My attachment of selfishness was exposed. It was so shameful and formidable to have the attachment of trying to take advantage of Falun Dafa. As Teacher said in On the Novel The Cosmos' Calamity: "...you shouldn't let your heart and mind bob about like duckweed, stirred at the first hint of wind." My mind and body weren't truly rooted in the principles taught in the Falun Gong books.

For example, when distributing materials, some practitioners wanted to go with those who have strong righteous thoughts since they would feel "more relaxed" with them. Some practitioners at the materials center are dependent on those who have technical skills. If those practitioners left, the center could be paralyzed. We've had many lessons when we are too dependent on others.

I am a Falun Dafa practitioner working in a large U.S. corporation. Today I would like to share with everyone how I negated arrangements and removed my mental obstacles to clarify the truth and promote the NTDTV Chinese New Year Spectacular and Christmas Holiday Wonders in a U.S. corporation so more people might have a chance to see the performances.

So, what is Falun Gong? Why did the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) want to suppress Falun Gong? Why do Falun Gong practitioners risk their lives to keep their belief? Although I had been a CCP member for about forty years, I knew that CCP leaders change CCP dogma whenever they want to. I knew I could not trust statements from the CCP. Thus, I wanted find out the truth. I started reading the book Zhuan Falun after someone introduced me to it.

As a matter of fact, I don't really have a deep understanding on how to look inward. Whenever I encountered conflicts and could not pass through certain tribulations, I became anxious. I looked inward, but could not find the fundamental attachment. I would tell myself, "Forget about it. I will try to do well by following the Falun Gong teachings." In this way, I did not truly let go of the attachment.

Then I was introduced to Zhuan Falun. When I first read the book, I immediately felt its extraordinary power. After reading through the book again and again I was greatly shocked. I had found a real way of life in the maze,

When fellow practitioners were persecuted, I did not treat it as my own thing, did not actively cooperate to rescue them, nor paid enough attention to sending forth righteous thoughts. I feel that I am responsible for the persecution of my fellow practitioners. I blamed myself and was ashamed to visit them. Sometimes I feared that their families might not like to see me or I might make trouble for them if I visited the arrested practitioners. In reality, I was protecting myself and my style of “individual cultivation.”

After another practitioner introduced me to Falun Dafa, all of my illnesses disappeared. I have thoroughly gotten rid of the bad habits of smoking and drinking. My bad temper has completely gone away and I became a totally different person.

Having come to realise so many of the truths taught in Falun Gong via my own experiences I am able to be more steadfast in forging ahead on my cultivation path. This shows me how to be a good person and how to treat my work and colleagues. I won't live aimlessly because this Great Law, this Dafa, can solve everything and truly provide me with answers to all my questions.

In the article, the practitioner said, "Those who truly believe in the Falun Gong teachings have let go of their human hearts. They do not have thoughts of worries and impurity, thus they are pure, truthful, dignified, and righteous." This is so true! After seven years of cruel and insane persecution by the evil Chinese Communist Party and by cultivating according to the principles taught in Falun Gong, practitioners were able to break through with dignity and righteousness,

At that moment, I suddenly thought of the preparation for meditation whereby we sit with legs crossed, keep the back and neck upright, leave a space between the upper and lower teeth, let compassion arise in the heart and assume a peaceful facial expression. After I let go of the attachment in my heart, my legs were still painful, but my heart was no longer affected by it. Now I am able to have a peaceful facial expression when I meditate, despite the pain in my legs.

As soon as we entered the building we saw someone we'd known for quite some time and who had always used a cane. She worked for the Qigong Association, and since it was convenient for her, she'd learnt many different types of qigong, but she'd never been able to put away her walking stick. This time, however, she walked into the building without any aid at all, and only after I saw that did I finally believe in Dafa.

On New Year’s Day of 2007, the Divine Land Marching Band was to perform in Paris. A fellow practitioner called me and asked if I would participate. There were only two weeks left and the band really needed some more supporters. I did not have any experience on any musical instrument, nor did I have a musical instrument, but the fellow practitioner said that I would get a drum in Paris.

I occasionally went back to the library to pick up The 100... to read again about the Buddha. I had a hunger for this information. However, I did not understand or see how I could live my life according to those beliefs. Thus, my life (which was a mild version of the "rat race") and beliefs were not cohesively one. I encountered many Eastern practises (such as Mahayana Buddhism) and spiritual figures, but I clearly knew each was not what I was looking for. That is, until I found Falun Gong. A Chinese coworker told me about it.

Earlier this year, Sydney's young practitioners spontaneously organised a car tour to Adelaide and various urban suburbs to clarify the truth. The temperatures were as high as 47 degrees centigrade (about 117 degrees Fahrenheit). The youngest of the 14 youths was five years old. They clarified the truth about Falun Gong and exposed the terrible persecution that is currently taking place against the practice by the Chinese Communist Party to the local people, despite the baking sun.

Teacher gave lectures at the Yanbian Auditorium during the period of August 20th-28th, 1994. The scale of the lecture was huge, with approximately three thousands people from about ten provinces around China. Among those people, there were veteran practitioners who followed Teacher from lecture to lecture and also staff members of the Falun Dafa Research Association. They were all very friendly and kind.

I always wanted to tell fellow practitioners near me, "Look, another of my articles has been published." Once I showed a fellow practitioner a published article of mine. He told me that he had already read it, and he also advised me to spend more time studying the Falun Gong teachings and to study with a calm heart. I noticed that when I heard his words, I felt somewhat disappointed. In fact I had been waiting to hear some words of praise from him! This exposed my show off mentality and the impure heart of wanting to validate myself.

In order to become diligent in studying the Falun Gong teachings, the Fa, I decided to memorise the book Zhuan Falun. It has been over one month and I am into the third lecture. I feel a rapid improvement. Through memorising the Fa, I have seen the following benefits of calmly studying the Fa:

When my father-in-law was at the hospital and didn't need me, I went to coffee shops to speak to people via the Internet so that they too could have a chance to learn the truth. I knew I shouldn't stay there for too long. But I didn't shy away from my family responsibilities either. In fact, I was able to do a lot of things when I was at the countryside and I was able to come back when I needed to.

I remember the first day of the persecution when the rumours claimed white to be black, I read Zhuan Falun from cover to cover and then again. I felt an awakening from the bottom of my heart. With tears falling down my face my heart became steadfast. I went through this step by step. I realised the seriousness and difficulty of cultivation. Facing the tribulations, I saw many of my defects and I decided to do better little by little. As a result I am more strict with myself in both life and work.

As we walk to each and every door in Chinatown, we promote our tickets and clarify the truth. As Chinese people come closer to the NTDTV Chinese New Year Spectacular, the ticketing situation totally improves.

He had suffered from high blood pressure for years and been dependent on medication, but after he started practicing his blood pressure was normal even after he stopped taking the medicine. He had also suffered pain that made walking difficult for him, and no treatment helped, but the pain totally disappeared. Not only was his health better, but his family relationships also improved. The changes were so significant that his old army buddies all said that he was growing younger.

I realised that in any situation, a practitioner should improve him or herself openly and with dignity, keeping a benevolent and peaceful heart that manifests the quality of a Falun Dafa practitioner--being selfless and putting others first. No matter if it is in the family, in society, or in the workplace, if we don't mind our words and deeds and act as an average person would, we might unintentionally hurt others and cause them to miss the chance.

Early on, there were only two practitioners. One of them was a student in Cheng Kung University and the other was a lady. They found that there were many tourists in the garden in the afternoon. To give chances to more people to learn about Falun Dafa, in March 2001 they decided to set up another exercise site in the afternoon.

She explained that she had seen a group of practitioners demonstrating the exercises at the city mall. She had thought of me, since she knew I was interested in Tai-Chi. She told me it was very important that I read the flyer, even though she was not interested in the practice herself. I did not pay much attention and put the flyer in my jacket pocket. A few weeks later, I found the flyer and started reading it. To my surprise, I found it very interesting and thought it would be worth a try.

I am probably the most suspicious person in the world when it comes to beliefs. I am a lawyer, I look for evidence. I insist on tangible signs. And yet when I read the book Zhuan Falun, I felt that everything that I had seen in the world constituted evidence for what is described in this book about "Truthfulnes, Compassion, Forbearance." All of a sudden, everything made sense. My intuition fit perfectly with the information imparted by the book.

A Falun Gong practitioner once travelled to Northeastern China to spread the truth of Falun Gong. She had with her six months of wages she had saved for printing the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. This practitioner told me an amazing story about an elderly woman who attained Falun Gong. The following is a brief summary of her story.

In the dream, I had gotten up late and the examination had already started by the time I arrived. There were about 50-60 fellow practitioners taking the same examination. After finishing one subject, everyone went to a different room for the next subject. I realised it meant passing many tests. During the exam, I was muddleheaded. I did poorly even on subjects I was good at. There were questions I previously was able to answer easily. Why was I not able to answer them now?

I began to smoke at the age of 15 and smoked for 37 years. When I first read Zhuan Falun and came to the issue of quitting smoking, I knew nothing about cultivation, I only thought to give it a try. As a result, I haven't smoked since and did not have even a bit of suffering. I feel fortunate to have learnt Falun Dafa whenever I see people feeling miserable trying to quit smoking and failing every trial.

As I continued handing out leaflets, I suddenly saw the elderly woman again. She was standing motionless in the middle of the sidewalk, with her back toward me, about 100 meters from where we were practising the exercises. At first I was surprised. "Why is she standing in the middle of the sidewalk and not going anywhere?" I thought. "Maybe she is lost or has forgotten something." It was very strange to see her standing there for such a long time.

I was letting my attachments run wild. Once I realised this and was able to get my mind back on track, everything changed. After I had this righteous thought, my legs and body stopped hurting immediately and the drowsiness I was experiencing vanished. I was amazed; because this was the first time I had experienced such a feeling. This was also the first time during the conference I was not sleepy. I was alert through the rest of the conference and the speeches all became interesting.

When I was in China, I read on the Internet about the grand Divine Land Marching Band in New York. However, I had never dreamt I would become a tenor horn player in the Divine Land Marching Band, as I am almost seventy years old, and had never learnt any instruments before.

Prior to beginning the practice, my husband had been bothered by gastric disease and nasal allergies for a long time. Quite often he had to go to the emergency room in the middle of the night. He weighed less than 50 kg/108 lb. Once he began practising Falun Dafa, he recovered in a short time without medicine and he gradually became stronger. He gained more than 10 kg/22 lb. My husband experienced the profound wonders of Falun Dafa and became more diligent from that point on.

I will no longer quarrel with other people, or retaliate when they raise their voice and become angry, like I did several years ago. Previously, I had been using my human thoughts, and human emotions, which led to a bad outcome. Now, I am no longer afraid that the person I am trying to persuade will show disrespect to Falun Dafa. When the disrespect appears, I use my compassion and serenity to patiently clarify the truth.

Ever since Teacher unveiled the profound teachings of Falun Gong, the Fa, he has always told us that regardless of what issue we have encountered, we need to look at ourselves and find what problems we have in ourselves -- searching within and cultivating ourselves. As I calm down, I ask myself, what are my loopholes, my shortcomings?

I met with an acquaintance of mine last Saturday afternoon as I was leaving the 2007 Chinese New Year Spectacular. I asked her what she thought about the show, and she answered with a smile, "Very good!" Then she pointed toward the crowd of people leaving the show and said in a surprised voice, "Wow! So many people came here to watch the show!" For me, getting these people here to watch the show was a very good process of cultivation.

After reading fellow practitioners' articles on removing fundamental attachments, I have been looking unceasingly for my own fundamental attachments. I found them by chance when I chatted with my neighbour. I said, "I only seek a harmonious, commonplace, and peaceful life." On the surface, such request is not of a high level, but for a Falun Dafa practitioner it reveals a deeply hidden attachment and is dangerous.

When our local practitioners get together they often talk about their understandings during cultivation, such as issues regarding passing tests. One complained about how his family member treated him, and who said what, and how that hurt him, or some other things that made his life miserable and hindered his cultivation. It seemed that he did this for the purpose of gaining others’ understanding and sympathy.

I felt that I was always correct and only my opinion was right, and I could not see that there was a problem with me. Sometimes I even claimed that I would look inward, but in fact I had not truly done so. Actually, the "looking inward" that I did was merely a kind of formality, and I did not know much about truly looking inward; I only said "look inward" to others for the sake of saying it. The purpose of this was to protect those hidden attachments of mine that I had not realised, and it was an excuse to cover them up.

When I read articles by fellow practitioners about jealousy in the past, I felt that I had no such problem because I took everything lightly in my work and life and did not seek fame or material gains. Recently, however, I had a dream that enabled me to realise my deeply-hidden jealousy.

For the first half of my life, I struggled between having enough to eat and being forced to do physical labour. After I got married, I suffered immensely from various illnesses and lived under constant pressure from my family. I felt like a hopeless walking corpse. I would like to share my experience of the endless misery I suffered to finally being given a new life and a bright future from practising Falun Gong; just like a full moon after the dark cloud has passed.

I also used the excuse that we need to conform to the way of society as much as possible to conceal my attachment. I did not want to address it or bring it up with other practitioners. As a matter of fact, I protected this attachment, for which I paid dearly. Here I want to share my experience with fellow practitioners so that they can draw a lesson from it.

A few days ago during experience sharing, we were repeatedly discussing how to solve a conflict between two practitioners. The two practitioners had big conflicts cooperating with each other, and there was also a relationship involved. We spent the whole evening discussing it but were not able to resolve it. We felt that something was not right. How come we kept criticising others? Let's look inward!

I would find topics to talk to her about and try to keep her staying longer, consciously or not. Even if I did not have the ability to help her, I would try my best to seek other possibilities, etc. On the contrary, if an unattractive girl comes to ask for my help, I would have no such feeling and would not do the same thing. I would follow all protocols for handling business and refuse her without any hesitation if I could not help.

I hesitantly handed the bag to the woman and said, "Here, I have a plastic bag. It has holes too, but you can try it." She took my bag and wrapped it around her bag of soybean milk. It turned out to be quite effective in stopping the leakage. After a while some milk began to leak out again, but the amount was much less than before. I thought that if we had had a third or fourth plastic bag, even if each one had holes, together they could have stopped the leakage completely.

I have improved my character and understanding through studying the Falun Gong teachings and practising the Falun Gong exercises. I have also gradually let go of some of my attachments. For a long time I was not able to get along with other prison inmates. Now due to my practising Falun Dafa, I adhere myself to follow the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance (Zhen-Shan-Ren). Whenever someone needs help, I will try my best to give him a hand.

We could not have persisted in the group study of the Falun Gong teachings, the Fa, in Kumamoto City without the great effort of the local Chinese practitioners. Since the Japanese practitioners don’t know the Chinese language, this form of group study in Japanese is a precious treasure to our local Japanese practitioners. With regular improvements in our understandings of the Fa, however busy we may be, many of us actively attend the group study.

I have been in an irritable mood for a long time, and it has not been eliminated. This kind of irritable mood manifests in different aspects of cultivation practise. It even becomes habitual, which is not easy to perceive. It is not merely having a bad temper. Behind it are many hidden attachments.

This February I had an opportunity to read Zhuan Falun. I was immediately fascinated by the principles in the book. Although there were things that I didn't understand, my feeling then was that everything I'd been searching for in my life was in the book. I really enjoyed reading it, but I was hesitant to walk away from church to practise Falun Gong. I'd already changed religious practices four times.

I explained that in time Falun Dafa was going to make me a better person. I reminder her how much more calm I was getting; that I was no longer loosing my temper any more; how my language was getting cleaned up. I had stopped drinking alcoholic beverages and getting agitated. I attributed all these changes to Falun Dafa. I reminded her that, although we both were practising Christians for many years, nothing really changed in our life. Only Falun Dafa could change me.