to participate in the Falun Dafa Conference and to take part in the activities arranged their. Master will protect me.”

I asked Lao Zhao how he was in New York. “Needless to say, I was energetic. I participated in the Falun Dafa Conference and the parade. I also handed out Falun Dafa related materials to the passers-by on the streets. What pleased me the most was that I had seen Master on three separate occasions.” “When Master held my hands, my tears fell down my cheeks. Merciful Master had protected me all the time to help me pass any fatal test,” continued Lao Zhao. One of the practitioners accompanied Lao Zhao and his wife all the way from America to their home. When their daughters hurried to see him after work, at first they were quite worried. But upon seeing their ruddy-faced and energetic father, they marvelled, “Falun Gong is really miraculous!”

When I asked Lao Zhao how he viewed the two fatal tests, he had a lot to say. He said that the two fatal tests were to testify if he firmly believed in Falun Dafa and Master. He used to work for the army and the county government. The communist education he had received had such a great impact on him that he had adapted a doubtful attitude toward Gods and Buddhas. He only started to practise Falun Dafa because his wife had regained her health through practising Falun Dafa. As a result, he started to read the Falun Gong books and thought the books were well-written. Thus he started to practise Falun Gong. But he had always thought that some parts of the books were too profound and mysterious to understand. After his first fatal test, he still failed to understand something. He still thought that his physical conditions might have become progressively worse if he did not go to see the doctor, and that medical science could still be used to cure his disease. It was this unstable belief that caused him to have his second test. At that time he had hoped to use chemotherapy to kill his cancer cells in an attempt to solve his problem. He thought that he should follow what everyone else in society does to heal their illnesses’. If the cancer cells had really been removed by chemotherapy, he would have then have a incorrect view according to the teachings taught in Falun Gong. He genuinely realised the mercy of Master. Master had seen his attachment and made use of the two tests to upgrade his enlightenment. It was through the second fatal test that he had his firm belief in Falun Dafa.

Lao Zhao had a lot to say about the persecution arranged by the old forces. It took him a long period of time to figure out this question. When confronting with his first near fatal test, he still had no understanding of the persecution by the old forces. At that time, he just felt that he was not working hard on his cultivation and thus he was stranded at a certain level and that his life may now end. Besides, he was still bewildered by some concrete details. For instance, he felt confused when being asked why the persecution against Falun Gong was still so intense since a large number of the old forces had been eliminated in the process of Fa-rectification. He knew that Master was rectifying the Fa outside the earth and that the behaviour of everyday people could not mark the process of Fa-rectification. However, he was unable to answer the question when thinking about his own illness. He was not sure if his physical conditions resulted from illness, karma elimination or the persecution by the old forces. Through studying the Fa (universal law, the teachings in Falun Gong) and communication with fellow practitioners, he gradually realised that a practitioner’s body would be filled with high-energy matter so that bacteria or negative matter would be melted immediately by the high-energy matter. He thus came to the understanding that practitioners would not be infected with any disease. As a elderly practitioner, he had put great emphasis on studying the Fa, and had a deep understanding of the Fa. As far as he was concerned, he did not consider himself as a lazy practitioner who deserved such great karma. It occurred to him that his fatal tests had a lot to do with the old forces. Later he realised that the old forces took advantage of his unstable belief in Dafa (Great Law) and had him be infected with cancer so as to shake his belief in Dafa. Furthermore, people around him had a misunderstanding about Falun Dafa. “Master mentioned in the New York Fa-conference in Last November that the old forces arranged the death of one or two practitioners to testify the belief of their relatives or friends,” said Lao Zhao. He was greatly inspired by Master’s teaching in the New York Falun Dafa conference. Master seemed to say these words for him. Fortunately under the merciful guidance of Master he passed the fatal tests.

Lao Zhao also talked about his understanding towards the Fa-rectification. He had realised that mere emphasis on personal cultivation could not qualify him as a Falun Gong practitioner during the Fa-rectification period who is supposed to cultivate himself and above all, to rescue sentient beings. He had understood Master’s teaching but found it hard to follow. Every day there were Chinese tourists coming to the city he lived in. He had found it extremely hard to tell the facts to those whose minds were poisoned by the deceitful lies spewed out across the various media channels in China. Therefore he did not patiently tell them the facts, but just picked out some individual tourists to talk to. When the other practitioners were handing out Falun Gong related materials, he would send forth righteous thoughts rather than tell people the facts face to face. He had been aware of his lack of enlightenment and had found it difficult to tell people the facts. He even wished that the death of the evil head and its followers would awaken people to the truth. He realised all his previous thoughts were wrong; it was wrong to long for changes in the secular society. After participating in the Falun Gong promotional activities in Manhattan, he was much encouraged by the Fa-rectification progress and came to understand the responsibility imposed on him. During his one-week visit to Manhattan, he and other fellow practitioners often handed out factual materials about Falun Gong to people exiting the subway. Even when the Chinese tourists refused to take the materials, he did not feel discouraged. After reading the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party he immediately understood why the Chinese people had been poisoned by the deceitful lies. Like all the other Chinese, he had been mentally imprisoned and poisoned by the communist education. The development of the communist party was also arranged by the old forces for the purpose of interfering with the Fa-rectification and destroying lives. Therefore, he understood it was his responsibility to save the deceived Chinese people. After coming back from Manhattan, he asked his daughter to buy him a fax machine. He decided to start sending faxes to China containing information about the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party.