From Sad Face to “Beautiful Smile”

(Minghui.org) I talked to a lot of people this year about Shen Yun during this season’s promotion in our area. On two occasions, people responded to me by saying, “You have a beautiful smile.” The first time I was selling tickets in the mall and the second time I was delivering flyers to offices.

Promoting Shen Yun is a precious cultivation opportunity that Master Li has provided for us, so we all try our best to participate. I often felt inferior, however, because of my poor English, but I still went to the mall to sell tickets and visited offices to deliver flyers with a passionate heart.

Grounded in the Fa, I know practitioners are precious beings—so precious that even gods envy them. By promoting Shen Yun, we are assisting Master to do Fa-rectification and saving sentient beings. Therefore, I felt incomparably honored and treasured this opportunity that won’t last long. I was always happy, and perhaps that was why people noticed my beautiful smile.

I was not like that when I was younger. At that time, I often wept because my husband was gruff with me. After practicing Dafa, I learned to take it lightly. However, I did not truly let go of it in my heart, and I often responded to him with cold silence.

My husband took a picture of me pushing our son in a stroller when we went out for a walk many years ago. When I saw the picture recently, I was startled to see how old and ugly and sad I looked. I deleted it right away.

The picture helped me realize that, after cultivating for so many years, I still had not gotten over such a trifle. I realized that if I could not genuinely look inside and remove my attachments, and instead held onto resentments and was grumpy, my cultivation would be fake, and I would be deceiving myself and others.

Master’s Fa has moved me deeply. Master said:

“If a Dafa disciple’s heart is unsteady, it will cause changes in his or her surroundings. When you have fear, for instance, you will find that the sentient beings around you are not quite right. When you change such that your presence is refreshing and uplifting to people, and your mind becomes broad and full of optimism, you will find the things around you to be correspondingly different.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2009 Washington DC International Fa Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. IX)

I made a firm decision at that moment that no matter what happened, I would stay cheerful and positive, such that my presence would be “refreshing and uplifting,” and that I would be broadminded and optimistic. I knew I had to practice real and solid cultivation and stay that way no matter what others said.

Gradually, my surroundings underwent great changes.

Now, no matter what kind of person I run into as I clarify the truth at tourist spots or on the telephone, I strive to stay calm and undisturbed, whether I am being praised or humiliated. I treat whatever they say lightly and stay cheerful and positive, broadminded and optimistic, like Master has said.

I still have a lot of attachments to remove, but I believe as long as I study the Fa better, practice solid cultivation following Dafa’s standards, and do the three things well, I will be able to follow Master home.