China Fahui | Looking Within Helps Us Overcome Difficulties (Part 1)

(Minghui.org) Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!

I began practicing Falun Dafa with my parents when I was a child, and now I’m married and have a child. I’d like to tell you how I used China’s laws to oppose the persecution while working to rescue my mother from unlawful imprisonment.

Looking Within Unconditionally

Mother encouraged me to practice. After she was detained and released, she noticed I slacked off. My boyfriend’s mother was also a practitioner and thought that since my mother returned home, he and I should get married. My mother suggested we wait. The tension between the families frustrated me, so we got married. Because of the strong smell in our new home while it was renovated, my husband and I temporarily moved in with my mother-in-law.

I felt depressed after the wedding. Fortunately I began to memorize Zhuan Falunwhilewewere engaged, and I continued to memorize the book every day after we married. This helped me get through this difficult time when it seemed no one understood me.

My husband and I moved into our home that fall. After I came home from work I had to cook for my mother, but she still gave me lots of pressure. I was also unhappy with my mother-in-law, and my husband did not have a job. I was overcome by emotion one day after work, and I sat in the car and wept. Fortunately, I was memorizing Zhuan Falun. I repeatedly said to Master, “It’s so difficult but I’ll look within to improve myself instead of blaming others. It’s just that the capacity of my heart isn’t yet big enough. I’ll try to improve.”

From then on, I always reminded myself to look inward. No matter what happened, I only looked at myself and I tried to eliminate my attachments.

Enduring Hardship

Several years ago, my husband bought a shop and ran a business. When our child was three months old I noticed a message on his cell phone. He told me a woman deceived him into giving her 200,000 yuan (about US $48,000). He also owed 100,000 yuan before we married. So he had a debt of 300,000 yuan.

We live in a small town and my salary is low. It would take many years to pay back so much money. Because I kept looking within, I was able to stay calm when I heard this. “We are husband and wife. Since this happened after we got married, I consider it a tribulation related to me,” I told him. “Because I am a Dafa practitioner, I’ll endure the hardship with you. Although I remain calm, I may occasionally complain. If that happens, please be patient. I’ll try to improve.”

I also asked my husband to invite our parents to meet our place. I told them, “This is a huge debt and you’ll hear about it sooner or later. My husband and I will work hard to pay it off. Please don’t worry about it and you don’t need to pay a penny. Please excuse us if we can’t give you good gifts during the holidays.”

When the store first opened, I stayed at home and took care of our child. I sometimes suddenly got angry thinking about the debt. When this happened, I wanted to pull my husband out of bed and yell at him. Instead, I walked back and forth to calm down and I continued reading the Fa.

After our child got a little older I helped out at the store. Some people repeatedly bought things on credit but never paid. I told my husband this had to stop, otherwise, we’d never pay off the debt. My husband did not listen. I reminded myself that I’m a practitioner, so I decided to improve myself instead of trying to change others.

When a man bought food on credit again, I was unhappy and told my husband to stop doing this. But he refused to listen. I was frustrated and said, “Why don’t you listen to me?” I was very upset and I walked out.

I looked at my watch and realized it was time for group Fa study. Thinking other practitioners were studying the teachings while I was so angry, I knew my behavior was wrong. So I calmed down, returned to the store, and apologized to my husband.

My attachment to material interest gradually weakened and I became more open-minded. I also experienced several tests in regards to material interest. Sometimes we thought the debt was finally paid off, but when we looked at the balance sheet my husband realized we still owed money. Fortunately we were able to clear the debt one year later. Then my husband’s friend wanted to borrow money to start a business. The friend said the money would be paid back and he would split the profit with us. I told my husband not to lend him any money, but he didn’t listen. The man did not pay the money back. So we acquired more debt. I told Master, “Master, cultivation means one needs to endure great hardship. Please trust me. I’m able to endure.”

After a few years, the debts were finally paid off. I also found my fundamental attachment. Every day we worked hard until 2 a.m. I was exhausted. I used to be an accountant. After we finally paid off the debt I wanted to find a decent job—even if I made less money.

I realized I wanted to practice cultivation because I didn’t want to suffer in the human world. People fight for all kinds of things. I didn’t want to suffer—I wanted to cultivate and leave.

After I had this realization, I asked myself, “Are you able to endure hardship?”

“Yes,” I replied. I was able to suffer, including the years when mother was detained.

I then asked myself, “Are you willing to endure hardship from the bottom of your heart?”

“No,” I said.

I repeatedly asked myself how much hardship I could endure. Then, my mindset changed – I no longer felt bad or wronged. I told Master, “Master, I am willing to endure. I am willing to suffer. I will continue on the cultivation path no matter what. Master, please trust me.”

I was able to let go of my fundamental attachment, and my cultivation improved dramatically. I was calm and relaxed every day. I had no pursuit and my mind was empty.

But one morning, I felt my cultivation change and I had attachments and human notions again. I knew this was another round of cultivation. I had a similar experience several years ago, after a long time of solid cultivation. At that time, I felt as if everything in this dimension was an illusion. I couldn’t stay in this human world any longer and I felt I would leave soon. After two or three days, another round of cultivation started.

My husband was saving money for my mother-in-law at a bank but somehow he lost 10,000 yuan. As soon as our debt was paid off, another thing happened. It seemed every incident occurred after my husband refused to listen to me. I knew these were opportunities to temper my heart. I told my husband, “Please don’t pay so much attention to material interest. When you focus too much on money and want to save money, we end up losing money. We aren’t here to save money. Its more important to eliminate karma and pay off our karmic debts so we can return with Master.”

My husband began practicing and he supports me wholeheartedly on anything related to Dafa. I know Master has been taking care of us and arranged for us to practice as husband and wife.

Conflicts with My Mother-in-Law

The past five years of staying with my mother-in-law can be divided into three stages.

The first stage was looking inward when I felt she did not meet my expectations. I had to work hard to avoid looking externally.

One day I told myself, “Everyone has their merits. My mother-in-law lives a thrifty life, and doesn’t even care about good food. Second, she’s able to endure hardship and is very honest.” I couldn’t think of any other good points.

So I told myself, “She is better than you in these two aspects. So you need to work on that.” But after a while, I thought she was wrong about certain things and did not behave like a practitioner. I immediately suppressed these thoughts and I stopped looking for her faults.

The second stage was looking down on others. After I stopped picking on my mother-in-law, I relaxed. However, I felt I was better than her, and I began to look down on her. This went on for six months and I didn’t know how to overcome it.

A practitioner named Ting asked me to participate in a local experience-sharing meeting, but I didn’t want to go. She said, “Please come. Practitioners in other areas already held one. Plus, we haven’t talked as a group for a while.” I went and I talked about how I looked inward.

Ting came to my place that evening. After we read the Fa, she said, “Everyone said they benefited from your sharing today. But we all saw your attachment.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I am not able to explain it well. But we all saw it,” she said.

After Ting left, I could not calm down and I had many negative thoughts one after another. “Well, I’m from another area. All of them saw my problem the first time they saw me? In fact, Ting and her husband also have many conflicts. But now they’re picking on me,” I thought.

I knew this was not my thought, but it was difficult to suppress it. I said, “I know you want to create barriers between me and other practitioners. That will not work.” Since Master told us to look inward when we encounter problems, I knew it was time to do this. Then I knew what my problem was—I felt good about myself and I looked down on others.

A few days later, Ting contacted me again and said, “Your experience-sharing from last time was very good. But some practitioners missed it. Can we meet again?” When we met, I not only repeated what I said earlier, but I also confessed that I had felt good about myself while looking down on others. Ting was very touched and she was in tears. “If all practitioners could think this way, there would be no barriers between us,” she said.

I knew Master helped me remove this attachment. I also treated my mother-in-law better.

The third stage was identifying fundamental issues and overcoming myself. I thought, “My cultivation path was arranged by Master. Having such a mother-in-law can help me with my cultivation. If my mother-in-law cooked for me and my child, how could I improve?” I also understood my mother-in-law had her difficulties.

As I continued looking within, I finally realized where my problem came from. My mother-in-law and I had a conflict while I was engaged.

I told her, “I’m young. Plus my mother is in prison. I guess I’m too sensitive and I should do better.”

“Yes, it’s your fault. How do you behave like this? Not like a practitioner,” she replied.

That sentence really hurt me. I decided not to chat with her about cultivation anymore. Since then I never talked with her about cultivation.

I was unwilling to be criticized—that was my fundamental problem. No one ever criticized me to my face. But my mother-in-law did. I took the initiative and apologized to her and shared my thoughts. She was very moved.

From this experience I learned that, only by improving myself would my mother-in-law realize her issue in cultivation and look within. Pointing out other people’s problems doesn’t help the situation.

Cultivating Selflessness

My mother was reported to police and arrested when she handed out information about Falun Dafa. Master helped me a lot and I also improved in the process of working to rescue her.

A Stressful Situation

After we heard mother was arrested, father and I hid the Falun Dafa books. The police came to ransack the place. I went to the police station and I was told mother was sent to a detention center and placed in criminal detention.

I was shocked and began looking within. Since no Dafa related materials were found at home, I thought mother would only be there for a few days under administrative detention. This was a loophole. I talked with father and we agreed not to sign any paperwork; otherwise, we could be considered “witnesses” against mother. There are many reports on Minghui about this.

I could feel the pressure and I knew I needed to tell the police the facts. I went to the police station and brought two documents. One was document No. 39 from the Ministry of Public Security in 2000 which showed that Falun Dafa was not on the CCP’s cult list; another document was No. 50 from the General Administration of State Press and Publication issued in 2011 that showed the ban on Falun Dafa books had been revoked.

As I walked out, my heart beat fast and my legs shook. I told myself, “You’re too weak. It won’t do if you can’t handle something small like this. You need to be bigger and stronger.”

My heartbeat became normal but my legs still shook. Seeing it was time for the police station to open, I went there. After I arrived I took a deep breath and walked in. My legs stopped shaking.

Inside the door was a metal fence, one could only talk with the police through it. I asked them the legal basis for my mother’s detention. “Who arrested my mother? When was the case filed? When was case accepted? I need to know this because its wrong to ransack my home unless a crime was committed,” I explained. “My mother is guaranteed freedom of belief. Falun Dafa is not on the CCP’s banned list and the publication of Dafa books is lawful.”

They said the case was still in progress and told me to go home and wait.

Father and I decided to find a human rights lawyer. But the lawyer had no time to see us that week. I was a little upset and knew I looked for help externally. I also realized Master expected me to walk my own path instead of relying on lawyers.

My father and I no longer relied on lawyers. I heard practitioners in another area did well rescuing detained practitioners with strong righteous thoughts. I asked some of them to explain how they did this.

Overcoming Fear

I felt all these were opportunities for me to use the law to oppose the persecution. Instead of relying on lawyers, I needed to take a leading role and tell facts to those involved in this case.

This is easier said than done. Throughout my childhood, the police harassed my parents and sent them to labor camps and prisons. These left me with fear. I had no problem telling them facts face to face, but I had fear when I called them.

I decided to call the prosecutor to find out mother’s situation. I began to prepare for that from 11:30 a.m. After I sent forth righteous thoughts for one hour, my heart was still trembling… I know no one could help but I was too nervous to do anything.

That afternoon, I sat in front of a mirror and asked myself who I was. “A Falun Dafa practitioner.” I replied.

“Do you want to do this?” I asked.

“Yes,” I replied. When it close to 4 p.m., I knew the procuratorial office would close soon, so I dialed the number. As soon as I heard the dial tone, my fear was gone and I asked how the case was progressing.

Afterwards I stopped being afraid when I interacted with people in the justice system. The following day, the lawyer asked me to submit documents to the procuratorial office. I did and told the assistant prosecutor the police made a mistake. My mother is innocent. I also went to the supervision division of the police department and filed a complaint.

Throughout the process, I paid close attention to every single thought. Every day before I went to sleep I reviewed my mindset that day. My cultivation improved quickly and my mindset became stable. After I went to the police station and procuratorial office a few times, father also walked out of the shadow of fear and began to look within.

I filed a complaint to the local discipline inspection and supervision commission against the police officers who processed my mother’s case. A few days later, I checked the status. On the way there, I felt a little nervous since I never interacted with the discipline inspection or the supervision commission in the past. I walked quickly, thinking my father was too slow and he was unable to help me. Then I realized I should look within.

After I arrived at the reception office, I asked if my complaint would be accepted. I also showed them document No. 39 from the Ministry of Public Security published in 2000 and document No. 50 document from the General Administration of State Press and Publication published in 2011. I explained my mother was not a criminal.

The complaint I filed was not accepted. But this experience helped me realize I didn’t just come here to rescue my mother. Instead, I should focus on telling the staff the facts about the persecution. I was no longer afraid when I interacted with officers in the justice system. The people I talked to also became nicer and more polite.

(To be continued)

(Selected submission for the 22nd China Fa Conference on Minghui.org)