PureInsight | February 7, 2005
[PureInsight.org] It was the summer of 2000 when I met Lynn. That summer we had a free Falun Gong nine-day class at a local college. It was just months after Jiang Zemin and his followers started to openly persecute and slander Falun Gong on July 20, 1999. Because of the Chinese media's hate propaganda and smear campaign against Falun Gong, very few Chinese people had been attending our classes, and nearly everyone who attended the classes had been a westerner. This time a fellow practitioner coordinating the nine-day class told me a lady from Mainland China had signed up for the class. She expressed her interest in Falun Gong over the phone. That lady was Lynn.
When I met her, I asked her, "Have you not heard of Chinese Communist government's hate propaganda against Falun Gong?"
She replied, "I refused to subject myself to those lies by the Chinese regime after I immigrated to Canada. I was studying in Beijing when the June 4th Massacre occurred at the Tiananmen Square in 1989. One of the students from my school was hit by a stray bullet on the head and died, but CCTV (Chinese Central Television) claimed that the Chinese police did not use any bullet or violence and not a single student had died. My faith in the Chinese Communist regime died a long time ago."
"What motivated you to learn Falun Gong?"
"I must have a predestined relationship with Falun Gong. One year ago, I moved from eastern Canada to this city. I lived in an apartment building close to the river. Every morning I would take my kid out for a walk along the riverside. On each walk, I experienced a strange phenomenon that I couldn't explain: Each time I walked towards the west of the riverside park, my legs started aching terribly. Each time I walked towards the east of the riverside park, my legs would stop aching. After having experienced this strange phenomenon, I started to wonder, 'Perhaps there is something wonderful that awaits me in the east of the riverside park?'" Then she remembered a strange experience she had in the past.
It was at dawn several years ago. In hindsight, it was an important day to Lynn. She lay in bed, and was about to fall asleep. She had been looking for something in her life although she wasn't quite sure what it was that she was looking for. She knew she was attracted to all types of qigong for some reason. She had read the books of many different cultivation schools. She talked to people with various religions or spiritual beliefs in China and in Canada to learn more about their belief systems. Eventually, she realized that she wanted to how life began and the meaning of life. But she didn't know what to believe in although all of her friends had the same religious faith and had all tried to persuade her into their religion.
That day she started to wonder, "Is this what I want?"
She was not certain of it, but she couldn't find what she was looking for. "Where is my real teacher who can guide me?" she wondered.
While she was lying in bed, about to lose hope in finding her spiritual belief, an orange circle of light appeared before her eyes. Next she heard a very gentle and kind voice, "My child, you don't need to have a religion. You have already found what you are looking for." Lynn opened her eyes right away and looked around her. She asked that voice, "Who are you? Where are you? What have I found?" There was no reply. But Lynn believed that the gentle voice came from her real Teacher. Since then, Lynn has been looking forward to hear the gentle voice again.
The strange experience at the riverside park reminded Lynn of that gentle voice. She decided to look for the incredible power that kept trying to take her to the east side of the riverside park. She started to take her kid for a walk towards the east of the riverside park every morning. Each day she would progress a little more towards the east until one day she finally saw several young men practicing a type of gentle exercise. She was very touched by their peacefulness. She went up to them and asked them what they were doing. When she found out it was Falun Gong, she decided to learn right away.
It happened that we were about to have Falun Gong nine-day class at a local college, so she signed up for the class right away. On the first day of the class, I brought and loaned Lynn a copy of Falun Gong. I didn't teach her Falun Gong's exercises on the first day. I thought, "It's better that she reads Falun Gong first before I spend time teaching her Falun Gong's exercises." Little did I expect that she turned up in class the next day like a completely different person. She became very cheerful. She had finished reading Falun Gong during the night. On the second day of the class, she sat down on the floor and tried to cross her legs and put them on top of each other, which is known as the Full Lotus position. She did it. She could do the Full Lotus at the first attempt. It is very rare for anyone to be able to do that on the first attempt. Most people need to practice for some time before they can do the Full Lotus. She told me, "I have finally found my Teacher." It turned out that our compassionate Teacher had been looking after her for a long time before she found Falun Gong. Teacher even physically led her to Falun Gong.
Lao Zi said: "When a wise person hears the Tao, this person will practice it diligently." Lynn appears to be a wise person. Once she decided to cultivate in Falun Gong, she started right away and practiced it diligently. She studied Falun Gong's books and practiced Falun Gong's exercises diligently every day. When her attachments surfaced, she was determined to remove them at their root.
At the beginning of her cultivation practice, she was reluctant to give up day trading stocks for profits. One day the printer had a paper jam while she was printing one of teacher's lectures. She removed the jammed paper from the printer and glanced at the content. It contained a Falun Gong's question regarding trading stocks for profits and Teacher's answer.
Teacher said, "You know, getting paid for your work or for doing brainwork, or if you have a big business, or if you have the ability, all of these are normal ways to make money and it doesn't matter how much money you make. That's earning money through proper means, and it doesn't matter how much you earn. I never feel quite right when speculative means are used, because there's a principle in this cosmos called 'no loss, no gain.' Perhaps when you've gained that money, you don't know how many goods things you've lost because you didn't give out anything in return. Stocks go up and down, and people's hearts also move along with them. How can you cultivate while doing that? While some get rich, it's quite possible that there are others who are driven to jump off buildings. The truth is, trading stocks is precisely gambling. Then as a cultivator, should you gamble? I'd say no." (From "Lecture on the Fa at the U.S. Midwest Conference")
Lynn started to feel it might be wrong for her to day trade stocks, but she thought, "I can use the profits from stock trades to print Falun Gong's truth-clarification material and to help people poisoned with the Chinese Communist government's lies to learn the truth about Falun Gong. When she tried to print that specific page again, the paper jammed at the exact question. She tried for the third time, and the paper jammed for the third time at the same question. It finally registered to Lynn's head that Teacher was hinting her to be a righteous person. She thought, "I must earn money through proper means. I must not earn money through speculative means. I must pay for the printing expenses of truth-clarification materials with money I earn through proper means." She sold all of her stocks right away. That evening she practiced the sitting meditation in the Full Lotus position for a full hour. She felt joyful beyond words!
Lynn led a very simple and frugal life, but she made generous contributions to share the expenses of printing Falun Gong's truth-clarification material. Since she started to practice Falun Gong, Lynn tried to attend each and every Falun Gong practitioners' cultivation experience sharing conference. She said, "I was very touched each time I heard fellow practitioners shared their cultivation experiences. Their cultivation experiences help to reinforce my faith in cultivation practice." Each time she returned from a conference, she was generous in sharing her experiences at the conference and cultivation stories she heard during the period of the conference with local fellow practitioners who couldn't attend the conference.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2004/8/15/28687.html
