Let Go of Attachments and Walk a Righteous Path in Cultivation

I began to cultivate Falun Dafa in May of 1998. Since the persecution of Falun Dafa illegally began in July of 1999 I stepped out with a firm belief in Teacher and the Falun Dafa teachings to expose the persecution and show my support for Falun Dafa. I’ve been persecuted many times during the past seven years, but my solid faith in Teacher, the practice and the teachings has never been shaken.

This year I abruptly decided to lose weight over the summer to look prettier. I began to eat less every day. Sometimes I didn’t feel hungry even if I hadn’t eaten for several days.

One day I suddenly developed a toothache. I didn’t pay much attention even when the tooth hurt for a few days. Then one day in July the toothache was so severe that I couldn’t go to work. I felt I could no longer tolerate the pain (I had never had such thoughts before). I decided to have the tooth extracted the next day, even though I didn’t think it was the right thing to do. That evening I went to a new location to study the Falun Gong teachings and met a practitioner who was extremely thin. I wondered why I met her. What should I look inside for? Did I regard the toothache as an illness? I had cultivated for so many years, and I knew I shouldn’t regard it as an illness. However, it seemed to mean more than that.

When I looked at the skinny practitioner I was reminded of what I went through in 2004. I was persecuted and went on a hunger strike for 50 days to protest against the persecution that was been forced upon me, but I wasn’t as thin as she was. I asked Teacher to help me and called on every cell in my body to grow stronger. The guards sometimes force-fed me soybean powder, and sometimes they didn’t feed me anything for several days. I lost a few pounds, but with Teacher's help I escaped from the labour camp after 50 days. When I returned home I had no notion about what I couldn’t eat or what I couldn’t do. I did what I was supposed to do and ate what I was supposed to eat. I recovered and gained the weight back in no time.

I began to talk to this practitioner and asked her when she started to lose weight and when her sickness karma began. She said she used to work in a pharmacy, and all her coworkers went on diets to look pretty. She also wanted to lose weight, and began to eat less. Later, when she didn’t feel hungry she skipped meals. She lost weight quickly, growing thinner and thinner. Her family took her to the hospital for a checkup and she was diagnosed with stomach cancer. I was shocked to hear this. Then I saw that my human attachment to looking prettier was a gap for the old forces to take advantage of, and I realised why I had the toothache. The old forces are attempting to destroy Falun Dafa practitioners' physical bodies. After I understood this I soon felt hungry and wanted to eat, and my toothache disappeared.

I’m sharing this experience to wake my fellow practitioners who still have such attachments. Let’s get rid of our human attachments and walk a righteous cultivation path.