Experience Sharing

Hello Master Li, hello everyone. It is indeed a great benefit for me to come here today and participate in this experience sharing conference. Today, May 13, is a very special day for practitioners to celebrate worldwide as the first Falun Dafa Day. I would like to thank Master Li from the bottom of my heart for making public the way of cultivation on this day in 1992. How fortunate we all are to be the recipients of the Master's great compassion and forbearance in bringing the teachings of Falun Dafa to us.

First I must say that experience sharing like these are a necessary component of cultivation and a tremendous opportunity for us to further our understanding of the great law. I have been practicing Falun Dafa since October of 1998, one year and seven months now. I would like to share with you a few of my experiences as a practitioner of Falun Gong, Falun Dafa.

Before coming to Falun Dafa I had experienced a variety of meditation techniques that brought about many desired results. Once I began to study Dafa I came to understand that all of these techniques are based on mindwill directed toward personal interests and gain, and therefore not the correct path. There are many of these so-called methods, usually named after a person who charges a virtual arm and a leg to attend their class. Falun Dafa has no charges, and if money is sought after for these teachings it cannot be considered Falun Dafa or Falun Gong. Master Li only wants our heart and mind nature to elevate.

I find the sets of five exercises are not only gentle and stress relieving they also strengthen my body and the energy field in and around my body. My mind becomes peaceful as I gradually enter into the state of ding or deep tranquility. One thing that I personally recognize within myself is the abandonment of intent. Unlike other so-called meditation techniques with so much mind intent techniques, I now see the benefit of having no mind intent. To simply calm my heart and mind and just enter into this state in sitting meditation. Of course this is not always easy for me, and I recognize this difficulty being just another part of cultivation. I came to realize one day that the thoughts that arise during practice are precisely my attachments . . . the very attachments that I must abandon.

My cultivation course has taught me many things and Master Li's words have sparked a lot of questions. In the beginning I understood the change of mind that I had to go through and discovering mysteries such as the placement of the mysterious pass remains for me, as its name implies, quite mysterious.

The physical benefits that I have received since beginning cultivation is numerous and in my personal view, miraculous. I had tried to quit smoking on a daily basis for a number of years without success, but after a few months of living within the Fa, living with the thought of assimilating to the characteristics of the universe, Truth Benevolence Tolerance, I recognized that smoking was the biggest lie (untruth) in my life and I easily let go of this attachment Master Li explains how some people are unwilling to let go of their illness and I saw that many of my own discomforts were as a result of smoking. Ten days after quitting, on April 25/99 while practicing the first exercise of Falun Gong where we stretch our right arm out, I felt an explosion in my chest and cold air rush into a part of my lung that had obviously "unplugged." I had been experiencing chest pains in this area for some time and now they had exploded like a bomb and disappeared completely over time.

Looking back, I recognize another healing that happened to me that at the time I thought was a back attack. You see I was in a car accident 13 years ago. A few weeks after the accident I sneezed and as a result I saw stars, and I could no longer walk and was in severe pain. Pills were prescribed that only knocked me out allowing me to sleep but no real relief. Doctors insisted that I have an operation on my back. Fortunately my mind kept telling me not to have this operation. I eventually found relief through Chinese acupuncture but was told that my pains might return when the weather was inclement. The following spring I needed more acupuncture. Throughout the next ten years I suffered off and on with my back problem, sometimes where I had to lie in bed for up to a month, others for a few weeks and to a lesser extent, a few days. On my second day of obtaining the great law I was attending a group practice and study session. I had been sitting on the floor for more than two hours and when I went to get up my back exploded. I saw stars. I thought to myself OH NO! I'll be laid up for weeks. My back had never exploded, nor did I ever see stars except for that first time some ten years earlier that started all of these back problems. I was lying on the floor moaning and a local practitioner told me to forget about this pain, and to try to get up and just do some exercises and that the pain will go away. I tried this and the pain lessened. Within a day I was back to normal and I have never experienced another problem with my back since that second day of practice At that time I thought that I would be out of action for about a month. Now I realize that this was a healing for me. As the problem started 10 years earlier with an explosion in my lower back where I saw stars, so it ended with an explosion in my back seeing stars once again. It took me until now to realize that this was a healing that had taken place.

The thought of elevating my cultivation level through handling myself well during xingxing (mind nature) conflicts had previously been an occasional occurrence. In other words I often over reacted in situations that were there to test me and I was often the test for others. That is to say, I created bad situations. Learning the Fa allows me to readily recognize these situations where I have an opportunity to upgrade my level.

To think of cultivating to beyond the in-triple-world and giving up everyday attachments of ordinary people. Since beginning cultivation I have been able to abandon many of my attachments and take things lightly. Things and interests of the ordinary society no longer hold attraction to me. To be unattached to the outcome. I noticed that when I recently visited with old friends, their activities of having a beer, smoking and watching TV was an actual turn off for me and what was on the TV became disturbing to me. How easy it is for us to become corrupted. We are spoon-fed the corruption through the tube that goes directly through our eyes and ears and makes direct contact with our brain and numbs our brain into acceptance of this corruption that we call entertainment. This is also a part of cultivation in this society, to go well beyond this mentality.

One practitioner mentioned that if he was to slack off for a moment that his human mentality rises to the surface. I do not treat myself as an ordinary person because cultivation of the great law is something far beyond the concepts of ordinary people. There were times when I would have easily given in to one temptation or another. However, upon thinking to myself that I am a practitioner of Falun Dafa and I cannot treat myself as an ordinary person, I would turn away. To think like a god and to elevate to this pinnacle in this universe is not something that an ordinary person's mentality is taught. Instead society is spoon-fed corruption and thus they are hungry for it. Actually they are choking on it.

Of course we all know that in July of last year the government of China banned our practice and arrested many practitioners in China. To think that as a practitioner of one of 84,000 cultivation ways of the Buddha school that I would be considered a threat to such a world power. I have never been political in my life. This is one of the reasons I was attracted to Dafa. I have no interest in politics and their hidden agendas. It puzzles me how a government would be afraid of people who exercise, meditate, and study things like the placement of the mysterious pass.

As I study the law, I realize that my thoughts reflect my attachments, the trivial mundane attachments that bind me to the in-triple-world. They are simply attachments and as I recognize them I find it easier to let them go. My course of cultivation is more of an adventure in discovery. As I shed my attachments I am allowed glimpses into other realms of my own personality and I realize how meaningless these attachments are and how they interfere with the goal of cultivation.

Through practicing Falun Gong I have felt a tremendous change in my physical body, My posture has been corrected and previous injuries that were a cause of discomfort are all gone. I remember as a beginning student of Falun Gong I could not sit in the crossed-legged position at all and my attempts led to back pain. I would squirm around with many thoughts racing through my head. At that time I was told that it was OK to sit in a chair or sit against the wall to support my back. As I sat against the wall, I would hear Master Li's words of encouragement to perceiver in cultivation and to get off the wall as soon as possible. I would then sit up straight with my back off the wall for a few moments and then I would have to relax and sit back. The thought would come to mind "I must perceiver" and I would sit up off the wall again. This growing process for the sitting meditation on and off the wall, went on for a month or so until one day I told myself that I must get off the wall and join the group circle in the middle of the room. Sitting with the group, I could last about 15 to 20 minutes. This gradually became longer until I could last the entire length of the tape, which at that time was 45 minutes.

One day as I sat, I felt an electrical type of energy enter my hands. It intensified gradually, especially over the last 15 minutes of the sitting meditation, expanding from my hands up my

arms and around my whole body. It was a very strong feeling that I can only describe as an electrical type of charge. Upon completing the exercise I asked a practitioner to feel my arms. I knew that he felt the energy field around me. He told me not to pay any attention to this and not to seek after it. I realized that this would be an attachment. Master teaches us to want nothing, gain naturally.

Last year I was so fortunate to have attended the Toronto conference and hear Master Li in person. I didn't realize at the time that it might be the only time that I would have to see and hear the Master. I had occasion to return to Toronto in June and stayed with practitioners for five days. We would rise at 5:30, eat breakfast and walk to Andrew Gardens to practice. I was not exactly used to these hours but quickly slipped into this early morning routine. Upon returning home I mentioned to the group in Ottawa. A fellow practitioner said, "You should do that here." My reply was maybe I would do this in the future. The next day I found myself awake at 5:30 A.M. and so I decided to get up and go to my favorite park to practice. The first day I couldn't get my tape player working and of course I was alone. So I did the exercises without the music and afterwards I made the necessary adjustments so I could practice with the music. I went Monday to Friday from then on from 6 to 8 A.M. At first I was all-alone for about three weeks and then I was joined by a veteran practitioner from China who lived nearby. Then a new practitioner came, then another veteran practitioner and another. Then the lady who lives across from the park joined us and by summer's end there were up to a dozen people coming to practice at 6:00 A.M. This is to say that a little effort to bring Dafa to the public will not only be it's own reward, it also allows other people predestined to obtain the law the chance to discover Falun Dafa.

One thing that I experienced at that time was that at 6:00 A.M. in the park the squirrels and birds were very communicative. Even the rocks and trees seemed to be communicating with me. The world was a different place from what I had experienced most of my life, and this is how I would like to sum up these few experiences that I am sharing with you today. The world has become a different place as a result of Master Li's teachings and practice of Falun Dafa and it is up to us to perceiver in our cultivation, to get off the wall and to practice nobly. This great law has changed every one of us physically and mentally and has lifted us spiritually into another realm of existence. A realm that is Falun Dafa that we as practitioners see and recognize as the way to return to our true original selves. We have something so great that we are eager to let others know what we have. Let's not waste any opportunity that we may have to share our cultivation experiences and to spread the great law that is Falun Dafa. Thank You.

Steve, Canada
(Experience Sharing Conference, Toronto Canada May 13, 2000)