Cultivating for One Year

[PureInsight.org]

I reached the pivotal point of my life during Easter 2012. My search had finally come to its conclusion. My lifelong quest had culminated.

I studied mathematics, physics and philosophy. After receiving my degree I took a job as a mathematics and physics substitute teacher. However, my true self must have sensed that there was more to life and, thus I made a great effort to take a course in biblical Hebrew scripts at a university, either before or after teaching my classes.

As I was overloaded by taking on teaching and the Hebrew script course, I came down with severe pneumonia, which almost ended my life. I refused to take medication, and at the time I ate only raw natural products because I had lost faith in doctors and the sciences.

After regaining my health, I worked as a scientist at a research center. I took great pains during that time. But, I felt a little out of it, and I had lost the meaning of life. Daily, I sat in front of the computer, forecasting where and how people might live 20 years from now, which I understood as… meaningless.

I was stressed one week before the end of my probation period. Therefore, I resigned, although I knew very well that it just might significantly affect my livelihood and it could possibly result in my being blocked from working for a government agency. I wrote a farewell letter, although in hindsight I should have refrained from doing so because it was quite egocentric, to all 800 of my co-workers. I stated in the letter that science would not help the advancement of humanity.

I was in limbo for about one month, eating only lentils and pudding daily. Also, I gathered herbs from the woods. During that month, I realized that I no longer had a job and what I did over the past three years was only to deceive myself. And over those past three years, I held the belief that living on a strict vegetarian diet would help me overcome illnesses and be successful in my quest for the meaning of life, but nothing of the sort happened.

During Easter 2012, one month after I gave my resignation, I was at the end of my rope. I had given up everything I held dear in the past. How could I go on? I prayed while in bed and asked those that were listening to help me.

I did a search of the term “Enlightening” on the Internet and found an article. Shortly afterwards, I was engrossed in a lecture from a conference that negated all that I had understood so far. It was, “Teaching the Fa at the International Experience-Sharing Conference in Beijing” by Master Li Hongzhi.

Through what I read, I was told that there wasn’t just one god, but many gods at different levels. Then I read about the 3,000 worlds in a grain of sand! This didn’t surprise me at all. At the time, I thought that this was just a perceptual thought. I also came to understand that nothing seen with the eyes was real. This was actually confirmed by modern physics. I was stupefied because I had found the Fa. But, still today, I have to be careful not to dissect the Fa with my scientific knowledge.

I can’t express how deeply grateful I am to Master. Master saved my life. Now, my life is for cultivation.

I didn’t stop reading, thus, I read the entire book of Zhuan Falun within one week. In retrospect, nothing could disturb me any longer, because I had given up my ego and asked for nothing.

Slowly, I returned to a normal human life. I contacted a practitioner in my city who taught me the exercises. That summer, I went to the park daily to do the exercises. Exercising some evenings with a veteran practitioner was of great help to me. The practitioner also introduced me to sending righteous thoughts. One time while meditating with him, I felt that I was elevating, which reinforced my belief in the Fa.

A few months later, I was offered, with no effort on my part, a job in a distant city, thus I had to move. I got rid of a lot of my possessions. At that time, I wanted to fit in and return to the life of a scientist, in order to save sentient beings.

During the first months, I was sustained by my initial enthusiasm for the Fa. Everything was so easy. Although, I couldn’t open some documents concerning the Shen Yun test, I took the test anyway, without having prepared much for it. This was because I was within and dedicated to the Fa.

Tribulations began for me when I went with a colleague, whom I barely knew, to the cafeteria. We wanted to talk, but he stuttered badly and turned red, which was the end of our conversation. Later, such bizarre situations kept occurring and I thought he was possibly in love with me and that I was in love with him, too. I couldn’t speak when I went to his office for a talk. The entire floor was saturated with the cologne he was wearing. I was under the impression that Master had sent me the man who I was destined to marry.

I could barely work and lost my concentration, which made me think that my human emotions were still much too strong. About two months later, I realized that this was the life and death test for human emotions. It wasn’t necessarily an erotic lust test. My true self knew better and I was ashamed in my heart because of my strong feelings; however, I couldn’t talk to anyone about this.

I studied the Fa with a practitioner in another town, which gave me the impetus to bring up my problem. She said, “You’ve got to let go of your human emotions.” I knew that she was right, but I didn’t want to let go.

Christmas had arrived, so I took two weeks leave. During those two weeks, I suffered through intense pain and I was deeply depressed. Afterwards, my mind returned back to normal. I understood that the pain was just an illusion. I continued to read the Fa diligently so I could escape the death trap called ‘emotions’. I used every opportunity to read with practitioners in the Sonant chat room. However, that strengthened another attachment, which was watching the clock like a hawk. I had to be in one chat room by 8:00p.m., and then in another by 9:00 p.m.

My heart wasn’t calm and I felt that I couldn’t live without the other practitioners in this town.

A veteran practitioner suggested that it is also important for practitioners to read on his or her own to understand the Fa more deeply. Reading daily in the Sonant chat room isn’t necessarily the solution. Besides, the thought of having to read with others and being unable to do it on my own, became another attachment. I realized that I should be able to do things on my own, which doesn’t mean that I should stop reading with others, but I needed to eliminate this attachment of dependency. This was the beginning of my reading the Fa and doing the exercises occasionally on my own.

Then, there were many disruptions during the winter season, which I couldn’t figure out. My heating pipes for hours were so loud that I couldn’t read on Sonant. It was difficult to concentrate when reading the Fa on my own. Besides, the many Dafa projects I was involved in kept me busy and stopped me from taking steps to bring the Fa to people where I lived.

I was extremely busy with Shen Yun and NTD projects. I was busy covering up something and it took a long time to get the point of it. I wasn’t interested in doing well as a co-worker of a scientific team because the assignments were boring. Additionally, working on the computer was tiring. I just didn’t hold any righteous thoughts towards my duties. I actually wanted to be a part of NTD, so I could prove myself. My ordinary job didn’t give me the opportunity to prove myself. I wanted to prove that the Fa was true, so I was deeply torn.

One morning I translated news for NTD, made something to eat and then rushed to work. I live pretty far from my job.

There was a question that often haunted me: was my life on the right course? At times, I couldn’t think at work because I was extremely exhausted. After Daylight Savings Time changed, I slept on average about 5 hours. To be honest, when I was told that NTD would no longer produce news from Germany, I was relieved. Certainly, I wanted to help Master rectify the Fa. But, everything should happen naturally. I had taken on too much in my cultivation. I still had the attachment of wanting to achieve something.

That evening, when I recognized my shortcoming, I could tolerate the pain when sitting in the Lotus position. Before, I could only endure 2 minutes of pain. However, this time, I sat there for 30 minutes and the pain receded after a little while.

A passage in the jingwen Dafa Disciples Must Study the Fa, helped me return to my senses:

“Some people, once they run into actual problems, have no interest in overcoming them, as they only want to be happy; when there are problems between them and others, they don’t search inside themselves, and will admit no wrong even when they are at fault. If you don’t cultivate yourself, how are you to help me rectify the Fa? How am I to make use of you? If all you want are days filled with happy things, then I suppose that as a part of having you help Master rectify the Fa I’d have to arrange happy things for you to do, and have you call the shots, and make you the center of things in order to have you do this. But there’s no such thing.”

Master has given me so much. I want to cultivate openly and genuinely and bring to my new home town the Fa.

(Submission to the 2013 European Falun Dafa Experience-Sharing Conference in Copenhagen)