PureInsight | June 6, 2005
[PureInsight.org] My name is Xu Yunxuan. I am a young Falun Gong practitioner in Taiwan. I started practicing Falun Gong in 2002. I experienced the biggest change in my health during the first year of my cultivation practice. For the entire year, I did not need to go see a doctor. Occasionally I would cough or have a running nose, but I knew Teacher was cleaning my body for me, so I would ignore the symptoms and go on with my life as usual. Each time these symptoms would disappear quickly.
Although I also began to improve my moral character, I did not make as much progress as with my health during that first year. Each time I quarreled with my older sister or other kids, my parents would remind us that we should control ourselves and take the opportunity to enhance our moral characters. My parents would also take the opportunity to remind us of Teacher's words. I remembered my sister and I once had a very long quarrel and we wouldn't get off each other. Finally Mom decided that she should intervene. She told us, "What is the purpose of studying the Fa anyway if you don't live by it? You two constantly throw your virtue back and forth between each other. You rarely seem to treasure your virtue." My sister and I finally stopped quarreling. We did not think of how much virtue we had lost to each other or think of searching inward for our own attachments and upgrading our moral characters. My sister and I didn't conduct ourselves as cultivators, so we kept on finding each other's faults. It seemed so difficult to be a cultivator!
Since I started attending one of the Minghui Schools in Taiwan, the volunteer schoolteacher has been asking us to fill out "Self-Examination Forms" so I can search inward every day. During the process, I have found a lot of my attachments. For example, the last time my mother and I distributed Falun Gong's truth-clarification material together on the streets, very few people took the material from me. While I was filling out the "Self-Examination Form," I searched inward and found it was because I was a little timid. That was the reason why I gave up after having distributed just a few copies of truth-clarification material. Because I didn't have enough righteous thoughts, very few people took the materials from me.
I also had a strong attachment to gluttony. Once I kept feeling sick for two days. I did not have any appetite, nor did I feel hungry at all. I did not even want to touch my favorite dishes. On the Friday evening before we went to the group Fa study, my family and I went to a noodle restaurant. As soon as I walked in the restaurant, I felt nauseated and sick to the stomach. I didn't touch the food at all. On the third day, I felt much better and began to eat. I think Teacher was trying to hint at me that it's high time to eliminate my attachment to gluttony. However, one day after I recovered my appetite, my attachment to gluttony got the better of me again. It appears that I am still very attached to gluttony. It is a very strong attachment.
I also have an obvious attachment to vanity. I didn't like my fingernails and always envied others who have better looking fingernails. I had even developed a bad habit of peeling my fingernails to release my frustration with them. Later I saw the finger impaling torture at an exhibit that enacted some of the torture methods used on Falun Gong practitioners in China. Compared to the agony of torture, the lack of beauty of my fingernails is nothing. I have become a lot less attached to the appearance of my fingernails and have stopped paying so much attention to my fingernails.
I really appreciate the homework of filling out the daily "Self-Examination Chart" required by the Minghui School. It has given me lots of opportunities to search inward for attachments and upgrade my moral character. I have become less interested in quarreling with other kids. I have also learned to search inward first before I quarrel.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2004/7/30/28432.html
