My Cultivation Experience

[PureInsight.org] I was told the printing house was like an ordinary factory. No need to go there because you couldn’t make much money but had to work hard. However, I got a completely different idea after working there for a while. Actually, no matter which project you were working at, as long as you tried your best, it would be your cultivation path. I had a complete cultivation experience here. It could also consummate the great disciples. Within just a few months, I experienced personal cultivation, cultivation in Fa-rectification, choice to separate from human, the sacredness of saving and clearing, plus Master’s great mercy.

Previously, I only knew that it was not easy to publish the Epoch Times newspaper every day with hard advertisement and distribution. Until I became a member of the printing team, I never knew how difficult it was to print a newspaper.

When I just came here, everyone seemed to be an ordinary person. I couldn’t feel the energy field as in other Fa study groups. There was no communication among the fellow practitioners, no open-minds, no looking inward. At lunch time, everyone was talking about the ordinary people topics actively. It seemed working was the top priority here and the best people were here because of their work performance. In fact, any Fa-rectification projects were for overall improvement. Master wanted Dafa disciples to consummate. All projects were from three things.  However, I couldn’t feel the emphasis on cultivation but only busy work. Sending forth the global righteous thoughts were not important here. Some new fellow practitioners rarely practiced the exercises. Without three things, everything was arranged by the old forces!

I grabbed them to practice with me no matter who was working with me. Some reluctantly did it with me in case of upsetting me. I wanted to have a solid cultivation environment and always talked about Fa study and practice. Some people just smiled; some gave me some bad words; and some said they had to work. I told them they should work after practice; otherwise they would never have time and destroy themselves here. There was no printing house in the heaven. Master said in “Sing A Song To Call Out To the World’s People” in Hong Yin IV, “The gate of heaven closes soon as it must, How many will return, how many turn to dust.” They looked at me helplessly and said, “Who dares to stop working?” I looked inward and found I always tried to have other people cultivate in the Fa but not myself. I was full of complaint trying to fix others’ problems.

It didn’t work. Even I didn’t leave, they would drive me away. Once I told a fellow practitioner, “We should finish practicing before lunch.” He said, “Don’t say that. They would reject you.” I was considering where I did wrong? I practiced before lunch because I felt tired after hard work. If I finished lunch, I would like to take a break without practice. We had to keep up our physical ability by more practice.

I have been in my own status for such long time and couldn’t understand what was going on outside.

So I started to solve the problems one by one. First, I should improve my physical strength. After a few hours standing, I had to finish my lunch within ten minutes to save some time for my practice. Fatigue was the product of the Three Realms and it could only restrict human. At the construction site, I did Falun Standing Stance exercise one hour in the morning and evening. So I went beyond this hardship. At the beginning, the fellow practitioners didn’t understand why I didn’t stay with them. I couldn’t go to have meal with them after work, but practiced by myself and had some fast noodles. Later, they said I did a lot more than full time worker there even I was there only three days. Nobody had bothered me.

After this process, I was transferred to the maintenance group from the printing section.

Those days I had headache every time I came to the printing factory. I could tell there was some bad stuff from another dimension. It made the fellow practitioners apathy, grow apart, lazy. My body was pressed and I felt there was a flaming mountain ahead. The lust and jealousy attachments were strengthened by the evil. Bad stuff was thrown into my space continuously. I kept memorizing the Fa and asked Master to help. Only Master knew how hard it was for me. I dared not go forward. Fellow practitioner A told me they could practice when they just came here. Now, they couldn’t find time to practice. I could tell Master was holding me tightly. An article was referred to me by a fellow practitioner and it helped a lot. I understood it rationally. At the evening of Thanksgiving, the routine was changed. A fellow practitioner told me to have dinner. I realized today’s dinner would take longer. I ate a little in a hurry and went to send forth righteous thoughts. Before that, I sent forth righteous thoughts to disintegrate all interferences. We would leave everything for the future people. Our Media would become the world’s largest Media and printing house as well. More employees and ordinary people would like to take the initiative to contact us for the business because we were the hope of all beings.

It was a long time, quietly sending forth righteous thoughts. It was the first time for me to have such power and concentration. My previous righteous thoughts were like going through the formality. I couldn’t see any changes in another dimension. Some poems from In One Thought in Hong Yin II came to my mind: “True thoughts, a grand wish, and diamond-like will; Recreate with one thought the enormity”. After the righteous thoughts, I felt the environment was changed. The fellow practitioners smiled at me and some asked me to help them send forth righteous thoughts! Before, it was hard to communicate with them!

My space was refreshed at once, and I became rational. My next day work had a qualitative change. The seemingly complicated things have become simple, and my work was very efficient.

From that time, I began to send forth righteous thoughts in full concentration every day.

I used to be in personal cultivation to eliminate attachments one by one.

In Fa-Lecture During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference, Master said, “And at even higher levels, concepts like eliminating karma, enduring hardships, and cultivation no longer exist, and it's just a choice! This is the principle at high levels of the cosmos: you think someone is good enough, so you choose him—that's the principle. 'Cultivation? We didn't arrange cultivation for him. What's cultivation? We just want to cleanse it, cleanse it step by step, all the way up. Cleanse it—it's as simple as that!'”

Master took me through the most difficult process, and my heart was completely settled in the printing house.

I have been in the maintenance team for two months. When I first came here, I just did some cleaning up and helped finding tools. The fellow practitioner taught me how to recognize the screw and nut. Later, I could disassemble something independently, know how to use certain tools and the printing process. My technique improved gradually. Normally, I couldn’t even do the entry level job. If I came here to apply for newspaper printing maintenance at the first day, they wouldn’t accept not only because I was a female but I was unskilled. After a lot of hardships, Master took me through it step by step.

Everything was from cultivation and Fa. I was unsure what I could do in the future. Everyone was watching me. It was like a process of life renewal, or development from nothing.

My cultivation has gone through another phase.

I was transferred from the maintenance department to the printing department. Apparently it was like a position transfer. Actually, my cultivation was upgraded and I needed to take an exam. I had something new to cultivate at this layer including cooperation with practitioners. If you could accommodate a fellow practitioner, you could accommodate a huge celestial body; if you could understand a fellow practitioner, you would be beyond his/her coverage.

First challenge was still the physical one. Because of the night shift, I finished working at 12 am every day. Because of the heavy workload, our daily working speed was very fast. The fellow practitioners said I adjusted so fast. However, I was very exhausted every day and I even didn’t know how I fell asleep. In the morning, I didn’t realize when my music player fell on the ground. Did it mean the assistant soul was practicing? How could I break it through? Now I understood the reason why the fellow practitioners didn’t practice that much. Then I benefited from an article from fellow practitioner A. I knew Master pulled me forward. The article talked about breaking though the obstacles and saving lots of lives by practice. It deeply encouraged me to break through. Since then, my first thing after work was to do Falun Standing Stance exercise because no matter how sleepy I was, I couldn’t fall in sleep during the practice. After a few days, one layer of degenerated substances was cleared and the lives at that layer were saved. The Dafa disciple had to undertake the karma from all beings of that layer. I remembered that Master said in the Fa at Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. Fa Conference, "I'm not Jesus, and I'm not Sakyamuni, but the Fa has created millions and millions of Jesuses and Sakyamunis who have the courage to walk the path of Truth, who have the courage to risk their lives for the sake of the Truth, and who have the courage to devote their lives to saving sentient beings. (Long applause) Each of you Dafa disciples should truly recognize who you are and walk your path well. You really are that magnificent, so you have to rationally and seriously do well the things you're supposed to do today." Thinking of the Fa from Master, I felt so happy no matter how hard the life was.

I overcame the hardship physically and tried to improve my xinxing. It was different from last time because different departments got different people. Although I knew some of them, I never worked with them and something was not exposed.

There were two young fellow practitioners. I named them A and B. Previously, I thought they were playful and fellow practitioner A also played video games. He even refused to practice and to send forth righteous thoughts with me because he didn’t cultivate seriously. I asked him why he played video game. He said, “I have nothing to do without video game. I have no wife. Or if you help me find a girlfriend, I might give up video game.” I said, “Without wife, you are not diligent already. If you have a wife, you will be even worse. A diligent practitioner won’t marry you. The versa one will fall with you together. You will be cheated if you marry with an ordinary person.” Apparently I tried to help but actually pushed him. So I couldn’t get along with the group.

He had a girlfriend now and stopped playing games. I felt Master's infinite compassion.

I had nothing to talk with them before because I only talked about cultivation. When I just came here, I felt stressful. I didn’t do group practice with them. During Fa study, we sit at the corner and study Fa separately.

What should I do? Fortunately, I went through the same process before coming to this group. I did complain a lot about their not being diligent cultivation, about no practice environment; about the inefficient coordination here, etc.

One day, a fellow practitioner who haven’t contacted me for a long time asked me how things were going on. She helped me take care of some mailing stuff. I stayed at her house when I first came to the USA, until I finished my green card process and citizenship application. No matter where I stayed and how big mistakes I made, she helped me without any complaint. I appreciated her pretty much but never mentioned this to her. I described my situation simply and she said, “I want to point out your problem today. You just feel you do well in cultivation and cannot tolerate other people’s attachments…...”

I said yes! I dropped my level a lot these years just because of this attachment. Thank you for not being disappointed at me. When I accepted these and not tried to hide it, something in my heart suddenly disappeared. I could feel its elimination and gone in a second. Any attachment was a life and alive. It controlled people. When it disappeared, the environment around me changed. I understood the inside of “the appearance stems from the mind” in my cultivation. Looking at the practitioners at our printing house, I believed they were all warriors. They have been here so many years. The coordinator undertook lots of stress that we didn’t know and coordinated so many Dafa disciples. It was easy to coordinate the ordinary people, but hard to coordinate disciples because all Dafa disciples were the kings. It was very hard to coordinate a project.

I suddenly understood people.

Master also said in Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A., “Actually, did you know that those Great Enlightened Beings have a lot of things in the heavens that they too need to coordinate and discuss with each other?”

Master also said in Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A, “So what's their state of mind? It's tolerance, an extremely immense tolerance, being able to accept other beings, and being able to truly think from other beings' perspectives. ”

When I changed myself, my surface status changed a lot. I could see other people’s advantages without any gap. I wanted to greet everyone with a smiling face. Everyone was relaxed including myself.

So I tried to communicate with fellow practitioner A. I said, “I am so sorry for my previous extreme behavior. I hope I can help you and you may have a good girl friend.” He was very happy to talk to me and said, “I have seen a lot of people who were more extreme than you. You are ok.” Then they shared with me a lot of their feelings! Fellow practitioner A didn’t talk a lot and most of the time he talked about his girlfriend. Once he asked me, “I feel I am beneath my girlfriend.” I encouraged him, “Don’t think in that way! You should be confident. There is everything in the Fa including macho, gentlemen, etc. It’s her pleasure to marry you. You should do more Fa study and practice.”

So I had communication with them in ordinary world topics and gradually in cultivation topic. I realized my serious problem was my arrogance. Actually, they helped me purely. Since I changed, everything around me also changed.

Previously I had to notify them to send forth righteous thoughts; now they called me. Once, fellow practitioner A came to replace me and said, “You go to send forth righteous thoughts and I will do it for you.” Fellow practitioner B told me to let them know when it was time to send forth righteous thoughts.

A captain was very depressed. Fellow practitioner B said, “You have to communicate with him often. It’s his mission and he has to be responsible for the Fa.” I was very surprised because he never talked about cultivation since I came here. Actually, my heart blocked the real side of the fellow practitioners. I complained that they didn’t cultivate diligently. Gradually, I understood that the fellow practitioners had deep understanding in Fa but never talked about their understanding because of lack of communication.

I got help from them on my cultivation. Fellow practitioner B reminded me that I inverted palm in sending forth righteous thoughts. I tried to explain. But he said, “Why do you try to explain? You can simply say you are tired. Can’t you make yourself a little blemish?” I agreed it was the attachment to fame. He said, “You should relax yourself and you can still cultivate diligently.”

Not only in my cultivation, I also got help in working technique.

Later, fellow practitioner A helped me collect newspaper and told me to adjust the color according to the newspaper. They didn’t want me to do any labor work. However, I always did the same thing as whatever they did. Gradually, they stopped taking care of me and we got very well along with each other. Our working efficiency was fairly high. We had no exhausted feeling but smiled often. Fellow practitioner B taught me step by step like in class. I thought he was a professional. He said those people who left here did the same thing. Now that person left because helping new learner was very exhausting and equaled to do two jobs. He also told me the printing technique had several levels such as elementary school, middle school, bachelor degree, and graduate student, plus PhD degree.

I asked him which level I was in. He said I was in the middle school and learning something from high school. He was very serious and teaching in an efficient way. The next day, he gave me a test at previous learning and let me practice after that if I answered correctly. Why did nobody find his talent? He made my study full of fun. There was code words, gestures in our talk. I understood the meaning of several whistles; color adjustment was like playing the piano, an artist’s work. In the meanwhile, we invented a gesture to receive the newspaper, like a conductor.

The tough and complicated work became so fun through looking inward. They helped me to receive the newspaper and I helped them check it. I could finish it fairly quickly, every two minutes reviewing one paper. Then I went to the assembly line to get another one. If one issue was ignored, a huge loss would be generated. It seemed like there was no physical work. However, we had to use our mind and our concentration made us more tired.  

So I said, “It seems like receiving newspaper is more relaxing work.” Fellow practitioner B said, “You won’t be able to receive newspaper forever. It’s the happiest section in printing work.”

Obviously, the young fellow practitioners did not have attachment to fame and fortune. The supervisor registered newspaper receiver as a miscellaneous work. I told him to change the title because nobody would like to do a miscellaneous job. The supervisor registered the titles as the chief mate and second mate. It meant I was the second mate not doing miscellaneous work. I found my attachment to fame here.

One attachment to eliminate here was smiling. Normally they couldn’t see my smile, but there I was smiling every day. Sometime I couldn’t help myself. It was so hard to get rid of one attachment. My mouth was cracking because of smiling. I felt so painful when I had a meal or a drink. I knew I should get rid of it; but I couldn’t stop it. Previously, I would feel bad for a couple of days. This time, I forgot it immediately right after I came here. Fellow practitioner B was humorous and fellow practitioner A didn’t talk too much. I asked Master when I could eliminate this attachment. A few days later, I experienced a test of a family affair. It was so true and my heart was broken. I cried a lot and felt the world was in desolation. It was a weekend. I stayed in bed and couldn’t get up. The fellow practitioner who never came back before came back that week. I quickly wiped off my tears and started to do Fa study and practice. Quickly, I walked out of my darkness. Master called the fellow practitioner back to help me go through it. Looking at Master’s picture, I couldn’t stop crying. I was in the care of Master all the time.

After that, my attachment to smiling disappeared.  My heart settled to another layer and my surface seemed to mature. My body was relaxing a lot; another layer of bad stuff was disintegrated.

My job was changed again. I knew I would move forward. Because everything went so fast, something happened again.

I was very reluctant to change this time because I just had an environment for group practice here. It never happened before. We could do Falun Standing Stance exercise one hour during daytime and had Fa memorizing group. Now the Fa study group was still there but no more group practice. So I thought these leaders were like monk or old abbot without solid cultivation. They tried to manage everything but no cultivation. The factory made losses all the time. However, they didn’t fix the essential part, but wiped the surface and did everything as old forces’ arranged. If the young disciples were destroyed there, their sins would be huge. I was so unhappy. They put me to the night shift. I answered no without hesitation. They would have to let fellow practitioner B do it because he has done it for a long time. Within one month, we never complained but tried to do everything we could. Before, they were very depressed. I brought happiness to them and they brought happiness to me. For those who tried to separate us, I thought there were no unprofessional soldiers but incompetent general. Fortunately, I just put these words in my heart. I said, “How could you win? You don’t know your soldiers! Fa study and practice are the fundamental for everything!”

The meeting ended unhappily and everyone felt nervous.

The supervisor wanted to break the awkwardness and walked around me. However, I didn’t want to talk to him and didn’t look up at him either.

I didn’t feel well because I didn’t maintain my xinxing.

It was my old problems. I should look inward to cultivate myself! I have cooperated with three supervisors. However, I disobeyed none of them. I was so hard to be supervised. There were so many God and Kings. How hard it would be to supervise them?  I looked myself too high. In ordinary people company, people would be expelled if they couldn’t obey the rule.

I didn’t want to communicate initially even when I knew I was wrong. Then the supervisor came over and told me to work on the day shift. I saw the step and said sorry to him. He asked, “You told me you do Fa study and practice, why don’t you follow the arrangement from the supervisor? Master has Fa on it.” I said, “Sorry, please allow me to fix my own problem by doing the night shift. I don’t cultivate myself well.” He was embarrassed and said, “Actually there are very few people in the factory including myself who are true cultivators. I should cultivate myself. Otherwise I give all my virtue to others.”

Two days later, I was transferred to the night shift. The reason why I took this job was because the other three men didn’t want to work at this shift any more. The supervisor was very touched. He said with Namaste, “I want to train you as the first female captain here.” I answered, “No, please let young people do it. I will do some cleaning and miscellaneous work. Let me be a young monk.” However, in my heart, I thought the captain was not my target. If I finish my cultivation here, it would be changed. In my heart, it was just a process.

This night shift repeated the last exam status because I worked all night. Then I went through another hardship and got another nice review.

There were two fellow practitioners who didn’t do any communication normally. They had a big contrast and didn’t like talking. I became quiet as before and memorized the Fa as usual. The only difference was nobody could see my memorizing. I was the only one to practice because there was no environment. The main reason was I didn’t have to depend on the environment. I could finish 5 sets exercises at one step more quietly with a little longer time.

A fellow practitioners said, "There is no change here after you come?" Because I told him I would make the environment as a cultivation environment again. Now I didn’t change anyone only myself. The printing factory looked proud and mysterious when I first came here. Now, it was just a factory.

Coming all the way here, I eliminated my attachments and kept myself more pure.

The script was still on; but I didn’t know what the next step was. When I saw two people fighting, I looked inward, “What problem do I have?” I found nothing and a poem hit in my mind “In delusion, you have forgotten who you are” (from True Words in Hong Yin IV), and “After awakening you will know the sorrow in the drama of life” (from Coming to the world just for this chance in Hong Yin IV).

I saw this fellow practitioner insisted on his own understanding and methods to do things. Master’s Fa appeared: “How they busy themselves, building temples, worshiping, Knowing not their acts are all for naught” (from Acting with Intent in Hong Yin).

Master said in Zhuan Falun, “I’ll tell you a truth: the whole process of cultivation is a process of constantly getting rid of human attachments.”

Let’s do truly cultivate by peeling off layer and layer of our attachments. Then lots of the evils will be disintegrated. Lots of sentient beings will be saved. We should make the best use of the time extended by Master to do true cultivation!

In A Congratulatory Message to the European Fa Conference, Master said: "Any tiny change in the human heart is an improvement, which all Gods are able to see.”

One night after I came to New York, I had a clear dream. In my dream, I saw my hometown, my relatives, my brother and my sister-in-law. My brother and his wife told me what my Mom told them. They were talking like practitioners. My brother even said everything would be inscribed in the ancient times which really shocked me. Since my Mom passed away early and my brother and his wife didn’t know cultivation, I knew Master tried to enlighten and encourage me that as long as we cultivated at the ordinary world layer, the sentient beings would reach the standard of selflessness and assimilate into the new Universe. I remembered <Letter from a Practitioner's Kingdom in Another Dimension>, the innumerable beings looked forward to their God’s diligent cultivation. We shouldn’t miss any opportunity to improve because it was all for Master’s intention. Half a year passed, what happened to my world in the heaven?

We had so many stories to leave for the sentient beings. Let’s cherish the opportunity of the ages and cultivate diligently! We shouldn’t value the things but pay more attention to the process!

It was all Master did!

Finally, I would like to share a Master’s song, A Dream From Long Ago in Hong Yin IV,

“I’ve been searching for that dream from long ago

It was like a fairy tale, yet incomparably scared

At that time, I signed a contract in heaven

I kept descending, just to fulfill my mission

Reincarnating again and again, lost in the sea of suffering

Finally that distant dream becomes true

The Creator has come to spread Dafa, saving beings to high levels

For this I came down to the world to wait for the Fa

I have fulfilled the contract from a prehistoric time

What is taking place is not a fairy tale

Many people have the same dream as I”

Chinese version: http://www.zhengjian.org/node/250267