(Minghui.org) My oldest son used to be in the military, where he was heavily brainwashed against Falun Gong. He was also once a local official who was in charge of monitoring Falun Gong practitioners. For the longest time, he actively prevented my husband and me from practicing–his father gave up the practice. As a result, his father's health worsened, and he later died.
For the past dozen years, I have walked my path well and kept my righteous thoughts. My son witnessed the miraculous benefits of the practice and eventually changed his attitude toward Dafa and Dafa practitioners.
Master said,
“If you are to do well at the task of saving sentient beings, you first must cultivate yourselves well.” (“To the Brazil Fa Conference”)
I am 66 years old and have never attended school or learned how to read and write. In 1998, my youngest son, who was 18 years old at the time, died after falling off of a building. I almost died with him when I heard the news, and my grief intensified over the years. I became unresponsive to my surroundings and constantly shook when I walked.
One day, my friends invited me to learn Falun Gong. I listened to the practitioners read Zhuan Falun and to the lecture tapes since I couldn’t read. I quickly understood that the practice wasn’t meant to heal illnesses but to enable people to cultivate.
Master said,
“Who is your mother? Who are your children? When you take your last breath no one recognizes anyone, and you still have to pay back the karma you owe. People just can’t let go of these things when they’re lost in delusion. Some people’s children have died, but they can’t let go of them and talk about how wonderful they were, or they talk about how great their mothers were, but they’ve died. These people grieve their hearts out as if they want to follow their deceased for the rest of their lives. Why don’t you think about it: aren’t they doing this to wear you down? They do this to keep you from living a comfortable life.” (The Sixth Talk, Zhuan Falun)
The teachings helped me come to terms with my grief over my youngest son. I was able to step out of the attachment to my love for my family. Since then, I have been determined to continue the practice.
I used to have shoulder pains, problems with my lower spinal cord, rheumatoid arthritis, hypoglycemia, and low blood pressure. My husband had high blood pressure and coronary heart disease. The ailments disappeared after we started to practice Falun Gong. However, we stopped as soon as the persecution broke in July 1999.
My husband’s illnesses returned, and so did mine. We had to be hospitalized, and it put a lot of strain on our finances. I realized that we should have continued the practice. It just so happened that a local practitioner gathered all of us so we could study and exercise in private. Gradually, my husband and I regained our health and stopped having to go to the hospital.
My oldest son worked in the military for over a dozen years and believed in the Communist Party’s propaganda defaming Falun Gong. When he returned home in 2005, he worked in our town as a Party Secretary. His work involved thought control. He was furious after he found out that his parents were Falun Gong practitioners. He accused us of hindering his career.
“In the military, everyone had to write a statement guaranteeing that neither he nor his family and friends practiced Falun Gong,” he said.
He burned my copy of Zhuan Falun and physically stopped his father from doing the exercises. One day, during an argument at the dinner table, he grabbed his father’s collar with his fist raised. My husband’s heart was broken. Angered and terrified, he stopped practicing and started playing cards with his friends every day. I wanted him to read Zhuan Falun for me at night, but he said that he didn’t want our neighbors to hear him.
Before the persecution, my husband would work on the farm during the day and study the Fa at night. He would read the Zhuan Falun to me. He was able to maintain his righteous thoughts when he had blood in his stool for two weeks. As a result, the second time he had blood in his stool, it was very minor.
Our son meant a lot to him; no matter how I talked to him, he wouldn’t pick up the practice again. In the fall of 2006, my husband had a stroke and passed away.
Our son came home and threw a tantrum in front of everyone who came to our house to mourn his father. He attacked Falun Gong using the CCP’s propaganda. It stirred up even more misunderstandings of Dafa among the crowd.
Not wanting people to have the wrong idea of Dafa, after the funeral, I clarified the truth to people I met. I explained to them that his hypertension and coronary disease were healed after he had picked up the practice and that he hadn’t been practicing for over a year before he passed away because our son wouldn’t allow it. I then used my own experience to show the health benefits of Falun Dafa and told them that I would continue the practice.
My son had me living with him after his father died. He wouldn’t let me practice or contact other practitioners. He watched me closely; I could only listen to the lectures and do the exercises in my room after he fell asleep. He confiscated my Dafa books one day after he heard that two local practitioners were arrested.
It was very difficult for me, not being able to study the Fa at all. I remembered how my husband died after giving up the practice and causing a negative impact. I decided to leave my son and went back to my hometown in 2008 so that I could have the freedom to practice.
My son cut off his financial support for me, and I didn’t hear from him for months. I had to work to make a living. In the two years I lived with him, I didn’t do the three things well. My health slowly deteriorated. I was constantly bloated, with my back pain and arthritis resurfacing. All of these were gone after I went back home to an environment where I could study the Fa and do the three things the best I could.
I also went from being illiterate to being able to read Zhuan Falun and Master’s other lectures myself in a year.
At night, several practitioners and I went out to distribute Dafa flyers and hang up Dafa banners. The sacred and amazing feeling of saving people, of spiritual sublimation, was beyond description.
My family saw how different I was when facing illnesses and physical trauma. The miracles I experienced slowly changed their mind about Falun Dafa.
One day, I began coughing fiercely with acute chest pain. It scared my daughter-in-law, and she wanted to take me to a doctor and get me medicine. I turned her down, telling her that I’d be fine. A few days later, the coughing stopped.
Another day, as I was getting my shopping done for New Year's, I fell and hit my head hard. There was a big bump on my forehead, and my face was swollen and covered in blood. My front tooth broke and my lips were split open and gushing blood. I was supposed to get stitches on my lips but instead just rinsed them with water. My children and their spouses urged me to go to a hospital, but I told them that I’d be fine in a couple of days because of my practice. In two days, most of my wounds were completely healed.
The next New Year, when I was spending time with my son, I suffered a serious asthma attack. My son and his wife saw that I was about to stop breathing and warned me that it would not go away without treatment. I told them that I was a practitioner and had to eliminate karma. I asked him if he could help me by reading the Fa to me. He was angry and had a big fight with me.
The next day, I took the earliest bus home and had practitioners come to study the Fa with me at home. In a few days, the asthmatic reaction subsided. When my son and his wife came to see me, they were surprised and relieved to find that I was fine and had planted vegetables and corn around the house.
When I moved back home from my son’s in 2008, I wasn’t able to read Zhuan Falun on my own. I was sad and begged Master to teach me. From then on, every time after a group study session, I’d try to remember what the practitioners said as I looked at the book. I also listened to the lecture tapes to aid the process. In a year, I was able to read Zhuan Falun independently.
When my daughter came to visit, she got curious after seeing me read fluently. She read with me to check on my reading; I didn’t make any mistakes. I used to ask her to teach me how to read, but she would refuse because I knew almost none of the words. I told her that Master had taught me how to read. She smiled.
In 2016, I asked my daughter to teach me some difficult characters in Hong Yin III and IV. She said that she didn’t know them. My son then said that he knew them but refused to help me. I told him that I would learn how to read eventually because Master would help me. And so I did.
So far, I have read all eleven books of the Collected Fa Teachings twice. One day, my son called his sister and said, “Mom never went to school, and now she’s reading fluently. How did she do it?! I think Falun Dafa is quite magical!” I knew that he was slowly changing his mind about Dafa.
A few years ago, my son was the chief of an office that was in charge of arresting Falun Gong practitioners. He told me not to go out to clarify the truth and only to exercise at home. He was worried that he wouldn’t be able to help me if I got caught. I told him that the practitioners who were arrested and incarcerated did nothing wrong and had nothing to be ashamed of. He told me that it wasn't worth it.
“The robbers at least got something valuable in return. The practitioners didn’t do anything wrong, but it is not worth it for them to be arrested!” he said.
My son had begun to side with the practitioners and had no intention to persecute them. In fact, he didn’t do anything to the local practitioners at all.
When the local officials demanded all practitioners sign a statement to renounce Falun Gong, my son grew worried. He told me that I should say that I used to practice but had stopped. When an official came, I told him that I had gained great health from the practice. I lived alone and didn’t need assistance from my children. I even help them with household chores. I sued former Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin because he launched the persecution against such a great practice. I refused to sign or fingerprint the statement.
Later, I told my son what I had said, and he didn’t accuse me of anything.
A person reported me to the town officials when I clarified the truth. My son, who was out of town at the time, called his sister and had her warn me. Last year, he came home and saw me and three other practitioners studying the Fa together. He said nothing and went about his business as usual.
Master says,
"To put it more clearly, right now during the Fa-rectification, no matter how great are the sins sentient beings have committed or how grave are the mistakes they made in the past, the only thing that is looked at is the attitude that they have toward Dafa and Dafa disciples during the Fa-rectification period." (“Fa Teaching at the 2007 New York Fa Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. VIII)
My son was a town official, and everyone knew that his mother practiced Falun Gong. Whenever he mentioned me at this point, he would always say that I’d definitely live past 80 because of my practice. He did not try to hide anything.
Financially he helped me out a lot; he would buy me new clothes during New Year’s and insisted on paying for my house repairs. Any gifts he received from his employer he would quickly bring to me. It was hard to imagine that this same person burned my copy of Zhuan Falun and tried to beat his father into giving up the practice. Now, he is glad to see me do things related to Dafa. He went from being hostile to Dafa to having righteous thoughts and knowing right from wrong.
"When a Dafa disciple saves one person, it’s by no means simply one human being as we know it: an enormous body of lives will thus be saved." (“Fa Teaching Given at the 2010 New York Fa Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. XI)
“If you are to do well at the task of saving sentient beings, you first must cultivate yourselves well.” (“To the Brazil Fa Conference”)
My understanding is that had I compromised like my husband did, slacked off during my practice, or even quit the practice because of the persecution, I would have never been able to change my son and save him.
To “cultivate ourselves well” (“Touring North America to Teach the Fa”) is a constant challenge for a practitioner who wants to progress diligently. Sentient beings have been poisoned in the persecution, and our every word and move determines whether they can be saved in the future or not.
In the past, I never backed down when I argued, never compromised when it came to personal interests, and quarreled with my neighbors over irrigation water. Falun Dafa taught me to be tolerant and to think of others first whenever I did anything. There wouldn’t be any gain without an equivalent loss. Now, I would not be irritated when others badmouth me or steal from me.
“What’s hard about it is that when you get shortchanged and know it, or when something critical is at stake, are you affected inside?” (The Eighth Talk, Zhuan Falun)
The compassionate thoughts and conduct that Dafa taught us let others see how great “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance” is. My relationships with people around me have improved, and I feel at ease with myself. When I clarify the truth to those whom I forgave during conflicts or who previously stole from me, it is much easier for them to listen to me and quit the CCP.
Local practitioners and I have created an environment in which to save people. There are over 100 households in our village, and almost all of them have quit the CCP, including the police and village party secretary. Now, we go out of town to help others quit.
We must cultivate ourselves well according to the Fa. When our positive energy field expands, our cultivation paths will widen, and more people will be saved.
I am grateful for Master’s teachings and compassionate protection!