(Minghui.org) My mother is a Falun Dafa practitioner who started to cultivate in 1996; she taught me the exercises in 1998. But before I could understand what Dafa was all about, the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) former leader Jiang Zemin initiated the persecution of Falun Dafa, and I gave up.
I had a dream at that time. Twenty years have passed, but those images are still vivid.
In my dream, Master Li Hongzhi (the founder of Falun Dafa) stood at the window of his home in Changchun, looking at me from a distance. As I looked at Master, I cried sadly.
After I read several truth-clarifying brochures, I later realized that the building where Master lived in Changchun was the same as the one in my dream.
Over the years, my mother kept explaining the Fa to me, but I didn't take it seriously. I even thought that she was being too intellectual. Every time she came to see me, I was annoyed when she mentioned Dafa.
This went on until October 2014, when I suddenly said to her, “Mom, I want to practice Falun Dafa.” Within a few days of practicing, my cervical spine, herniated disc, and frozen shoulder were all healed.
I realized it was Master Li who purified my body, eliminated the interference, and enabled me to obtain the Fa.
My husband was a CCP member and a village official. When he discovered I was practicing Falun Dafa, he was adamantly opposed to it and beat and scolded me. He often threatened divorce to force me to give it up, but I never wavered.
We have a 20-year-old son with cerebral palsy who is unable to take care of himself and needs to be cared for. We also have a daughter who just finished elementary school.
My son needs my attention, so I can't leave home for long and didn't have a chance to attend group Fa-study. There were a couple of practitioners in the community, and when my husband was not at home, I occasionally went to their homes to exchange cultivation experiences or pick up some truth-clarification materials to distribute.
I once took some brochures to a community with surveillance cameras at the building entrance and in the elevator, so I decided to climb the stairs and distribute the materials on each floor. After I finished, I was at the 24th floor, but I didn't even feel tired.
When I came down the stairs, I counted 18 steps between each floor. I knew Master had blessed me because I used to get tired climbing to just the third floor.
My husband's family relationships are complicated. His three older brothers were brought up by his mother when she and his father got married.
The family allocated the family properties among the four brothers before we got married and agreed that the three-story house in which his parents lived would be given to us. The other brothers were allocated separate family properties.
When I was pregnant with our daughter, however, my mother-in-law wanted to reallocate the family property. Only half of the three-story house would be allocated to us, and the other half would now be given to the three brothers.
My mother-in-law forced my father-in-law to go through the real estate notarization following her arrangement without our knowledge. Therefore, I felt a lot of resentment for my mother-in-law, blaming her for re-allocating the property when I was pregnant.
My son was already in poor physical condition, and she didn't consider my family's situation. Another thing was that half of the house was worth one or two million yuan, which was not a small amount for us.
Immediately, all the bad things my mother-in-law did in the past surfaced, and I felt uncomfortable when I saw her; I didn't even want to talk to her.
After learning Dafa, however, I understood the relationship between loss and gain, and that nothing happens without a reason. I realized that losing is not necessarily a bad thing and that I should let go of my attachment to personal interest.
At the same time, I considered the issue from the perspective of my mother-in-law. The reason she wanted to re-allocate the house was because her husband often quarreled with her. She felt that she was old and couldn’t count on us. Her three sons, however, were very filial to her, so she re-allocated the house and knew she could rely on them to take care of her.
Thinking about it from her point of view, I no longer resented her. This would have been absolutely impossible for me to do before I learned Dafa. How could an ordinary person let go of so much money? I couldn't imagine how angry I would be!
Every time my husband thought about this, his face would turn red with rage. I'm really fortunate that I cultivate Dafa, as this incident was like a gust of wind; it meant nothing to me.
I liked to practice the sitting meditation, but I could only do it for 30 minutes at first, eventually 40 minutes, and then 45 minutes. I wanted to do it longer, but my legs started to hurt after 45 minutes.
When my legs hurt, my heart hurt, and I started to feel irritable. I then lost my patience to practice.
A year ago, Master saw that I could not get past it, so when I was practicing the sitting meditation, he let me see this scene: a tall, heavy steel plate covered my chest, and there was also a small hammer with a wooden handle.
The hammer was hitting the steel plate. When my legs hurt, my heart hurt, too, and the hammer hit the steel plate once.
At the same time, I could hear the sound of the hammer hitting the steel plate. I understood that only by breaking the steel plate could I make it past the 45-minute mark.
When I did the sitting meditation again, no matter how much my legs hurt, no matter how irritable my heart felt, even if I groaned from the pain, I didn’t take my legs down until the exercise music reached 60 minutes.
In a few days, I could cross my legs for an hour each time. I understood that Master saw I had the heart to break through it, so he removed this steel plate.
After listening to recordings of other practitioners' experiences in 2015, I thought it would be a good thing to memorize the Fa. But I gave up several times because it seemed so difficult. But I understood that the thought of giving up was not mine, so I didn't really give up.
I still insisted on doing it even if I didn’t want to. I now like memorizing the Fa more and more, but my progress is very slow; I just finished memorizing Lecture Eight.
I used to read novels and watch Korean dramas before and longed for true love. I always had illusions about love in my mind.
Even when sending forth righteous thoughts, I was reluctant to clean these things up, which really distressed me. To improve my cultivation on this issue, I began to memorize the chapter about “Demonic Interference in Cultivation” in Zhuan Falun.
Master Li said:
"Since human beings have sentimentality, being upset is sentimentality, so are happiness, love, hatred, enjoying doing one thing, resenting doing another thing, preferring one person to another, hobbies, and dislikes. Everything belongs to sentimentality, and everyday people just live for it.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)
When I read this paragraph, I suddenly felt a black stone fall off my chest. It was sentimentality!
I was stunned, but I later realized that sentimentality was also a real substance. In the process of memorizing the Fa, Master cleaned up these bad things for me.
I have not been very diligent in my cultivation, and I didn't do the three things well, mainly because I didn't know how to approach people to clarify the truth about the persecution. I felt I was far from Master's requirements.
I even did wrong things that I am ashamed to admit, but compassionate Master did not give up on me. When I found out about living practitioners' organs being harvested, I cried. Master then sat with me for a long time in my dream, which made me feel the warmth of a father.
When I couldn’t maintain my xinxing and quarreled with my husband, Master's stern questions echoed in my ears and made me feel ashamed. When I had dirty thoughts and followed them, Master gently tapped my head three times with a small wooden stick to make me become alert.
Master has always been by my side to remind, motivate, and encourage me.
I thank Master and bow down before him. Heshi!