(Minghui.org) My family and I took up Falun Dafa 25 years ago. Since then, Teacher Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Dafa, has improved and renewed our lives. All I want to say is that being able to practice Falun Dafa is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

Before I practiced Falun Dafa, the joints in my hands were severely deformed. I had stomach pain, indigestion, and a neurotic disorder. I went to the doctors so often that most of the doctors and nurses knew me. None of the injections and medicines I took helped. The pain prevented me from getting a good night’s sleep, so I always looked pale and had dark circles under my eyes.

I wanted to end my life, because I knew nothing was ever going to help me, but a coworker gave me a copy of Zhuan Falun in May 1997. She told me how her stomach cancer and other illnesses disappeared after she started to practice Falun Dafa. Brainwashed by the Chinese Communist Party’s atheistic doctrines back then, I believed in science only and not miracles, but I was aware of the fact that my coworker had recovered from late-stage stomach cancer. I took the book.

I had a hard time falling asleep, even when I was terribly tired. One day before I took a nap in the afternoon, out of curiosity I opened Zhuan Falun and read a few pages. I fell asleep. By the time I woke up, I had slept for over five hours. The next day I picked up Zhuan Falun again. A few pages later I fell asleep again and woke up four hours later. No sleeping pills could help my insomnia, and now I slept soundly during the day and was still able to fall asleep at night. For that to happen just from reading the book amazed me.

The next morning when I was only half awake, I saw a golden transparent Buddha in front of me, which fully woke me up. I blinked a few times and the Buddha remained, just a meter away above my head. I could see it clearly and it stayed with me for over a month. I asked a practitioner what was going on, and she told me that I might have seen Master’s Fashen. I didn’t know what a Fashen was at the time and didn’t quite believe her, until one day I saw a photo in Falun Gong of Master sitting on a rock, meditating. He looked exactly the same as the Buddha I saw. This shattered my belief in atheism.

As I studied the teachings more and improved my character according to the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, all my illnesses disappeared. No words could express my gratitude to Master.

I wanted to let my family know about such an amazing practice and played Master’s lectures to my mother every day. One day she told me, “I felt warm when I listened to the lectures, even after I took off my jacket and had only a thin shirt on. I heat up the bed at night.”

I told her that Master was taking care of her as a disciple. “Let’s study the Fa together,” I suggested. My mother never went to school and did not even know how to write her name. I let her read a little on her own during the group Fa study. She’d study the Fa by herself during the day, and when she came across words she did not know, she’d ask Teacher for help. In less than a month she could read all of Zhuan Falun on her own.

The blood clots in my mother’s brain and her heart disease, stomach aches, headaches, and cataracts disappeared before she knew it. With her cataract, half of her lens had clouded up. After she took up the practice, a puss-like substance oozed out of her eyes. Gradually it thinned up like tears. In a year her cataracts went away, and her pupils were dark and clear. That impressed her neighbors, who were impressed by Falun Dafa’s healing effects.

My younger brother worked at a construction site and a piece of concrete panel fell from the sixth floor and landed on his back. He was rendered unconscious and was rushed to a hospital. The doctor said that he’d be bedridden for the rest of his life because the concrete had crushed a segment of his spine. After he was discharged, he tried to walk a few steps, but the pain would make him sweat profusely and his face turn pale.

I asked my brother to practice Falun Dafa with Mother and me. After studying the teachings and doing the exercises for six months, my brother’s back no longer hurt. He recovered from the injury and has been healthy ever since. He’s in his 60s and can carry two bags of rice each weighing 50 kgs (110 lbs) up seven floors. He tells everyone: “Falun Dafa has divine powers.”