My Experience of Quitting Smoking

I would like to share with the young practitioner whose article, "My Return to Dafa" (http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2008/6/24/98415.html ) was published on June 24, 2008.

While reading the article, I came across one sentence, "At the time of writing this article, I have not played a computer game for two months! In the past I had wanted to quit, but I could never stop for more than ten days." Based on my own experiences, I would like to state that we should remove our human attachments or we could miss our chance for which we have been waiting eons.

My understanding is that we all have various attachments, and if we want to fundamentally remove them, we have to study the Fa to strengthen our abilities to restrain them. One of the attachments I had was smoking cigarettes. I started studying the Fa in 1996 when I was 43 years old, and by then I had already been smoking for thirty years. This attachment had been bothering me for most of my life and I had tried to quit several times but failed. Due to heavy smoking, my lips turned black and blue, I coughed up phlegm, and developed various diseases. After I obtained the Fa, I decided to quit smoking. Through Fa study, I knew that Teacher was purifying my body for me, but I still put that dirty stuff in my body. In order to quit smoking completely, I became strict with myself whenever I craved a cigarette. Finally, I managed to quit in a short period of time and I really felt like I was reborn after that. Smoking brought much physical torture and tribulations and after I broke away from it, I felt great relief and was very happy. I kowtowed in front of Teacher's picture to express my gratitude to Him for removing a huge burden that plagued me for over 30 years.

Since my understanding of Dafa was very shallow at the time, I was only grateful towards Teacher superficially. As my physical health improved, I developed a glowing complexion. I enjoyed participating in social activities such as weddings, parties with colleagues, etc., and I tended to indulge myself on such occasions. In the very beginning, I refused cigarettes that were offered me, but later, I thought that only one cigarette wouldn't make any difference, and I gradually started smoking again. It started from one cigarette in one or two months, to one in two weeks, to one in ten days, to one in three days, until it got up to several in one day. I felt so bad that I gave up cultivation. One year later around August 1998, I determined to quit smoking again and I returned to Dafa. I found a practice site and joined in the group Fa study and practice. I calmed down a lot through Fa study and I learned lessons from my failure to quit smoking and act as a Falun Dafa practitioner. I assuredly told people who offered me cigarettes that I had given up smoking after I began practicing Falun Gong. Gradually, the external elements could no longer influence me. Ten years have passed and I have not smoked since then.

I would like to suggest to this fellow practitioner with the addiction to video games to base everything on Fa study and happily tell people who you know, "I am a Falun Dafa practitioner. I no longer play games." As long as your thoughts are righteous, Teacher's Fashen and righteous gods will not allow for any interference from the old forces, not even if they instigate ordinary people to interfere with you. I would like to offer a word of advice to fellow practitioners who still smoke while cultivating, to eliminate this attachment. It not only harms your body but also gives people a negative impression of practitioners. We are assisting Teacher in Fa-rectification and are manifesting Dafa's goodness. As practitioners, we should meet higher requirements in order to save more sentient beings.