The Power of Compassion: My Experiences in Cultivation

My name is Veronica Melliti and I am a Falun Gong practitioner in Italy. I started to practise Falun Gong at the end of 2004.

Before practising, I suffered from numerous, incurable health problems. One day, by chance, a friend gave me a leaflet about Falun Dafa. I read the leaflet and then went home to download China Falun Gong from the internet and proceeded to read the book and learn the set of five exercises. Later I joined the group in our city where we get together and read the Falun Gong teachings. I realised that my exercise movements were somewhat inaccurate. However I felt well while practising the exercises and my whole body experienced a hot sensation. On the first two days of practising the exercises, I felt a comfortable feeling that I have not experienced for a long time. I felt my heart fill with boundless bliss. I remembered at that time when I explained Falun Gong to all my colleagues, they all knew the principles taught in Falun Gong, "truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance".

I came across Falun Dafa while seeking a solution for my health problems. This notion and attachment brought about some negative results later on. Not longer after I began to participate in collective practising of the exercises and studying of the teachings, my health problems re-appeared. I felt puzzled, thinking my situation was caused by the fact that I was not acknowledged as a Falun Dafa practitioner. On one hand I was unable to get rid of the expectation of improving my health, whereas on the other hand, I realised that the idea was an attachment. These two conflicting hearts brought about quite a lot of stress. I kept telling myself that I wanted to be a practitioner and that I shouldn’t be thinking in such a way.

When I truly and wholeheartedly wanted to give up this idea and came to see our real goals of cultivating during the Fa-rectification period, these thoughts simply melted away. One day, I enlightened to the issue of needing to save people and let them know about Falun Gong and the persecution. Suddenly I enlightened to the principles behind doing the ‘three things’, dissipating my worries. I came to realise that our goal in cultivation is to rescue sentient beings during the Fa-rectification period.

On the path of cultivation, every step that I took after falling is very important.

There were other Falun Gong practitioners in the city I live in. I remembered when I participated in the Fa-studying group for the first time, I was yet to finish reading Zhuan Falun. I was still reading Essentials for Further Advancement II I could not even understand half of the content of their discussion. It was like entering into a different space. When I went home, there had been voices of doubt, resistance and complaints all the time in my head. That evening I decided that I wanted to fully understand and to cultivate. Thanks to this environment, I immediately began doing the three things required of us, that is to study the Fa [the teachings of Falun Dafa], send forth righteous thoughts and clarify the truth about Falun Dafa and about the persecution to the world's people.

At that time, several practitioners in my city went to Manhattan to take part in activities to expose the persecution, those remaining were all new practitioners. We practised the exercises and studied together, doing out best to do the things that a Falun Dafa practitioner should do. It helped me a lot to be with everybody, filling me with confidence and courage. We organised activities to expose the persecution each weekend and tried our best to perfect the materials that we were going to hand-out. We encountered some small problems at the beginning, yet we were firm and worked very hard. I felt Master was with us. I felt more than once that we were surrounded by mercy. I was unable to control my tears.

After The Epoch Times published the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party¹, we decided to go to Prato in middle Italy where a lot of Chinese lived. The Italian edition has not been translated, and we read only the first commentary. However we knew it was extremely important for people to read this so as to have a chance to learn the truth. We set out after filling the automobile with the newspapers, and distribute hundreds of Chinese edition of Nine Commentaries within two days. Many of the Chinese people who we encountered looked hesitant and even a bit afraid, yet they were also curious about the three westerners who distributed the newspapers. The next day, some already greeted us, and the atmosphere was already getting warmer.

All this happened in the initial stage of my cultivation. Looking back I think Master Li has arranged my cultivation in such a way as to encourage me and accompany me to take the initial steps.

There were not many practitioners in Italy, and each of us had to do a lot of projects. I tried my best, yet I encountered other problems in the process of cultivation. I felt powerful when I did the three things along with other practitioners and was elevated quickly at the beginning, yet everything suddenly became very difficult. In fact I had been engaging in a bad kind of thought struggle with myself, yet I did not have the ability to fundamentally remove them. Conflicts began to appear in my family life and between me and other practitioners. In short I encountered a lot of obstacles. I felt I was not advanced enough, and the evil was finding loophole in me. I studied the Falun Gong teachings, sent forth righteous thoughts and told the truth, yet I felt wrong and very uncomfortable.

Master says in Zhuan Falun:

"Whenever we can’t get through a pass in our practice, or whenever our qi isn’t able to come down, we should check our character for the cause—“Have I lingered at that level for too long, and now it’s time to improve my character?” When you truly improve your character you’ll see that it comes right down. When you only focus on transforming your gong and don’t focus on changing your character, you know, the problem will stick around until your character improves, and only then can sweeping changes happen." (Sixth Talk)

I think the only solution is to study the Falun Gong teachings more and pay attention to my thoughts, trying my best to maintain pure, righteous thoughts. I began to read one lecture of Zhuan Falun each day. I got up very early in the morning to practise the exercises. I knew that if I really tried my best that Master would certainly help me.

One day I opened "Falun Buddha Fa (Lecture at the First Conference in North America" I read:

" ¬. . . The main problem is that you haven’t taken spreading the Fa seriously. You have obtained the Fa, but there are still other people who haven’t yet. In fact, let me tell you that no one in today’s human society should be a human being. What’s meant by this? In a rather ancient historical time I had already made arrangements to teach this Fa. In addition, what’s being taught is such an immense Fa—the Fa of the entire cosmos . . . . Since such an immense Fa is being taught in human society, think about how remarkably easy it is to assimilate one person. Let me draw a most simple analogy: If a piece of sawdust drops into a furnace of molten steel, it will vanish in a twinkling. It would be effortless for an immense Fa such as ours to assimilate a person like you, to eliminate your karma, to remove your improper thoughts, and so forth. Given that the Fa’s power is so mighty, why don’t we do it this way? We can’t do that in the society of everyday people, because cultivating that way wouldn’t be considered cultivation. Rather, it would be regarded as re-creation, which would mean discarding you completely and re-creating another person. So you have to genuinely cultivate in order for it to be you, yourself. Many xinxing tests will nonetheless come up during the course of practising cultivation, and friction will arise from poor cooperation among students as they try to handle things properly for Dafa, and so on. All of these are inevitable—you just don’t realise it."

Tears rolled down my cheeks. I understood at that moment that I was thinking of myself as an ordinary person, while in fact I came to save sentient beings. I enlightened to the fact that the power of Compassion, that is held by every practitioner, is limitless.

Master had shown me the way and so I felt that I should be firmer in my cultivation. I know I should cultivate myself in order to more persons can have the opportunity to learn about Falun Gong and enter into the future.

From that day on, my world has changed. Those bad thoughts were gone, and everything became easier. The contradiction in family has also been resolved and my level of tolerance and compassion has lifted. This is only a little step along my path of cultivation. Now I have gained a new understanding of being responsible to myself.

I hope that I can treasure what I have enlightened to, so as to do better in the future.

Note:

1. Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party: Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party is a series of essays published in late 2004 that reveal the true nature of the Communist Party. The Nine Commentaries have led millions of people to renounce their membership in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and come to gain a clearer understanding about the wrongful persecution against Falun Gong. "A book that has shocked all Chinese around the world. A book that is disintegrating the Communist Party." http://ninecommentaries.com