(Minghui.org) I am 71 years old and I've practiced Falun Dafa for over 20 years. My first husband died when I was in my 40s, and I had to raise our three children. I later married a man who had five children.
I was incarcerated in a forced labor camp in 2000 for one year, for not giving up my belief in Falun Dafa. Because the local police would not stop harassing me, my husband and I bought a house in the town I was born in, and moved there.
A few years later my son bought an apartment nearby. My husband and I moved to the apartment building and leased our house.
My second husband died in 2013. During New Year in 2016, I received a phone call from the county court. I was told that my second husband's five children filed a petition to sell our house and divide the money.
I became upset and couldn't calm down. I had resentment towards my late husband's children. I thought, “I was married to your father for over 20 years. He was so sick before he died, and I took very good care of him. You are his children, but you seldom came to visit him. However, I stayed with him in the hospital and looked after him.”
I thought, “Whenever you came home to visit, I prepared the best food, and I even bought nice wines. How could you treat me like a stranger and file a petition against me without talking to me first!?” I was very upset.
Master Li said, “From the day that a Dafa disciple takes up cultivation his whole life is rearranged. In other words, this life of yours is now the life of a cultivator. Nothing is by chance anymore, and nothing will happen just by chance. Everything on your life's journey is directly related to your improvement and cultivation.” (from Teaching the Fa in the City of Los Angeles)
After reading this, I calmed down and remembered that I was a practitioner, so this must have happened because I had an attachment that I needed to eliminate.
I went to court on the scheduled hearing date. The judge said, “By law, you own seven twelfths of the house. Each of your late husband's five children is entitled to one twelfth.”
Of my late husband's five children, only the oldest son came to court. The other four had agreed to give their portions to him. He said he needed the house because his health was not good and his child wanted to go to school in that county.
He said he had no money to buy a house for his son. I recalled Master's teaching, that a practitioner needs to consider others first and be kind to others. I thought that this was my opportunity to give up my attachment to personal interests.
But in my heart, I was reluctant to let go. I told the son, “I will give you my portion of the house, but you need to understand that I would not give it up so easily if I did not practice Falun Dafa.”
He said, “Please rest assured. I will come to visit you during the holidays. I will take care of you if your son doesn't help you when you get old.” So I let him have the house.
Avoiding a Family Fight
Right after this happened, my youngest half-sister (we have the same father but different mothers) asked me, “How should we divide our father's money?” Without thinking, I said, “We will divide it equally among our five sisters and brothers.” My mother died when I was seven years old, and I have a younger sister. My father remarried and had two sons and a girl with his second wife.
However, my sister did not agree and said, “No. The money is mine. All father's leftover money is mine.”
My father lived 93 years. He lived with my youngest sister after he retired. His second wife died earlier. My father gave me and my sister 20,000 yuan ($3100) each in 2013. He passed away in 2016. We did not know how much money he deposited in the bank.
His pension and senior allowance from the government was nearly 300,000 yuan ($46,500) (my father was a retired teacher). One day, my half-brother, (same father but different mother), came to me and said, “Our father's money should be divided equally among the five of us. Why is our younger sister getting all of it? If she does not agree, we can file a petition with the court.”
I said I would not fight her, but the truth is, I was a little upset. One day, my sister-in-law came to me and said, “Let's find out whether father's pension has been withdrawn. In theory, it can only be withdrawn when all five children are present. But it can be withdrawn if one has strong connections with those in charge.”
I began walking downstairs with her, but when we reached the second floor, I suddenly realized, “I am a Falun Dafa practitioner. Master asks us to take self interest lightly. I cannot go.” I told her that I would not go to the bank, and I walked back upstairs.
I thought, “Why has this argument over inheritance happened just a few months after the house dispute? Master said that nothing is coincidental for practitioners. There must be something lacking in my cultivation that I need to improve on.”
Master said,
“So that’s why we just let things happen naturally. Sometimes you think that something is yours, and other people tell you it is, when in fact it’s not. So maybe you think it’s yours but it turns out it’s not. That will reveal whether you’re able to let it go. If you can’t let it go it’s an attachment. That method has to be used to get rid of your attachment to personal gain—that’s the idea. Ordinary people can’t grasp this truth, so they compete and fight when there’s something to gain at stake.” (Zhuan Falun)
I realized that I still had an attachment to defending my personal interests and not losing out. This dispute over inheritance happened because I had not completely given up this attachment when I agreed to give the house to my late husband's son.
This time I was able to completely let go of this attachment. Even though I lost nearly 100,000 yuan, I feel very calm and happy because I know that by following the principles of Falun Dafa I acted like a practitioner and avoided a huge dispute.
Category: Improving Oneself
