A Matter of Life or Death

Right now I must tell you that writing a sharing article like this is an accelerated cultivation process and so I am not the same person at the end of this sharing as I was when I began the first draft. As you will see, I begin full of doubt and uncertainty - to explore rather than to explain. As I am going to talk about a recent event where I was confronted with a life or death choice, I would like to say a few words about events in my life prior to this that put this specific event into some context.

I must have been about ten years old when I witnessed a terrific row going on involving my mother and my three older sisters. Tempers were flaring and painful things were being said. I was bewildered. The thought that came to my mind was: “How can these things matter so much? Have they forgotten we are all going to die one day?” I was ten years old then, in 1942.

A second incident I would like to share with you occurred somewhat later - in about 1980. After quite a long period of increasing weakness I went down with a serious illness, the scientific name of which I cannot spell or pronounce but its ancient commonplace name was St Anthony’s Fire. It was a virus infection of the nervous system and considered fatal if not caught early enough with antibiotics.

My thought then was: “If I take these antibiotics (which I did not approve of) just because I am afraid of death, wont that just make the fear of death even stronger in the future? Perhaps this is actually an opportunity!” I refused all medication and lived to tell the tale.

The reality of death has always been central to my assessment of life. Soon after that illness, I followed some advice and took death as a friend. From then on, whenever a situation arose wherein a moral choice had to be made, I would ask myself if I would be ashamed at the moment of my death of the choice I was about to make. In this way, death remained my good friend for many a year, although I haven’t always been able apply this guiding principle without fail.

My wife died after a long illness. We met at a cultivation practice retreat 33 years before and were still seeking the Way when she died…about 3 years before Falun Gong came into my life. Since death was my friend, I found it easy to send her off on a new adventure with my best wishes. I think she did the same for me in return. She never did think much of this human realm! Though for some time and for some strange reason, I would suddenly burst into tears by some innocent trigger, such as music or whilst standing washing dishes at the sink.

Death seems to keep popping into my life and then having to back off! As a Falun Gong practitioner, I survived being thrown from a tumbling vehicle at 70 miles per hour with only a minor injury – thanks to Master, no doubt!

As almost everyone here ‘knows’, I have recently been close to death as a result of 3 heart attacks in a matter of a few days and yet here I am, looking as if nothing has changed. I may even look better, and be better than before. I know some of you wonder just exactly what happened with me while also wondering what is the significance and meaning of this experience and how I dealt with it. I too am left wondering! This is a realm of delusion after all: I need the higher realm of enlightenment to know for sure.

What did I do about the 3 heart attacks? After enduring one hour of the first attack I went to my son’s room to tell him what was happening. As the pain got steadily worse I wanted relief so much and called for an ambulance. Once I was at the hospital and had had some relief from the pain, I did not want medical treatment any more. I said I was not afraid to die but this freaked out the operating room staff. My son (also a practitioner) said that I had to put myself in a position where no one – either the hospital staff or my family – would misunderstand and think badly of Falun Gong as a consequence of my actions. I also recalled that Master said no one was to leave until the end!

I could see the absurdity of the position I had put myself in and consented to the simple but skillful medical procedure in which the blocked coronary arteries were freed. I cannot pretend not to have been relieved somewhat at the opt-out. After about a week of rest, and a return to a few days of my usual routine in daily life, I was feeling great. I had left the hospital with medication that I was told I would need to take for the rest of my life but never took it. Then I was hit by another heart attack, a few days later, again at 4 in the morning.

As most of you know and responded to, a call went out to support me in my resolution to treat this as I thought a practitioner should. After 5 hours or so, the pain receded and it looked as though that was that. About 11pm that same night, I was again hit by pain gradually building up. The thought of enduring a night of pain seemed too much… calling on practitioners seemed too much too, since the first time had not cleared the problem. The pain got worse. I called an ambulance. The arteries were found to be blocked again.

What was the reality? How is it that I had failed to clear my body of these blockages at this time - or over the past 8 years? I took the medicine this time. At the moment I have reduced this to an aspirin and cholesterol reducer. I have yet to decide whether to continue with them. I now cheerfully go about my daily life as if nothing had happened.

But in fact something has happened that does make sense to me. When I first took up the Falun Gong practice, while doing the 2nd exercise I had severe pain in my left shoulder, down my arm and up the left side of my neck – almost unbearable pain from the first moment and every time after. Many of you have seen the shake in my left hand and arm. Eight years later, although the pain had greatly receded, the blockage was still there and I was aware that it had spread down over the left chest, over the heart. In actuality it had spread from where the physical heart is, up towards the left shoulder – not the other way around.

At the same time I was consciously aware of how little I seemed to have progressed towards assimilating to the fundamentals of Truth, Compassion, Forbearance. I felt called upon to do something about improving my character in a more focused way. Soon after I had come to this realisation I was hit by these heart attacks. It took only a little while for me to feel that the blockage over my left chest, shoulder, arm and neck had cleared.

I had benefited physically so much from the Falun Gong practice yet had remained stuck in this one condition for eight years. Now the blocked energy had been finally cleared. What now? Do I accept the doctor’s prescription – a dicky heart for the rest of my life – and play safe, or is my level sufficiently high that I can deny a prolonged sickness tribulation and declare my faith in cultivation practice? Is it right to do so? I was full of uncertainty over what to do.

Perhaps I had come to the time when as an ordinary person I was to die and now I am only alive because I am a Falun Dafa practitioner? Perhaps I was and still am being unlawfully tested by the old forces through a gap in my cultivation? If it is so, I should certainly deny it! In Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Europe, Teacher said:

“If you face death today—regardless of what form of death—and are completely fearless, if you aren’t concerned about it whatsoever and think, “Perhaps I’ll go to Heaven after I die,” then death will truly no longer take place. The key is a person’s mind. Our Dafa cultivation aims exactly at one’s mind—to cultivate is to cultivate the human mind. If your mind doesn’t change everything else you do means nothing. Outward acts mean nothing.”

About 6 years ago when I had finally given up smoking, I was hit by life-threatening asthmatic attacks – mainly because I had refused to seek medical help. On two occasions I was rushed to hospital under an oxygen mask. I was told when I got to the hospital that my oxygen level was so low, another two hours would have finished me. I then entered into a prolonged period of chronic asthma.

I was quite pleased about this at first – spewing up vast quantities of phlegm and clearing out my lungs – but it went on too long. I recalled a sharing by a practitioner at a previous UK Fa Conference who spoke of a long-term tribulation he could not shake off until he had followed advice to read Master’s article ‘Expounding on the Fa’ in Essentials for Further Advancement. I had taken this same advice and read this article several times. Here is an excerpt:

“As a matter of fact, this results from an inadequate understanding of the Fa by your human side. You have humanly restrained your divine side; in other words, you have restrained the parts that have been successfully cultivated and have prevented them from doing Fa-rectification. How can the uncultivated side restrain your main thoughts or the side that has already attained the Fa?”

One evening I said to myself: “I have had enough of this. I do not care about the why’s or wherefore’s of this. I have had enough. If I am paying for something, let it come some other time, or in some other way.” The next morning I woke to find the asthma gone, never to return.

I have now resolved to treat this present tribulation in this same way. I was hoping Teacher would come to the rescue. Silly me – there is no problem to be solved or mystery to unravel! I am a Dafa disciple. By doing more of the three things well, surely I will come to see things more from my divine side and act more in accordance with the requirements that are taught in Falun Gong. There is an opportunity here to advance in understanding and so in cultivation. I feel I am being challenged to take that step: evidently whether you do or do not take a pill does not determine the outcome of sickness karma. Deny the arrangement first.

I would like to finish my sharing by returning to Teacher’s ‘Expounding on the Fa’. It is an article to which I have returned again and again. This is the last paragraph of that article:

“Be aware: I am not asking you to intentionally do something. I am only trying to make you understand the principles of the Fa so that you will have a clear understanding of this. In fact, Dafa is not only to save human beings—it is also taught to all beings in the various dimensions. Your enlightened, original nature will automatically know what to do. Cherishing your human side enables you to enlighten to and ascend in the Fa. Dafa is harmonising all sentient beings, and all sentient beings are also harmonising Dafa. I have told you the solemnity and sacredness of the Fa in order to eliminate your confusion about and misunderstanding of the Fa.”

As you can see you have shared in my journey from doubt and uncertainty to some clarity and renewed faith in Falun Dafa. It is evident to us all that this has been made possible by guidance from the Falun Gong teachings, the Fa. As Teach put it in the article “Drive out interference”:

“The Fa can break all attachments, the Fa can destroy all evil, the Fa can shatter all lies, and the Fa can strengthen righteous thoughts.”

I have not forgotten the several hours in which UK group sent forth righteous thoughts for my recovery and do not discount the beneficial effects from that sending. I thought I owed it to you all to have you know more of this event of this on-going trial, as I was choosing to see it until now – and the outcome, so far. My understanding of what Teacher has said is that such an occurrence is a test for us all … It is my impression that we came though it very well!

Thank for listening: and thank you Teacher for all your blessings to us.