(Minghui.org) This is the story about a woman who once lived in hardship. She was plagued with sickness, and the excruciating pain of illness, coupled with ongoing fights and struggles with people, weighed her down terribly. Seeing no hope, she decided to end her life.

Chan Le cannot remember exactly which day it was in 2006 that she picked up a certain book. No one made her study it, no one told her how good this book was, and much less did anyone tell her how this book would benefit her. However, reading just 20 pages of this book changed her plans to end her life, and even turned her entire life around.

Here is Chan Le’s story, in her own words:

Attachments, Issues, and Notions

I was born into a poor family of farmers. I have an older brother and a younger sister. I am the eldest female among the children. My parents valued males more than females. My brother and I are both very straightforward and simple individuals, and we did not really know how to interact with others. I started working for our family before I finished my primary school education. Before the age of 15, I was working in Guangdong to earn money to help support the family.

Because I grew up in poverty, I was attached to money, and I was not willing to incur any losses. I never wanted to cause any conflicts, but if someone angered me, I would fight with them. I only knew how to work, fully concentrating on the task at hand. If someone talked to me while I was working, I could not respond. Sometimes, it took me several days to figure out what an appropriate response would have been. I felt that the world was too complicated and everyone was fighting for their own gain, using unscrupulous means. I was constantly worried that I may be bullied, and I would frequently get angry and sulk. I also had a very hot temper, and could not tolerate anything that infringed on my perceived rights and benefits.

My job was to make backpacks. Once, a colleague accused me of using her thread. I was a person who could not stand being maligned, so without saying a word, I slapped her in the face.

Health Issues

When I reached puberty, I always had severe menstrual cramps during my periods. I would also vomit, get chilled, and I would often faint from the cramps, so I needed painkillers. Whenever I was about to have my period, I would tremble in fear. The doctor said that drinking chicken soup could treat the menstrual cramps, but after drinking chicken soup, I suffered from nosebleeds. 

When I was 17 years old, I started having stomach problems. I could not eat food that was cold, hard, sour, or spicy. I could not even drink warm water. I could only drink water that had just been boiled, but I did not feel that it was too hot for me. 

In the summer, I could not turn on the fan or the air conditioner. In the winter, I was so afraid of the cold that I did not dare return to my home village. For many years, I spent the Chinese New Year in southern China. Sometimes, my stomach would ache all day and night, as though millions of needles were poking my stomach. I could not eat anything as I would vomit whatever I ate. In order to stay alive, I ate again after I vomited. Therefore, I repeated this process at every meal. I also could not eat too much nor too little. The doctor said that this was either a stomach ulcer and/or gastritis, and there was no cure.

When I was 18 years old, my father passed away from lung cancer. While on his deathbed, my father told me to earn more money for my brother so he could marry a wife. Therefore, I dragged my ill body to earn as much money as I could. However, by that time, my health was so bad that I could not take on any jobs that paid well. I could only do some light, low-paying jobs. My mother insisted that I give her money, so apart from my own little bit of living expenses, most of my salary was given to my family. Later, my mother pressured me to find a husband. Her motive was to take the betrothal gift and use it for my brother to marry a wife. Despite my poor condition, my mother never thought about my wellbeing. She only thought about squeezing money out of me.

Although I was over 5 feet in height, I weighed less than 80 pounds. I was like a bag of bones and my skin had a tint of green and black, which turned people off. My back felt like it was being weighed down by a mountain and I was hunched over. I was already without hope and thought about committing suicide. Every day, I would think about methods to do myself in, and I certainly did not think about getting married. There was a fellow who liked me very much and insisted that I marry him. He said he was willing to marry me even if I had only a few days to live after the marriage. However, I did not want to cause him any pain, so I refused his proposal.

When I was 25 years old, my health was at a breaking point. When I went to the hospital for a checkup, the doctor could not draw any blood. When I accidentally cut my arm, a yellow watery liquid flowed out instead. If I woke up earlier than 8 a.m., I would faint, as my blood pressure was so low. The doctor said, “Your blood does not have red blood cells anymore. You can no longer produce blood.” 

He asked me about my family and wondered why I lived by myself. I said that I was living by myself far from home so how would I have a family? I did not understand his explanation about my blood nor did I understand why he asked about my family. I only understood later that the doctor saw that my body was already shutting down. Miraculously, I kept on living.

I returned home in 2006, at the age of 28. I had already made up my mind that I would go to the great mountains in Yunnan or Guizhou to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff after seeing my mother for one last time. This way, I would be able to disappear from this mortal world. I did not want to die in a place where there were people, as that would be a hardship for others.

After returning home, my mother told me that she’d heard someone say that there was an old grandma somewhere who could treat illnesses, and she asked me to go see her. Out of my natural survival instinct, I went. After going there, I discovered that this grandma’s son was dying from lung cancer. I thought that since she could not even cure her own son, her powers were not as great as the practice that my mother was practicing.

Learning and Accepting the Truth about Falun Dafa

My mother told me that she had gout and she had a joint that was swollen as big as a bowl. However, after practicing a certain qigong practice for a few days, her joint no longer hurt. I told the grandma about this and added that I would go home and bring her the book that my mother was learning from, for her to take a look. So, I went home to get the book, which is Falun Dafa’s Zhuan Falun.

Since I had the book in hand, I decided to take a look first to see what it was all about. Zhuan Falun has a total of nine lectures, but my mother asked me to return the book before I even finished reading the first lecture. She said that she wanted to study the Fa. However, despite reading less than one lecture, which was just over 20 pages, I already knew that Falun Dafa is a practice that teaches people to be compassionate and to be a good person. I felt that the author of the book was very righteous and very clean, unlike people nowadays. What this book talks about is totally different from what the government has said about Falun Dafa. I realized that Falun Dafa was maligned. As I was someone who could not tolerate even a bit of being maligned, I thought that whenever I met anyone in the future, I must tell them about this matter.

The content of Zhuan Falun is really good. It was the most fortunate opportunity for me to encounter this book, at a time when I was contemplating suicide. That very night, at that very moment, the big mountain that weighed down on my back was removed. I suddenly felt very light. I felt that every cell in my body, from my mental state to my physical body, from my inner being to my exterior body, from top to bottom, had all become very light, transparently bright, and full of life.

Benefiting from Reading Zhuan Falun

When I got out of bed the next day, I no longer felt faint, my stomach no longer hurt and I did not feel uncomfortable any longer. Instead, I was hungry and felt like eating. Since then, my stomach has no longer ached when I ate anything – cold or hot, sour, spicy, or hard.

I no longer had excruciating pain from all those illnesses that had plagued me for so many years! I truly experienced what it is like to be given a new lease on life. Naturally, I abandoned any plans to kill myself. Instead, I started on my path of cultivation in Falun Dafa, and my health quickly recovered.

Following Dafa’s Principles

I went back to the south of China and continued doing odd jobs. Now, I could earn money with jobs that involved conversing with others. I found a job in the mall as a salesperson, and my sales figures were quite good. As I interacted with the customers, I not only sold the merchandise, but also took the opportunity to clarify the truth about Falun Dafa to them.

Once, I saw a 20-yuan bill on the floor of a supermarket. I picked it up and put it into my bag. That day, my boss gave me a 50-yuan red packet. However, I lost both the red packet and the initial 20-yuan. I knew that I had done wrong as I should not have picked up the money. Although it was neither stealing nor taking from others, picking it up from the floor was also wrong as that did not belong to me. A cultivator cannot take what belongs to someone else.

Before long, I again saw a 20-yuan bill on the floor in the mall. This time, I knew that I could not pick up the money. Not long after that, I found money by the roadside. There was 100 yuan, 50 yuan, 20 yuan and 5 yuan. However, I walked straight on and did not touch the money on the ground. 

When I was working as a dispatcher at a taxi company, driver Wang said that I gave an order to driver Chen instead of him. I explained that this was an order that was accepted by Chen himself, so I could not give Wang the order. After that, Wang sent a complaint about me to our manager. The next day, the manager asked me to attend the company’s regular meeting, which staff at my level normally do not attend. There were dozens of people who attended that meeting. At the meeting, the manager called out my name and gave me a good tongue lashing.

Faced with such injustice, I wanted to see the manager and explain to him what had happened. I did not argue with him during the meeting, as that would have put him in an awkward position. Some colleagues said that I could have said something since he scolded me in front of so many people and our salaries were not issued by him, but I did not make a sound. If I had not practiced Falun Dafa, there was no way that I would have accepted being wronged like that.

On the 15th day of the Lunar New Year in 2017, I was riding a motorcycle when a big tricycle drove towards me in the opposite direction. The tricycle banged into me and sent me flying through the air. I flipped over in the air and landed on my back on the pavement with my head facing the front wheel. However, throughout the whole process, I felt that I just dropped on the ground lightly. The tricycle driver came over and blamed me for not looking where I was driving. My first reaction was that I must have complaints about others that caused him to complain about me like that. Then, he immediately changed his attitude and asked how I was and if I was injured. I said that I was fine. If this had happened in the past, I would definitely have not let him off the hook so easily since he was the one who was in the wrong.

In the past, I often complained that my mother did not care about me. Now, I no longer complain about anyone. Whenever someone treats me badly, I simply think that I must have owed him or her in the past. 

Master Li, the founder of Falun Dafa, said, 

“The altercations or mistreatment that you encounter as you practice might be either of two scenarios. One is that you mistreated the other person during a past life. Perhaps the situation preys on your mind, and you can’t believe someone would treat you as they are. Well, then you shouldn’t have treated them that way in the past. You might say that you didn’t know better back then and that this lifetime has nothing to do with that one. But you can’t write it off like that. Another thing is, karma is surely being reworked with any altercation you get into, so we should be magnanimous and not handle it like most people would. This should hold true at the office or wherever you work, and even if you run your own business. And the interactions you have with the general public are no different. You can’t avoid having some sort of interaction with the world. If nothing else, you have dealings with your neighbors.” (The Fourth Talk, Zhuan Falun)

Therefore, I just followed what Master said. No matter what I encounter, I am safe. Whenever someone treats me badly, I will not bear grudges. 

Once, I was working at a curtain shop when the boss asked me what cosmetic products had I been using since I had such good skin. He wanted to buy some for his wife. I replied that I did not use any cosmetics. He did not believe me. In the past, my skin used to have a green and black tint and it was dry and wrinkled, making me look terrible. My boss’s wife said that her husband had only done one good deed all his life, which was to employ such a good person as me.

Falun Dafa changed me from a person with no culture, almost slow-witted, full of grudges, hot-tempered, anti-social, plagued with illness and ready to commit suicide, to a physically and mentally healthy person who thinks of others first in everything that I do. I treat all matters with kindness regardless of what it is or when it happened, and am not moved by personal gain and loss. I have a healthy body and a sunshine mentality.

Nobody forced me to go and learn Falun Dafa and there was no one who introduced the goodness of Falun Dafa to me. I just met Dafa through a seemingly random chance and with that, Master saved me from the brink of death and gave me everything that is so wonderful.

Afterthought by First Narrator

I always thought that the changes to my body due to practicing Falun Dafa were already enough. However, Chan Le’s story is far more miraculous than my own cultivation experience.

Thinking of the hardship that she had experienced, who would have the will to go on living? Looking at her current state, which is amazing, who would have thought that she once looked so sickly? This is the power of Falun Dafa in saving lives. Chan said that Falun Dafa has taught her that no matter how big the problem may be, she must approach it with kind thoughts and there will be no hurdle that she cannot overcome.

In the past, when faced with injustice, Chan would have retaliated and borne grudges against others. These are traits that the Chinese Communist Party had instilled in her – to hate and to fight. Hating and fighting with others are evil acts. Today, Falun Dafa’s principles have helped Chan elevate to a higher realm as she follows Dafa’s principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance.