The Extraordinaries of Dafa is Evident Everywhere
Greetings to Master! Greetings to fellow practitioners!
I am Li Li, a practitioner from China who obtained the Fa in Malaysia in August 2009. After cultivating for so many years, I find that there are lesser and lesser things that I can write about. Now I will think back about the extraordinary events that took place when I first obtained the Fa.
I came across Dafa in Tian Jin in 1999. At that time, I experienced many magnificent sightings such as often seeing different sizes of gold shining Falun everywhere, seeing the fairies scattering flowers while I practice the exercises, a thick layer of an abundant amount of pink and white petals descending lightly around me, etc.
In my memory, after only reading a few pages of <Zhuan Fa Lun>, the serious gastric ulcer which I had to rely on medicine to control it, along with the headaches which I had been suffering from since I was younger while no one knew what caused them, the menstrual cramps, and many other illnesses that I had been suffering from, had all miraculously disappeared. Although I stopped cultivating after that, these symptoms never came back.
Despite having many extraordinary experiences, I still gave up cultivating when the Chinese Communist Party started to prosecute Falun Gong. At that time, I felt that I did not have the ability to follow the requirements of “Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance,” therefore I am not eligible to cultivate the noble Dafa. During the 10 years of me giving up in cultivation, I am surprised that I did not meet any Dafa practitioners. Not even once and I had no idea that Falun Dafa was still being spread around the world.
During these 10 years, I drifted with the ‘trend just like the rest of the sentient society and I picked up almost all the bad habits that one can pick up while living in the current society.
On July 2009, I came overseas due to marriage and my heart started to settle down after marriage. The games that I used to play in the past no longer seemed as interesting. Most of the time, I will be sitting alone in the local pavilion, staring blankly at the sky. Every time when the Malaysians play their Malay sutra over the speakers from afar, tears will start falling although I had no idea what they were chanting about. I did not know what was the purpose of living.
One morning around 6 a.m., at the end of August 2009, I dreamt that I was walking across a bridge and there was a group of people wearing yellow shirts, meditating on the park nearby. Seeing that they all had the words “Falun Dafa” printed on their shirts, I woke up in shock. Suddenly, I recalled that I had learnt Falun Gong before and that group of people seemed to be practicing Falun Gong. Therefore, I immediately went downstairs, switched on the computer, and searched the internet for ‘Falun Gong’. The link for the Minghui website quickly appeared and upon clicking it, I saw Master’s photo and I started crying. I felt that I seemed to have found a close family member and I have also found home. No words can describe the kind of excitement that I was feeling at that moment.
At that time, I would make my way to the small pavilion by the riverside every day before dawn to practice the 5 sets of exercises. Every time, I will recite Hong Yin:
“Mighty Virtue
Dafa does not leave the body,
The heart harbors Zhen-Shan-Ren;
In the world is a great Arhat,
Spirits and ghosts fear greatly.”
to boost my courage as that riverside was a place where no one would want to go, not even during the day.
Initially, when I started practicing there, there would be this weird jade white tortoise-like creature that would stand beside me and watch me do the exercises for 3 consecutive days. Although it was a bit terrifying, I was not scared. One afternoon, about 3 days later, strong winds started to blow and rain started to pour. The thunder was deafening.
When the storm passed, I walked to the riverside and saw that there were about 7 to 8 big trees that struck by the lightning. Since then on, that creature never appeared again when I went to the riverside to do the exercises. I believe that it was Master who was helping me clear the environment to practice my exercises.
For more than a year, I persisted in going to the riverside to do the exercises. During this period, there were groups of immortal cranes and other kinds of unknown birds that started coming to this area. The locals have also started stepping out of their house to come to the riverside to do their morning exercises. In that period of time, there were even 2 Christians who came and learnt the 5 sets of exercises with me. They have even read the book <Zhuan Fa Lun>.
However, in 2011, after joining the media, I put all my heart and efforts into it and because I often felt like there was not enough time, I no longer went to the riverside to do the 5 sets of exercises. Furthermore, the 2 people who used to learn the exercises with me did not want to continue anymore. The riverside birds had also left the riverside. It is only now that I realized that me slacking in my cultivation has destroyed the cultivation environment that Master had set up for me.
After joining the media, there were also some extraordinary things that had happened to me. I remember it was after month of me joining the media. One morning, when I was sending forth righteous thoughts at 6 a.m., I was feeling sleepy. A sharp shriek suddenly woke me up, and at that same moment, I saw something that looked like a brain flying out of the top of my head.
Since then, I became unusually awake. Around the first half of year 2012, whenever I started writing a news article, a content framework will automatically appear in my mind. I was able to finish writing the article very quickly whenever I followed that framework. This made writing news articles easy for me and I was still able to cope even if I was doing 2 persons’ job. However, the framework would not appear when I did not cultivate my xinxing。If that were to happen, I would have a harder time writing the news article.
In that few years, because I had mistaken doing things as part of my cultivation and because I was only cultivating by myself, I started to become slack more and more in my cultivation. Although I had the heart to excel in my cultivation, I just could not thrive. It became so bad to the point where I could not even finish one lecture of <Zhuan Fa Lun> within 4 days. I also could not keep up with doing the 5 sets of exercises every day. It didn’t take long for my xinxing to drop back to a sentient beings’ level. In the past, I would not dare to go on vacation as that would waste precious time, but during those few years, I would keep going overseas for tour. I also became more comfortable and in my head, I would often plan about how I was going to work my way out to enjoy a good life in the near future.
The old forces finally took advantage of my loopholes.On November 2015, disaster struck. My then husband had an affair and thus suddenly filed for a divorce and requested me to move out of the house immediately. I was caught by surprise as I had never expected that he would treat me so heartlessly. I had nowhere else to go to in this foreign land. I was filled anger and hatred.
For the whole year of 2016, I was stuck in this family disaster. At that time, I also realised that this disaster happened due to my insufficient amount of righteous thoughts, unclear knowledge about the Fa, too many and too deep of attachments. Most importantly, it happened because I did not pay attention to studying the Fa that I am gradually deviating from the Fa, and thus the old forces had the chance to exploit my loopholes?
Thinking back to the days when I first obtained the Fa, I was always envious of the practitioners who came from the mainland. I was envious that they did not have the burden of a family and I would often wish that I could leave my home one day so that I could be so carefree like the mainland practitioners and dedicate all my time and effort in accomplishing the 3 things. It was this wish that I made due to my unclear knowledge about the Fa that gave the old forces the excuse to persecute me.
After 1 year of painstaking ‘heart-grinding’, I was finally able to let go of the hatred in my heart. The moment I let go of that hatred, the ‘grinding’ ache in my heart disappeared as well.
In the beginning of 2017, I started living with a female practitioner who had just came from the mainland. She is full of righteous thoughts, strong-willed and has a heart that is as pure as crystal. I felt that she was sent by Master to come and help me.
We will wake up everyday at 3.50 a.m. to join the world big group exercise. After sending forth righteous thoughts at 6 a.m., we will study one lecture of <Zhuan Fa Lun> together and start our Dafa activities. At night, after finishing the activities for the day, we will study another lecture of <Zhuan Fa Lun> together followed by the other lectures. Life is spent to the fullest every day and every day is very joyous. Every moment is full of bliss and sense of accomplishment of a true Dafa practitioner.
We will often compliment ourselves that we are Master’s full time practitioners. Apart from doing the 3 things, we almost have no forms of entertainment. From her, I learnt how to excel in cultivation and search from within. We often remind each other and excel in cultivation together. I am really thankful to Master for arranging such affinity between that practitioner and me.
In the past, I would always look externally when I was studying the Fa. Whenever I came across some content in the Fa that resembled the situation of some other practitioners, I would be thinking that the Fa is talking about that particular person or that particular person did not meet the requirements of this portion of Fa that I was. I never knew how to look inwards. It was only in these recent months that I started to realise that form of Fa studying is not the behaviour of practitioner. It is only then that I started to take notes about looking inwards.
Through large amounts of Fa studying and looking inwards, I discovered that I had many attachments which need to be cultivated as soon as possible, especially the selfishness, jealousy, lust and desire.
Master requires every Dafa disciple to be able to achieve selflessness, but I was never willing to help others as I was afraid that the other party will waste my time. Take for example the practitioner who was staying with me. At that time, I had hoped that she could join the media, but I was afraid that she might ask me to teach her and that it was going to waste my time. Therefore, I asked someone else to recommend her to join the media. After she joined the media, there were many knowledge which had to be taught face-to-face and I could actually teach her, but because I was not willing to waste my time, I insisted that she took the extra time and effort to go and learn from someone else.
It was only after that incident that I realised that these behaviours of mine were very selfish and the result of my misdoing was that not only did she waste her time, the other practitioner’s time was wasted as well and thus causing more loss of Dafa resources.
Another attachment was jealousy. In the part, I used to think that I did not have the element of jealousy in me. In my heart, I would always detest those people who had very strong jealousy and I would look down on the. But in the past 6 months, I realised that I also have a serious problem of jealousy. For example, if I see others enjoying some benefits or that they have some happy occasions, not only am I not feeling happy for them, I also feel injustice in my heart. In addition, if someone were to compliment someone else in front of me, I would immediately think about that person’s flaws and mistakes in my heart. Recently, I learnt that these bad thoughts do not belong to me and I should send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate them.
The other attachments were desire and lust. For some time, I suddenly developed some strong feelings for a male practitioner and I admired him for his capabilities. In the end, this gave the old forces the excuse to manipulate my loopholes and gave the devil of lust the chance to create disturbance. For a few days, I felt that I was being surrounded by a sticky black substance and I even dreamt that I entered the toilet by accident, but I could not exit the toilet as I was being blocked by a smelly drain.
During those few days, I made use of whatever available time that I had to send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the disturbances from the devil of lust and Master’s Fa from Hong Yin II: Where’s There to Fear, “Sending righteous thoughts, exploding rotten ghosts.” came into my mind. Therefore, while I sent forth righteous thoughts, I would also recite these phrases repeatedly and miraculously, that attachment of lust and desire disappeared. After that, whenever that attachment re-surface, I was able to catch it in time and send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate it.
My understanding is that once we discover that we have anything that does not tally with the Fa, once we realise it, we must reject it immediately and not give it any space for it to grow. This will help to reduce a lot of unnecessary trouble and ‘detours’ in our path of cultivation.
For the past few months, once any thought that does not tally with Fa surface, one sentence from Master’s lecture, “The truth is, anything that is not consistent with Dafa or the righteous thoughts of Dafa disciples results from the old forces’ involvement, and that includes all of the unrighteous elements that you have.” will automatically keep coming into my mind. At this moment, I will send forth righteous thoughts immediately to eliminate that thought and not give the evil any chance to manipulate.
However, to be able to reach the level of being able to search from within at all times, is easier said than done. Just a little bit of slacking on ourselves will make us forget to do so, thus that is only attainable on the basis of a strong foundation of Fa study. Once we deviate from Fa study, whatever ways we use to find our attachments will be futile. Only with exceling in practicing cultivation and putting in the effort to accomplish the 3 things are we able to make use of the “searching inward” and treasure what Master has left for us.
Thank you our great and benevolent Master’s protection all the way, thank you practitioners for all the help and encouragement. If there are any areas that do not tally with the Fa, please point them out with benevolence.