PureInsight | September 23, 2002
It is a great honor for me to be able to share my cultivation experience with everyone here today. It also provides me with an opportunity to accomplish my long-time wish. I regained my life under our Teacher’s grace and protection. I’d like to share my past experience so that we can have some discussion about it. Please kindly correct me if there is anything inappropriate.
At this same time of year in 1998, my worry-free, happy life ended. My father’s death broke me apart since I was his favorite child and he cherished me as much as he could. I hadn’t yet recovered from my extreme sadness when a fight over inheritance started. The situation reminded me of an old saying: “Love exists when people are alive and love goes away as people die.” After my father’s death, I fully understood that old saying. Under such merciless stress, one day, I thought hopelessly, “Daddy, what can I do? I want to die. Please come and take me to your place.” All of a sudden, I heard my father’s voice telling me to be as tolerant as possible. Tears came out of my eyes. “Tolerance, how difficult it is!”
As I was deciding to be strong and face reality, more bad news came into my life. I suddenly discovered I had a lot of blood in my urine. One exam after another, I suffered badly both mentally and physically. Finally, my doctor told me that I had kidney cancer. My left kidney had normal function but there was a 0.9 cm cancer cell mass. My right kidney had shrunk and didn’t have any normal function at all, with some indications of becoming cancerous too. I was shocked to death. As I was lying on my bed, what came to my mind was this: “Maybe the universe doesn’t want me anymore, maybe it wants me to die.” Although I was treated with surgery, I just couldn’t recover. I spent most of my time in bed every day, and getting over the illness became my biggest chore. My husband helped me with meals and we hired a woman to clean our home. I even begged my husband, “Please marry again after I am gone. But please be very nice to my two daughters. I will give you everything I have as long as you treat my children kindly.” At that moment, I realized how helpless a life could be and how hopeless a mother was without being able to take care of her kids. On the other hand, I decided not to seek any further follow-up examinations or treatment. I knew that my health was taking a turn for the worse. More examinations would do nothing but cause me more pain. So I simply continued to take traditional Chinese medicine.
Time passed by like this day after day, and on September 21, 1999, I went through the great earthquake in Taiwan. The earth shook like crazy and no one could stand still at that moment. I crawled out of my home. Many of our neighbors belongings broke into pieces, and even the roofs of the houses cracked. But our house was surprisingly undamaged, even tables and chairs were unmoved. The only thing that was broken was the jar that I used to boil my Chinese medicine. Now looking back, I understand that Teacher was giving hints to me already. Since I didn’t practice at that time, I couldn’t realize the true meaning of the old saying “If you are not sick, you can always find fake medicines. If you are really sick, you might not be able to find any real medicine.” I also spent lots of money on Qigong treatments. I begged and accepted all sorts of abuse just because I was afraid that the Qigong master would not help me if he were not pleased.
At the beginning of the year 2000, the immigration petition we had applied for 10 years previously was approved. I wanted to give my children a free and relaxed learning environment, and going to America was the only thing that I could arrange for them. Therefore, with my poor health situation, we came to the United States in November. I wanted to live as long as possible without burdening my family members. My husband insisted on taking me to a hospital for an exam, but I refused. He said to me, “Please try to live for 10 more years so that our youngest daughter will be in high school.” I replied, “Nonsense! Even if I did have a choice, why would I want to leave her alone?” It was January in 2001. My husband started to search hard on the Internet. He collected a long list of various Qigong groups. Finally, he selected Falun Gong. I quickly contacted an assistant at our local practice site. To my great surprise, he came to teach me the exercises immediately. He also helped me record the music for the exercises and lent me the book Zhuan Falun without asking for a penny. In order to express my sincere gratitude, I gave him a small box of candy as a gift, but he politely declined even that. He told me that I didn’t have to thank him. He would be happy for me as long as I practiced Dafa seriously and got well quickly. My frozen heart felt warm again.
So I obtained Dafa. When I read Lecture Four in which Teacher mentioned the interchange between “De (virtues)” and “Yeli (karma),” and so on, I felt as if those words were written specifically for me. All my confusion was clarified and my questions were answered completely. The feeling of being unsatisfied deep in my heart disappeared just like smoke, or like clouds dispersed by the wind. I firmly made up my mind that I should walk steadily along the path of cultivation forever. If I hadn’t had those tragic events in my life before, I would still have had that very cozy and comfortable life. If that were the case, it would be just like what Teacher said in Lecture Two of the book: “If you live comfortably among everyday people, with a lot of money, and if your bed is padded with money and you have no suffering, you would not be interested if you were asked to become an immortal.” After I read this, I began to understand that I should not hate those people who made so much trouble in my life. Instead, I should be truly grateful to them. Teacher wrote in Lecture Four of Zhuan Falun, “There is another principle in this universe: You have suffered a lot, the karma in your body will be transformed. Because you have suffered, however much you have endured will all be transformed into an equal amount of virtue.” As I read these sentences, my heart that was unsettled for so long suddenly felt at ease and was filled with peace, and I felt as joyful as one who just drank some pure, sweet spring water. I could endure all that suffering without any complaint.
After practicing Falun Gong, the first tribulation that I met with was to test the illness issue and my xinxing at the same time. All of a sudden, my previous symptoms of bloody urine appeared again. I had a high fever for 20 days. Some of the time I felt cold, and other times I was hot. I couldn’t even drink a drop of water. Teacher said in Lecture Two of Zhuan Falun: “In ordinary human society, you compete with others for fame and personal gain. You cannot sleep or eat well, and your body is in very bad shape. When your body is seen from another dimension, the bones are all black. With this body, it is impossible for you not to have any reactions. Thus, you will have reactions.” Teacher also said it clearly in the section of Lecture Six in Zhuan Falun titled “Your Mind Must be Right”: “At a certain point in time, you will be made unable to discern clearly whether something is true, whether your gong exists, whether you can practice cultivation and make it, or whether there are Buddhas and if they are real. In the future, these situations will surface again to give you this false impression and make you feel as though they do not exist and are all false – it is to see whether you are determined.”
Although I understood the Fa that Teacher has taught us, I still had a feeling of unfairness in my heart since I wasn’t one who had fought for personal benefit. Rather, I was the victim and had to suffer miserably from all those troubles. I began to feel abused, and sometimes I couldn’t help crying again. But when I read Teacher’s article called “Sickness Karma” from his book Essentials for Further Advancement, the following sentences caught my eye: “As a matter of fact, a person does not know how many lifetimes—in each of which he has accrued a great deal of karma—he has gone through. When a person reincarnates after death, some of his sickness-karma is pressed into his body at the microscopic level. When he reincarnates, the new physical body’s matter has no sickness-karma on the surface (but there are exceptions for those with too much karma). What was pressed into the body in the previous life then comes out, and when it returns to the surface of this physical body the person becomes ill. Yet the sickness usually appears to have been triggered by an external condition in the physical world. This way it superficially conforms to the objective laws of our physical world. That is, it complies with this human world’s principles. As a result, everyday people have no way of knowing the actual truth about the cause of the sickness, and they are thus lost in delusion without being enlightened.”
Thus, I realized again that these were my own tribulations and I must endure them. This was already the lightest I was allowed to suffer. On that day, I told Teacher in my heart that I would not cry for any tribulation from now on. I truly did it with Teacher’s help. I was sure that Teacher was supporting me because before I had started practicing Falun Gong, I always felt very vulnerable and cried a lot.
When I had to make a trip back to Taiwan to take care of some matters, I couldn’t wait to see my mother. When I hurried to her place, my Mom dared not to believe it when she saw me. To her, I was like a totally different person. She became faithful to Dafa and started to practice herself. My mother was also a kidney cancer patient and had her left kidney removed just one year after I had the same surgery. She is now quite healthy after one year’s cultivation. My two daughters saw their Mom become capable of running and dancing, so different than just lying on the bed all the time as before. They began to practice Dafa without saying a word. To our surprise, my little daughter’s asthma and skin allergies disappeared without any treatment. Before, I often worried about their health and was planning schools and their futures. I even worried about who they were going to marry and had started saving so we would have plenty of money for their weddings and not be financially strapped when the time came. Now I have put down all these worries since they have obtained Dafa, and Dafa is precious and priceless.
During the course of eliminating my karma, I had two miraculous experiences. One day, I clearly saw a person who looked like a pirate from ancient Western tales. He was facing me and held a long knife. He was taking the knife slowly out of it sheath and was pointing it toward me. I was scared and called in my heart loudly: “Teacher! Teacher!” Then I heard a sound and the knife broke in half and dropped back into its sheath. His hand was still holding the knife handle. He looked down at the knife in sheer disbelief and then disappeared. Another time, I suddenly heard loud cursing noises near my ears. It was so bad that I couldn’t tolerate it anymore. I was still amazed at what was going on when I saw gold and silver lightening shoot out from the open Zhun Falun book. Then everything returned to a state of peace. I knew that Teacher is always protecting us from any danger. I moved up step by step along the cultivation path with Teacher’s great care. Now I can tell everyone that I am a happy practitioner. I will remember this forever: One test, one tribulation, one level up in the universe. Knowing Fa, one can pass any tribulation. Cultivating Dafa, synchronizing with the nature of the universe, and returning to one’s true self are the happiest things that one can do in one’s life. I believe that some day when I recall all of these events, I probably will have some new insights. That means that I have made progress again. I want to thank Teacher for his kindness in saving us. Thanks to my fellow practitioners for all the help they offered me when I had difficulties.
Translated from:
http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2002/7/30/16923.html
