My Mother’s Cultivation Story

(Minghui.org) I grew up in China. My mother had a terrible temper and my father liked to drink. My parents constantly argued, which always ended up in a huge fight.

My father used to be a village official—he was busy all day and drank in the evening. He would then ride his bicycle unsteadily home. When we got home from school, we often found him lying on the cold cement floor. My mother always scolded him angrily and then put him to bed.

My mother’s long-term bad temper took a terrible toll on her health. She developed gall stones, and suffered migraine headaches, heart disease, and stomach pain. She also had a small lump on her neck, which gradually grew to the size of a fist. My father took her everywhere for treatment, but nothing could cure her.

When I was still young, I once had a high fever that wouldn’t go down. My mother went to a temple on the mountain in the middle of the night to pray to the Buddha for my recovery, vowing that if I recovered, she would become a Buddhist. When my mother returned from the temple, my fever had indeed subsided. From that day on, she began to practice Buddhism. She was 24 and was very devout; she recited sutras every day and became a vegetarian. My siblings and I often accompanied our parents to famous mountains and rivers to pay our respects at different temples.

Even after visiting countless temples, praying devoutly, and offering money and gifts, my mother’s health continued to deteriorate. Her tumor grew larger and larger until she was completely bedridden. Our family became increasingly impoverished, as my father’s low salary was our only source of income. We accumulated a huge debt to pay for medical expenses, and my sister had to drop out of school to take care of my younger brother and sister.

In 1996, when my mother was 43, my father took her to a nearby temple, hoping the gods would protect her. In reality, he had completely given up on her treatment. Later, my mother told me that she stayed at the temple for a week but felt that the place was gloomy and terrifying. Whenever she thought about her four children, the youngest of whom was only three, she couldn’t bear the idea of leaving them behind. My mother refused to accept her fate. She told herself, “I cannot die! I must go home!” So she asked my father to take her home.

After he brought my mother home, my father went out to buy groceries. He saw a group of people exercising at a nearby stadium. He approached one of them and asked what kind of exercises they were practicing.

The man said, “This is Falun Dafa!”

My father asked, “My wife is very sick, can she practice?”

The man replied, “Falun Dafa can improve one’s health and resolve illnesses. We also teach the exercises for free and will teach anyone who comes.”

My Mother Begins Practicing Falun Dafa

This is how my mother started to practice Falun Dafa. She no longer went to temples or used a hospital bed. She’s been in such good health that she hasn’t taken a single pill in 26 years. Master and Falun Dafa gave my mother a second life.

Not only did my mother recover physically, but despite having only attended elementary school for two years, she could read Zhuan Falun and Master’s other other lectures. She diligently practiced Falun Dafa and enthusiastically promoted it, and our home became one of the largest Fa study and exercise sites in the area.

Our house is next to a national highway, with an open space out front, so local practitioners practiced the exercises near the road every day, inspiring many people to begin practicing. My younger sister said that when she was five years old, she saw Master’s divine body appear in the sky above the practice site. At the time, I was in college, and an English teacher told us about Falun Dafa, which is how I began studying the teachings and practicing the exercises. Our entire family was immersed in the teachings of Falun Dafa!

Jiang Zemin, the former leader of the Chinese Communist Party, was jealous that so many people practiced Falun Dafa and launched the persecution in July 1999. At the end of 1999, my mother, who had never traveled far from home, went to Beijing by herself to appeal for justice for Falun Dafa. She overcame numerous challenges and arrived at Tiananmen Square, holding up a banner that read, “Falun Dafa is good.”

She said there were many Falun Dafa practitioners at Tiananmen Square. The police arrested her and took her to a stadium north of Beijing’s Changping district, where thousands of abducted practitioners were crammed inside. My mother suddenly remembered that she still had a small banner. She took it out, raised it above her head with both hands, and shouted, “Falun Dafa is good!” All the practitioners in the stadium joined in, shouting, “Falun Dafa is good!”

The police saw this and dragged my mother outside, chained her to a tree and stripped off her coat and shoes. It was winter. The temperatures were below freezing and the weather was frigid. My mother stood barefoot on the icy ground for over ten hours.

She recalled Master’s poem:

“In Life, nothing sought,In death, regretting naught;Washing away all wrong thought,Buddhahood, with less adversity, is wrought.” (Nothing Kept, Hong Yin)

She said a warm current spread from her head to her feet, and she no longer felt cold. My mother knew that compassionate Master protected her. My mother said that at the time, Falun Gong practitioners whose household registration was found to be in the area were taken back to their hometowns by the local police for further persecution. Those whose addresses were not known were taken to Northeast China, and many of them disappeared. Even as I write this, I cannot help crying.

After we got news of my mother's arrest, the local police drove my father to Beijing, brought my mother back, and kept her in a detention center. When I went to visit her at the detention center, it was full of practitioners. They were smiling peacefully and their eyes were filled with determination. The police said that if my mother wrote a guarantee stating she would stop practicing, she could go home for the New Year. They pressured my father so he also tried to persuade her, but she refused. My mother was not at my family’s New Year’s Eve dinner that year. I felt very sad and I wept.

At the detention center, my mother and other practitioners started a hunger strike to protest the persecution. She was very weak by the eleventh day, so the detention center guards took her to the hospital. But the doctor couldn’t get a needle in her. He told the police that if they kept her there, she might die, so the detention center had no choice but to let my father take her home.

After returning home, my mother persevered in studying the Fa and practicing the exercises, and soon recovered her health. Because our home was located along a national highway, there were many people and vehicles passing by and my mother continued to practice outdoors every day. My father strongly opposed it, but my mother was not moved. When she visited my older brother in the provincial capital, she even went to the busiest commercial street to distribute information about Falun Dafa. I was surprised and deeply impressed by her courage, as that was the period when the persecution was most intense.

I Resume Practicing

After graduating from university in 2000, I joined a large company. I worked diligently and tirelessly, and was highly regarded by my boss. I rose quickly, becoming the president’s assistant and regional director. As fame and fortune came my way, I went along with it, indulging in luxury and enjoying myself—I completely forgot about cultivation.

My mother repeatedly urged me to practice Falun Dafa, so that I didn’t fall completely into depravity. But it wasn’t until 2019, when I began to sort out the Falun Dafa teachings at my home in Beijing, that I realized my mother took a huge risks to bring the books to Beijing from her hometown one by one over the years. She brought me a complete set of lectures, as well as USB drives, CDs, and Minghui Weekly a total of two boxes. My mother put in a lot of effort so that I could truly cultivate.

I married in 2005, and my wife’s health was poor—she’d had stomach issues since childhood and relied on medication to alleviate the pain. After giving birth to our daughter, her condition worsened. In 2008, she was diagnosed with advanced stomach cancer and had about 80% of her stomach removed. The doctors said she had only six months to live. She completed a course of chemotherapy, and my mother urged her to practice Falun Dafa. I also told my wife, “Let’s trust everything to Master.”

My wife agreed, and from then on, she believed only in Master and the Fa. Sixteen years have passed, and my wife is not only in good health but also gave birth to a healthy baby boy in 2015. We are deeply grateful to compassionate Master, and marvel at the great miracles of Falun Dafa.

My mother has practiced Falun Dafa for 28 years. Master saved her from the clutches of death and gave her a new life, enabling her to become a Falun Dafa practitioner during the Fa rectification period. What an incredibly wonderful and joyful journey of cultivation this has been!

I now live in Japan and my sister moved to New Zealand. We strive to practice diligently. When we think of the path of cultivation our mother traveled, our hearts are filled with strength and admiration.

Thank you again, compassionate and great Master!