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- FACING AND RECTIFYING FEAR Laura
For me, my largest life-long tribulations are the attachment of acceptance, fear of being wrong, and guilt. Fear in general took control of me, and wrapped me up with attachment after attachment; both externally such as alcohol abuse, cigarettes, and over-eating, and internally with jealousy and self pity. Every time I was feeling rejected by someone, I needed external help (like a beer), and felt jealous of how this person could handle themselves with others. As time went on I found myself adding to my attachments in a more sophisticated matter, such as the new-age self pity party I was making up in my head. I have always been a person who tries to understand everyday people and spread peace in the world. As I was lowering my moral standards there were, and still are, a lot of tribulations that need to be endured in order for me to expose the negative nature inside of me. Of course, at the time I did not realize this. The guilt I had from knowingly making wrong doings became a huge attachment of self-pity. I thought, why am I even living anymore? Then I kept remembering my heart. I am here to help other people, but I didn’t know how to help them anymore, I didn’t know how to help me. The fear, anxiety, and the guilt of my wrongdoings surfaced all onto my face. My face has had more blemishes than the amount of my lifetimes. I could see the layers of pain and karma in the dimensions of my face. It was horrible to look at, and also very painful. My heart was telling me to not get too attached to the pain, but look at the bigger picture of facing my fears. I started to look for help. I came upon Falun Gong after about a year of searching for some real answers of natural health, and metaphysics. The first day, about 10 months ago, I went to an exercise site, right here at Lake Eola. I came late and the class had already ended. A practitioner stayed to have a one-on-one mini class of meditation. Right away I thought Wow! This class is free, and genuine. The practitioner and I seemed to connect and my heart felt it was good, so I decided to practice once a week. In a short time I realized great changes in me. I felt more calm in my living, and my fatigue was lessening, I could open up to these people, listen to their backgrounds of how they came here. Not all were like me, looking for a solution to their issues, but rather to get a real awakening. The book is not a small solution to one issue in your life but a processing step by step manual to transform and rectify all beings. By using Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance in every thought I use, I transform my negative energy as well as everyone around me. This is because Master tells us we are the cells of this cosmic body, and this is how we are connected. As we are transforming our karma, the negative parts of us, to virtue we are rectifying evil. During my understanding of this great way of rectifying myself and evil, I have come to understand the principle of no loss and no gain. I gave up more of my so-called free time in the Falun Gong. I read the book one time through and I was coming to more classes; here in Orlando we have a class Tuesday through Sunday. I was then given the opportunity to volunteer to organize Tuesday nights. My fear rushed in and thoughts came rushing, my anxiety came out more and I thought this is exactly what I have always wanted to do help others in a real way. My fear was still present and I held on to the idea that no one would want to listen to the Fa from me when my face is so ugly to look at. I also felt that I had too many attachments inside to be a volunteer, including not making a commitment to anything. My fellow practitioners told me to not worry so much, as long as I kept Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance in my heart I would be helping others, and people would not reject the Fa. So I slowly let go of my self-pity of severe acne, I forgot it was there a lot. I was concerning myself to the Fa, and to the people who were coming to class to understand the Fa. I was putting myself inside the Fa. Being inside the Fa, I have met over a hundred people like me, who are desperately wanting to cultivate back to their perfect paradise. They have questions just as I do, and we read together. As a volunteer and being part of the Fa, I felt more responsible to society. I focused less on my own tribulations, causing me to be less selfish. Helping others and myself understand the Buddha Law created my fears and feelings of self-pity turn into virtuous thoughts guided by master. Master says the Buddha’s Fa encompasses everything without leaving anything. I felt huge amounts of changes in me. I was becoming more tolerant and more peaceful inside, I stopped blaming others, and looked at what was inside of me that needed correcting. I no longer wanted the escape of drinking alcohol, or fantasy. I started to really like what this world was about, and my face was clearing as my mind was clearing. I was letting go of the attachments, which were holding me down. Master says this is a special environment that was made by the benevolence of high life beings. This is the time and place where we can rectify the whole universe and ourselves. As I was becoming part of the Fa I wanted to tell everyone about the Great Dafa. So I decided to go back to my hometown Evansville, Indiana for the Christmas holiday, and spread the Fa to my family and friends. I then called up two major bookstores, Barnes and Noble and Books-a-Million, to give a workshop there. These bookstores already have our books available and in their system so it was easy for them to order the books for the workshop. A practitioner gave me an out of state practitioner’s information to see if he could help. Sure enough he was very willing to help at the workshop. He offered to bring anything I needed. I was very excited, but there was one tribulation, my parents and brother. They have not had any knowledge of qigong, and the word cultivation reminds them of the cults that have developed negatively in the United States. They also think of the Fa as something new-age. With all of these misunderstandings they were not accepting Falun Gong. I too, had the wish to keep the sentimentality of my childhood thoughts of God, and this attachment was coming up fast. The out-of-state practitioner in Nashville who was coming to the workshop then asked me to ask the mayor if a workshop day could be Falun Dafa Day in Evansville. Anxiety rushed in, I worried about how to properly represent the Fa to the mayor of my small hometown. In any other town I would be grateful for the opportunity from the start. However my family did not understand the Fa, and I did not want them to worry. Again my fellow practitioners just told me to use Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance in every thought action and read the book. Being raised in a small German Catholic community by an older generation, I was not suppose to believe in anything that was not talked about in the church. However I can not deny the phenomena that have been happening to me before Falun Gong, and especially throughout my cultivation of practicing Falun Gong. I became very confused and I thought about not doing the workshop.. I listened to my heart and I remembered what I read in Zhuan Falun. Master Li says the most fundamental characteristic of this Universe is Zhen, Shan, Ren. Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance. I also remembered that everyone sits and comes here now to learn this Law. I never canceled the planned workshop in Evansville. The cosmic climate had changed the out of state practitioner from Nashville could no longer come, but he had already taken this into his responsibility. He had other practitioners coming from Nashville and St. Louis coming to do the workshop. The media had already been called. I did manage to give the mayor of Evansville a request of proclamation letter in the mail. This was no problem because the local practitioners were making up letters for different cities and counties of Florida, also there are example letters on the Minghui net. So as I turned myself toward the Universe and let go of my very strong attachment of fear there is always the right help. The mayor of Evansville accepted the request and Dec. 27th2000 became Falun Gong day in Evansville. Yeah! With the help of the many out of state practioners and my own clearing, the demons could not stand in front of the truth that needed to be given in my hometown. This also improved my moral standard of letting go of my fears and going toward my true self, and my face was becoming clear even more. A practitioner drove 3 hrs. From St. Louis to Evansville and met me for the first time a few hrs before the workshop. We organized our ideas, and we held the workshop. About twenty people showed up. It went very well. The next day the St. Louis practitioner and I did hongfa at the libraries and got a library workshop room rented because of the cold weather to have a Falun Gong class. We decided this was very important because of the positive turnout of interest. I thought I would have to move back, but the St. Louis practitioner said he would make the temporary drive until their were others. And in that week we found more practitioners that were closer to Evansville. Indianapolis was celebrating Falun Gong week around that time. We then had our second workshop and twenty more people showed. Overall the people learned it from the newspaper article more than any other advertisement. So then we gave the mayor and the lady that ran the newspaper article a gift of appreciation, which was an exercise video and the real story video. They were very appreciative. The Trip turned out Fantastic. I spread the Fa to the whole entire family at Christmas time, the people on the street, and my friends seemed to all be somewhat interested. Even my dad could see the changes of attitude in me. He tried the sitting meditation, and my mother is reading Zhuan Falun out of curiosity ore or less and she even showed up at the workshop. She told me that she could see that I am much more respectful to her and to others. This challenge of letting go of my fears of acceptance, and guilt of my wrong doings were leaving me. I came home and another part of that attachment came back. I was asked to help rectify the evil in China, by getting a petition signed for the United States government to support the human rights of the Chinese practioners. I went to my work, which is a Christian pre-school, for some signatures. I feared that they would misunderstand. But everyone I talked to were curious and sympathetic to the Chinese practitioner’s situation I went to almost all of my co-workes. Most of them signed and all of them took the information I was passing. In my conclusion, Master Li says, in the Lunyu of Zhuan Falun, some people even not dare, touch upon, or admit the facts of phenomena that objectively exist, because they are too conservative and unwilling to change their conventional thinking. This is the time to look at our own life and cultivation and become part of the rectification of the whole cosmic universe. Thank you, Master Li for this once in a lifetime rectification.
Now is the time to tell everyone the truth about the FA! Step
Out and become a particle.
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