I am from Hong Kong. It is my great pleasure to share my experiences with you today. If there are any inappropriate remarks in my testimony, I ask for forgiveness from the Greatly Merciful and Greatly Compassionate Guan Yin Bodhisattva!
On the 8 January, 2017, I visited a distant relative – my cousin’s wife – who had just started practising Guan Yin Citta Dharma Door. I was so impressed by the solemnity of her grand Buddhist altar that I immediately knelt down and paid my respect. Twenty years ago, my husband was involved in a lawsuit. I was so desperate and helpless that I could only pray to Guan Yin Bodhisattva of the South China Sea to help save my husband and my family. With Guan Yin Bodhisattva’s compassion and blessings, my husband was eventually acquitted from one and a half year jail term! Eighteen years later, when I saw the majestic portrait of Guan Yin Bodhisattva at my cousin’s home, I was overwhelmed with joy! She then told me about how Master Lu has gone through all sorts of hardship to promote Buddha-dharma in order to save more sentient beings. Later on, I also read The World of Totem, a book with various real cases which amazed me. This lead me to ask myself: Isn’t this the Dharma door that I had been actively searching for over a decade?
After practising Guan Yin Citta Dharma Door, I started to recite scriptures, make vows, perform life liberations and listen to Master Lu’s radio program recordings and read his Buddha-dharma books. I began to understand the reason why many of my previous prayers to Guan Yin Bodhisattva were not answered. It was not because the Bodhisattva was not efficacious or powerful, but my negative karma was too great. The light of Buddha is just like the sunlight that shines every corner of the world. However, we may not see the light merely due to our heavy negative karma and the filth in our hearts. The Bodhisattva has compassion on all sentient beings. It is just that our minds are full of greed, hatred and ignorance, and our bodies are filled with defilements, which had prevented the Bodhisattva to reach our hearts!
Take my family as an example. I have a demanding job, but yet after work, I still have to do a lot of housework, hence I was full of grievances. The conflicts and hatred between my husband, my parents-in-law and I deepened every day. On top of that, I was not filial to my parents-in-law. Having to grow up under such a distressing environment, my daughter was badly affected. She would always retaliate verbally towards us, often fidgeted and was distracted in her studies. I was so angry that I would often curse her with vicious words. I told her off for spending so much money on tuition and yet she just barely passed her exam and only able to enter a technical college.
Whenever I felt emptiness in my mind during those few years, I would constantly surf the internet to kill time. I watched many things that I shouldn’t have, which led to constant lustful thoughts and cravings and amassing wealth through dishonest means. I kept creating new negative karma and was extremely ignorant.
In the early summer of 2016, my vision began to deteriorate. My eyes were sore and dry all the time and I would often unable to keep them open; my shoulders, digestive system and joints were not in a good shape and I often felt stinging pain. My hands and feet would feel cold all day long. I also had a serious case of insomnia. However, my stupidity had led me to think that it was all due to the deficiency of “Qi” and poor blood circulation. So I bought live chickens and sheep to make soup thinking that that will help nourish my body. I have yet to help my three aborted children to ascend to higher spiritual realms and I just seemed to keep stacking new karmic debts onto old ones. At the same time, I was also deceived of my money by a ruthless and ungrateful man. It really felt like life was not worth living. I cried every day and prayed to Guan Yin Bodhisattva to rescue a pitiful person like me!
After coming into contact with Guan Yin Citta Dharma Door, I learned that I must first repay my karmic debts in order to eliminate my karmic obstacles and repent my wrongdoings. To practise the spiritual cultivation of our mind and conduct is to reflect on the greed, hatred and ignorance in us every day and to get rid of our bad habits. I spent all my free time reciting scriptures in order to help my karmic creditors and my aborted children to ascend to higher spiritual realms. After offering the first incense on Shakyamuni Buddha’s birthday, which falls on the 8th of April on the lunar calendar, I knelt in front of the altar and sincerely repented: my ignorance which had led me to disrespect Bodhisattva in the past, my unfilial conduct to the elders, all the people I have hurt, every wrongdoings I have done as everything was my fault. I cried all the time while performing my recitation, until there were no tears left and fell asleep without realising it. When I woke up the next day, I found that I was full of energy and my years of chronic cough had stopped. Next, more good things happened one after another. For the first time in her life, my daughter, who was in technical college, received a scholarship of 10,000 yuan. My husband treated me much better and even offered to help me with the house chores after work. My in-laws also started to treat me with more warmth and care and often brought me my favourite food. I was very touched and all these has definitely strengthened my faith in Buddhism as it is Guan Yin Bodhisattva who has brought me hope! At the end of 2017, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my bad vision has recovered and my headache, frozen shoulders, gastrointestinal problems, joint swells and pains were almost healed. During the Mid-Autumn Festival and with the encouragement from my fellow practitioners, I finally made a great vow to be a vegetarian for the rest of my life, to cease from killing live animals, never to commit sexual misconduct, to practise celibacy, to cultivate spiritually with steadfastness, and to never retreat from my Buddhism practice.
On 3 March this year, my New Year wish finally came true. My wish was to set up a large and solemn Buddhist altar. My cousin’s wife knew what I had in mind, so she took time off to show me around some affordable housing options. I was very interested with the final showroom unit, which is facing southeast . It is spacious, bright and has easy access. I liked it the moment I saw it. After chatting with the agent, I got to know that the real estate developer is also a devout Buddhist disciple. I immediately asked the agent to help me beseech his boss into selling the property to me at a discounted price since I am also a Buddhist practitioner, but my income is low and do not have much savings. The agent repeated exactly the same to his boss and responded very quickly to me thereafter. His boss had agreed to reduce the renovation costs and waived the interest payments that was usually paid at the end of the first year of sale after the down payment was made, which came to a total savings of more than 200,000 yuan, it was incredible! I shared the good news with my sister who repeatedly said that I’d been cheated. Even the staff does not have the opportunity to purchase the property at a discount. Moreover, we were practically strangers, so why would such a good thing happen to me? She does not understand that after practising Buddhism, one would often meet others who can help us in times of need. I have also managed to convince five to six people to practise Buddhism after sharing my experience of property purchase. I was filled with full of Dharma joy!
From my personal experience, I came to a profound realisation that as long as we persist with the three golden practices: recitation of scriptures, making vows, perform life liberation, cultivate our minds diligently and read more of Master Lu’s Buddhism in Plain Terms, sincerely repent for our negative karma, strictly guarding our body, speech, and mind; and in observing the precepts, practise meditative concentration and wisdom, we will continue to attain enlightenment!
I believe that as long as one cultivates genuinely, Bodhisattva will definitely have the best arrangement for us.
Thank you everyone!