PureInsight | May 6, 2002
I obtained the Fa in August 1999, one month after Jiang Zemin and his regime had started to illegally suppress Falun Gong. It happened that one of my colleagues was a Dafa disciple. I used to discuss qigong with him, as I was very much interested in it. Then one day he gave me a book – Zhuan Falun. I finished reading the book in one sitting and was tremendously shaken. Since then I have cultivated in Dafa.
Like many others, when I was a child, I enjoyed reading A Journey to the West, the legend of a Buddhist monk on an arduous journey searching for the genuine scriptures. I also read Fengshen Yanyi, a legend about the founding of Zhou Dynasty (1027-771 B.C.E.), in the course of which gods assumed images of human bodies to assist in the process, and other mythological stories. I was very much entranced by the spiritual quality and fairy realms described in these books. Likewise, I had always asked myself why I came to live in this world and why I had had such a strong awareness of my own existence. In the early 1990s, when qigong flourished and was at its peak, I "buried" myself in the libraries among all sorts of qigong books, and learned to practice qigong according to the instructions in the books, which messed me up and weakened me physically. This left me bewildered. My questions were answered only when I read Zhuan Falun. What struck me most at the time were these several aspects:
Why Gong Does Not Increase When Practicing
When I came to the section in Zhuan Falun entitled, "Why Doesn't Your Gong Increase with Your Practice?" I understood why I did not advance, although I had previously practiced qigong for a long time. "While competing for personal gain, you want to improve your gong – how can that be possible?" (From Chapter One in Zhuan Falun) When I was practicing qigong, indeed I did not know of the importance of xinxing cultivation. I was looking for so-called tricks, digging out almost every qigong book in the libraries. In the end, it was just like what Master has said: I messed up my body and made it worse.
Curing Diseases
One of my uncles also used to practice a qigong. When he learned that I was interested in qigong he did guanding (pouring energy into the top of the head) to me. He also demonstrated one of his supernormal abilities to me. From then on I had some energy. Hence, driven by an attachment, I started curing people. When I emitted energy to others, they felt comfortable and made complimentary remarks, which then stimulated my desire for fame. What followed was what Master Li spoke of, "In order to save one's reputation, what's on one's mind while treating illness? 'Please let me have this illness so that the patient can be healed.' … He will go home with the illness while the patient is healed" (From the section "The Issue of Pursuit," Chapter Two in Zhuan Falun). After that, because I had a very strong attachment to healing people, whenever I sat next to sick people I could see the sickness moving to my own body as soon as the thought to heal rose in my mind. Naturally, in those days, I was sick almost every time when there was flu going around. I was very puzzled by what was happening. When I read this section of the book, this puzzle that had plagued me for years was instantly solved.
Possession
Before I learned about the Fa, I read all sorts of qigong books seeking supernormal capabilities. Therefore, I was possessed. Yet I did not realize it was bad; on the contrary, I felt conceited. After I read several dozen pages in Zhuan Falun, all of a sudden my celestial eye saw a very wide beam coming from heaven. The beam then destroyed that spirit possession. That instant shocked me and made me aware, immediately, that the book I was reading is extraordinary and every principle elaborated in it is true.
Attachments
Driven by attachments, when I was practicing qigong, I attempted to write about an article on some of my qigong experience. I was trying to put together the things that I got here and there in one place. The moment I started to write, however, I felt that the qi I had cultivated started to leave me. I now understand that what I meant to write at the time would damage people. So that feeling of qi going out of me was probably a punishment.
Likewise, when I told others about what I saw through my celestial eye, I would find that the eye would, for quite some time, become blurred or blind. Initially, I found it absurd, but later I learned from the experience and stopped talking to others about what I saw. When I finished reading Zhuan Falun, I came to realize there were two reasons for that: First, when I was talking about things in other dimensions, I used to have an attachment to showing off, an attachment that must be removed. Second, these types of supernormal things should not be told to everyday people who do not cultivate. It would be like telling heavenly secrets.
The Purpose of Being Human and the Goal of Cultivation
In Zhuan Falun Master teaches us: "One should return to one's original, true self; this is the real purpose of being human." (From "Genuinely Guiding People Towards High Levels," Chapter One in Zhuan Falun) "Though this portion that we teach among everyday people is not religion, its goal in cultivation practice is the same. Both try to achieve the state of unlocking gong, enlightenment, and completion in cultivation (From "Practising Only One Cultivation Way", Chapter Three in Zhuan Falun). When I read these sections, I came to see that all those years what I had been searching for was exactly this. All material interest in the human world is just like "scattering smoke and clouds" whereas rising to higher realms and returning to where life was created is the most beautiful and eternal.
Translated from:
http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2002/4/7/15283.html
