(Minghui.org) I began my practice of Falun Dafa on October 3, 1998. That was the most joyful and memorable day of my entire life. Soon afterward, many of my diseases that couldn't be cured by hospitals disappeared. My bad temper was replaced by gentleness. I experienced dramatic changes mentally and physically.
Every day, I could feel that I was ascending in my cultivation of Falun Dafa. The principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance guided me to get rid of many of my attachments, especially selfishness. In daily life, I considered others first. Truthfulness and Compassion are manifested in my every thought, every idea, every word, and every action. Everything I did was also subconsciously changing and affecting people around me. Maybe this was what Teacher meant by “The Buddha-light illuminates everywhere and rectifies all abnormalities.” (Zhuan Falun)
The Trash in the Stairwell Disappeared, Everybody Brightened Up
In 2002, when our home was demolished, I bought a less than 60 square meter (approximately 196 square feet) apartment in an old building. The first floor was a retail space. Between the second and seventh floor, there were 18 families. My family and I finally had a safe and stable home. This living situation helped us to avoid harassment from local officials from the community and the police department and also provided a stable environment in which to practice.
When we moved in, we found that there were only a few families who lived there permanently. The majority of them were transient households. One family would move out and another would move in. Even though the neighbors always ran into each other, no one gave way to each other when there was a conflict. There was no sense of trust between the neighbors. They hardly socialized with each other and were on guard against each other. People were separated by the walls between each unit. There were often sounds of cursing and fighting over small things. The worse part was, the rats were not scared of people. They went up and down the stairs freely to each floor and looked for food in trash bags that had been thrown into the stairwell. The trash scattered on the floor was stepped on by people who walked by. If someone was not careful and stepped on something sticky, he or she would start cursing really loudly to vent their anger.
I was very depressed at the beginning. My family complained about me buying our home in this crummy building. Through studying the Fa, I remembered Teacher said,
“The complex environment, in my view, is instead a good thing. The more complex it is, the greater the persons it will produce. If one can elevate oneself above and beyond it, one’s cultivation will be the most solid.” (Zhuan Falun)
I thought of the principle of mutual generation and mutual inhibition in this universe. Where there is good, there is bad, where there is dirt, there is cleanliness, and where there are people who throw trash, there are people who pick it up. I am a Dafa practitioner during the Fa-rectification period. I must right the wrongs and use my hands to bring the pure land of Dafa to the hearts of everybody who has a predestined relationship with me. Just like that, in order to give the neighbors in the building a clean and comfortable environment, I picked up a broom and started my ten years of voluntary cleaning.
The janitor only came to clean the stairwell once in a long time. In the beginning, I swept from the seventh floor to the first floor every day. It was hard to clean thoroughly. After the stairs were swept clean, I also used clean water and mopped the place. It was really hard to get rid of the thick sticky stuff on the stairs so I used a knife to scrape or used my hand to pick it up. Bubble gum was the toughest and could only be gotten rid of after picking at it for a long time. Cigarette butts were everywhere. Every time I saw one, I picked it up. I also cleaned spit and mucus using paper so others wouldn't step on it. I remained committed to cleaning day after day without any complaint, anger, or criticism. I had never gone downstairs empty handed—I always picked up trash bags along the way and took them to the dumpsters. All the neighbors saw what I did and they remembered it. I could see their respect for me in their looks and actions. The distance between us was becoming shorter and shorter. All of my positive behavior came from cultivating in Falun Dafa. I strove to follow the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. My kind actions also affected others. Their kindness and conscience gradually surfaced.
After a while, my own kind actions had also influenced the neighbors. First they felt embarrassed, then gradually some people's hearts were reformed. The cleanliness of our environment was improving slowly and trash bags were rarely seen anymore. The rats also went elsewhere to look for a home. The neighbors opened up to each other. Everybody got along well and lived in harmony. There was laughter coming out of the building.
Everybody treated me like family and I was the most trusted in their hearts. They asked me to watch their homes when they went out and to them it was most secure to leave spare keys with me. An older lady from the fifth floor asked me, “Ever since you moved to this building, the stairwell became clean. The trash disappeared and everyone has brightened up. Why are you so nice? What do you do this for?” I calmly told her, “It is because I practice Falun Gong. My teacher told us to always consider others first in dealing with things. I am cultivating the righteous Way of selflessness and always put others before myself.” The neighbors were my predestined family. They were sentient beings that should be saved. When they learned the truth and quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations, I felt pleased that they had been saved by Dafa. They worked in different fields and secretly protected Dafa practitioners and naturally protected me.
Crisis Happened Again in the Peaceful Stairwell
In the summer of 2004, an adult had urinated and defecated in the stairwell several days in a row. The foul smell attracted flies to the building. People going up and down the stairs walked around it. Every time, I would quickly clean it up then rinse the stairwell with clean water so nobody would step on it.
One morning, I heard loud cursing noises from downstairs, I knew that person had come again to relieve himself. Who is he? Why is he doing this? If he's really shameless like he's accused of, isn't it even more convenient to do it on the streets? There must be an untold reason.
I took a shovel, a thick plastic bag and a broom and hurried down the stairs. As soon as I saw a pile of runny excrement, I went outside and got half a shovel full of sand and covered it. I used the broom and carefully tried to get the excrement onto the shovel. But because the twigs of the broom were really hard and bounced back and forth, they flickered excrement onto my hands, face, and clothes. Just then, a new resident who lived on the third floor passed by and mistakenly thought someone in my family did it. She spat toward me and cursed, “Shameless!” and covered her nose as she went upstairs. I looked at her back and felt really bad. I felt wronged. Why is it so hard to be a good person in mainland China? It's all because the Chinese Communist Party has warped people's way of thinking and they can't tell good from bad. Then I remembered the classic story told by Teacher about how Han Xin endured the humiliation of crawling between someone’s legs, and I felt better right away. The bad smell was gone and the cursing stopped. I turned this incident into a good opportunity for validating the Fa and clarifying the truth. The neighbors who knew the truth also agreed with the Fa and became live media that broadcasted the truth about Falun Gong to others.
In order to get rid of this interference and save sentient beings, I tried to awaken this person's conscience with kindness. I picked up a brush pen and wrote an announcement on white paper. “Hello to the unknown friend. You come here to relieve yourself every day and must have untold reasons. Please think about it according to your conscience. This behavior doesn't seem decent. You have only thought about your own convenience and forget that this is causing trouble for others. Being a human, we most importantly have our ethical standards. You will have peace of mind only when you respect others. I hope that you will think before you act, and consider others before you act. Only then can you have a smooth path on your life journey. If you need to use a bathroom, you can use ours anytime. Thank you for your cooperation!” As soon as I posted this announcement, everybody from the building came to take a look. After reading it, a recently graduated student said, “This person's writing is of a high level. Though there are not many words, it is all very reasonable. This shows real skill.”
On the second day, I went downstairs and found that somebody drew a cartoon in the empty space at the bottom of the announcement. There was a big bull ready to gore a pile of fresh bull manure. It was obvious done to mock. A practitioner of Dafa cannot rectify evil with evil and must treat people with kindness and compassion. In an effort not to arouse his negative side, I softly tore off the part with the cartoon bull. This announcement stayed on the wall during the entire summer and nobody touched it. It was guarding the stairwell. From that day on, the person who relieved himself on the stairwell never came again.
One morning in the fall, excrement again appeared on the stairwell. I picked up the shovel and cleaned it up. I carried the shovel to the dumpsters in the back of the building, dug a hole in the ground and buried it. There were many people around and the janitor was there too at the time. I took the opportunity and clarified the truth openly and honestly. Everybody said that Falun Dafa was good and condemned the CCP. I cleared up the lies told by the CCP that Dafa practitioners' appealing for justice is to cause trouble. The janitor was especially touched. After learning the truth about Falun Dafa, he has been treating Dafa with respect and has cherished Dafa materials over the last ten years.
My actions also touched the owner of the tofu shop. He was well aware of all that had happened and said to me embarrassingly, “Sister, you are too nice. You see, in the morning I get so busy selling tofu and we don't have a bathroom at the shop. I'm truly sorry. I am not a human if I do it again.”
This is our predestined relationship. It was all because of the good and bad karma having accumulated in many of my past lives that needed to be resolved. As long as he could be saved by Dafa, all the dirty and hard work was worth it.
Conclusion
From 2002 to 2012, ten years of difficulty felt like only a moment. I've gone through six or seven brooms cleaning the stairwell, yet how many sentient beings have learned the truth and quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations? Families have moved in and moved out. Although it seems just an accident and a coincidence, it actually provides a convenient opportunity. The people who come to the stairwell to read the power meters, to collect fees, to renovate, to paint the walls, to deliver grain and oil, to deliver gas, to visit friends and relatives, to fix the radiators, to fix the water pipes, to attend weddings or funerals ... all of them are sentient beings that should be saved. Thank you Teacher for the arrangements. In the past ten years, there have been so many stories that I can't remember them all. Everything was an opportunity for clarifying the truth. I did not disappoint the sentient beings. This is my responsibility and mission. I did not let Teacher down in His efforts of compassionately and painstakingly saving me.
From the Call for Submissions to Commemorate the Twentieth Anniversary of Falun Dafa’s Introduction
