A Seventy-Year-Old Practitioner's Experiences Memorising Zhuan Falun

I am a seventy-year-old Falun Dafa practitioner from the Maoming area of Guangdong Province. Back in 2000, I started memorising the Falun Dafa book, Zhuan Falun with fellow practitioners, but I would forget everything after two or three hours. I continued on like this for about ten days. I could not even memorise the first section, "Genuinely Guiding People Toward High Levels" (Zhuan Falun). I felt that I was not suitable for memorising the Fa (Law and principles, the teachings in Falun Gong) so I just read the book. I understand now that I was not looking at the problem from the perspective of a Falun Gong practitioner.

In May of 2004, a fellow practitioner suggested memorising Zhuan Falun. I read experience sharing articles by some practitioners that were published on Falun Dafa websites and understood that memorising the Fa is different from reading it. Besides clarifying the truth about the persecution in the morning and evenings, I'm usually not very busy at home, so I have from 9 o'clock in the morning until 4 o'clock in the afternoon to memorise the Fa with a one hour break at noon. I closed the book once I thought I had memorised a paragraph, and then recited it four to five times. If I succeeded, I would continue on to the next paragraph. Paragraph by paragraph, I continued reciting the Fa.

At the end of the day, I was only able to recite one or two, sometimes three, paragraphs. As I was memorising the Fa, I would sometimes be interfered with by thought karma and sometimes would become drowsy. Whenever interference came up, I would look inside myself and eliminate it. As for the drowsiness, at the very beginning, I would take a 30 minute break. However, at the end of the half hour, I was still tired. I would then move from the chair with a back support, to sit in the double lotus position on a cushion and continue to recite the Fa. After sitting like that for a long time, my back started to hurt and my legs went numb, so I then sat against a wall and continued to recite the Fa. Even so, I still felt sleepy. I then stood against the wall or walked around the room and continued reciting the Fa.

Based on Teacher's¹ Fa, I sent forth righteous thoughts and let those spirits which can leave me wait in the spaces around me, and for those that cannot leave me, I asked them not to interfere with me. If I was still sleepy, I sent righteous thoughts and eliminated the interference.

I had set my heart on memorising the Fa. During the progress of reciting Fa, I viewed bitterness as joy, and continued raising my level. As I tirelessly recited the Fa, more and more principles of the Fa were revealed to me. I never had this kind of experience when I was just reading the Fa, so this gave me more confidence to memorise the Fa.

A fellow practitioner asked me, "You memorise so slowly, when are you going to finish? Will this slow down your progress in cultivation?" I knew that it was a test and that persistence was the right path.

Around March, due to a change of environment, I stopped memorising the Fa for more than ten days. I thought this was not right, so I planned to memorise the Fa for two hours, from six to eight o'clock, every morning. I did not finish memorising Zhuan Falun until November. I then continued to memorise the book for the second time, when I memorised the book for the second time, I felt that I had improved and the words became easier to remember.

"When it's difficult to endure, you can endure it. When it's impossible to do, you can do it." ..."After passing the shady willow trees, there will be bright flowers and another village ahead!" (Zhuan Falun)

This is the first time I have written an experience sharing article. While writing this, I had to overcome many notions and much interference in my mind. Writing this is also part of my cultivation. I had corrected it many times and asked opinions of fellow practitioners before finally finishing it. I hope my experience will inspire more practitioners to start memorising the Fa.

Note:

1. Master/Teacher: Respectfully referring to the founder of Falun Gong, Mr. Li Hongzhi.