My Fast Journey out of Comfort & Delusion
I came to the Fa early this year and this is a short sharing on my experiences of the last 10 months.
In Jan of this year I was living my life as a successful business man who was on the brink of early retirement and living a very comfortable life with my wife and newborn baby. I had worked incredibly hard and endured much to obtain my desire to live comfortably and at peace. I lived with the delusion that wealth and living with integrity would bring me great comfort and at the age of 31. I was becoming very comfortable and I must say full of my own importance. I lived for making money, socializing, drinking, fishing, hunting and I swore a lot. This is not the likely path of someone wanting to cultivate. However there was a catch, what I had failed to achieve was inner peace and good health.
My primary goal in life was to be peaceful (what I now understand to be free of attachments). My constant pursuit of this led me down many paths. I began to realize at the end of 2006 that I had exhausted this paths and I was in fact further away from inner peace than ever before. I now understand that I was constantly adding to the mixture of evil messages. My knowing side was constantly trying to surface and make me question my life path.
Two of my brothers had been practicing Falun Dafa for several years and I was always very impressed by there good health and lovely nature. They both validated the Fa well. Initially I was very skeptical of there life’s path through Falun Dafa but I came to respect the practice and new it was a great way to improve yourself. The problem I saw was that it severely conflicted with my lifestyle and as far as I knew all Falun Dafa practitioners were poor and they do not drink alcohol. That would certainly cramp my style. So I observed my brothers for several years validate the Fa and I deepened my respect for the practice. With no intention of becoming a practitioner myself.
I think it must be the time that Master arranged for me to start my path in the cultivation in Dafa. In November last year I got what I thought was a dose of bad food poisoning the only problem was it never went away and numerous doctors’ tests and exams could not find anything wrong. After 2 months of severe intestinal dysfunction I was given the results of a final test and was told by the doctor that there was nothing wrong with me and he said “If symptoms persist see a doctor” Thank you Master.
With no other options available I started to learn the exercises at a local park. I thought to myself I’ll do these exercises for 3 weeks and ill be cured. After 3 weeks nothing had changed and I could feel no benefits, but my knowing side was compelling me to keep going as I knew no other option. I now understand this to be my predestined relationship working before I came to obtain the Fa and with out this tribulation a probably would not have obtained the Fa during the Fa rectification period.
I was told I need to read Zhuan Falun, so reluctantly I picked it up and it is from this point that everything in my life has changed. A barrage of interference started to occur which quickly pulled me out of my state of delusion. As soon as I started to read the book my eyes would burn and go blood red and I would constantly feel drowsy to point of falling asleep while sitting. The thought Karma during the exercises and reading the book could be best described as viscous and vile. At the peak of the mind interference while I was doing the exercises the messages were screaming in my head telling me to run from the park. One dark morning while driving to the exercise park a black ghost like being flew across the front of the car. One night I was woken by a dreadful screeching noise that sounded like something was dying only to find nothing in this dimension. Electric appliances were being turned on in the cupboards, much to my wife’s confusion. When I started to read my first lecture I was bitten on the eye ball by something from another dimension causing a big blood ball. It is my understanding that this interference was hoping to discourage me from continuing to pursue the Fa, but It had the exact opposite effect. But it certainly shocked me out of my comfortable state of delusion, the evils attacks only made me more determined. I continued practicing every day and reading as much as I could.
It did not take long for Master to get to work on cleansing my body and breaking down my attachments and removing almost all comfort from my life. Over the last 9 months I have never been to the toilet so much in my entire life, my business and personal life have been rich with daily tribulations, at times piled on top of each other and I have no more free time left. I can’t recall a day when my body has not felt discomfort and it has only been recently that I have stopped walking with pain due to training my legs to sit in half lotus. My wife has witnessed all this and thinks that I must be crazy. I thank Master for helping me clear my karma as quickly as possible.
I was introduced to Fa rectification after only few months. This event did not surprise or shock me. Every since I can remember I always had a distant sense that I have a great mission to accomplish in my life and that a significant event would occur in my lifetime. I now understand this to be my knowing side. I stumbled along with Fa Rectification until I attended Masters Lecture recently in New York. That day many things were cleared out and the change in myself has been significant and my wife has also become very supportive. She even participated in the recent HRTR as a Greek goddess. I am very grateful because since then I have been involved in several major Fa rectification activities and was one of the primary organizers of the HRTR in Perth. These events have been fundamental in helping me break through my mountain of attachments.
I decided to share this in the hope that we can all validate the Fa well together. You never know who the everyday people are who are watching you and waiting to become Fa rectification period Dafa disciple.
Mark Hutchison
WA Practitioner
Date; 14 December 2007