Western Couple in Australia: From Seeking Health and Fitness to becoming Fa Rectification Falun Gong Practitioners

This is an experience sharing from a young married couple from England who moved to Australia to study, and started to practise Falun Gong just over six months ago. They shared their experiences that they have had whilst cultivating in Falun Gong at a small, informal gathering recently.

Practitioner A:

We came across Falun Gong in July of 2004. Since then there have been a great many changes. To begin with we were just looking for a practice for health and fitness and to reduce stress. Little did we know that this would be the start of a whole new life!

We read China Falun Gong and immediately recognised the goodness of the practice. Shortly after, it was decided to show Master's lectures on video at our local reading group. We'd read a chapter of Zhuan Falun (the core text of Falun Gong teachings) the night before, or just hours before the corresponding lecture was shown. This was difficult both physically and mentally, but got us quickly on the path of cultivation.

For several months we had many questions and emotions running through our minds. Our human notions brought up many objections or "challenges" to the teachings, but usually almost immediately, upon continuing to read, the questions were answered. For me, only one main objection remained, based on some comments made by Master about man having always lived on the Earth, side-by-side with extinct creatures from the past. I am doing a doctorate study in paleontology and since I study fossils for my job, I found this very hard to comprehend. This plagued me for some time before I decided to just let it rest in the meantime.

Having had all our initial surface questions answered by Zhuan Falun, and driven by a curiosity for knowledge, I began to search for more information. Another practitioner loaned us the Sydney lecture and I looked on the Falun Gong websites to find new articles to read. We sometimes felt overwhelmed as the enormity of the Fa (law or principles, the teachings in Falun Gong) revealed itself.

Practitioner B:

Meanwhile we were still unsure if we wanted to continue practising Falun Gong. For me, my human notions were quite strong and I was afraid of giving up attachments, fearing that through this I would lose my identity and become less of a person. It took a long time to realise that it was fear that was holding me back, an attachment that is still being eliminated. I have studied martial arts on and off for almost half of my life. Whenever someone would ask me why, I knew in my heart (even if I did not say it) that it was because I didn't want to be afraid anymore. I can now see that however much I studied and trained, and however capable I became, that would just be covering up this fear. Now through the Fa, I am finally able to address and eliminate this at a fundamental level. The fact that this has happened in the past six months when I was unable to do anything about it for the last 15 years has shown me what personal cultivation is all about.

We had always thought that we were good people and that it would be easy to give up the few attachments that we thought we had. We had not realised that as we had grown up and started our independent lives, we had imperceptibly drifted further away from Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance, unaware of what we were losing.

Practitioner A:

After returning from a trip to the UK to visit family last September, our minds were made up to persevere with the practice and we began personal cultivation in earnest. It was then that our first major body purification happened. Our attitudes changed, we became kinder, more tolerant, tried to be more truthful and take things lightly, and we were infinitely happier, more relaxed and glad to be losing attachments. We also no longer felt any embarrassment for being practitioners, as we felt more able to fully explain the practice to others.

The more we studied the Fa, the clearer our thoughts became. We realised that as we accepted so much of what Master had said as being true, who were we to question the bits that we did not understand yet? It was then that many human notions formed from our education and social interactions began to fade away, and there were no barriers left to impede our progress.

Now we are steadily working our way through Master's new articles, increasingly enlightening to the Fa-rectification and no longer shocked about revelations such as giants co-existing with dinosaurs!

We at first felt that we were so far behind everyone else, that they were so busy with activities to let more people know about Falun Gong and the persecution that is taking place, and it felt like we were being left out a little, somehow excluded from learning more. Of course, we realise now that this was the result of an attachment, mainly on my part, to wanting to be involved, valued and included. However, it was actually a necessary period of time for us to make all the adjustments in our thinking first. As soon as we were ready, many opportunities arose for us to help clarify the truth, and we were able to do it so much better too, because attachments had been eliminated and we understood the true meaning of "saving the world's people,"

Sometimes the weight and responsibility is enormous and almost too much to bear, but we feel that even though we still have much to learn, as long as we are diligent, continue to study the Fa every day, send forth righteous thoughts, get up earlier to do the Falun Gong exercises and help more people learn about the persecution where we can, we will succeed.

Although some Falun Gong practitioners who have been practising for a while have commented on our determination and how fast we have made progress, it is they who have set the example for us. The community of cultivators has been invaluable in helping us find our own path.

Thank you Master, thank you all.