(Minghui.org) I was born in a village. My father had a bad temper and was very violent, and I was very stubborn. During my childhood, if I did not obey him, he would beat me. This caused me to develop great hatred in my heart and I swore to leave home.
After I graduated from a technical school, I realized my wish to leave home. I was assigned to work in a city about 200 miles away from my home.
I got married. My husband's personality was worse than my father’s. He could not keep his temper in check at all. He was not a responsible man either. I was angry every day and suffered many ailments. Our son was very young at the time and I felt helpless and hopeless. I was in so much pain that I was teetering on the edge.
I could no longer tolerate anything physically or mentally. I was allergic to medications, so to regain my health, I tried many different phony qigong practices whenever I heard anyone talk about its effects. Tragically, these were all qigong with possessed animals. I was wrongfully instructed to cure others' diseases, even though I had many myself. My face looked black.
Then one day I got the chance to borrow a copy of Zhuan Falun from my coworker. After reading the book, I knew that the kinds of qigong I'd learned before were full of animal possession. I was determined to learn Falun Gong.
I didn't take it seriously until I had an accident.
A Big Fire Awakens Me
Due to my poor enlightenment quality, I put Zhuan Falun into my office desk drawer after reading it only once. Though I had given up the schools of qigong possessed with animals, I didn't understand the deeper meaning of Zhuan Falun. I was busy taking care of my home and son every day. However, I had a feeling that this book was able to protect me.
One day my workplace had a big fire at midnight. I worked in a big mall that held much inflammable merchandise. The whole outside structure of the building burned down from the first to the fifth floor.
Several days later, officials from an insurance company arrived to check if any accounting records remained. I followed them inside to take a look. What a tragedy! All of the merchandise was destroyed.
I went upstairs to check my office on the fifth floor to see if my cash and personal belongings survived. As I walked along the corridor, I found that the offices were turned to ash. One of my workmates found that her gold necklace and jewelry had melted.
When I walked into my office, I was pleasantly surprised. Everything was fine; only the door burned down. The desks and cupboards were undamaged. I was very excited and told my workmates, “Zhuan Falun in my desk drawer protected this office.”
After that big fire, I was determined to practice Falun Gong, but was not fully committed to genuine cultivation.
One day I started to tremble. I felt cold, had a fever, and could not sleep. For several days I saw an animal that looked like a white rabbit trying to possess my body, but it just couldn't get to me. I realized that this was because I had practiced qigong possessed by animals. That’s when I started to seriously practice Falun Gong.
Forcing Myself to Look Inside
Master removed illness karma for me many times after I began to practice Falun Dafa. Thanks to Master's protection, I overcame the tribulations of illness karma one after another. At the beginning I did not feel light all over, the way other practitioners did. I was always in a state of suffering.
My brain felt like a tight, hard ball of karma, and I suffered every second of the day. It seemed that my brain clicked from time to time when I was in deep pain. While I sat in meditation, my face twisted and my neck stiffened.
Family Tribulations
I suffered from the persecution that began in July 1999. I was detained twice in a forced labor camp for more than four years due to my firm belief in Falun Dafa. My health worsened after I was released from the labor camp. I relied on doing the Falun Gong exercises to keep me alive.
My husband was living with another woman when I was detained at the labor camp. He didn't educate our son, nor did he take good care of him. My son lived like a homeless kid and frequently went to live with our relatives.
I didn't have even a penny in my pocket when I was released from the labor camp. My workplace had fired me, and I was in poor health.
My husband never once visited me during the four years that I was detained. He cursed me to others who asked about me. I wanted to leave him, so I asked for a divorce. He agreed. My son lived with my husband because I could not support him.
I soon realized that I was only considering my own needs at the time. I had never thought of saving them. For a very long period of time, I had no news about my ex-husband and son after the divorce.
Then I heard about a bad situation that my ex-husband was in. He hurt someone in a car accident and had to pay a large compensation. He ended up in great debt—almost one million yuan. My son would not answer my calls. He did not acknowledge me as his mother, nor did he communicate with me.
As I matured in cultivation, I realized that I didn't do well what a Dafa practitioner should do for my family. As a Dafa practitioner, I didn't practice cultivation well. How could I save them if I did not practice well? I asked Master in my heart: I have a wish to save my family. Please help me, Master.
I discovered that my son had gone to live in another city and owned a store there. I planned to see him, but I didn't know exactly where he was. At the moment a message surfaced in my brain: my son is dying and on the edge of despair. I had no idea how to find him. At that moment on my desk was an agreement between my son and others, and his address was included in it.
I went out of town to look for his store. It was closed when I finally found it. I asked around his neighborhood and was told that the store had been closed for days. My son showed up after many days. He was reluctant to see me and asked why I had come. I told him that I was worried about him and cared about him, and wanted to see him.
I followed him to his home. I was surprised to see only empty bottles of alcohol scattered on the floor and pieces of luggage. I wanted to cook some food for him, but he told me there was no food and he hadn’t eaten for several days. He said he just wanted to end his life. I felt so sad when I heard this. I went out to buy some groceries for him.
During this time, I was just learning how to practice genuine cultivation. I allowed my son to just sleep and play games every day. I could see that his mental state seriously degenerated. I knew that only Dafa could change him, so I tried to tell him about Falun Dafa principles when he was calm. I told him that Dafa could change his fate. He responded rudely, “Even if what you said was true, I would rather suffer than accept your things.”
When he heard that another practitioner was coming to see me, he demanded that I give him back his keys and asked me to leave. I was very sad and decided to return home the following morning.
After I did the exercises the following morning, I fell asleep. I saw this scene in a dream: My son's room was filled with a pile of frozen popsicles. Two people walked in with a "big cake," the pronunciation of which in Chinese pinyin is “dan gao,” which sounds the same as the character for "to improve."
They insisted I stay and we eat together. Both of them had the same last name, Liu, which sounds the same as the Chinese character for “stay.” I was enlightened that Master was giving me a hint that I should stay and improve myself instead of leaving. Frozen popsicles symbolized a frozen heart that needed time to melt. I cooked breakfast for my son and didn't mention leaving. My son didn't mention it either.
I stayed for ten more days and no longer tried to change him. Whenever I had time, I went out to tell people the facts about Falun Dafa. I knew that I had big problems in cultivation, so I had to study the Fa as much as possible and improve in my understanding about the Fa principles.
My son was still playing games all the time. I thought it would better if he could come back to live with me. Then I decided to discuss with my ex-husband if it was possible to do so. I went back to my city and visited my parents-in-law. We hadn’t seen each other for several years. They treated me with hospitality and invited me inside.
It just so happened that my ex-husband came back at that moment. He became furious when he saw me. He picked up a knife from the kitchen and said he would kill me. My father-in-law held him back with one hand and slapped his face with the other hand. My mother-in-law also tried to stop him while yelling at me, “Run!”
I ran away and got on a bus. I was so nervous and dizzy that I missed my stop. It took a long time for me to find my way home.
Practicing Genuine Cultivation and Identifying My Attachments
I knelt down in front of Master's picture while my tears were streaming down my face. I prayed to Master for help. “What's wrong with me, your disciple? I really want to cultivate well. No matter how difficult it is, your disciple wants to keep going forward. I want to save them. Please give me a hint and enlighten me, Master.”
The following day I read an article online of a practitioner's cultivation experience. This practitioner's husband used to beat and curse at her and gambled all the time. She changed herself and kept on treating her husband compassionately, without any hatred or complaint. Soon her husband changed. After reading that article and studying the Fa, I compared this to myself and finally figured out my problem.
I had focused on “me” for years during cultivation. I narrowed down the meaning of cultivation. “I want to cultivate” is more important than anything else. No one could delay my cultivation. No one could affect my cultivation. I thought cultivation was the most important thing. I laid down, discarded, excluded, stayed away from, and gave up whatever interfered with my cultivation. I went to an extreme in cultivation, to the extent that even my validating the Fa was based on selfishness. That's why I always had problems.
As to my family relationships, I had never thought they had appeared for the sake of my cultivation. Their problems were all related to me. They were my mirrors. I should have looked inside to identify my problems, but I didn't cultivate myself. Their hopeless situation awakened me: I started looking inside to identify my attachments and found many of them.
Deep inside I looked down upon my husband; I despised him no matter what he did. I had the same mentality towards my son. Isn't this typical jealousy?! I didn't cultivate myself. The more I despised them, the worse the old forces made them. If I kept on the current path of not cultivating myself, the old forces would push them to despair and finally ruin them.
These family tribulations made me realize that my cultivation had deviated from Dafa. I had a serious problem of jealousy and had no reason to talk about consummation in cultivation. All of a sudden I enlightened to this point: There is nothing wrong with my family or my son. It was me who didn't take a righteous path in cultivation. I didn't cultivate myself well and pushed sentient beings to a bad situation. After this realization, I focused on my personal cultivation.
My son went to live in Beijing. Again I looked down on him and thought that they could do nothing well, no matter where they went. I was aware of the bad thought immediately, caught it and disintegrated it. I talked to the old notions in my mind solemnly: All my sentient beings come to assimilate with the Fa and would be saved. They are in the hands of my Master. The fate of my family and my son would be arranged by my Master. Whoever interferes is committing a crime.
I took my family to be my mirrors and regarded saving them as my goal. Whenever they had problems, I looked inside immediately to find fault in myself. I no longer complained about or blamed them. I treated them nicely and quietly helped them.
My Son Gets on the Right Track and My Husband Changes His Attitude
For years my son did not visit me. Then he came to see me when he returned from Beijing. I told him that I would leave to visit my mother in a few days. He said, “Mom, just do not leave this year. I will come to live with you when I have time.”
At the point I understood Master's Fa teachings:
“Cultivation depends on one’s own efforts, while the transformation of gong is done by one’s master.” (from Lecture One, Zhuan Falun)
My son didn't come to see me for years even when I asked him to come, but when I rectified myself, he came without my invitation.
My son was in his thirties at the time. He never discussed his girlfriends with me, nor did he tell me if he had found someone to marry. However, he came back to visit me again and shared his good news, “Mom, I found a very good girl. She just graduated from college. She wants to meet you.”
I realized that my sentient beings would come on the right track once I changed my notions. During that period, my parents-in-law moved to a new home and gave their old home to my son.
About half a year later, my son told me that he was going to be married. I was wondering how to communicate with my ex-husband about my son's wedding. I asked my son, “Do you think I should attend your wedding?”
He said, “I will discuss this with Dad.”
One day, my ex-husband came to visit me. I was still a little worried about our relationship. I no longer hated him. I only wanted to save him.
This time, his attitude was completely different. He expressed his sincere thanks for my sacrifices for our son. “At our son's wedding, you will play a key role as a member of the family,” he said to me. “Please invite all the relatives from your mother's family to come and your fellow practitioners, too.”
He still couldn't understand Dafa practitioners and told me to remind practitioners not to say anything related to Falun Gong at the wedding. I took the opportunity to tell him some facts about Falun Gong. He didn't say anything, just smiled and left.
Looking Inside to Further Rectify Myself
Several days before my son's wedding, my head felt very uncomfortable. I could hardly tolerate the pain. My head trembled in pain. I wondered how I could attend my son's wedding, if I continued to be like this. How could I validate the Fa like that?
One day, my ex-husband called and blamed me for some issues with our son's wedding clothes. Finally he told me not to attend my son's wedding. I was very calm while listening to him over the phone.
After he hung up, I started looking inside to identify my problems that were not aligned with the Fa. I felt very wronged, but I still regarded myself as a practitioner. I thought of Master's teachings,
“In cultivation practice, there may be two scenarios when dealing with specific conflicts or when others treat you badly. One is that you might have treated this person badly in your previous life. You feel in your heart that it is unfair, "How can this person treat me like this?" Then why did you treat this person that way in the past? You might claim that you actually did not know it at that time, and this life has nothing to do with the other life. That does not work. There is another issue. In conflicts, the issue of transforming karma is involved. Therefore, in dealing with specific conflicts we should be forgiving instead of acting like ordinary people.” (from Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)
I knew that we had bad predestined relationships from previous incarnations. When we had quarreled before, he said to me, “I came for revenge.”
We treated each other like enemies when we lived together. I am thankful for practicing Falun Dafa during this lifetime so that I can benevolently resolve these bad predestined relationships. I thought I might have hurt him badly in previous lives, so no matter how he treated me, I would treat him with a practitioner's mentality. I sent forth a thought: let our previous bad relationship be resolved benevolently in Dafa.
At midnight, I felt a very strong energy field while sending forth righteous thoughts. I kept sending forth righteous thoughts, but I lost consciousness later. I awoke around 1:00 am. I was laying there face down, and there was a big bump on my head. My face was covered with drool, but I felt very light and was no longer uncomfortable.
I knew that Master had helped me repay my life debts. After that, my ex-husband never mentioned about not allowing me to attend our son's wedding.
Relatives Understand the Facts about Falun Dafa
My ex-husband treated my relatives and practitioners with hospitality at the wedding. He was very happy.
His relatives also changed their attitude towards me. When I was harassed by local police, my brother-in-law went to the police station on my behalf. My sister-in-law helped me take care of my grandson. My 90-year-old father-in-law delivered food to me and understood what I was doing. All of the previous hatred, contempt, rejection, and resistance were gone.
Some of my relatives have accepted the facts about Falun Dafa, but most have not. This no longer bothers me, as I know that Dafa's great compassion will ultimately save them. Ice needs time to melt. A practitioner's behavior is a great way to show them. I must regard myself as a true cultivator, look inside, and repay hatred with virtue. All sentient beings have come for being saved, especially family members of Dafa practitioners. I believe that they will eventually be saved in Dafa.
Cultivating Myself and Dissolving Tribulations
My grandson was born in January 2016. My daughter-in-law said that she would come to live with me because her home was being renovated and filled with awful odors. During that period, police came to my home to harass me. I left home and rented a new place.
When I returned home on New Year's Eve, my son and daughter-in-law were moving out and I asked them why they were moving.
My daughter-in-law's mother said it was because the baby kept crying at my home. I told my daughter-in-law to say “Falun Dafa is good” to the baby. She didn't say anything and left my home. They moved out very fast. I could tell from their expressions that something had happened. I spent New Year’s Eve alone at home.
At midnight on New Year’s Eve, my son came in and shouted at me with complaints and blame. He told me never to come to his home. I was not moved but listened to him calmly while looking inside and disintegrating the evil elements behind him. He left after his outburst. I had no idea about what had happened to them, for him to speak to me this way.
My son returned about half an hour later. He knelt down in front of me, tears streaming down his face, and apologized. I asked him what had happened and he told me the whole story.
He said his baby cried every night. They couldn't calm him down. My daughter-in-law went to a fortune teller and was told it was because of me. My son said, “Mom, I know they wronged you--they are just not reasonable. Just do not go to see my baby.”
After my son left, I calmed down and looked inside to identify my problems. Due to harassment from local police, my own dimensional field was not clear. I didn't study the Fa well, nor did I send forth righteous thoughts enough.
I wondered how I could bring fortunetellers to me. Then I understood: I used to read some books about fortune telling and often gave their names to others. When my grandson was born, I wanted to give the baby a name from fortune tellers, but my daughter-in-law declined.
I came to realize that this was not aligned with the Fa and was a very serious issue of “practicing only one cultivation way.” I still carried old messages from other schools in my mind. Although I didn't use them after practicing Falun Dafa, I didn't remove or cleanse them seriously. The evil took advantage of my loopholes to cause trouble and prevent my sentient beings from being saved.
I continued looking inside and figured out many other problems. I didn't complain to anyone. Instead, I sat down to send forth righteous thoughts. After a while, it felt like my heart had jumped up to my throat and then I lost consciousness.
I woke up at about 1:00 in the morning. My head drooped over the corner of the bed. I realized that I must have had many convulsions. Another “me” that was full of karma had died. Master helped me repay a debt once again. I felt so much gratitude to Master.
Such things have happened to me many times since I started practicing cultivation. I didn't know how much karma I had accrued in previous lives. The “me” that was full of karma has passed away many times and each time Master brought me back to life. Now I know why I always cried when I began cultivation practice. My knowing side saw what Master had done for me. I can never thank Master enough!
I thought that no matter how many attachments I have, they cannot become excuses for the evil elements to prevent sentient beings from being saved. I will never give up saving them.
Once in a while I would buy gifts when I visit my son’s family. At first, they were cold to me.
They didn't show me the baby, and I didn't ask to see the baby, either. I would have a quick talk with them and then just leave. I was very sad on my way back home. It's easy to talk about not being moved by disrespectful words, but my heart was moved so much by their cold expressions. Sometimes I couldn't hold back my tears from streaming down.
I looked inside to figure out why I was not feeling well. I was concerned about saving face, vanity, and self-respect. I had always attached great importance to these things. Because I didn't let them go, they increased and became more serious than ever. I knew that I couldn't hold on to these attachments anymore.
I kept on visiting my son and always brought gifts. My purpose was to save them. Gradually, they were not that cold to me. During one visit in April, my daughter-in-law's mother told me, “The baby cried so much because he had a stomachache. He is all right now after taking some Chinese medicine.”
After that, they allowed me to hold the baby. They soon welcomed me with hospitality. The gap between us disappeared. I told them some facts about Falun Dafa when they looked happy. My daughter-in-law's parents were very polite and respectful to me.
The mother reminded my daughter-in-law to treat me well. “If your mother-in-law comes at noontime,” she said, “you must cook lunch for her.” From then on, whenever I went to visit them, my daughter-in-law prepared food for me when it was time for lunch.
My son and daughter-in-law moved to another city and left their son in the care of my daughter-in-law's parents. I went there several times a week to help them out.
One time my grandson had a fever. I said “Falun Dafa is good” to him again and again. I asked my daughter-in-law's mother to play Master's Fa-teaching recordings at night. She lowered the speaker and played the recordings next to the baby all day and all night.
Benevolent Resolutions
For those sentient beings who had a bad predestined relationship with us during many incarnations, we can save them only when we follow Dafa’s principles. I always keep in mind Master's Fa teachings about resolving things benevolently. Master said,
“Then whose sins are those, really? If you ask me, those sins aren’t attributable to anyone. It’s just how beings act, given the nature of the cosmos’s formation, stasis, degeneration, destruction. It’s because the cosmos’s wisdom was lacking. So, I thought that the best approach would be to benevolently resolve things for all lives! It wouldn’t matter who owed what to whom, everyone would stop collecting their debts, since everyone has sins. If everyone were to stop collecting their debts; if everything between people were resolved in a positive way during Fa rectification; and if everyone headed to the future, how wonderful that would be! (Resounding applause) Sentient beings would like this for sure, and everyone would be happy. That’s what I had wanted to do at the beginning.” ("Fa Teaching at the 2013 Greater New York Fa Conference")
What I shared is just a little part of my cultivation path, but these little changes have made a big difference in my life. If I had encountered such things before I cultivated, I don’t know if I would still be alive. What helps a Dafa disciple to dissolve these tribulations? It's Dafa. What constantly broadens a Dafa disciple's heart to be big enough to tolerate what is intolerable and to return complaints with virtues is only Dafa.
Dafa saved me and has given me everything, and it is everything to a Dafa disciple. As a Dafa disciple, I can only follow Master closely and keep in mind Master's teachings:
“When there are problems, conflicts, difficulties, and unfair treatment, one is still able to search oneself and look inside, and that's real cultivation, and only then will one be able to continuously improve, walk straight on the path of cultivation, and head toward Consummation!” (A Congratulatory Message to the Taiwan Fa Conference)
“Only by cultivating yourself well will you be able to fulfill well Dafa disciples’ missions.” (A Congratulatory Message to the South America Fa Conference)
Thank you, great Master, for your compassion and grace!
14th China Fahui on Minghui.org
