Being a Young Man on the Path of Dafa

A Western Practitioner from Montreal

PureInsight | June 18, 2006

[PureInsight.org] I'd like to share my understanding based of the Fa of three major tests I've passed in the last two years.



My name is Arnaud, I started practicing Falun Dafa in June 2001, when I
followed my mother at group practice. I practiced diligently for a
year, but then wavered for the two next years. I truly decided to
become a diligent practitioner at the 2004 Canadian Fahui, which was
held in my hometown, Montreal.



The first test was sentimentality for a girl with whom I started dating
soon after the Conference. Our relationship quickly broke up, which
pained my heart a lot for a few months. Not learning the lesson, I kept
pursuing love and had problems with girls twice quickly after that one.
Master says in Lecture Four, about upgrading xinxing:
"If sentimentality is not relinquished, you will be unable to practice
cultivation. If you are free from this sentimentality, nobody can
affect you. An everyday person's mind will be unable to sway you. What
takes over in its place is benevolence, which is something more noble."
I used to think I was only going through a tough time, and that soon I
would be alright. That was not a good understanding, rather I was still
stumbling at that level again and again, until I understood I shouldn't
pursue anything, and just follow calmly the path Master has arranged
for me.



The second test was about sports. Back in 2001, I had started to play
American football a month after I became a Dafa disciple. I never
really enjoyed the game itself, and I was not a star player but, oddly,
everyone was telling me I was good, and my head was filled with dreams
of getting a scholarship in the States. But it was as if I was only
enjoying football in my dreams for my future, because, in reality, I
couldn't sleep at night since I was so nervous. And during the games I
was hoping I would stay on the sidelines rather than be on the field.
It was really hard for me to quit the team since I was shouldering the
central position, the quarterback. So, year after year, I stayed in the
team. It has greatly affected my cultivation, and the three tasks I
have to do, because of the time I had to put in all year long in
training.



Just after the Montreal Fahui in 2004, when the season began, I broke
my right shoulder. Last summer, when I shared with a practitioner in
Los Angeles, I understood why, in my four years of cultivating at that
time, I had never been tranquil in meditation. It was because of sports
thoughts and anxiety disturbing me all year long. I came to the
conclusion that I was a diligent Dafa disciple and that I should not,
in the season to come, be affected by the game, win or lose, good play
or bad play. In the first game of the season, I realized it was
impossible for me to stay calm in a game which I feel thrives on demon
nature and aggressiveness. I felt really uncomfortable, and wasn't able
to control the game at all. I wanted to leave the team. But after
asking my coaches twice to quit, and thinking hard, I stayed.



From the Fa, I can see I had to be there and save my team-mates and
coaches. Master, with boundless compassion, mentions in His article
"Dafa is all-encompassing," "In every one of society's professions a
person can cultivate, and in each there are also people with
predestined relationships waiting to obtain the Fa." Therefore, before
the games, very often did I meditate in my locker last autumn, I also
had the chance to present Falun Gong to my team-mates many times, and
even in-depth. Some of them found me weird, but knew how righteous I
was, and thus knew Dafa is Great. Some of them even helped me in some
Dafa projects.



As society is declining, the youth have very low moral standards, and I
know my team-mates are committing many bad deeds over and over,
thinking it's right. Master mentions that He does not acknowledge any
of the bad things sentient beings have done over the long course of
history, only their view on the Fa-rectification counts. My team-mates
are thus saved; Master is so benevolent. When I see some of them now,
one of the first things they mention is, "When are you going to China?
Every thing is OK with your Falun Gong?"



Even though I didn't play much this season, everyone regarded me as a
captain and the moral leader of the team. No one lost respect for me. I
was surprised and didn't understand how a player who doesn't want to be
there could be respected like that. But, "the Buddha-light illuminates
everywhere and rectifies all abnormalities." They felt comfortable with
me, and knew I was righteous man, a Dafa disciple.



The third test I overcame began not long after that Montreal Fahui and
kept affecting me a whole year, until last autumn. It was my mother's
announcement she was quitting Dafa and her death, a year after. My
mother had been cultivating diligently since 2000, but in 2004, for
various reasons, she was brought away from the Dafa disciples' Body.
She had mixed the Dafa cultivation with the Catholic faith for a year,
until she completely chose to quit Dafa. Though she kept on cultivating
her heart, she had problems with demons interfering from her own mind,
from my understanding. Master clearly mentions in Lecture Six, "Demonic
Interference from One's Own Mind," "Everything reflected from the
universe will transform with one's thoughts, because everything within
a person's dimensional field is at his or her command." He further
says: "It is very difficult to truly save a person, yet so very easy to
ruin a person. Once your mind is not right, you will be ruined at
once." My mother's thoughts about fellow practitioners, about Master,
about Falun Dafa, kept on getting worse. Her health kept on
deteriorating until she was hospitalized in October. We are so
fortunate to be Dafa disciple, we must look inside for the answers, and
not blame others and fanaticize about other's thinking, since it can
all transform according to our thoughts, make us enlighten on an evil
path, and finally destroy us.



The same day she was brought to the hospital, my father announced to us
that she would die. I was not affected at first. I knew Dafa was
all-encompassing and could save her if she could sincerely accept it
back in her heart. Then I went to the hospital that night and read Zhuan Falun
to her. I continued doing so the next afternoon. All the time, I was
asking her if she was listening to me, how it was important, I was
asking her to say inside herself "Falun Dafa Hao", or that I was now
sending forth righteous thoughts. Once, after I asked if she understood
what I was reading, she said, "Yes, it'll save me." And once, when a
nurse was insisting on talking to me and my dad about how to announce
my mother's impending death, my mother surprisingly open her eyes and
moved forward in her bed, saying, "I want him to stay here, and read to
me." The nurse agreed and left with my father. I know my mother was
listening to me.



At one point emotion caught me up, and I cried a lot, but I felt
ashamed of doing so in front her. The sight of one's mother in such a
poor health condition, with yellow skin, yellow eyes, being so skinny,
not being able to talk, can greatly hurt a young man's heart. Coming
back home, though, that night, I read many emails from fellow
practitioners encouraging me with righteous thoughts or sending
Master's poems, which really made me enlighten and helped me pass this
test.



I am very thankful to my fellow practitioners and Master.



She past away four days after she entered the hospital. At that very
moment, though, when she stopped breathing, inside myself I was calm
and unaffected. The reason is not because my heart was cold and
selfish; rather my heart had compassion. And I knew Master was looking
after me. I have no control over her fate. I don't know what went on
inside of her while I was doing all these things next to her. Thus, at
the very moment of her death, my heart was calm and my understanding
was that she might die now, but reincarnate in a practitioner's family
soon to practice Dafa, if that's the vow she made before her death. No
matter what her future is, it is not under my control. Thus I can't be
attached to it.



I was therefore very calm and smiling at the funeral home and church the following week.



Going to Washington D.C.



Now, I would like to share about my going to Washington D.C. during Hu
Jintao's visit to North America. I learned and cultivated xinxing a lot that week.



I really felt this trip was very important. I then asked my father if I
could miss school and go. He hesitated, and told me he would decide to
following morning.



Then I got on the computer and read an email in which someone mentioned
that some of us might be doing all the truth-clarification activities
because we wouldn't get those opportunities elsewhere. I first declined
that message, thinking "No that's not me, how could it be me." Later,
when I sent for righteous thoughts, I saw that practitioner saying that
sentence, I asked, "Is that me?" He kindly replied "Yes." I knew Master
was sending a message through him.



After removing that attachment, I sincerely asked Master to arrange
things for me to go to Washington D.C. I asked Master seriously,
"Master, I want to go to D.C. to save beings, fulfill my vow, and do
well in three tasks I have to do."



The next morning my dad said I could go. But our thoughts are reflected
in the people around us, and in ordinary society. So, when I asked my
dad if I could go, I was really attached to the fact that on Friday, I
had a biology exam, a class in which I am almost failing. As a result,
he had much reluctance because of the fact I was missing school, and it
could affect my studies.



I told him I would study on my way there, and on my way back, and
during all the transportation in D.C. A practitioner with me in the car
driving to Washington, was pushing me to study, to show my dad how
responsible and good I was.



In D.C., I had the chance to hold the banner just in front of the
Celestial band. I felt so proud of being of Dafa disciple. We walked on
Pennsylvania Avenue, where the heart of United States is, where all
those majestic buildings are, with sculptures, columns. Faraway in
front of us, we could see the Capitol, and marching on the beat of the
Celestial band, I felt we were in a royal parade.



I also discovered other attachments I had; for example, I am always
congratulating others for everything they do. From the Fa, I questioned
myself: why would I be attached to congratulating other people all the
time? Is it really to be kind and compassionate? Isn't it because I am
attached to being thanked and congratulated for everything I do? Yes,
the reason is not that I want to be compassionate, or that my family
would have instilled in me that notion of thanking, the answer is
inside of me, my attachments are reflected in my words.



Coming back to Montreal, I knew I had changed a lot, again. I came back
a day before, to study well for my exam. I cannot be proud since I did
fail the exam. It would be too easy to blame it on the fact that my
biology class is all based on Darwin's theory of evolution, and that
the present scientific method is wrong. I have to show I am a Dafa
disciple; I cannot fail exams, nor have bad grades. My school year is
done now, and at this very moment without having received all my
grades, I am passing biology, but not by much, and it could affect my
future application to university. But that is all because of my extreme
behaviour of not paying enough attention to validating Dafa and being a
top student.



In closing, I just want to say how I truly have to overcome my fears in
certain regards, like clarifying the truth more in-depth to my family.
Sometimes I just freeze, and fail opportunities to save people. Master
said in "Pass the Deadly Test," "Fear is a death trap on a human
being's journey toward divinity." I have to let go of my fears.



But after sharing this with you today, I have to go back to Montreal,
and truly break through this attachment, because, as our Master taught
us in "The Knowing Heart," "Grand talk counts for naught when it comes
to life and death, Actions reveal what is true."



I just want to say also how writing a sharing is great. I made so many
versions of this paper, and every time I read it, I find shortcomings
and areas I can improve on. So I encourage everyone to write sharings
since the process is beneficial for us, and also, please kindly point
out any attachments you discover in me.



Thank you Master, thank you everyone.



 

(Selected paper from 2006 Canada Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference in Toronto, May 28, 2006)

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