(Minghui.org) I am 71 years old this year and live in a rural area. As a child, I was afraid of my father. Whenever someone beat me, regardless of whether it was my fault or not, my dad would beat me again when I got home.
The most painful memory I have is from an incident that happened when I was seven. My father told me to take the donkey out to graze the next day. However, because I woke up a bit late, he lashed my leg with a whip. It hurt so much that I jumped from the pain. As I grew older, I gradually became resentful of him hurting me.
My father was later injured in a car accident and could no longer work. I had to do all the housework since my older brother worked in another city. I moved out only after I got married. I have two younger brothers who aren’t married yet, and we still work together, but they aren’t very capable. We have a large horse-drawn cart, and I sometimes used it to do hauling jobs and make some money. Unfortunately, the money usually ended up in my father’s pocket, which he spent at a restaurant with his drinking buddies.
My father was very kind to others, however I seemed to get the short end of the stick in my family and could never satisfy him. I therefore resented him even more. Sometimes I cried in secret, feeling that he unfairly singled me out. When my father was in his 80s, he lived with my five brothers in turn after he became terminally ill.
My father became a Falun Dafa practitioner in 2004, and his terminal illness went away without needing medical treatment. One day, he gave me a Falun Dafa keepsake, saying it would keep me safe. I put it in my pocket, but I still felt resentment toward him. I was in poor health and was taking handfuls of medicine. Miraculously, after my father gave me the keepsake, I gradually stopped taking medicine. Then, I too began practicing Falun Dafa.
After my mother passed away, it became my turn to have my father live with us. However, he didn’t want to leave. At that time, I hadn’t truly cultivated myself, and had to force myself to tolerate his presence. But my resentment gradually faded as I studied the Fa and cultivated myself. I realized that life is a cycle, and karmic debts must be paid. My father and I studied the Fa and did the exercises together, and my xinxing improved rapidly. I took care of his daily needs, but my father didn’t truly cultivate himself. He would leave his cigarettes at a neighbor’s house and sneak over there to smoke. He knew Falun Dafa practitioners don’t smoke or drink, yet he would drink when people offered him wine and didn’t listen to me when I told him not to do those things.
My father passed away peacefully when he was 90 years old. About three months before his death, he was unable to get out of bed by himself and needed help with everything. He groaned in discomfort all day. At night, I had to get up five or six times to tend to him. I did my best to ease his pain.
His life was difficult, and he faced a lot of struggles when he was young. He supported our large family of ten, including his cousin and younger brother, by himself. Sometimes he didn’t know where he would get our next meal from.
One day, I asked him how I could take better care of him. He said it couldn’t be better. People in the village and surrounding areas witnessed the power of Dafa.
Dafa resolved the hatred between my father and me, eliminating the hard feelings that built up over a lifetime. If I hadn’t been practicing Dafa, I definitely would not have been able to care for him. Thank you, Master.
******************************************************************
By a Falun Dafa practitioner in Liaoning Province, China
I have been practicing Falun Dafa for over twenty years, and have lived on the sixth floor of an old residential building for ten years. I am the only resident who bothers to clean the stairwell. Whenever someone renovates their apartment and leaves the hallway covered in dust, I wipe down the railings with a cloth and mop the floor.
If someone leaves their garbage in the hallway, I simply take it and dispose of it. There is a neighbor on the fourth floor who smokes in the stairwell every morning, and leaves cigarette butts all over the place. Before going to work, I put on some gloves, pick them up one by one, put them in a trash bag, and throw the bag into the garbage bin on my way out.
I oftentimes use a wet mop to clean from the sixth floor down to the first floor, and walk to a far-away river to rinse the mop. I go back and forth three or four times. It’s hard work, and my clothes become drenched with sweat. When the neighbors see me, they say, “You really are a good person!”
I have worked in a hotel for over twenty years as a cold-dish chef. During all that time, I took time to clean the lounge and hand-wash the sheets myself since no one else did these chores.
The long corridor in the hotel often became dirty, so I took the initiative to clean it. Every time the manager saw this, he said, “Whenever I see you, I know that Falun Dafa is good.”
I now work in a company’s cafeteria. I take it upon myself to do whatever is needed and never fuss or try to avoid difficult tasks. The cafeteria once needed to buy a large quantity of scallions, and I noticed that the ones being sold near my home were very good quality. So after discussing it with the administrator, I bought about 25 kg (55 lb), cleaned them up, and brought them to the workplace on my bicycle.
Since the cafeteria is on the fifth floor, I had to carry the scallions up the stairs. Another cafeteria worker said to me, “You’re so foolish. Don’t carry them yourself. It’s too tiring. Just wait a while, and we can find someone to bring them up.” I just smiled and quietly took the scallions up to the fifth floor.
As a Falun Dafa practitioner, I always measure myself according to the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, strive to be a good person, and improve even more.