PureInsight | April 8, 2017
[PureInsight.org] One summer a few years ago, I stopped over in one European country upon completion of a business trip. The short stay was meant to be a vacation while visiting a couple of practitioner friends who just moved there. I somehow wound up at the group exercise site where local practitioners gathered. They rarely meet practitioners who speak Chinese. A few of them came over to chat with me, and I noticed one of them spoke English particularly well. My eyes were instantly attracted to the pendant around his neck, which was the Chinese word “Shan (善)”. As a senior Chinese government official was about to come to visit, local practitioners were preparing some truth clarification activities right then, and they were trying very hard to recruit me. I did not feel it was a good idea to include a Chinese-looking face in the activities they planned to do, so I offered to help with materials instead. While our conversations continued, the man said to others in English, "Please remember she’s here on vacation." That is for true, I’ve been in awe of the culture and history of this country. The man and I did not talk much, then he asked me what my surname is, which is a kind of unusual as who cares about last names if it is unlikely that we’d be in touch again. Nevertheless, I told him my last name after a slight hesitation thinking that he’s a practitioner so that it shouldn’t matter. He confirmed it and we waved goodbye.
I felt a little bit unfair, so I turned to another practitioner and asked for his last name. Anyhow, I was touring around in the next few days, feeling a deep connection with this land. On one island, I turned to look at the historical relic that was from thousands of years ago. I’ve yet to feel any emotions in my heart or in my mind, tears already gushed out of my eyes and trickled down my face… Another unusual sensation was that I kept touching my ring finger to feel the void there, as I took off my wedding band after my late husband passed away several years ago. After I got back to the capital city, I began to develop an unspeakable affection to the practitioner who speaks very good English.
Bearing this emotional burden, I returned to the U.S. I had no appetite for days, as everything I saw and heard were reminding me of the sky and land of the country and strengthening my attachment. I clearly felt that this Qing, or attachment, was a material thing. It was very palpable and close to my heart. The attachment gave me a sensation of ancient sorrow and a sense of inexplicable guilt as well. It was so sad that I even cried once. Yet, I had no desire to physically possess that man in any way. For weeks, I could not get out of this state of feeling powerless. Frustrated, I finally went to consult a practitioner friend. Her advice was to face it directly (approach him) if my righteous thoughts "failed”…
I dug out his email address and sent him a short note. It was so carefully drafted that my friend laughed at it and said that it was like a business memo. Indeed, I wasn’t actually sure what I’d say, as my rational mind told me that there is no overlap between my world and his. A week passed by, I received no response, and my symptoms remained. I sent the note again, and almost instantly, the matter that was creating the pain in my heart receded. Actually, I never received a response, but my life and cultivation gradually turned back to the normal state soon after this second attempt.
The symptom largely disappeared, but I still thought about him every so often in the following months, and I still felt the deep sorrow.
Then one day when I was doing the fifth exercise, several big clouds, like those typically seen in ancient Chinese paintings, emerged in my view. I was descending with these clouds onto an island, where I saw a great hall with magnificent marble pillars on. Then I saw a fair young woman dressed in a long sleeveless white robe with her blonde hair pulled up in braids. She was riding on a horse with a much darker skinned man in a short sleeveless white robe. I sensed it that was me and him in our previous lives, though we did not belong to the same social class. And while I was in a different race, the man looked exactly like what he looks this lifetime. The image then changed, the woman was lying on the ground. She was crying badly and stretching one arm trying to reach out as far as she could. Following the direction her arm was pointing to, I saw the man was thrown on the ground, face down, and a group of soldiers wearing a small helmet were beating him with something like a long stick with a blunt head. It looked terribly brutal. Then I saw the last image. The man now stood up by the hill, holding a stick and a small bundle wrapped in cloth, turned to look at me.
Everything is so clear now. It was Master’s benevolence that rendered me an explanation. I felt I’ve paid back what I owed him, and I’ve not met him though I went back to the country several times since. More interestingly, once I went with others to his flat (he was not in, so his place was the study site for the local group), I noticed there was an oar on the wall. I thought I figured out what he was beaten by in that life.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/node/156507
