PureInsight | July 1, 2016
[PureInsight.org] On April 9th, a Falun Dafa experience sharing conference was held in the city of Atlanta, Georgia. Many Falun Dafa practitioners from nearby states such as Tennessee, Mississippi as well as the Atlanta local area gathered at the recently opened public library in Alpharetta to attend the conference.
16 practitioners shared their cultivation experiences. Many of these practitioners said that they always felt the presence of Master’s merciful protection in their daily activities, others talked about their personal cultivation experiences in the area of looking within and getting rid of human attachments.
In his opening speech, the conference host said, “Falun Dafa has been promoted across the globe for more than 24 years now. Looking back, we see so many changes. It is Master who is bearing unspeakable misery for all sentient beings; it is Master who is guiding disciples on their cultivation voyages.”
Here are some of the stories shared by the 16 practitioners at the conference.
One practitioner said that he was doing some marketing work for the Epochtimes Chinese language newspaper in Atlanta. This practitioner had been practicing Falun Dafa for over 18 years, he was a radar scientist; he had never done any marketing work before. When asked by the local Epochtimes newspaper director to help get more advertisements for the newspaper, the practitioner agreed without thinking too much about it and started to get new customers right away. The practitioner said that he visited nearly all the car dealerships in Atlanta; whenever he had a chance, the practitioner would clarify the truth about Falun Dafa to the people he ran into. Finally, one Honda dealer agreed to sign a three month contract for a black and white half page advertisement; when the contract expired, the dealer asked to extend the contract and switch to a more expensive, colour advertisement. The practitioner said that the best part of doing a marketing job for the Epochtimes newspaper was that he could get to talk to all kinds of people. Later, the practitioner’s auto dealer advertisement was a huge success for the newspaper; the practitioner said he understood very clearly that the success was not due to his own skill, it was the miraculous manifestation of Dafa and Master instead. Throughout all these years, whenever the practitioner achieved some success, he would always express his sincere gratitude towards Dafa and Master from the bottom of his heart.
A university teacher talked about his cultivation experience during his application for a tenure position in his college. The practitioner said he took a very light view on the tenure position application, he didn’t miss any deadlines for the Dafa projects that he was working on, he was still actively involved in all the local public truth clarification activities. It took him a very short period of time to finish his application and his application was approved half a year later. Last year, the practitioner said he received a seat as a lecturing professor. The practitioner said that he had been making efforts to introduce Falun Dafa into the American college education system. There was finally a break through earlier this year. The college where the practitioner taught approved the practitioner’s request to add a short course on the “Introduction to the Falun Dafa cultivation system” to the school’s curriculum and the school would start to teach the course in the fall of this year. The practitioner expressed his gratitude towards Master’s immense mercy and empowerment of him.
One practitioner was a small business owner; the practitioner said he started to practice Falun Dafa in May of 1996. As the practitioner had to work many hours each day, he had to compromise on doing the “three things”, later the practitioner decided to quit his job and started to run a flea market with his wife. While running his business, the practitioner always tried to clarify the truth about the CCP’s persecution of Falun Dafa to his customers. Many customers were shocked to learn about the brutal persecution by the CCP of Falun Gong practitioners in China, some of his customers asked to get copies of truth clarification materials, saying that they’d like to tell other people about the persecution. Every week, the practitioner and his wife would help around 10 or 20 people learn about the persecution of Falun Gong in China, so in a year, he and his wife could clarify the truth to more than 600 people.
A Chinese lady reflected on her cultivation journey and expressed her thoughts. The practitioner said that time just flew by; in every step of her cultivation progress, she felt Master’s merciful protection and immense help, her heart was filled with gratitude towards Master. The practitioner was the only child in her family, she was always regarded as a good girl by those who knew her, and she had a very good relationship with her parents. As a Dafa practitioner, the Chinese lady realized that the best thing she could do to help her family and relatives was to cultivate solidly and walk on a sound cultivation path. For many years, the lady said she hadn’t had any major or long lasting conflicts with other practitioners; however, recently one practitioner’s words deeply irritated her. For a couple of days, as soon as she thought about that practitioner, the lady said she would get angry; the more she thought about it, the more anger she would develop. At a certain moment, the lady mentioned that she had even decided to quit her involvement in a Dafa project that the other practitioner was also managing. The practitioner understood that it was her human notions that were interfering with her; the old forces have always sought to instil mistrusts among practitioners so that they could ruin practitioners. One day while the practitioner was studying the Fa, she suddenly realized what was wrong with her. “Why could a few words from that practitioner make me so mad? How many human attachments were there? Wasn’t I attached to running things my way? Wasn’t I attached to fame and gain? Wasn’t I attached to strong self-protection? All these attachments revealed that my heart was not in a proper state to begin with, I was not treating myself as a Dafa practitioner.” From this incident, the lady learnt that her anger towards the other practitioner originated from her own conceit and strong tendency to protect her own ideas as well as her unwillingness to accept other people’s criticisms of her. As soon as the practitioner realized all these problems within herself, the practitioner said she suddenly noticed all her anger towards that other practitioner was gone.
A young American practitioner shared his cultivation experiences. The young man said that he started to practice Falun Dafa about one year ago. Ever since he began to cultivate, he genuinely felt the wonders of personal cultivation. He was once trying to find some information on traditional Chinese Taichi exercise sessions in his local area and found Falun Dafa instead. When he first visited the web page of Falun Dafa and saw the three Chinese characters “Zhen, Shan, Ren” in golden colour, he felt very excited. It took the young man only four days to finish reading the book “Zhuan Falun”. The first obstacle to overcome for the young man was lust. The young man said that he always indulged himself in all kinds of hedonistic activities before he encountered Falun Dafa. After reading “Zhuan Falun”, the young man realized that he had to restrain his desires and lust in order to engage in cultivation. It was easy to say, but very hard to do. The young man tried to control his desires in three consecutive days, but he still failed in the end, he felt so terrible that he kept crying until he fell asleep, while asleep, he had a dream; in his dream the young man recalled Master’s words in Falun Gong, “Sincerity is a prerequisite if you are to rectify your mind.” Filled with a sincere heart, the young man said he began to feel that Master was adjusting his body and helping to get rid of all the strong thought karma in his mind. The next day when he woke up, the young man was able to use his own strong main consciousness to control his desires and correct his human thoughts. In a very short period of time, the young man had overcome his desires and lust. The young man also helped clarify the truth about Falun Gong to college students and collected petitions from the public. When Shenyun Performing Arts came to his city, the young man helped with promoting Shenyun as well. Once in a dream, the young man said he felt that he was trapped in a dark maze, but as soon as he opened “Zhuan Falun”, a golden ray of light shot out from the book and brightened the path in front of him, the young man then realized that he must study the Fa well to succeed in his cultivation.
A practitioner from mainland China told her own cultivation story. This practitioner came from Liaoning province in China, she was 65 years old. The practitioner started to practice Falun Dafa in July of 1996, so she has been practicing Falun Dafa for almost 20 years now. When the persecution of Falun Dafa started in 1999, the practitioner said she would often work together with other local practitioners to distribute truth clarification materials such as CDs, brochures, etc., to the public. In order to clarify the truth to remote countryside regions, the practitioner would join others to travel to countryside villages to clarify the truth to the people there at night, they would come back early next morning and then directly go to work; the practitioner said she didn’t feel any fatigue at all. Later on, the practitioner also clarified the truth to the people around her, many of her friends, colleagues and relatives had done the “three withdrawals” and understood the truth about Falun Dafa, these people were blessed in one way or another.
One local practitioner responsible for coordinating Dafa projects shared some of his personal experiences. This practitioner said that he had prepared to write an experience sharing article for this conference, however, he felt that he was not sure what to write; he noticed that something was not quite right in his current cultivation status; he was not clear where the problem was. Recently, after looking within and studying the Fa as well as talking to other practitioners, the practitioner said he began to understand what went wrong for him. For some time, the practitioner said he started to slack off in his personal cultivation, he seemed to have lost his diligence and the heart to cultivate that he once had when he first started to cultivate. Yes, he was doing the “three things” just like other practitioners, however, the practitioner said that he had somewhat lost his humble mentality and his respect towards Dafa. When conflicts arose, yes, the practitioner said he would first look within; however, he couldn’t help but see the other party’s faults at the same time. Throughout the years of his cultivation, the practitioner acknowledged that he had stumbled along; through all the tribulations he had encountered, the practitioner came to face his attachments and human notions; the practitioner began to understand the difference between “diligent” and “fanatic”. The practitioner said, “With diligence, one is trying hard to assimilate to the universal principles by getting rid of ‘self’ constantly. A fanatic is someone who just tries hard to show off oneself through words or actions.” Through looking within, the practitioner realized that he had a narrow-minded mentality, he was not willing to listen to any disagreements, and he sometimes would develop strong disrespect to certain practitioners. The practitioner said that once a practitioner raised an issue with him, he got so angry at the practitioner and berated the practitioner severely. The practitioner hoped that he would learn from his lessons and thoroughly look within from now on; he also hoped that practitioners won’t hesitate to raise issues with him whenever they saw any problems with him so that he could improve himself.
A recently retired practitioner shared her cultivation story. This practitioner said that after she attended the Los Angeles Fa conference last year, she felt very heavy-hearted. Looking back, the practitioner said she didn’t seem to improve too much over the years. Yes, she was helping doing some Fa rectification projects, yet she had not removed many of her human notions. The practitioner lived in a small town far away from other practitioners, so she was essentially surrounded by ordinary people most of the time. In order to change her situation, the practitioner decided that she had to look within and speed up the pace of her personal cultivation. The practitioner said that she loved to talk; she would feel so bored if there was no one to talk to. Every time the practitioner ran into other practitioners, she would start to talk about all kinds of things. The practitioner realized that she would incur more karma if she kept talking, an experienced cultivator should remain calm and quiet. The practitioner mentioned that the root problem for her was that she hadn’t developed a solid foundation in her cultivation, there were still many negative things in her field, she had to change herself so that she could cultivate to a higher level. Gradually, the practitioner began to correct herself, she would look within when running into problems, she would refrain from talking too much, she would listen more, she would silently cooperate with others to achieve a better result. The practitioner said she still had many issues, especially in the areas of “Shan” and “Ren” (compassion and tolerance). For example, whenever she noticed that some other practitioners or her own family members did something bad; she would become angry and belittle those people in her mind. So, she was not following the requirements of “Shan” and “Ren”; the practitioner said it was her demonic nature that was exposed; and that she had to get rid of her demon nature. Now, whenever she runs into something not to her liking, the practitioner said she will immediately look within to try to find her own faults.
Many practitioners attending the Fa conference said they learnt quite a lot from those who shared their cultivation experiences, they hoped that they would be able to cultivate together, improve together, maintain a diligent heart and save more sentient beings so that they won’t let Master down.
Translated from: http://news.zhengjian.org/node/31515
