(Minghui.org) I began practicing Falun Dafa at the end of 1998, and I’m now 63 years old. Over the past 20 years, I changed from a person struggling with illnesses to a healthy and happy person. I’d like to take this opportunity to share with you how wonderful Falun Dafa is and the amazing things I witnessed.
Before practicing Falun Dafa, I had a variety of diseases, the cause was my exposure to cold during the month after I gave birth, resulting in physical pain and weakness all over my body, and sensitivity to cold. All year round I constantly had a cold, stomach pain, nausea and vomiting, severe insomnia, and serious gynecological problems.
To treat my illnesses I took hundreds of doses of Chinese herbal medicines, acupuncture, scraping, and other remedies. My husband was exhausted and our income was depleted. I had to borrow money to see doctors which I repaid after I returned to work. The doctor said I was a young hospital regular.
After my maternity leave was over, I was not able to return to work. My husband carried me on his bicycle to see the school principal to request sick leave for me. But the school only allowed me to take a week off at a time.
Because the school was understaffed I had to return to work despite my poor health. When I got off work to make dinner, I had to use both hands to stir-fry, but I was too exhausted to eat when the food was ready. After dinner, I had to cook herbal medicine and take care of the baby. Life was really hard. I thought, “When is this going to end?”
When you’re gravely ill, you’ll seek out anything that offers hope. I learned several kinds of qigong hoping to have my illnesses cured, but nothing helped. I gradually gave up and resigned myself to being sick.
My neighbor began practicing Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) in 1997 and repeatedly suggested I try, but I was not convinced. She saw that I was suffering all day and took great pains to persuade me, “This practice is truly different. Look at me, my frozen shoulder and cervical spondylosis are gone. Try it yourself.”
I felt obligated to give it a try. It wasn’t until I did that I realized that Falun Dafa is not an ordinary qigong, but a Buddha-school cultivation practice—that practitioners must conduct themselves according to the standard of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and be a good person wherever they are.
Through reading Zhuan Falun I understood the real meaning of life is to return to one’s true self. I understood why I had so many diseases at such a young age. I regretted not listening to my neighbor’s advice and not practicing Falun Dafa sooner.
From then on I no longer complained about my life. I followed Falun Dafa’s standards to practice cultivation. In less than two months, all my illnesses were gone and I truly experienced what it felt like to be free of illness.
Before the practice, I had to use both hands to do stir-fry; after I began practicing I could carry a big bucket of water in each hand, and carry a big bucket of coal in each hand from the logistics building to my office.
Before I began practicing I typically spent 300 days a year having a cold, especially after I washed my hair. I had to take two tablets of cold medicine each time before I washed my hair because as soon as my hair got wet, my nose started to run. I was most afraid of washing my hair because I would catch a cold every time, and it would worsen the pain all over my body. It was a vicious cycle every week.
After practicing Falun Dafa, I dared to wash my hair with cold water even in the middle of winter. I wasn’t afraid to go outside with wet hair. Even if my hair froze, I wouldn’t catch a cold.
I used to have serious insomnia. It took me a long time to fall asleep even after taking sleeping pills. For more than two months, four Valium tablets could not get me to sleep, and I had to take Wintermin which is harmful to the brain. Even so, I could only sleep lightly for two hours after 2 a.m. During the day, I couldn’t stand for long due to lack of sleep, and I felt my body was falling apart.
After the practice, I was no longer bothered by insomnia because no matter what time it was, I fell asleep as soon as I lay down. For more than 20 years now, I only need to sleep three to four hours sleep each night, but I feel energetic during the day.
I truly understand that it was Master Li (Dafa’s founder) who purified my body and removed the root cause of my diseases. I’d like to explain how this was done. When I just began to practice, I had pain all over my body when I lay in bed at night; the pain was worse than before I began practicing and I even had trouble turning over. But as soon as I got up in the morning, I was fine and could work all day. But the pain would come back again at night.
Through studying the Fa, I knew Master was adjusting my body, which was a great thing, so I wasn’t concerned at all. After a while, the pain went away.
Practitioners typically experience diarrhea when they first began to practice, and from the Fa we know this is because Master is purifying our internal organs. But I did not have diarrhea for two or three years after I began practicing, and I wondered why. As time went on, I stopped thinking about it.
In the summer of 2002, I was an exam monitor. On the first day of the exam, I suddenly had diarrhea in the morning and had run to the toilet three or four times by the time I entered the exam room. I was a bit worried because I was not allowed to go to the bathroom during the exam.
From the beginning to the end, for more than three hours, I did not have to use the bathroom. But, as soon as I handed in the exam papers, I rushed to the toilet. In the afternoon, for more than two hours, I was fine. After I turned in the papers, I rushed to use the bathroom again.
On that day, I ran to the bathroom six to seven times in total but I did not miss any of my duty as the exam monitor. In addition, I did as I was required and stood the entire time, but I did not feel tired at all.
Let me tell you how my gynecological diseases were resolved. Before I began practicing, I had serious gynecological inflammation. Even though I used a variety of methods to treat it, nothing worked. After I began practicing Falun Dafa, I had a period that lasted more than two weeks, and there was a lot of menstrual flow every day.
My family was worried and asked me to go to the hospital for a checkup. I said, “It’s okay, there’s no need to go to the hospital. It’ll be fine when it’s over.” As a result, after the period was over, all my gynecological diseases were gone.
Similarly, my stomach pain was cleared up one night not long after I began practicing Falun Dafa. That night, I had continuous pain for two hours, and then I was fine. The recovery process of my body is testimony to the supernormal power of Falun Dafa.
Before I began practicing Falun Dafa, because of my poor health, my husband did most of the housework, including making steamed buns. I was not able to do any chores at my own house, let alone help at my parents’ house or my parents-in-law.
After I began practicing Falun Dafa, I did almost all the housework, and while visiting my parents’ house and my parents-in-law’s house, I started working as soon as I stepped in the door. After dinner, I did all the dishes for the big family of 15-16. There was no water heater at the time. The water was ice cold and the others couldn’t stand the cold water. I spent more than an hour washing all the dishes from two tables.
In 1999, 15 days before the Chinese New Year, my mother-in-law passed away, my elder sister-in-law had a cold, and my younger sister-in-law was about to give birth and could not come. I was responsible for feeding the entire family as well as the funeral helpers for three days.
Because of the upcoming holiday, there were no steamed buns left for sale in our village, so I made my own dough. While making meals, I also made fried eggs with ginger for my two sisters-in-law who were unable to speak due to excessive grief and hoarse voices from catching a cold.
I worked almost non-stop during those days, but I didn’t feel tired. After returning to our home, we changed all our clothes and I washed them outside. I clearly remember the temperature that day was as low as -13°C (8.6°F).
My son suggested I not wash the clothes on such a cold day. I said, “No worries. I am not afraid of the cold.” He said, “I’ll help you then.” He put his hand in the water and immediately drew them back. I told him to go inside and leave everything to me. A math teacher saw this and said, “I’ve got to hand it to you!”
While I was illegally detained and sent to forced labor (for practicing Falun Dafa), someone began pressuring my husband to divorce me. My elder sister-in-law immediately objected, and so did my younger sister-in-law’s husband. The latter said to my husband, “No matter what happens between the two of you, I will call her my sister-in-law.”
After I came home, my younger sister-in-law told me, “You have no idea how anxious I was. I couldn’t wait for you to come back. I knew my brother would not do something like that (divorce) but who can guarantee he wouldn’t be tempted as time goes on?”
After I was released I learned that my younger sister-in-law’s husband was paralyzed from the waist down after being hit by a stone slab at work. Their family had seventeen mus (2.8 acres) of farmland, and my younger sister-in-law was barely managing it by herself.
When I first came home, the principal refused to allow me to return to work. I went to see him every Monday to clarify the truth and request to work. He said, “The few of you who practice Falun Dafa has brought a lot of trouble to the school.”
I said, “That’s not true. Falun Dafa requires us to follow Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and be good people, how could we bring trouble to the school? The trouble was caused by the persecution. You are also a victim of the persecution.” I clarified the truth about the staged “Tienanmen self-immolation” and the “April 25th” peaceful protest, etc. to him.
I said, “To evaluate a teacher, we must first look at their character, and then look at their work. What would you say about our work?” He immediately said, “There is nothing bad about your work.”
Whether teaching advanced classes or the elementary grades, the practitioners’ performances topped similar schools every time in the city. In addition, our offices were among the top. The reason was that we each had taken over cleaning our offices and scored the highest in every sanitation inspection.
I told the principal, “Falun Dafa requires us to look inward for any problems we encounter, and at the same time not to fight for personal gain. If everyone were like practitioners, your job would be very easy.”
After clarifying the truth to the principal on Monday, I went to my younger sister-in-law’s house to help her from Tuesday to Sunday. I bought meat and vegetables and brought fresh cucumbers to the helpers she hired, and they were grateful.
It was fall, the harvest season. Harvesting peanuts, picking corn, and cutting corn stalks were all done by hand. I took the lead in everything. The helpers said, “We thought you would wilt after a while, but we didn’t expect you to be leading all the time.”
I told them I used to be full of illnesses, but I became healthy after I practiced Falun Dafa.
At lunch break, my younger sister-in-law and I went to her house. She was so tired that she sat there and said, “Sister, no rush, let’s take a rest first.” I said, “You rest, I’ll cook.” I made lunch and called her to eat, we then went back to the field. We worked all that autumn until the harvest was brought in. As soon as we were finished I was allowed to go back to work.
In 2004, my younger sister-in-law’s husband received a subsidy of 10,000 yuan (USD$1500) for the disabled and spent it on house repairs (it was the biggest house in the village at that time). His younger brother (40 years old and single) claimed he owed him 10,000 yuan for taking care of their parents while they were alive and the 10,000 yuan belonged to him. He threatened to kill the entire family if he didn’t give him the money.
Every few days, the younger brother went to their home with an ax to demand the money. The couple called the police. The police detained the younger brother for a few days but then released him saying he was only making threats.
The younger brother continued to harass the couple. My younger sister-in-law sent her son to live with me. After a while, she was too frightened to stay there. Her husband told her to leave and hide. He decided to stay there himself because he was paralyzed and was not afraid of being killed.
The younger brother stopped harassing the family but forbade anyone from visiting the husband. When their older brother brought food he was beaten to the point of hospitalization for a week; the neighbors who brought food were beaten as well, so no one dared to visit.
During this period of time, I brought food over every two days. Each time I brought homemade steamed dumplings and cooked vegetables. I put the rice cooker on his bed and added water, so he could steam the dumplings himself. Two days later, I brought food again and added water to the rice cooker. I brought back his soiled diapers, and washed and dried them.
He was very grateful. He looked forward to my visit every time, but he was afraid his brother would cause me trouble, so he told me not to come. I am a practitioner, and I could not watch him starve, so I told him, “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
I brought gifts to his younger brother and clarified the truth to him. I told him that good is rewarded but bad deeds are punished. I persuaded him not to treat his brother and sister-in-law that way. He said, “Sister-in-law, I know you practitioners are all good people.” A few times while I was there he came with his axe but as soon as he saw me, he put the ax behind his back, turned around, and left.
I delivered meals like this for over a month. Seeing that I was okay, his sister also came to help wash diapers until his wife, my younger sister-in-law, came home. Their son still lived at my house and continued to do so for over a year.
During that time I was really busy. I had to go to work and also take care of the child who was naughty. He got into fights, and I had to buy gifts and take him to apologize. Plus I was going back and forth to his parents’ house. If I did not practice Falun Dafa, I would not have been able to do all this. It was Falun Dafa that taught me to be a selfless and altruistic person.
(To be continued)