From Ordinary Person To Cultivator

Dafa Practitioner

PureInsight | June 11, 2001

I was very sickly and frail as a child and I almost succumbed to illnesses several times. Thankfully, my family knew some doctors who were experienced traditional Chinese herbalists, and I improved after many rounds of treatment. Therefore, the magical efficacy of medicine left a profound impression in my childhood memory.

Later in life, I went to medical school. Full of confidence and aspirations to cure all kinds of human diseases, I studied very hard. I gradually learned about human body structures, functions, pathological changes, and theories and methods of medical treatment. I was able to help relieve the suffering of many patients. Indeed, I felt I was able fulfill my high school classmate’s parting words about “curing disease wherever I go.

As I gained in experience and knowledge, however, I still had many unanswered questions about medical problems. One example was the nature of psychosis in human beings. Medical science accepts the fact that only a small proportion of psychopathic patients have detectable pathological changes in their brains, while most of the patients have no apparent cerebral abnormalities. So, with brain structure and morphology apparently normal, how could a human being’s spirit, or consciousness (mind-intent) change so that he/she became psychopathic? It is not hard to find geniuses and extremely gifted people who are or have been psychopaths. Some are able to conceive intricate and ingenious theories that are almost impossible for ordinary people to comprehend. Others can design structures or paint landscapes far beyond an ordinary person’s imagination. Where do their ideas and conssciousness come from?

I believe that mankind’s spiritual world is abundant and mysterious. It surely exists, yet it seems to be difficult to prove it.

Mr. Li Hongzhi discussed psychosis in his book, Zhuan Falun: “...I'd say that psychosis is not an illness. Why? This is because a patient with psychosis does not have any virus, and his body has neither pathological changes nor infections. Esychosis occurs when a person’s Main Consciousness becomes too weak. How weak can it become? It is like a person who can never take charge of himself. A mental patient’s Main Spirit is just like that. It no longer wants to be in charge of the body. It is always in a daze and cannot become conscious. At this point, the person’s Assistant Consciousness or foreign messages will interfere with him. What can be done about it? Educate the person and help him become conscious--but it is very difficult to do that. You will find that when a doctor at a psychiatric hospital picks up an electric-shock club in his or her hand, immediately the patients will be too scared to utter anything absurd. Why is it? At that moment, this person’s Main Spirit becomes alert, and it fears the electrical shock.' Mr. Li thus exposed the essence of psychosis in simple, lucid words.

There is also discussion about mind-intent in Zhuan Falun: “How does it look at different forms of human thinking (mind-intent)? And how do they manifest? Modern medicine still cannot solve many questions in its study of the human brain, because it is not as easy as studying the surface of our bodies. At deeper levels, different dimensions assume different forms.'

I also had a puzzling personal experience. It occurred in 1990, when I was an anesthesiologist. The procedure is that the anesthesiologist visits and examines the patient before surgery. I had an appointment to visit a middle-aged female patient but when I got to her room, she wasn’t there. I saw this patient for the first time later in the surgery suite. She lay on her back in the bed with her eyes closed. She had put her two hands together in front of her chest (Heshi) and was mumbling some words. I set up my equipment and left quietly without disturbing her. When I returned after about ten minutes, she had finished her chant and had a peaceful expression on her face. She said to me, “You are a good person, let me look at you.' I didn’t understand why she wanted to look at me. In fact, I was there to check up on her! She asked about my birth date and time. When I told her the date, she responded immediately with the date in the lunar calendar. Then she closed her eyelids slightly. It looked like she was concentrating on something that was suspended in the air. She began to talk about my life experiences, even going so far as to describe what I was thinking at that very moment. What she said was in such detail that it scared me a great deal. When she finished, I found that my hands were shaking and I was breaking out in a cold sweat. I felt transparent in front of her. She knew everything about me, including secret, personal things; but I had never met her before. She not only told me about things from the past, but also events in the future that all came true later. How could she know so much about my life, past and future? I could not come up with an answer.

I was astonished when I first read Zhuan Falun. One of the reasons was the detailed description of the supernormal ability of precognition and retrocognition, which is what I experienced with this woman.

There was something else that touched me deeply before I obtained Falun Dafa. I was told that my grandfather was not interested in seeking fame or fortune, and that he began to cultivate a Qigong practice in the Tao School in his middle age. He practiced every day at dawn and frequently lived for several months at a time in a Taoist temple in the mountains, so he could discuss the scriptures and talk about cultivation with the Taoists. I had never seen him sick, yet one morning he summoned the whole family and told us that he would pass away. He asked for help in cleaning his body, changing his clothes and making the arrangements for his funeral. He lay in the bed after everything was done. Twenty minutes later, my family members found that his heartbeat and breathing had stopped. He was ninety-six years old then.

I had read a few articles in magazines and newspapers that said that some people could predict the time of their passing, but I never thought it could happen in my family. To my knowledge, modern medicine has no explanation for this phenomenon.

I read many scriptures in Buddhism and Taoism, seeking the truth about the meaning and purpose of life. However, the scriptures I read were full of mundane theories that had spread among small groups of ordinary people. Their central ideology was to teach people to do good deeds and accumulate virtue. The goal was to receive blessings in future lives, and to avoid descending into hellish places. I had read the Bible as well when I was younger, further causing me to ponder the existence of divine beings.

Unless one can find evidence that proves that divine beings do not exist, one should not deny the possibility of it. At the very least, the issue of divine existence belongs to the category of things that can never be proven. I profoundly believe that this is the genuine scientific approach. If one denies the existence of divine beings in the absence of any evidence to that effect, one would be guilty of not being objective. Isn’t that true?

Even though Falun Dafa is not for curing illnesses, it can correct all unhealthy conditions in practitioners. This kind of “correction' is quite miraculous. After I began practicing, all parts of my body that had been sick before had reactions. Localized symptoms manifested themselves subtly and then gradually got worse. When they reached some kind of peak, the symptoms suddenly disappeared very quickly. Afterwards, that part of the body felt very relaxed and comfortable. After all of the body parts went through this process, I felt very much at ease. When I walked, I felt light and comfortable. Even if most of the people around you carry contagious diseases, you don’t have to worry about it. Only when people genuinely cultivate Falun Dafa can they have such a wonderful feeling.

The principles of Falun Dafa are extraordinary, teaching us that the true purpose of a human being is to return to the original true self. If you enjoy exploring with your mind, and you are willing and courageous enough to seek out the secrets of life and the cosmos, you will find all the answers in Zhuan Falun. If you can give up the deeply rooted conceptions of everyday people, then, as you continue to study Falun Dafa, you will realize the profundity and comprehensiveness of the principles of the universal law.

Master Li said in Zhuan Falun: '‘The Buddha Fa' is most profound; among all the theories in the world, it is the most intricate and extraordinary science. In order to explore this domain, humankind must fundamentally change its conventional thinking. Otherwise, the truth of the universe will forever remain a mystery to humankind, and everyday people will forever crawl within the boundary delimited by their own ignorance.

In order to accept new ideas, you have to expand yourself, and dare to break through your existing concepts. When you look at the problem from another viewpoint, a different angle, you will find that infinitely beautiful scenes lie behind the perilous peak.

That is how I became a practitioner from being an ordinary person.

(Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/sci/sci/home/newscontent.asp?ID=10241)

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