2020-05-13
From Minghui.org
I started practising Falun Gong in 2006. I have come to understand the meaning of life and left my previous incorrect lifestyle behind. Falun Gong has changed me into a good man. Here is my sharing about my troubled youth and the marvellous changes I went through afterward.
Troubled Youth
I was a troubled teenager. I started smoking and drinking when I was 12 years old. I bullied other classmates. After graduating from high school, I indulged in eating, drinking, playing and general enjoyment.
After graduating from a vocational high school, I ignored my parents’ objections and learned to play guitar. I played music and had long hair. I was young but I lacked energy. I lived a life of decadence and was unable to break free.
Although I could make a living playing music, my income was very unstable. I often asked my parents for money.
While I was studying music in 1996, I started to smoke marijuana with my classmates. I could not concentrate on learning music at all, but in the process of smoking marijuana I looked for ethereal feelings and sought spiritual stimulation. I relied on the drug to find so-called creative inspiration.
Smoking marijuana harmed my body and my mind. I had hallucinations and delusions. I suffered paranoid states, mental disorders, acute self-consciousness, and dual personalities.
I relied on marijuana every day to lift my spirits. It seemed like I became another person when smoking. I now know that it was not truly me, but a messy low-level entity that was controlling my main consciousness. Later into my addiction, I would have headaches before smoking the drug each time.
One night after smoking marijuana, I lay on my bed gripped by an inexplicable fear. I felt particularly uncomfortable. I heard a voice telling me that I could not continue this way. I felt like I was about to cry. I felt very stressed out and frustrated.
I was unhealthy. I am 5’11” but my body weight was less than 132 pounds. I was in my 20s but I looked like I was 30 years old. My parents and relatives urged me to change my lifestyle, but I did not listen.
Reborn
Fortunately, I came across Falun Dafa and since then I have lived a new life.
One day in October 2006, I noticed a DVD in my drawer when I was tidying up. I recalled that I had found the DVD when I went to visit a friend. It had been lodged in a gap in their front door and I saw it when I went to knock on the door. I was curious about it, and so put the DVD in my bag.
There was a lotus flower printed on the disc. I played the DVD, which contained a video introducing Falun Gong and an e-book, Zhuan Falun. I watched the video and then read the book out of curiosity.
I was attracted by the content of the book. It talked about how to be a good person, how to be more altruistic, respect one’s parents, and so on. I came to understand that the meaning of life is to return to one’s true self.
I finished reading the book within a week. “This is what I have been looking for,” I thought. I started to practice Falun Gong. I put a stop to my smoking and drinking habits three months later.
All of my bad habits, including using curse words, just disappeared. Master cleansed my body to remove the bad substances. My bad feelings were gone. I got a haircut and shaved my beard. I became high spirited and lived happily.
Perseverance
My parents were misled by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) propaganda defaming Falun Gong. They objected to me practicing and asked me to give up my belief. One night they burst into my room and beat and scolded me. I cried. I cried over their misunderstandings.
My parents are from the military and are deeply deceived by the Party. They could not accept me practicing Falun Gong. They often beat and scolded me. I clarified the truth to them, but they did not listen and just rejected it.
This was my tribulation. That stage of beatings and verbal abuse has since passed. I persevered.
I knew that what I did in the past was very irresponsible to my family. I must change. My parents had let me live in the big room so I could play music and host friends. They lived in a tiny room with my little nephew.
After practising Dafa, I gave up the big room and often helped my parents with the household chores. I became gentle and kind, and did things more for the sake of others.
Suffering Hardship and Being Kind
I started looking for a job. A friend introduced me to a job at a bar with a low monthly salary of 1,000 yuan. I accepted it and did chores in the bar every day, including selling tickets to music performances, helping guests, and collecting empty wine bottles from the tables.
I worked wherever I was needed and was not picky about what was asked of me. The bar was full of cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs. Although I worked in a noisy environment, my mind was serene and peaceful.
I went to work at 3 p.m. each day, and I got off work at 4 a.m. Since the bar was more than 12 miles from my house, it was very expensive to catch a taxi at night. In the summer, I rode a bicycle to work.
In the winter I waited for the first subway to go home. Sometimes the subway station was still closed in the early morning, so I would just wait at the entrance. I sometimes fell asleep in the subway car and missed my station.
Although I was very tired every day after arriving home, I did the sitting meditation for an hour. My fatigue would disappear immediately. I did hard work, yet I did not feel the hardship.
Master taught us, “Let joy be found in hardship.” (“Tempering the will” in Hong Yin, The Grand Verses)
I used to fight with others, but I changed after practising Falun Gong. I once encountered a customer who did not pay, but wanted to enter the bar to watch the performance. I refused him and he tried to hit me. A colleague stopped him.
I later changed jobs. My boss trusted me and had me take care of the storage, sales, and accounting. I followed Dafa’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance in my daily work. I took personal interest lightly and thought about the customers.
My work performance keeps improving and my salary has been raised again and again. I have more friends. Everyone around me trusts me because I don’t have bad thoughts. All of these changes are because I practice Falun Gong.
Rewarded with Good Fortune
I bought an apartment and a car, got married and we had a child. Everything is going smoothly. My wife and I respect each other and live in harmony. I know this is a reward from practising Dafa.
A few days ago, my wife asked me whether we have had any quarrels. No, we have not had any arguments. Since practising Falun Gong, I follow Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and think about others. I help my wife with the household chores.
I enjoy good health and have not needed to take any medicine after I started practising Falun Gong. I appreciate Master Li, the founder of Falun Gong, from the bottom of my heart.
Editor’s Note: Dear readers, do you know that Falun Dafa, originally from China, is currently practiced by people in over 100 countries? But in China, since Jul. 20, 1999, Falun Gong is defamed, slandered and persecuted due to the Chinese Communist Party’s fear of Falun Gong’s rapidly growing popularity. Jiang Zemin, former head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), perceived the spiritual discipline’s growing popularity as a threat to the CCP’s atheistic ideology.
To learn more about the persecution Falun Gong practitioners are subjected to in China, visit http://faluninfo.net/.
For more information about the practice or to download Zhuan Falun, visit: www.falundafa.org. All books, exercise music, resources, and instructions are available completely free of charge.
WATCH “No Longer Disillusioned” by Rise-Ascend
(https://youtu.be/rdwqUt97hhc)
