Recalling My Experiences of Cultivating in Falun Dafa

In September of 1995, a recent college graduate joined our department. She told me that she was a Falun Gong practitioner. Before we left the office for the day, she went back to her dormitory to bring me a copy of Zhuan Falun. When I opened the book, the first sentence that caught my eye was:

"Throughout the ages, only the BUDDHA FA has been able to completely explain human beings, the various dimensions of material existence, life, and the entire universe." (Zhuan Falun)

As I read it, suddenly joy swept through my mind and body.

After arriving home from work, I started to read Zhuan Falun and was totally absorbed. I couldn't explain with words my amazement and excitement when I read it for the first time. I was so excited that I couldn't think of anything. I sat there stiffly for a long while. Eventually I regained control of my awareness and began to read it again. I read it twice without stopping. By four in the morning, I was still wide awake.

I had decided to practise Falun Gong. I had the feeling that practising Falun Gong was inevitable. I told the practitioner who loaned me the book that I would practise Falun Gong and that I would let go of my attachments to fame, self-interest and qing.

On the following night while I was sleeping, I suddenly awoke and found I was flying. While rising gradually, I felt inconceivably wonderful. My mind became very clear. I felt happy and tranquil, which I had never experienced before. My mind seemed to fill with wisdom and I could understand everything. As I continued to fly, I reached a starry sky beyond the horizon. It was like the starry sky shown in the exercise instruction type. A voice told me to look at a small light-blue celestial body and then informed me that it was the earth. As I looked at the earth, my mind was filled with pity. I sighed and said, "The earth is so small and insignificant."

In September the following year, I set up a new Falun Dafa practice site in the city where I lived. After getting in touch with other practitioners and sharing experiences with them, I began to realise how far I was lagging behind. At the group study, I read for the first time Teacher's article, "True Cultivation," and heard about the Fa principles of "passing tests" and "karma-elimination." All of this shocked me greatly. I urged myself to cultivate more diligently. Through experience sharing, I began to have a clear understanding of Dafa cultivation.

Thinking back, I had a very strong mind to cultivate diligently, and I was longing to ascend to higher levels. Teacher and Falun Dafa had become of paramount importance in my life. Teacher's compassion and the Buddha Fa shone on every place and every moment in my life. I always thought of myself as a cultivator. Every morning when I woke up and every night before going to bed, I thought of cultivation. Each night before going to bed, I would recall whether there was anything I didn't do well. Had I followed Teacher steadfastly and put his teachings into practice?

When a fellow practitioner came to visit me one day, I asked her to help me correct my exercise movements. Hardly before my voice completely faded away, the video recorder beside me turned on by itself. It then re-wound itself and the play key was pressed down. We were both stupefied. The practitioner said, "Teacher wants you to watch the instruction tape and follow the instructions to correct your own movements." I was happy and amazed to know that Teacher was always beside us.

I was so excited when I personally witnessed some extraordinary scenes of the Fa. Instead of understanding these experiences from the Fa, I treated them with a human mentality. My complacency and show-off mentality surfaced unknowingly. I let my imagination govern my thoughts and was eager to tell other practitioners about my experiences. I got very excited. When I turned on the video recording again, I saw a shocking scene. The shape of the Falun on the screen had become distorted. The colour became abnormal and the sound was a cacophony. I realised right away that Teacher was warning me! My over-heated head was shocked into awareness and I immediately calmed down. I began to examine my mind and realised it was a very serious mistake to treat the extraordinary Fa with ordinary human thinking. I put my palms together and asked Teacher for forgiveness. Everything became normal when I turned on the video later. Through this experience, I clearly recognised that cultivation is very serious. Through this experience, such principles of the Fa as "truly progress in comprehending the Fa and rise above human understandings and notions" and "a rational, true understanding of Dafa!" ("Cautionary Advice" from Essentials for Further Advancement) became deeply imprinted in my mind.

Before I started to cultivate in Falun Gong, I suffered mentally and was inflicted with serious illnesses such as allergic rhinitis, headaches and rheumatism. It was very painful when my illnesses flared up. I took large doses of drugs to deal with the pain. After a long period of taking drugs, I became resistant to their effects. Even when I took a whole bunch of drugs, they still couldn't achieve the desired result. When the allergic rhinitis erupted, it lasted for more than half a month. I had a deep understanding of the feeling as described in the following saying, "it feels like a mountain collapsing when an illness strikes, and the feeling of reeling silk off from a cocoon when an illness disappears."

I remembered clearly the first time my sickness karma appeared. As the evening approached, my allergic rhinitis began to surface and became more serious during the night. The colour of my nasal mucus was yellow, green, brown, red and black. The amount of mucus was huge. Since I was aware of the principle of sickness karma, I was calm. I only had a slight worry. From my past experiences, my nasal passage would be blocked completely. My mouth would be parched and my tongue scorched. My head would be dizzy and swell. I wouldn't be able to sleep. I thought that without taking any medicine to help relieve such strong symptoms, there would be lots of suffering. But actually, I fell asleep quickly. When I woke up in the middle of night, I was surprised to find my nasal passage was clear and my breathing smooth. My whole body felt good. My rhinitis, which had bothered me for the last twenty years, has disappeared for good.

Not only did my rhinitis disappear during that miraculous night, so did my rheumatism. This illness started when I was ten years old, living in the countryside. It had bothered me for twenty-five years. My knee would swell and ache whenever the weather changed. It would migrate to other parts of my body. When I was young, I would cry because of the pain. Even during the hot summer, I needed to put on a kneepad. After I began to cultivate in Falun Dafa, I could lie on a concrete floor to sleep. I still wonder at Teacher's immense compassion.

Before starting cultivation, I was attached to "qing" and could not free myself. Besides suffering physically, I was emotionally unsettled. It was Teacher who got rid of my karma. Teacher has saved me and allowed me to rise to higher levels in Dafa. I wrote about my experiences just to say how lucky I am to be able to cultivate Dafa. I am so fortunate! I am indebted to Teacher's vast and mighty compassion.

It is our compassionate Teacher and the great Buddha Fa that have appeared in my life. Millions of Falun Dafa disciples have witnessed the remarkable and outstanding Buddha Fa in this human world.