Zhuan Falun Answered My Questions about Life
By a new practitioner abroad
(Clearwisdom.net) In order to have more people with predestined relationships recognize Falun Dafa (also called Falun Gong), I would like to share my first impressions after reading the book Zhuan Falun two years ago.
I, along with most people born in the 1970's in China, grew up under the Communist culture and atheism knowing nothing about gods or cultivation. As a student of science and engineering, I went abroad for study after graduating from college, and have been abroad for 16 years. During this time, I was always busy with family, company and my children's school.
As I mechanically ran around for my family and business, I often felt vacuous and homeless. I often asked myself, "Besides my family, business and my children, what else do I live for? Do I just come to this world discreetly and then leave the same way years later?"
I started to go to church and study the Bible. I have some understandings of the discipline of Christianity, however I couldn't believe in Jesus' divine displays and God's being omnipresent, because my mind was limited by modern science. The richness of the material life couldn't fill in the mental emptiness I was plagued with. I lived in a perplexed state.
Finally, one day I opened Zhuan Falun, and Master's words filled my heart with nectar. Let me just mention several paragraphs in Lecture One of Zhuan Falun that shocked me,
"A person's earliest life comes from the universe. The space of the universe is benevolent to begin with and embodies the characteristic of Zhen-Shan-Ren. At birth, one is assimilated to the characteristic of the universe. Yet as the number of lives increases, a collective form of social relations develops in which some people may develop selfishness and gradually their level will be lowered. If they cannot stay at this level, they must drop down further. At that level, however, they may again become not so good and not be able to stay there, either. They will continue to descend further until, in the end, they reach this level of human beings." (Zhuan Falun)
I read this paragraph several times and then understood the surface meaning. It turns out that humans did not evolve from monkeys! We were originally beings in high levels, but we did bad things because of selfishness. We therefore reached the level of human beings after descending level by level. It was because we diverged from Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and didn't deserve to stay at high levels that we became human beings. Master even used plain words to expose this unfathomable enigma!
Master's following teachings allowed me to understand the true meaning of human life.
"One should return to one's original, true self; this is the real purpose of being human. Therefore, once a person wants to practice cultivation, his or her Buddha-nature is considered to have come forth. Such a thought is most precious, for this person wants to return to his or her original, true self and transcend the ordinary human level." (Zhuan Falun)
Having been seeking in this dense fog for so many years, I finally found a glimmer of hope. I believe that most people are familiar with the idiom of returning to the origin. However, how many people really understand its profound meaning?
The first more than twenty pages of Zhuan Falun allowed me to understand many questions that I couldn't figure out in life. It is easy to imagine how fruitful it was for me after I had finished reading the entire book! Master said,
"Upon walking outside this auditorium, many of you will feel like different people, and your outlook will be guaranteed to change. You will know how to conduct yourselves in the future, and you will no longer be so befuddled. It is guaranteed to be this way. Therefore, your xinxing has already caught up." (Zhuan Falun)
This was exactly the way I was. I only lived for my own interests in the past. For example, whenever I encountered personal interests, I was only considerate of my own parents, and never of my husband's parents. Regarding doing housework and taking care of children, I often schemed with my husband and didn't take more responsibility. After reading through Zhuan Falun for the first time, I became broad-minded and began treating those around me well. I considered my family members the same as others. I did any type of housework such as cleaning the toilet and emptying the trash, and never haggled over how much I would do. In the past, I often competed with others to see who was superior. I was filled with jealousy if others were better than me. Otherwise, I congratulated myself for being superior. There was a lady in my company whose background was similar to mine, but she became the boss and supervised many people. Although I said nothing, I was unbalanced in my heart. After reading Zhuan Falun, I understood that you will not lose anything if it is yours and you will not have it if something is not yours. If you forcibly take it, you will produce karma and have to repay it in the future. I no longer compete with others as I did before and treat people sincerely. After making this change, my heart felt relieved right away.
I started being a good person and gradually progressed to becoming a true cultivator. The profound meaning contained in Zhuan Falun allows cultivators to enlighten only when they elevate themselves.
As a new disciple, my greatest pleasure is studying Zhuan Falun and all of Master's teachings. Whenever I have time, I read Dafa books. The feeling of being fully immersed in the Fa can only be sensed, but not expressed in words.
Posting date: 7/7/2010