(Minghui.org) I am 77 years old this year. I met my husband when we were attending middle school. Upon graduation, he was accepted into a construction technical school, and after graduation he was assigned a job in defense engineering. He became a repairman at an airport in southern China. I went to high school and was accepted into a university. After graduation I was assigned a teaching job in a rural area. Ignoring objections from my relatives, I married my husband. After seven years of living apart, we were finally able to be together and start our life as a family.
Due to our jobs being so different, we didn’t have much to talk about. We often disagreed and fought, both verbally and physically. At one point I walked to the lake to drown myself, but after thinking about my parents who were both elderly, and my son and daughter, I couldn’t end my life. I could only endure for the sake of the family. My anger and tension caused me to have many illnesses.
I Begin Falun Dafa Cultivation Practice
My colleagues at school were preparing for their classes in late February in 1996. I had been on sick leave for six months. During the lunch break, a young teacher approached me and said, “We are going to the library to practice Falun Dafa. This room is so cold. Why don't you come with us?” So I dragged my heavy legs and went with them to the library on the fourth floor.
When the soothing music started, I followed the others and began doing the exercises. I felt that Falun Dafa was truly good. During the second exercise, I saw the following scene: I was walking up stairs on a high mountain. When I reached the top, there were groups of people wearing traditional Chinese attire, sitting in a pavilion. The site was uplifting, and made me feel relaxed and happy.
After I did the exercises, that vision stayed with me. A practitioner gave me the book Zhuan Falun. When I returned to the office, I couldn’t wait to start reading. When I opened it and saw Master’s compassionate image I felt very close to him. After I read all nine lectures, I understood many things that I had always wondered about.
A few days later, I obtained a large image of Master and I was preparing to display it on the wall. My husband did not agree, so I placed the image flat on top of a cabinet. When I opened the cabinet, it was like a wind blew the image and it floated down. I thought, there isn’t any wind inside the house. How did it get blown down? This was so amazing. I thought that Master must be special. I felt the image could not be placed there to collect dust, so I asked my husband “Why won’t you let me display the image on the wall?” He said, “You can hang it in the living room.”
I attended Master’s nine-day video lectures that April. During those nine days Master kept purifying my body, and I vomited several times. Afterwards I felt light and free of illness. I decided to go to the exercise site near my home for the early morning exercises. When I got up the first morning, I felt very sleepy as soon as I sat up, so I lay back down. Then, a golden Falun spun from my chest to my head and I was startled awake. I realized that Master was reminding me to get up to do the exercises. I got up quickly and went to the park. I exercised with the other two practitioners. We didn’t have a Fa study group, so I decided to open my home and invite them to start a Fa study group. Our Fa study group continues to this day.
I went home to cook one morning after doing the exercises. Looking around my house, I suddenly felt sad and I began to weep. I realized that I had cultivated a heart of compassion. When I opened the refrigerator, I saw the chicken and fish that were given by my husband’s workplace. I looked around and I thought, “This is my husband's apartment. When my parents were ill, he drove them to the hospital. He came any time he was called. Aren’t these all benefits that my husband has provided for me and my family? So why do I always feel like I am the savior of his family and I never see his good points?” I felt that I was very selfish and had treated my husband unfairly. I felt very bad.
With tears in my eyes, I went to him and said, “I am sorry. Can you forgive me?” I saw that he was also crying, he said “Don’t mention the word 'forgive'. Just don’t treat me like that anymore.” I was grateful to Master because by practicing Falun Dafa my preconceived notions were eliminated. I had cultivated kindness and compassion. Master’s Dafa saved me, and saved my broken family. I also witnessed what Master said,
“Because our practice is one in which the Fa refines practitioners, this means that some situations will arise from gong and the Fa.” (Lecture Seven, Zhuan Falun)
Once while I was sitting on my bed reading Zhuan Falun, my three year old granddaughter, who was holding a wooden stick, began hitting the bed, sending a lot of dust into the air. I loudly scolded her to stop but she only hit harder. I immediately thought of Master’s words,
“Some people will lose their temper in disciplining children and yell at them, making quite a scene. You should not be that way in disciplining children, and neither should you, yourselves get really upset. You should educate children with reason so that you can really teach them well. If you cannot even get over a trifle and lose your temper easily, how can you expect to increase your gong?” (Lecture Nine, Zhuan Falun)
I said to her with a smile, “Knocking so much dust into the air will make us cough. I didn’t mean to scold you.” It was as if the child understood me, and she threw the stick away. This situation was a small one but it shows that compassion can change a person’s heart.
On December 1, 2000, I wanted to go to Beijing to appeal for justice for Master and Dafa. When I arrived at the train station to buy a ticket, I saw a police officer, and my legs started trembling. I was so afraid that I didn’t buy a ticket, and went home. I couldn’t sleep well for many nights after that. I tossed and turned while thinking about the consequences of going to Beijing. Then I thought, had it not been for Master’s saving me and Dafa guiding me, I might have already died and my perfect family would not have existed either. Everything that I have is given to me by Master. Now that Master has been slandered, Dafa is being persecuted, people are being deceived, and practitioners are being persecuted, and I don’t even have the guts to speak up. How could I face Master? I decided to go to Beijing.
On the morning of December 5, 2000, while I lit incense for Master, I said, “Master, I am going to Beijing to safeguard Dafa. Please help me eliminate my fear.” That day I calmly bought train tickets to Beijing with another practitioner. There were only two train tickets with beds remaining.
Before leaving home, to prevent my family from looking for me, I told my husband and my son that I was going to Beijing. I said that they wouldn’t be able to sway me. They didn’t say anything and let me go.
After we arrived in Beijing the other practitioner and I headed for Tiananmen Square. We were arrested on the way there, and taken to a police station. I recited Master’s Fa,
Dafa is what you carry everywhere,Zhen Shan Ren, rooted in the mind;A great Arhat walks the earth,Gods and demons fear with awe.(“Benevolent Might,” Hong Yin, English Translation, Version A)
After arriving at the station, I wouldn’t give my name, so they named me “No Talk B”. A young police officer took me to a jail cell and asked if I was hungry. He offered to buy me some bread. The next day, before he got off work, he told me that I should do exercises if it was cold at night. He said that he had Dafa books at home. I realized that Master had arranged for him to protect me.
The evening of the second day, another officer sent me to the detention center. Before departing, I told the police officer who was escorting me about how great Dafa was. He said, “Let history be the witness.” After arriving at the detention center, he interrogated me and asked, “What are you doing here?” I told him about how Master saved me and how Dafa disciples were saving people. I told him about how a practice this great should not be banned. I came to Beijing to restore the good name of my Master and Dafa. He said, “The persecution was the decision of Jiang Zemin (former CCP head), you won’t be able to see him.”
He asked me if I had any money. I said, “I brought over a thousand yuan, but it was all taken away when I arrived.” He asked, “Did they give you a receipt?” I replied that they didn’t. He said, “I will take a look.” I thanked him. At the time I thought, if it is my money, I won’t lose it. Master is watching over it for me.
After arriving at the detention center, I had the thought to not watch or listen to anything. I ignored the TV and just sat there with my eyes closed, and recited Master’s Fa. When I recited the first sentence of Lunyu, my mind was blank. Then when reciting the first line of “The Knowing Heart,” I couldn’t remember the next line. When reciting Hong Yin, I couldn’t remember a single word and I immediately realized that this was due to having a weak mind. Didn’t Master tell us “Your Main Consciousness Should Predominate” (Lecture 6, Zhuan Falun) and “Your Mind Must Be Righteous” (Lecture 6, Zhuan Falun)? I can’t be this way.
While lying on the bed at night, I thought about what I had done wrong these last few days and how I should change. At this time, a one meter tall skull appeared before my eyes. Master said,
Should you have fear, it will seize upon youIf thoughts are righteous, evil will collapseThe cultivator’s mind is loaded with FaSend righteous thoughts, and rotten demons explodeGods walk the earth, validating the Fa(“What’s to Fear,” Hong Yin, Volume II)
I know that when I looked inward, Master eliminated the evil.
One day the head of the inmates asked my name. I said, “No Talk B.” She asked me for my real name. I told her, “What’s the use of that? Names are for differentiating you and I from others. Everyone here knows that I am No Talk B.” She said, “You are a teacher.” She pointed at a practitioner with wounds all over her face, and said, “Look at how I beat her. I am very capable of hitting people. If you don’t tell me, I will beat you.” I remained calm and said, “Child, if hitting me will have them let you go and reduce your sentence, then you can hit me. I won’t hate you.” She immediately put her arm around me and said, “I won’t hit you. You are almost my grandmother’s age. I won’t hit you.” Master told us in the Fa,
“I often say that if all a person wants is the well-being of others and if this is without the slightest personal motivation or personal understanding, what he says will move the listener to tears.” (“Clearheadedness,” Essentials for Further Advancement)
She took care of me after that. Nine days later, the Changchun office in Beijing took me back to Changchun. When leaving the detention center, the person who picked me up asked if I had money. I told him that it was all taken from me, so he went to the person doing the handover and told him to return our money. The person left. Less than a minute later he returned and said there was no money. The other man said, “Hang on, don’t worry.” He called another person to help him find the money. Not long after, our money was returned to us. When we left the detention center, the person who was picking us up turned to me and said, “You were my son’s physics teacher. When my son wrote his exams for high school, his physics grade was 99 percent.” On the surface, he helped me because he knew who I was, but I knew that it was actually Master who protected me.
Cultivating Away the Attachment to Self Interest
During the process of cultivation, Master gave me hints for things I should enlighten to, protected me, and encouraged me to go forward. After retiring in 1997, I went to help a magazine publisher get advertisements with a fellow practitioner. The two of us went to a clinic operated by an old Chinese medicine doctor. The wife of the owner said, “So many newspaper companies want to do advertisements for us, I refused them all. The two of you look honest so I will let you do the advertisement.”
After the ad was completed, we went to the clinic to get the payment. The lady said, “The money has been collected by the script writer. I wouldn’t give it to him but he would not leave. There was nothing I could do so I gave him the money.” I said to the other practitioner: The money was taken by the script writer of the magazine company. This is happening to help the two of us let go of our attachment to self interest. Master said,
“Thus, even less should our cultivators be like this, as a cultivator should follow the course of nature. If something is yours, you will not lose it.” (Lecture Seven, Zhuan Falun)
The two of us decided that we did not want the payment. We went to the magazine publisher and told the manager, “We are Falun Dafa practitioners. We don’t want the money anymore. If we didn’t cultivate Dafa, we wouldn’t accept a cent less than what we should be paid. You would have to give us the payment.”
Although we lost the money, we let go of the pursuit of money and our attachment to self interest. A few days later, the lady called me and said, “The payment should be yours. I will get it back for you.” I thought this was trying to feed my self interest so I thanked her and told her I didn’t want the money. I had upgraded my xinxing in this regard, and that is better than any wealth.
Letting Go of the Attachment to Fame
I went to the rural areas in March of 1999 to tell people about Falun Dafa. Before I left, I asked a practitioner in my Fa study group to come to my home a bit earlier in the evening to get ready for the others to come for Fa study.
I returned a few days later and had a dream. I dreamed it was harvest season, and I saw piles of cabbages and carrots. There were also piles of green beans on the ground and a large cargo truck drove over them. It was painful to watch the green beans being crushed. When the driver saw my upset facial expression, he did not apologize. Instead he spoke rudely to me. When I woke up, I thought, “Isn’t this about fighting and scheming against others?” (Translator’s note: In Chinese, the characters for green bean DOU JIAO are homophones for part of the term for fighting and scheming, which is GOU XIN DOU JIAO)
Cabbages and carrots have roots, and Master’s new lecture “Digging Out the Roots” had just been published. I felt Master was hinting at me but I didn’t know why.
I went to the exercise site that morning as usual, and someone told me to go to the guard room for a meeting. Just as I got to the door, an assistance center practitioner very seriously asked me, “What were you doing yesterday? The people in your group went everywhere looking for the Fa study group.” I replied, “I asked so and so to hold the Fa study.” She continued to scold me. It was rather embarrassing, but I also thought that this was happening to help me let go of the attachment to self esteem. I should thank her, but I felt that I was being treated unfairly.
Two days later, at a meeting for Fa study group leaders, she pointed at me and told everyone not to be like me. I thought, “The situation has already passed. Why are you still talking about it?”
A few days later, a few exercise site coordinators and Fa study group leaders, totaling over twenty people, were gathered for a meeting. She began criticizing me again and repeated what happened. The selfishness in my heart and the real me started conflicting against each other and in the end I asked myself, “Why is she repeating this again and again? Is it my attachment to self esteem, and that I feel unjustly treated? My pursuit of fame is so strong, I have eliminated it from the root. When I earnestly looked inward and found that when I left, I didn’t tell the other practitioners in our group, it created difficulties for these practitioners’ Fa study. It was my fault.
During the SARS outbreak in 2003, a practitioner who made truth clarification materials was arrested. Many practitioners were not able to obtain materials. What could be done? At the time, another practitioner and I bought computers and took them to a practitioner’s place. We asked her to teach us how to print. Learning this took an entire day. I learned it twice but I still didn’t know how to print materials. I thought maybe it was because of my fear, and that my xinxing was poor.
I later took the computer and printer to a practitioner’s sister’s empty apartment. When her brother found out, he was afraid, so he refused to let us keep the equipment there. I wondered what I could do. I went home and told my husband about this. Little did I think that my husband would tell me to bring them home. I could make truth clarification materials at home. I am grateful to Master. This is how I opened a small truth clarification materials printing station.
A Heart for Others
Looking back at these years of cultivation, when clarifying the truth, I maintain a heart of wanting to save the other person. I don’t let go of any opportunity. When renovating the apartment, I would not leave out a single worker. I clarified the truth to them all. They quit the CCP and its associated organizations. Some quit smoking, and some had good fortune afterwards. They were all very grateful.
When people came to see how the renovations turned out, I did not pass up these opportunities to clarify the truth. For example, the young man who lived upstairs and worked at the Municipal Public Security Bureau came to see the renovations. I opened my door and invited him in. Looking around, he saw the video of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party being played on my television. He told me to be careful. Before they left, I told him that I had practiced Falun Dafa for over twenty years. He said, “Alright, practice at home and be aware of safety.” I said, “Thank you for your concern.” I later helped him quit the CCP.
When my neighbor finished renovating her apartment, no one was living there so she gave me the key. I opened the windows for air circulation. When she moved in, her first meal was cooked in my apartment. She was very moved. Later, whenever she had something good to eat, she shared it with me. When she went out of town, she always gave me the key to her apartment. She said that she couldn’t even trust her own siblings with the keys, but she trusted me. I told her that she should thank Master and Falun Dafa.
When packages arrived for my neighbors, they would entrust me to pick them up and keep them for them. The neighborhood management committee gave me a bottle of soybean oil and a couplet at the end of the year. I wrote them a thank you letter and gave the manager one hundred yuan. I told them to remember, “Falun Dafa is Good. Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” I also helped the building security guard and the plumber to quit the CCP. In short, I helped many people in the neighborhood quit the CCP, and a lot of them know that I practice Falun Dafa. I know that the people who have predestined relationships with me are waiting for me to save them.
Master continuously encourages me. When I read Dafa books with a focused mind, sometimes I unknowingly tear up. Several times, I saw the characters in Zhuan Falun turn into all sorts of colors. I saw the words in Lunyu in colors as well. I saw the three characters of “Zhen Shan Ren” rotating. Once, after playing Master’s Fa lecture videos in rural areas, a large Falun appeared above my head that night. It continuously spun for ten minutes. I knew that Master was encouraging me.
