(Minghui.org) Whether we cultivate ourselves well or not directly affects our efforts to help people understand the truth about Falun Dafa, so we must pay attention to correcting our thoughts. If we don't do well, it is hard to improve, and it may also bring us trouble.
My husband’s mother died when he was little. His oldest brother and his family lived at home with his father.
After we married, I was willing to move in with my husband's family, because my father-in-law managed a tofu mill in the house. Since we lived with his father and his brother’s family, conflicts were inevitable.
My husband had very little schooling, so he is illiterate. He was addicted to alcohol and cursed people. I had a hot temper and was quick to get mad and curse at people. Therefore, my relationships with my father-in-law and sister-in-law were nothing to brag about.
After I had a terrible fight with my sister-in-law's younger sister, the younger sister’s husband hit my husband in the head with a brick, leaving an egg-sized hole in my husband’s head. They had to pay us 50,000 yuan and went bankrupt. After that, I hated my sister-in-law (my brother-in-law’s wife), and we did not speak to each other for 10 years.
I was partially paralyzed and was diagnosed with femoral head necrosis and breast cancer. At what I thought was the end of my life, I started practicing Falun Dafa.
After I started practicing, I recovered from my ailments. After I read the teachings of Master Li, the founder of Falun Dafa, and looked within, I began to see my shortcomings and deficiencies.
I was determined to quit going to extremes and to be compassionate. I am extremely grateful to Master, who not only saved me from the abyss of hell but also gave me good health and taught me how to be a good person.
Now, I follow the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and eliminate selfishness and attachments to profit and all bad mentalities that do not conform to the Falun Dafa principles. I put validating the Fa as my priority. Guided by the Dafa principles, I've resolved many conflicts.
I don't compete or fight with anyone, except in trying to overcome my stubborn temper and my human notions. No matter how others hurt me, I treat them well, because I represent the demeanor of a practitioner. A true cultivator can resolve all contradictions and grievances.
When I decided to change myself, I realized that the power of compassion was the greatest. Master said, “...with a compassion that can melt steel you'll be able to do it well.” (“Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Lantern Festival”)
At my father-in-law’s birthday party, I put my ego aside and tried to be nice to my sister-in-law, the wife of my husband’s brother. I tried to talk to her, but she turned her face away. I went around to her other side and greeted her with a big smile.
She yelled, glared at me, and left. The people nearby looked at me and smiled, knowing that I was changing for the better, because I practiced Falun Dafa.
After that, I was always ready to help her with her chores and treat her with compassion. I looked inward, cultivated myself, and expanded my capacity to endure. She realized that I was sincere and gradually changed her attitude toward me. She also knew that I had changed because I practice Falun Dafa.
The son of one of her sisters was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor on his brain stem. After surgery, his face and limbs were paralyzed and he could not speak. The doctor gave him three to five months to live. His family sold their house, their land, and their car to pay for his treatment.
My sister-in-law said, “You recovered from two terminal conditions. Others may not know why, but we are family. I know that it was the power of Dafa.” She asked me to teach her nephew Dafa.
He learned the exercises from me and two other practitioners. Five days later, he stopped taking all his medications. He could talk again and his face wasn't paralyzed anymore.
He has been practicing Falun Dafa for 10 years now. All his family members are infinitely grateful to Master. They also tell other people about the power and beauty of Dafa. What’s more, they forgave me for the harm I had caused them.
My father-in-law later remarried, and I helped them whenever they asked. Seven years later, his second wife passed away. After that, my father-in-law lived with us for two years and then married a third time. She also passed away.
At my father-in-law’s request, my brother-in-law sold his house, so he had nowhere to stay. He wanted to build a temporary house on our land, which my husband was against. However, I persuaded him to agree. My father-in-law had about one acre of farmland, which he gave to my brother-in-law to cultivate, even though he lived in my house.
Others said that, because my husband and I took care of him, he should not have treated us like that, as it was so unfair. But I cultivate Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance and persuaded my husband to take care of his father and treat him with respect.
After all, it was not easy for my father-in-law to work hard to raise his children. Hearing what I said, my husband treated his father with more respect, and he and I took good care of him.
My father-in-law told me, “My house is gone, and my land is gone.” And, in front of my husband and my brother-in-law's daughter, my father-in-law calculated how much money he'd given my brother-in-law over the past few years.
He said, “Tens of thousands of yuan went secretly to his family. Now it is impossible to get the money back.”
I understood what the word “grieve” really meant when my husband told me how much money my father-in-law had given my brother-in-law. I thought, “During those years, I was so nice to him and took care of him, and my family was poor. He didn’t even lend me 100 yuan. My brother-in-law didn’t help his father but hid away tens of thousands of yuan. How was that fair? Why did he do that to me?”
Fortunately, I am a Dafa disciple and live by Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. I understand that everything happens for a reason. My husband and I took my father-in-law in and took good care of him.
My father-in-law was so embarrassed to accept our kindness and said that he had nothing to give in return. I told him, “Taking care of you is what we are supposed to do, and we don’t want anything from you.” He tells everyone that Dafa is amazing.
My 82-year-old father-in-law said that he had a stomachache and felt like he had to vomit in August 2017. My husband and I took him to a hospital, and my brother-in-law and other family members also came.
My husband paid a deposit of 6,000 yuan that day. That night, my father-in-law's health worsened. The doctor said that it was acute cholangitis and gallstones, and he stayed in the hospital overnight.
The next morning, we deposited another 3,000 yuan. The doctor said that my father-in-law was seriously ill and that his blood pressure had been falling and would not go up no matter what medicine or treatment they tried.
We were handed a notice of “critical condition” that said he could die at any time. He was in the intensive care unit for 24 hours, at 20,000 yuan a day, and his condition still did not improve. We were told that he had heart failure, kidney failure, and liver issues. With so many things going wrong, the doctors advised us to prepare for the worst.
Family and friends came to the hospital to see him before he died. At dinnertime, everyone went to a restaurant to eat, and I volunteered to stay and take care of my father-in-law.
I told him after everyone left, “You are very ill. Only Master Li can save you. Say 'Falun Dafa is good' with a pure heart and don't think about anything else.” We both immediately repeated, “Falun Dafa is good! Falun Dafa is good!”
His blood pressure rose as soon as he started to say it! When everyone returned from the restaurant, they could not believe how much he'd improved. I told them that this was because he was reciting “Falun Dafa is good.” All his relatives and friends witnessed the power of Dafa. When the doctor saw him the next day, he said that everything was back to normal.
I took good care of him and had him listen to the recording of Master's lectures every day. Within a few days, he went for daily walks and began telling people about the power of Dafa.
Our family members and friends witnessed just how much I had changed when they saw how I took care of my father-in-law in the hospital. My husband and I spent tens of thousand yuan on his treatment but did not complain.
My husband also saw how kind I had become from cultivating Dafa, and he once again witnessed the power of Dafa. He tells everyone about his father's recovery and no longer curses at people.
What is more gratifying is that, after my father-in-law recovered, my brother-in-law's wife and her sister who had fought with us began to practice Falun Dafa. They were all present when my father-in-law was in critical condition, and they saw the power of Dafa several times.
I've learned that it is very important to cultivate ourselves and improve our xinxing. I realize that one should look inside, assimilate to Dafa, be compassionate, and take advantage of all conflicts and contradictions to transform karma to improve oneself.