(Clearwisdom.net) Every time I took the elderly practitioner to the bus station, seeing her getting onto the bus with such difficulty, I always had a strange feeling in my heart. She always needed people's help to board the bus. After the bus drove away, in my heart I wished her a safe trip.
I knew that elderly practitioner three years ago. She is now 82 years old, and she has wandered around for many years. After she came to our city, another practitioner introduced her to me. She had a very warm attitude towards us, and she briefly explained her situation. In 2000, because of the persecution, she had to leave her home to avoid persecution. However, the way she spoke was so gentle and peaceful, and she didn't seem at all to have suffered so many tribulations. During the Cultural Revolution, she went to a mountain to collect ore. She accidentally fell while at the mountain and suffered bone fractures in multiple places, including her lower back, chest and legs. She lost consciousness after the fall and was found by a peasant on the following day. The peasant carried her to a cave and then got her to the hospital for emergency care. Although she was still alive, she was paralyzed and had lost all ability to take care of herself.
Because the elderly practitioner had a good relationship with her colleagues at her workplace, and because she was a very good worker, her supervisors paid great attention to her health and took her to large hospitals several times for treatment. However, due to the severity of her injuries, she didn't fully recover. After a long period of receiving medication and injections, her internal organs were badly damaged and she developed many diseases. She became only skin and bones. After she became paralyzed, her husband resented her deeply and began to beat and otherwise abuse her every day. Besides that, she still needed to take care of her young child. All the suffering and tribulations she had endured during that time were beyond description.
In 1995, one of her friends gave her some Dafa books. After she finished reading Zhuan Falun, she experienced tremendous changes, and she felt that she understood the true meaning of life. She subsequently began sitting in bed and doing the exercises. Gradually, she stood up from the wheelchair and did the exercises with the support of a pair of crutches. In this way, she became better and better. All the diseases she had in her internal organs went away, and she gained quite a lot of weight. Her friends and colleagues didn't even recognize her. She said, “I was saved by Master Li Hongzhi.” After seeing the great changes in her, many people around her also started to practice Dafa. She later formed a Fa-study group at her house, and sometimes more than 20 people came to study the Fa with her.
After July 20, 1999, when Jiang's regime suddenly started the insane persecution of Falun Gong and Dafa practitioners, the practitioners were no longer allowed to study the Fa or do the exercises. So the elderly practitioner went to city hall with several other practitioners to explain the facts about Falun Dafa to the political leaders. They also demonstrated with big banners on which was written, “Falun Dafa is Good,” and “Restore Master Li's Good Name.” However, several police officers beat the practitioners mercilessly and arrested them. The elderly practitioner saw the police officers savagely beating a young and skinny male practitioner. When they were about to take him to the police car, she called to the officers: “Let him go! I will go with you!” All the police officers were shocked by her words. They released the young practitioner and took the elderly practitioner to the police station. The head of the police station interrogated her in person, and she explained the facts about Falun Dafa to him. She said, “Master gave me a second life, otherwise I would have died a long time ago. Now Master is being defamed and Dafa is being persecuted. Shouldn't I help people understand the truth? If the government doesn't know the truth, and we tell them about it, what's wrong with that?” The police chief was moved by her sincerity, but said that she must stop practicing Falun Gong. She answered, “How could I stop practicing Falun Gong? I will continue doing what I should do.” The police chief finally said, “You can go back home now.” Because of her strong righteous thoughts, the elderly practitioner returned home safely.
I later heard that the elderly practitioner went to Beijing to get Master's new articles from several practitioners. She asked two other practitioners to pick her up at the train station after she returned, since she couldn't carry all the books by herself. When she arrived from Beijing, no one showed up at the train station. After she spent quite a lot of effort and arranged a proper place to put the books, another practitioner told her that the two practitioners who were to pick her up had been arrested. They had also given her name to the police officers, who were coming right away to arrest her. So the elderly practitioner put away all the Dafa books at home, took some clothes, and left her son a note saying that she was going to the hospital to visit a friend. She also asked him not to wait for her for dinner. With that, the elderly practitioner left her hometown and started to wander about for more than ten years. That day, just after she left, a dozen police officers went to her house and forced her son to tell them where she was. They later started to monitor her son, and continue to do so.
When I met the elderly practitioner three years ago, she was very thin, and was disabled. Her legs were noticeably different from each other – one was longer and thicker than the other. One of her thighs would dislocate very easily. One day when I went to visit her, she had just experienced a dislocation, and it was so painful that her face was twisted in pain and she couldn't move at all. She slowly put the bone back into the joint. What surprised me the most was that one of her legs couldn't bend, and it was very difficult for her to even put on a sock. What was more difficult for her was that she couldn't squat and she always needed to hold onto something while using the bathroom. I really didn't know how she persevered for the last ten years, living outside. Besides that, many areas of her lumbar spine had deformation, and it was very difficult for her to walk.
What a huge crime the communist regime has committed in persecuting such an elderly lady, who lost the ability to live on her own. However, under the huge pressure, she has been walking on her own cultivation path despite all the difficulties. After she arrived in our city, some practitioners suspected she might be a spy, and they asked other practitioners not to allow her to go to their houses. Facing all the misunderstandings, the elderly practitioner didn't get angry; instead, she patiently explained to us her situation and the reason why she was wandering about. A few practitioners didn't believe her and refused to help her. But her sincerity moved many other practitioners, who offered her some money, commodities, and clothing. But she refused to take any of them. Some practitioners were moved by her and cried, “Your situation is so difficult, we just want to help you.” Then the elderly practitioner took the money, but after that, she tried her best to give the money to the practitioners detained in prison or in forced labor camps so that they could buy some clothes. The rest of the money she gave to the practitioners she knew and asked them to use it to make informational materials. In the end, she didn't keep any of the money for herself.
In our city, the elderly practitioner limped to distribute informational materials in the countryside, parks, and shopping malls. Once in a park, she twisted her ankle and could no longer walk. She rested for a long time before she could manage to walk again. Yet she still persisted in distributing all the materials. Regardless of whether it was windy, raining, or under the burning sun, she always walked with a stick to fulfill her responsibilities. One time, she came to the border crossing to Laos. Although she saw many vehicles waiting in line for inspection, she paid no attention to this. Later, police officers found the book Zhuan Falun and they interrogated her. In the end, the driver said to the police officer, “She is such an old lady, and is disabled, what could she do?” Thus, protected by Master, the elderly practitioner returned safely. The next day, she left our city and went to the south.
Last August, fellow practitioners told me that the elderly practitioner had come back to our city. Several of us practitioners went to the place where she was staying. She told us that during the Beijing Olympics, she went back to her hometown, but the persecution there was still very bad. She still couldn't go back home because police officers were still often going to her house and harassing her family.
She heard that several practitioners had given up practicing Dafa because of the persecution, and had started doing other practices. The elderly practitioner found them and asked them to firmly believe in Master and Dafa, and not to be scared by the persecution. She told them that with Master's protection, there is nothing to fear. She asked us all to study the Fa and do the three things well. Although she was wandering about, she is still cultivating so diligently. Many were inspired by her righteous thoughts and righteous actions.
When I saw the elderly practitioner this time, she had gained some weight, and she looked much younger. When I asked her if she suffered any tribulations during the last three years, she looked so happy and said that with Master's protection, she didn't have any difficulties.
Later on, she realized that several of us practitioners needed to spend a lot of time taking the bus to study the Fa with her. So she said to us, “I can't let you all spend so much time on me, I feel I am being too selfish. In the future, I will come to your place.” After that, she came to our Fa study group. One day it was raining very hard and we all thought she wouldn't come. But before long, she arrived. We were all moved that she still came despite such heavy rain. When she left in the afternoon, it was still raining very hard, and there was a lot of thunder. So I sent one thought to the weather and asked it to stop raining while she went back home. After a while, the rain stopped. And about one hour later, when the elderly practitioner was about to arrive home, the rain started again.
Now the elderly practitioner was leaving again. She was so skinny, her hair was all white, and she had great difficulty walking by herself. However, every step she took was so firm. It has been ten years now! Who can imagine how many places this 82-year-old lady has been, and how many seeds she has planted to save people! Without Master's protection and the firm belief in Master and Dafa, she wouldn't have been able to make it. But she made it, and she remains so peaceful and calm. No one knows how many tribulations she has endured during the past ten years, and how many difficulties she has overcome, because she never told anyone about them. She is only an ordinary old lady, she is only an ordinary Dafa disciple. But on the other hand, she is a great Dafa disciple and a glittering Dafa particle created by the great Buddha Fa.
