My Cultivation Experiences at School

(Minghui.org) Greetings, respected Master and dear fellow practitioners.

I am 10 years old. My father and mother practice Falun Dafa. I read the Fa with my family almost every day, and I do the exercises once a week. We often discuss the xinxing tests we encounter.

Today, I would like to share two of my cultivation experiences from school. The first concerns the separation of classes, and the second involves a classmate who sits next to me and is constantly disruptive.

Separated from My Best Friend

After summer break, I moved from the third grade to the fourth. Before the summer holidays, the school informed us which homeroom teacher we would have. Our entire class was very excited and nervous about how the students would be assigned to their new classes.

I was invited to a classmate’s house to play the day we were told. On the way home from school, my mother told me which teacher I had been assigned. I asked her if she knew which teacher my best friend would have, but she didn’t know.

Five minutes later, my best friend’s mother messaged my mother to let her know which teacher her daughter had been assigned to. My mother told me that we would no longer be in the same class. When I heard this, I became very sad. Just as I had feared, my best friend and I would no longer be together. I burst into tears.

Since we were near my friend’s home, my mother suggested calling her to ask if there was anything we could do to help. She sensed that my friend’s mother was under a great deal of stress. I agreed, as I felt the same way while listening to the conversation. Her mother explained that my friend was not doing well and that she had no idea what to do. She said my friend was crying. She added that she couldn’t seem to reach her and didn’t know how to offer any comfort. I suggested, “We could go over to her house. We are practitioners, and we should think of others. If my friend needs me, I want to help her and be by her side.”

My mother agreed immediately. My friend’s mother, however, was a bit concerned that her daughter might push me away out of frustration. She seemed very grateful that we weren’t leaving her alone. She also heard me crying in the background, feeling quite down myself. We set off for my friend’s home right away.

I felt an urge to run and talk to her as quickly as possible. When we arrived, her mother said, “She’s in her room and doesn’t want to talk to anyone. I don’t know how to help my daughter—I’ve never seen her so distraught.” My mother smiled at me and said, “Why don’t you go upstairs and try to comfort her?” I ran up the stairs to her room. Her grandmother happened to be visiting. As I entered the room, she turned and looked at me. She immediately sprang from the bed and ran toward me. I ran to meet her, and we embraced. In that moment, a thought crossed my mind: “Karma manifests in various ways, and I must learn to let things go.”

I later read Master’s teaching,

“Of course, the way karma transforms does not take place entirely as I have just described; it can manifest in other areas. It can happen either in society or at home. While walking on a street or in another social environment, one may come across some trouble. You will be made to abandon all those attachments that you cannot give up among everyday people. As long as you have them, all of those attachments must be removed in different environments.” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)

We cried together, even though I knew I ought to let go of my emotions. She seemed to become calmer and she relaxed. There was no need for words—we understood each other. The situation was harder for her than it was for me. Weeks earlier my mother and I already discussed the possibility that we might be separated. We also looked inward to examine what personal stubbornness or underlying attitudes might be at work. My friend wanted me to stay that night. My mother was downstairs talking with her friend’s mother about how they could help us through this process.

I wasn’t sure if my mother would agree, as she tends to be a bit stricter in such matters. We went downstairs, and I gathered the courage to ask her if I could stay the night. Since my mother trusted me and knew that this moment and the experience were significant for me, she agreed. I was happy, though also a bit surprised.

Since moving to a new class was a major step for the other girls as well—and they, too, felt sad—we considered what we could do to support one another and turn the experience into something positive. We asked our mothers if we could host a farewell party the following day; this way, rather than avoiding our emotions, we could acknowledge the painful situation and work through it.

This could be a natural process for all of us. Ultimately, this experience has shown me that everything in life comes and goes—that everything is transient. Even so, it can still be deeply painful. What matters is that I am allowed to feel these emotions instead of having to suppress them, and that, despite the pain, I can still think of others rather than focusing solely on myself.

My Disruptive Desk Mate

I’ve been in the fourth grade for a few weeks now. Our teacher assigned us new seating arrangements—a plan she had already put together during the school break. I was placed next to a boy. It didn’t bother me, even though I was now sitting beside a boy.

For the first two weeks, I didn’t notice much of a change, but as time went on, I realized that he was easily distracted and quite loud. Initially, he would tell jokes that I found somewhat funny, and I would occasionally let myself laugh along. Eventually, however, our teacher told him, “You are disturbing others.” The very next day, he gave us another reason to laugh right in the middle of a lesson. The teacher told us all to stop laughing, explaining that our reactions were only encouraging him to keep it up. At first, I found that difficult to do, but I gradually came to realize that his behavior was, in fact, disrupting the class.

A few days later, he needed to get something out of his backpack, which was lying in the hallway. He deliberately acted in a clownish, clumsy way, pretending to slip and fall to the floor. He feigned an injury. This began to annoy me, as his behavior struck me as insincere. I actually thought he might have hurt himself but I soon realised that wasn’t the case. I didn’t let my displeasure show. Throughout that week, he was a constant disruption. For instance, during class, he started playing with his pens, tossing the caps around the room—hitting me several times in the process. On another occasion, instead of quietly completing the assignment given by the teacher, he began singing loudly in the middle of the lesson.

By now, it was really starting to weigh on me, and I began to feel angry. In that moment, I completely forgot that I am a Falun Dafa practitioner. Suddenly, my anger boiled over, and I said, loudly and firmly, “Just stop it already! Your behavior is really annoying!” He, however, replied with complete indifference and condescension: “Blah, blah, blah…” Although it bothered me a great deal, I pulled myself together and thought, “Fine, I’ll just let it go and say nothing. He clearly doesn’t understand.” But, he did stop—at least for that one day.

The next day, things continued. He managed to write only one word in 20 minutes because he kept getting distracted and couldn’t focus. The teacher told him, “Come to the front and show me what you’ve done.” This time, I didn’t intervene, as I understood that this was a karmic interaction between him and the teacher.

When he returned to his seat afterward, he told me, “The teacher said I’m stupid and incapable, and that, as a teacher, she’s against me. I don’t like her. She’s stupid.”

I listened calmly and reflected. Then I replied, “I wouldn’t say something like that. And I don’t believe our teacher actually said that to you, either.”

Looking inward, I realised that I found his remark highly disrespectful—the kind of thing I would never say about someone else. I decided not to debate the matter any further, so as not to accumulate any more karma. I noticed that I was harboring negative thoughts about him and that I didn’t trust him.

That evening, I studied the Fa with my father.

Master said,

“I have told some practitioners that extreme thoughts are caused by thought-karma, but many students now consider all their bad thoughts in everyday life to be thought-karma. This is incorrect. What is there for you to cultivate if you no longer have any bad thoughts?! If you are so pure, aren’t you already a Buddha? That understanding is wrong. Only when your mind violently reflects filthy thoughts or curses Teacher,[1] Dafa, other people, etc., and you cannot get rid of them or suppress them is it thought-karma. But there is also some weak thought-karma, though it is different from regular thoughts or ideas. You must be clear about this.” (“Be Levelheaded,” Essentials for Further Advancement)

I realised that whenever I harbour negative thoughts or say something bad, I create karma. At the same time, the boy also created karma by thinking and speaking poorly of our teacher. I felt sorry for him. Although I didn’t always manage to keep this in mind, Master had me read this passage of the Fa to help me correct myself.

I now understood what Master was trying to tell me: I should not think negatively about the boy, because doing so would only bring karma upon myself. It showed me that I still had much to learn.

The next day, we had physical education and played dodgeball. I hit the boy who sat next to me with the ball twice, but he claimed it hadn’t happened. The teacher confirmed that I had, to which he retorted, “You’re all against me!” I said to him firmly, “No, she isn’t against you. Everyone else here can vouch for that.”

Everyone agreed with me. Through my own words, I realised that I harbored a competitive spirit and an intense desire to always win. From that day on, it no longer mattered to me who won.

Thank you, revered Master, for allowing me to learn so much from you.

Thank you, fellow practitioners.

( Presented at the 2026 German-speaking Switzerland Fa Conference)https://de.minghui.org/html/articles/2026/10/30/193454.html