Seeking This Whole Lifetime, Finally Finding an Enlightened Teacher

Massachusetts – Kuang Tie-Fu

Hello everybody, I'm called Kuang Tie-Fu and I'm 73 years old this year. I run a martial arts school and teach kung-fu, and I've also practiced Chinese medicine for more than 40 years.

I started learning Qigong when I was eight and learned martial arts in the countryside when I was a teenager. After I went to Hong Kong, I still continued to pursue famous teachers to learn from them. I had more than ten teachers and apart from learning Shaolin, Wudang, and Wujia tai-chi, I also learned several different kinds of Qigong. Because I loved kung-fu and kept researching and practicing it, I had some accomplishments and opened a martial arts school in Hong Kong. I was pretty well known and people gave me the nickname "Steel Man." I've kept that name to this day.

I immigrated to the United States in 1971. Apart from opening the martial arts school, my livelihood was healing people's injuries. All my remaining energies were devoted to studying Chinese martial arts because I wanted to climb to a higher realm. My martial arts school is my laboratory -- a big, strong two or three hundred pound American student gets bounced really far away with just a touch of my nimble hands. Later, some students would fly off before my hands even made contact with them. I taught my students some shadow boxing methods for fighting and we won a lot of awards. I was once the chairman of the U.S. East Coast Martial Arts United Association. In remembrance of my former teachers of various different schools, I created the "Tiger Crane Tai-Chi Martial Arts Association."

During the '70s, I performed various kinds of Qigong in Boston, Seattle, New York, Puerto Rico, and Taiwan. In the '80s, I was in Hong Kong, Taiwan and here in the U.S. using Qigong to treat all kinds of illnesses and diseases. I am a Chinese doctor, and apart from using the usual diagnostic techniques of feeling the pulse and observing the symptoms, I also used Qigong to help me more accurately diagnose some patients who were seriously ill. Qigong has all different kinds of mysterious phenomena. For example, I saw my true spirit leave my body and fly over to Tokyo and Paris to go visit; I saw myself return to the countryside in China and even asked people for directions, etc. In the martial arts world, although there's the principle that even though you know one mountain, there is still a taller mountain ahead, in my heart, I still thought I was pretty great. But was is Qigong, really? I didn't know. I had spent a lifetime seeking out famous teachers because I wanted to know the realm where one reaches the summit of achievement in kung fu. But when I realized the end of my life was not very far away and my remaining days were numbered, in this vast world, where was I going to find my teacher? In 1994, I left America and went all over China to seek out a famous teacher. Look at me, this white-haired old man -- that kind of agitation, anxiety, and pain cannot be described.

In June of 1995, I had the opportunity to get a photocopy of Zhuan Falun. After reading it for half an hour, I suddenly saw that the words in the book were emanating golden rays of light. I immediately knew that this Zhuan Falun was a precious book. I had been searching for a whole lifetime and now I finally had a precious book -- can't even describe that kind of joy.

After reading Zhuan Falun, I was awakened. I suddenly enlightened to why my cultivation energy wasn't increasing with my practice of Gong. All of the questions I had had practicing Gong now had their answers. Many people in the community, friends, even my students thought it was a shame that I was now practicing the Dafa (Great Law). They didn't understand why I would actually give up the Qigong and martial arts that I had seen as my life. That's because they weren't able to recognize Falun cultivation Dafa is a practice that is real, high level and cultivates both mind and body. Falun Dafa can allow a normal human being to cultivate into a Buddha, you tell me if that's precious or not? Of course, they were even more unable to understand that I had been seeking famous teachers all this life until at this old age, I finally had the opportunity and the good fortune to encounter an enlightened teacher -- Master Li Hongzhi. How can I not concentrate on practicing only the Dafa?

At first, the process of giving up the tai-chi chuan that I had practiced for decades to the point where I could perform uncanny feats was difficult. But by practicing Falun Gong, my level was being raised very quickly and my tienmu saw scenes from different dimensions. At first, every week there would be a change of scene; later I saw Zhen, Shan, Ren imprinted on my forehead, I could enter a state of tranquility in all five exercises, during meditation, sometimes for a short period of time there would be a state of feeling like I was sitting in an eggshell. I enlightened to the fact that all of this was the Teacher helping me, increasing my confidence. Slowly, the attachment to the tai-chi chuan was gradually let go without my even knowing it.

The first trial that I encountered was that I'm Cantonese and couldn't understand the Teacher's lectures. An old practitioner told me that even if I couldn't understand, I could still listen to it and the effect was the same. So I started to watch the Teacher's lecture videotapes, and as I was watching, I saw the Teacher shining like gold, and during the lecture, when he waved his hand, the whole room was filled with a golden light. After that, I would always make an effort to go listen every time a nine-day Law lecture was being held. I would make an even greater effort to go listen when the Teacher came to the United States to lecture on the Fa. Other practitioners didn't know why I concentrated so hard watching the Teacher lecturing on the Fa because most people see the Teacher as having a human body, but the Teacher I see when he lectures on the Fa is a Buddhist body shining like gold. Every time I hear the Teacher teaching the Law, I feel that my brain, which had orginally been clogged, is opened up a bit and is a little more awake.

My educational level is low and although I read the Fa every day, I still felt there were many difficulties. The words of Zhuan Falun are very easy, but I always felt that the meaning inside is very, very deep... that feeling is just like the various scenes that my tienmu sees, completely indescribable with words. Think of it, I finally have such a great opportunity and encountered the Fa only at the ripe old age of 70, I had practiced for two years already but still could not enlighten to the Fa, my karma was so great, would I be able to cultivation to completion? When I thought of this, my tears would flow. In March of 1997, once when I was practicing at the cultivation location with everyone, as I was meditating, suddenly I heard the Teacher's voice by my left ear: "Put down the heart of an ordinary person." When everyone was sharing their experiences, I told them about this incident. One fellow practitioner asked me: "Did the Teacher speak Mandarin to you or Cantonese?" I said he spoke in Cantonese. Everyone thought that was so funny that they laughed. But I knew in my heart that the Teacher was pointing something out to me, that he was encouraging me. Although I could not yet enlighten to the meaning behind the "Put down the heart of an ordinary person." that the Teacher said to me, I nonetheless still took pleasure in reading ""Put down the heart of an ordinary person, gain the Fa and be a diety."

I was always watching videos to learn Mandarin in the hopes that I would one day be able to understand the Teacher lecturing on the Fa and understand the exchange of experiences amongst my fellow practitioners. To help me to learn, my fellow practitioners recorded the entire Zhuan Falun on tape in Mandarin for me. I would quietly listen as I read Zhuan Falun. One day, as I was listening to the last section of Chapter 3, suddenly the voice changed and it was no longer the voice of that practitioner. The voice had become very clear and crisp, as well as very familiar. Who's voice was it? Immediately I realized that it was the Teacher! The Teacher was personally reading Zhuan Falun to me - how could I not be agitated? Later, I gradually calmed down and continued to listen for about ten minutes and the Teacher finished reading Chapter 3. To think that the Teacher came to help me again and I think of the Teacher's great compassion and great benevolence, I put even more effort into learning the Fa and cultivating my xingxin.

After a week or so, my forehead would suddenly be able to automatically open and close. When it was open, it was as though my brain had a piece of machinery and things that were inside would naturally come out. Things that I couldn't think through normally, Fa that I couldn't enlighten to -- it was as though that machine could tell. The "Put down the heart of an ordinary person" that I couldn't enlighten to before, the forehead opened, that thing came out -- "Those notions of yours, those words that you said, that thing you did that day, ...... those are attachments of ordinary people." Previously I couldn't understand why the Teacher said "Cultivation must be gradual" and then also said "With Buddhist Law cultivation you must strive for further advancement," then when the forehead opened up, oh, so that's the way it is. Once I heard a fellow practitioner say that practitioners don't have friends and it was as though the machine inside received it because one day the forehead opened up and spilled out a bunch of enlightenment things, some can be said, most cannot be said. Amongst them was "Practitioners don't have friends, then they won't have enemies anymore," "If your heart has compassion, your xingxin will be raised." Another time while meditating, the forehead opened up and suddenly it came out "You are not a human, you're a diety," then after a while suddenly it came out again "You're not a human! You're really a diety!" Afterwards the meditation was so comfortable.

To think that I used to read very slowly everyday, one chapter of Zhuan Falun would take a very long time to read. I also felt that my knowledge was shallow and I would not be able to enlighten, and was afraid I would not be able to cultivate upwards. Now I listen as I read and don't even need two hours to finish reading a chapter. Over the last month, progress has been rapid and I've gone from not being able to enlighten to being able to enlighten to a little bit from within the Fa. After enlightening to a little bit, the xingxin naturally goes up a bit and the meditation and entry into tranquility raises yet another level. This process really is profound and subtle without compare and is indescribable. I have really understood the power of the Dafa! It really is "Buddhist Fa has no boundaries!"

In Zhuan Falun the Teacher said: "There are many such people in the community of cultivators, who have always been attempting to practice toward higher levels. They have traveled everywhere and spent a lot of money. They have not found the well-known masters after having visited different places in the country. Being well-known does not necessarily mean that these masters really understand anything. In the end, they traveled back and forth and spent a lot of money for nothing. Today, we have made public to you such a great cultivation practice, and I have delivered it to your doorstep. It will be up to you if you can practice cultivation and make it." This paragraph is a description of me and it aims straight at my heart. I spent a lifetime finding teachers and learning martial arts and I experienced it first-hand that there are none who teach us unconditionally and hope for us to cultivate upwards without reward like our Teacher does. The Teacher said before: "There is only once chance for this opportunity, as soon as the illusion that you can't discard passes, you'll know what you have lost." Today, at the age of 70, I have gained this opportunity that takes tens of thousands of years to await. If I don't cultivate now, then when? I have the confidence and the conviction, I must strive for further advancement, cultivate to completion!