(Minghui.org) I’m 74 years old. I used to be very sick—I was dizzy, had no energy, and my legs felt very heavy. I had a concussion when I accidentally fell from the second floor of the warehouse at work. I took a lot of medicine, but I never fully recovered.
I was fortunate to begin practicing Falun Dafa in 1998. I learned how to be a good person, and that Falun Dafa’s universal principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance are the standards for discerning between good and bad. Since then, I’ve held myself strictly to these principles and I strive to be a good and better person. Master eliminated my illnesses—I no longer felt dizzy, my leg no longer hurt, and my post-concussion syndrome was gone. I no longer needed medicines.
I’d like to share a few stories about my neighbors.
Over 20 years ago, I lived on the seventh floor. The water supply was turned off, and because I forgot to turn off the tap, when the water came back on, it flooded the apartment below mine. I went to see how bad the damage was, and to offer compensation. The man said, “My bed sheets were made in Russia, my VCR is imported, everything I own is high-end. I’ll have to find someone to talk to about this. I have connections in both the legitimate and underworld.” He was very hostile and tried to extort money from me.
I thought as a Dafa practitioner, I must not escalate the conflict. So I said, “You don’t need to find anyone, I’ll give you whatever compensation you want. Let me wash the bed sheets for you.”
His wife said, “You don’t have to. My family runs a launderette, I can wash them.” They didn’t say how much compensation they wanted.
When my husband and I went to their launderette, they said, “You don’t need to pay for anything else, just the carpet. We’ll buy a new one later.”
I replied, “Your carpets are old. Pick out a good one. Tell me how much it costs, and I’ll pay you.”
A few days passed, but they didn’t contact us. So my husband and I went back to the launderette and asked, “How much did it cost?”
They said, “Don’t worry about it. We can use the old ones—we’ll just clean them.”
Our sincerity moved them, and they went from wanting to “talk things out” to not having us pay any compensation. During the process, the conflict was resolved.
I’m a practitioner and I should think of others. Even though they didn’t want any compensation, we still felt we should give them some money, since we caused them trouble and loss. We took 500 yuan, which was a considerable sum back then, and we went to see them. The husband wasn’t home, and the wife said, “Never mind.” We put the money on the table and left.
When we saw the husband a few days later, he said, “You two are very principled.”
After we moved to the first floor, our second-floor neighbors frequently caused our apartment to flood. The water in my apartment was more than three inches deep one day. I went upstairs to tell them about the leak, and they just said, “We forgot to turn off the tap.” They didn’t ask how much my apartment flooded.
The next time the neighbors’ water caused my apartment to flood I went to tell them, but the woman said, “My water isn’t leaking. Come in and take a look.”
I didn’t say anything else and went home, as I knew they wouldn’t intentionally cause the leak into my apartment.
Some time later, the woman who lived upstairs saw me and said she was embarrassed, “After you left, my mother-in-law gave me a good scolding! She said, ‘Why didn’t you look to see where the leak came from?’ It turned out the water level in my old-fashioned bathtub was too high, and overflowed the drain hole and thus leaked into your apartment.”
The next time I noticed a leak I went upstairs to tell them, but the homeowners weren’t in, only their young daughter was there. She immediately called her father. Because the water in her apartment was deeper than mine, I helped her clean it up leaving my husband to take care of the water in our apartment.
When the man came home with a friend, his friend said something unpleasant, but the homeowner quickly stopped him, saying, “Please don’t say that. My neighbors are so nice. My apartment leaked several times, but they didn’t say a word. Are there any better neighbors than that?”
My building shared an open space with two other buildings, and people constantly pass by. I cleared the space when it snowed. My neighbor said, “My door is at the back, so you don’t need to clear the snow on our side.”
But I thought it’s better to clear it all. It’s more pleasing to everyone and makes it easier for everyone to walk through. As a practitioner, I can’t just clear the snow in front of my building entrance.
There was an 80 foot long dirt path next to the building, and it was very difficult to walk on when it snowed. Since the community didn’t assign anyone to clean it, I did. Every time I finished, I was soaked in sweat. The path was very uneven, with some deep potholes, so I filled them in with bricks and tiles, and then borrowed a garbage truck from the sanitation workers to haul away slag from the boiler room to smooth it out.
I cleaned this walkway for nearly 10 years. Some people thought I was assigned by the community and asked how much I was paid. I said, “Nobody assigned me, and I’m not being paid. I practice Falun Dafa. All my illnesses were resolved after I began practicing. Seeing that it was inconvenient for everyone to walk on this path after it snows, I decided to clean it. I’m very happy to see that it’s safer to walk on it.”
For the safety of pedestrians in our community, I used my actions to validate Dafa, which made me happy. I continued to do this until the community roads were renovated and the community started arranging for snow removal services.
The drains are often clogged in apartment buildings, and sometimes neighbors argue about splitting the cost of unclogging them. My neighborhood’s drains clogged a few times over the years. Because we lived on the first floor, whenever the pipes were clogged, we called someone to fix it. When this happened, we had to inform the 12 households upstairs that they temporarily couldn’t use the drainage system.
The unclogging fees ranged from 50 yuan to 400 yuan. Since I moved to the first floor, my family always paid it, and we never asked the neighbors to chip in. When I told the neighbors not to use the drainage system, two families said, “Tell me how much you’ll have to pay to have it taken care of.”
I replied, “Never mind.”
I didn’t want to cause discord among the neighbors over splitting the cost, or make everyone unhappy over such a small amount. If we watched how much we spent in our day-to-day life, we could cover the cost.
In today’s world morals are declining and society is deteriorating. If I didn’t practice Dafa, I would follow the trend and I wouldn’t be so sincere, tolerant, and kind to others. It is Falun Dafa that has changed me and showed me how to be selfless, put others first and disregard my own interests.