In the prime of his youth, a 21-year-old music major, Joseph Ma, was suddenly admitted to a Guangxi hospital due to lobar pneumonia, a severe lung infection that fills the air sacs with pus and other liquid. The damage to both his lungs made it difficult for him to breathe.
Serious Condition
In 2008, Ma suddenly experienced severe coughing and persistent high fever. He was later admitted to the hospital and was told that he had lobar pneumonia, a lung disease with a high mortality rate.The doctor said over 75 percent of his lungs had become suppurated and necrotic based on his x-ray scans, which was what resulted in his difficulty breathing.
“At first, I kept coughing and had a high fever of 39 to 40 degrees Celsius, which lasted for almost a week. My family sent me to the hospital. After seeing my condition, the doctor was shocked and said, ‘it was too late.’ And that the condition was too serious,” Ma said.
“When I was lying on the hospital bed, I felt extremely ill. I felt severe pain with every breath I took. I couldn’t breathe in at all, and the pain was so painful that I had to spit out my breath,” he said.
At that time, the hospital had no prescription to treat him, so they only gave him a glucose drip. The doctor also told his family that there wasn’t any more they could do to help and “whether he lives will depend on his own willpower to survive.”
The feeling of hopelessness grew stronger every second as Ma continued to experience excruciating pain and difficulty breathing.
Just as he felt every second was on the verge of life and death, Ma’s girlfriend and her mother came to visit.
In a genuinely heartfelt tone, they asked him to recite the nine-word mantra, “Falun Dafa is good, truthfulness-compassion-forbearance is good.”
Amid hopelessness, Ma was willing to give it a try, but he was afraid to recite those words out loud as he knew that Falun Gong had been slandered and persecuted in China.
“[However], my girlfriend told me not to be afraid but to recite [those words] silently in my heart,” Ma said.
Like many others in communist China, Ma was brought up as an atheist who regarded all “unscientific” things as superstitions.
However, he decided to recite the nine-word mantra as nothing else could help him.
Miracle
A few hours later, at about 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, a miracle happened.“I felt an electric shock go through my entire body. Golden snowflakes appeared in front of my eyes. I felt a battle was being fought inside my body, like armies of good versus evil, and I felt a tingling sensation. That feeling lasted for a few minutes. And immediately after that, everything went silent. My body felt refreshed, and for the first time in a while, I felt comfortable,” Ma described.
He then felt a warm current go through his entire body as he began recovering and felt increasingly more comfortable. By sunrise, he was able to get out of bed and go to the bathroom by himself.
That same day, he started spitting up thick, rust-colored phlegm.
“At that time, I was vomiting [phlegm] bowl after bowl. After the vomiting stopped, my body felt much better, and I recovered after a week,” Ma said.
The doctor thought it was incredible but warned him that there might be sequelae. Symptoms of coughing would likely occur as the weather changes, the doctor suggested.
A Healed Body
A month later, Ma went to the hospital for a re-examination.The doctor couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the new x-ray scans. He double-checked Ma’s medical records.
“Is this you? Why is there no shadow on your lungs? And no scars?“ the doctor said. ”Most people will have sequelae,” the doctor added, referring to the expected aftereffects of the disease.
Ma’s x-ray films showed his lungs were translucent and in a healthy state that even he was surprised. In the days that followed, he experienced no relapse or sequelae from the disease. He felt free of illness.
This miraculous experience changed Ma.
“By simply reciting the nine-word mantra ‘Falun Dafa is good’ and ‘truthfulness-compassion-forbearance is good’ brought me back to life; even if I didn’t believe it, it’s incredible!” Ma said.
“I found my mind opened up. There are too many mysteries in this universe that science has not discovered. Such as ‘multidimensional space’ and ‘multiple time dimensions.’
“There are too many things out there that exist, but we just don’t know them yet. The science we know is too limited. We should open our minds and quit limiting ourselves!”
Ma’s miraculous experience led him to begin understanding Falun Dafa.
Changed Person
But after reading “Zhuan Falun,” the main text of Falun Gong, things changed for Ma. After recovering from his severe illness, Ma embarked on the path of spiritual cultivation. He also quit smoking and drinking.By following Falun Gong’s principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, Ma’s personality has undergone tremendous changes.
“In the past, I had a bad temper and a poor personality. After practicing Falun Gong, everything changed. My interactions with my family and neighbors have become very harmonious. People who knew me said I had changed for the better,” Ma said.
He advised those who have doubts about Falun Gong to read “Zhuan Falun” for themselves and not listen to the Chinese regime’s propaganda.
Musical Journey
In 2016, Ma applied to the Berklee College of Music, one of the world’s top music colleges based in Boston, Massachusetts, a prestigious music school that Ma had dreamed of entering.During the interview process, Ma caught the interviewer’s attention with a self-created symphony. And he was successfully admitted after two rounds of interviews.
In his academic tenure, Ma earned a place on the Dean’s list four times and received the Berklee Achievement-Based Scholarship. He graduated at the end of 2019 with a Bachelor of Music in film and media scoring.
After graduation, he composed the soundtrack and theme song for the movie “Silver Screen Dreams.” In 2022, he won the Best Composer Award at the American Golden Picture International Film Festival.
Ma is currently engaged in music creation and post-production work in a U.S.-based media company. His work includes orchestration, mixing, and many more.
Ma said practicing Falun Gong has inspired his music creations.
“Inspiration is the life of the artist and the source of art. It will be difficult for your artistic career to develop if your inspiration runs dry. Falun Dafa has opened up my wisdom, and sometimes I hear music from other dimensions. Sometimes, music comes to my mind even when I’m only sitting here,” Ma said.
‘Music That Can Heal Your Mind and Body’
Ma said that in ancient China, music was a form of medicine, and one of its earliest purposes was healing one’s mind and body. He used Japanese businessman and scholar Masaru Emoto’s research results on the “crystallization of water” as an example.Human beings, being largely composed of water, must similarly react to different types of sound, Emoto thought, and so went on to treat clinically ill patients with water that he had treated with vibrational information.
Ma said Emoto’s experiment shows positive vibrational stimuli, such as classical music, can positively affect the human body and even provide healing, in contrast to negative vibrational stimuli in many modern genres of music.
He pointed to classical music, such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn during the classical period and Bach’s music during the Baroque period, as being beneficial to people’s minds and bodies.
Shen Yun
He especially recommends Shen Yun Performing Arts to the readers.New York-based Shen Yun is the world’s top classical Chinese dance company, and since its inception in 2006 has become a global phenomenon. Using the universal language of music and dance, it seeks to “revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization” and show audiences the beauty of “China before communism.”
“Shen Yun has moved audiences all over the world with its art of virtue, kindness, and beauty. Many audiences said ‘the music comes from heaven’ and experienced healing of their minds and bodies after watching Shen Yun. Every time I listen to Shen Yun’s musical performance, I feel great compassion that reaches the bottom of my heart. The same is true for Shen Yun’s Symphony Orchestra,” Ma said.
He also recommends Shen Yun’s online audio-visual platform to readers—Shen Yun Creations, where one can enjoy some of Shen Yun’s songs, dances, and musicals on their digital devices.
