(Minghui.org) I am a 78-year-old mother of a Falun Dafa practitioner and have benefited greatly by this association. The Falun Dafa practitioners I have met are all very sincere and kind. Their conduct and stories are a real testament to the extraordinary power of the practice.
I live in the outskirts of a county town and have been a market gardener for the last few decades. My 55-year-old son, Zhongping, started practicing Falun Dafa in 1996. He used to work as a technician at a manufacturing plant but was forced to leave his job when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started the persecution of Falun Dafa in July 1999. He had to leave his hometown to work for another employer who ended up forfeiting 20,000 yuan of his wages on account of his belief. He had no choice but to return home and has been making a living over the last 10 years working in our vegetable garden.
While there’s nothing unusual in market gardening, Zhongping is a very different grower from everyone else. He always tells me that we need to be sincere, kind, and considerate, and not do anything against our own conscience. It’s common practice nowadays that growers spray pesticides to keep the worms away, as well as use chemical fertilizers and ripening agents to boost the appearance of their produce to make more money. Zhongping has never resorted to these artificial methods.
Chinese cabbage grows fast and fetches a good price on the market but relies heavily on chemicals. Zhongping refused to grow Chinese cabbage because he thinks that food that is tampered with like that is the cause of many rare and complicated diseases that people have nowadays. He normally grows celery, water spinach, lettuce, potatoes, and melons. He never uses any chemicals but his vegetables rarely attract any worms or pests.
I can still clearly remember an incident Zhongping had that thoroughly convinced me to think highly of Falun Dafa.
One night in the winter of 2016, Zhongping rode his motorbike as usual to remote farming villages to distribute Falun Dafa pamphlets. I was used to him returning home after midnight but I had no idea when he came back that night. I was shocked when I saw him in the morning. The left half of his face was swollen, his left eye was just a thin slit, and there were scabs all over his face. A gaping cut on his left eyebrow cut his eyebrow in two.
Zhongping told me what happened. He and his passenger were riding home on the highway after 11 p.m. when he went too fast on a sharp turn. His bike went up the curb, hit some small trees, bounced back, and plunged into a ditch.
Fortunately, there was not much water in the ditch, but both he and the bike were stuck in the mud. He was knocked unconscious but came to fairly quickly. He heard his passenger yelling from the curb, “Please save us, Master!” He pulled his legs from under the bike, aware that his face was bleeding, but he had no strength to push the bike out of the ditch. The crash must have woken the nearby residents, and a kind man helped him pull the bike out with a rope. The bike panels had been badly damaged but the engine worked. He begged for Master’s help as he rode the last 50 kilometers home.
News of the accident spread quickly. The neighbors all came to see him and advised him to go to the hospital to get a tetanus shot to avoid a deadly infection. I feared for him myself, but Zhongping would not be swayed. He told them that, as a Falun Dafa cultivator, he would recover very quickly. I was really worried but there was nothing I could do, and the crops had to be tended to, so I went out to pull weeds.
In the afternoon, another practitioner came to see Zhongping so I asked her to try to persuade him to get a tetanus shot. She also told me not to worry because Falun Dafa cultivators are looked after by Master Li and Zhongping would recover soon enough. She told me a few other similar incidents with Falun Dafa practitioners that had ended well, and that made me feel a lot better.
Zhongping told the other practitioner he was immensely grateful to Master for protecting him from what could have been a catastrophic accident. He was crying at the time and so was I as I listened to them. Zhongping never went to the hospital or took any medicine. By reading Zhuan Falun and doing the exercises, he recovered in just over a week. Three weeks later, even the scars on his face had disappeared. Our neighbors were now thoroughly convinced that Falun Dafa was extraordinary. Some of them even said that they would take it up when they had time.
Although I knew all along that Falun Dafa was beneficial, I did worry about Zhongping because the CCP was arresting and locking up practitioners. I advised him to stop practicing for now and pick it up again in his 60s. But he stuck with it despite having been arrested several times for distributing Falun Dafa pamphlets. His determination won me over. I also followed his advice to sincerely recite “Falun Dafa is great, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is great” every day and felt my health improving. I told other people about doing that and they also benefited from it by following suit.
Zhongping tells me stories about divinely-inspired culture and Falun Dafa itself and I love listening to them. They always make me feel happier, sleep better, and improve my appetite. Over time, my health has greatly improved.
I have had severe dizzy spells for nearly 40 years. They happen two to three times a year. When they do, my head spins, I get nauseous, and I feel terrible. Lying down and closing my eyes usually makes it a bit more bearable but I could end up in bed for a week or two. My condition seems to have improved greatly over the past few years. Last February, my dizzy spell lasted over ten days. I vomited a bit, but it was nowhere near as bad as before. I had another dizzy spell this February, but I got over it in just a day. I did not vomit or feel sick.
I can still work on our two-acre vegetable garden while most people my age would have retired. Zhongping takes on the heavy work while I plant seedlings and pull weeds. Pulling weeds is not as easy as it sounds. I have to have good eyes and take care not to pull out the vegetables. During the summer, I work three to four hours a day when it’s hot and much longer if it’s not so hot. There are times I work so hard that I can easily work up a sweat even in the winter.
Sometimes I get up just after 5 a.m. and load up my hand trolley with dozens of kilos of vegetables to take to the market. On a good day, I can sell all my produce and be home by 8 a.m. The latest I have to stay out is 10 a.m. I usually pick the vegetables when they are young and tidy them up to ensure my customers get their money’s worth. I only sell vegetables that have been picked that day so I either sell the leftovers at a discount or give them away at the end of the day. As you can imagine, my fresh produce is very popular.
Zhongping told me that the Master of Falun Dafa looks after a virtuous person. Thanks to the Master of Falun Dafa for looking after me and my family.