[European Fa Conference] Overcoming Family Trials and Tribulations and Participating in a Project to Clarify the Truth to the Chinese

(Minghui.org) Greetings, revered Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!

I am a Vietnamese Dafa practitioner living in Europe. I started practicing Falun Dafa in September 2017, more than four years ago. Over the past four years, my physical health and xinxing have both improved a lot. Master and Dafa have given me a lot. Thank you, Master! Today, I’d like to write down my experience to report to Master and share with fellow practitioners my process of obtaining the Fa and cultivating.

1. Obtaining Dafa by Chance

I was born into a poor peasant family. My sister and I grew up doing farm work and housework. Not only was the family in financial difficulty, but we were also not very happy. My parents often quarrel. The atmosphere at home was not always peaceful. My sisters and I experienced more sorrow than happiness. When I was a child, I couldn’t swim, but I often went to the river to fish and collect seashells. Many times I slipped into deep water but miraculously survived. After I obtained the Fa, I realized that Master had been watching over me. Growing up I always felt that there was an invisible force preventing me from doing bad things. So I always had a mentality that no matter how poor I was or how badly others treated me, I had to be a good person. But after graduating from university and landing a job, I drifted into the big dye vat of ordinary society.

After graduating from university, I worked in Vietnam for two years. I later received a scholarship to study abroad, and soon got married. But life was not as I had imagined. My husband and I divorced. After the divorce, I raised our daughter alone while doing a graduate degree in Japan. Raising a child alone abroad, I felt lonely, empty, anxious and fearful. I was worried that I would not be able to graduate and earn enough money to support my child. In order to comfort myself, I listened to Buddhist scriptures online hoping that I could relax and calm down. But it seemed that the comfort was fleeting. My heart was still full of sadness. During that time, I met my current husband, but after marrying him I realized that he did not care about me or my daughter at all.

During those difficult times, I was fortunate enough to learn about Dafa through a social media post that a Dafa practitioner had shared online. I immediately found Falun Gong and Zhuan Falun online and read them in one go.

After reading the books, I knew that this was the Fa that I had been looking for, and that Master was the true master that I had been looking for. Since then, I have been cultivating to this day.

2. Cultivation through Family Tribulations

When my in-laws found out that their son had married me, they were livid. Their son was a highly-educated man (he’s a fellowship PhD student like me), young and never married. But he married a divorced woman who even had a child of her own. Later, when I became pregnant with a second child, my husband’s family asked me to have an abortion. My husband also told me to go to the hospital to terminate the pregnancy. My husband’s family scolded me and my family on social media. My sister-in-law sent abusive text messages. Compared to the average person, I am a highly-educated and knowledgeable person, the pride of my family. But humiliated like that by my husband’s family, I felt very embarrassed and ashamed. My husband kept threatening me that if I didn’t get rid of the baby, he would leave me. I was worried at the time because I had to take care of my two-year-old baby while pregnant. My husband was far away. We were poor. The university research project was in progress, and I wasn’t sure if I could graduate on time. I had only been cultivating for two or three months at that time, but I knew that Master had said:

“...there is to be no taking of life.”(The Seventh Talk, Zhuan Falun)

At that time, I was very determined that I must cultivate Dafa, so I kept my baby. I thought, even if I dropped out of school and begged, I would still raise this child and cultivate Dafa.

Before cultivation, my supervisor and I were both worried that I would not be able to graduate on time. However, after six months of cultivation, I exceeded my goal for graduation. I got my PhD in 2 years and 7 months, much earlier than expected. Also, the professor asked me to stay on in the department as an assistant professor, which was unprecedented. People were surprised to see that I was able to graduate early and get such a good position with my two young children. But I knew that Master had seen that I had a firm resolve to cultivate Dafa and arranged the best for me.

Not long after giving birth to my second child, I became pregnant again with a third child. My mother-in-law came to help us take care of the house. My husband asked me to live with her. I spent a lot of time each day riding a bike and then taking the train to work. My mother-in-law didn’t like me, so when I lived with her, there were constant conflicts in the family. My husband beat me almost daily, but Master always protected me. Although my husband beat me many times, and he was very strong, as a pregnant woman I never felt any pain. I was sitting on the bed once holding the baby. My husband yelled at me when he came in and kicked me so hard that he broke the blades of the electric fan. I flew a long way but didn’t feel any pain at all. Dafa is really amazing! Thank you Master! After my mother-in-law arrived, the conflicts never stopped. As I studied the Fa more and looked inward more, I later discovered that I had a lot of attachments, such as fighting, jealousy, etc. My biggest attachment is resentment. I was disgusted that my husband treated me and the kids so unjustly. He regularly abused me verbally and physically. I hated my mother-in-law. She always defended her son, even when he beat me in front of her. I hated her for insulting and cursing me.

I knew that only by cultivating compassion can this hatred be eliminated. But it was very difficult to do. Thanks to fellow practitioners’ sharing on Minghui, I discovered the goodness of my husband and mother-in-law, and realized they were miserable and pitiful. My husband must be miserable because, from his standpoint, he had married a divorced woman with a child. My mother-in-law had always been proud of her son. But now she is very sad to have such a daughter-in-law. Ordinary people value honor, so it must be difficult for them to accept me. Despite that, my mother-in-law came all this way to help me take care of the children. Thinking this way as a cultivator I cried because I felt sorry for them. I naturally no longer held any grudges against them. After I let go of my resentment, my husband suddenly changed. He started to care about me and the children, and became more responsible for the family.

3. Memorizing the Fa Keeps Me in a Stable State of Cultivation

It's been three years since I started memorizing the Fa, even though my time is very limited. I get up at the crack of dawn to feed my children, take them to school, and then take the train to work. The commute takes about an hour. I don’t come home until 7 or 8 p.m. After eating, drinking, cleaning up, I don’t get to bed until 10 p.m. When I wake up, I memorize the Fa, and do the exercises. I also make time to study or recite the Fa while walking, taking the train, and eating instant noodles during lunch time at school. Although I ate instant noodles continuously for nearly a year during pregnancy, I’ve always been healthy, energetic, and tireless at work. Thanks to memorizing the Fa, I have been able to maintain a stable cultivation state over the past few years, through taking care of the baby, getting pregnant, teaching at a Japanese university, and working in a very stressful environment in Japan. After working for three years, I gave up a well-paid job with a good reputation to stay at home to take care of the children, allowing my husband’s career to develop. After a few years, my life in Japan has become fairly stable. I later left everything behind and followed my husband to another country. Life became more difficult. This process has allowed me to get rid of many attachments. Although it is difficult to let go of fame, fortune, and sentimentality, with Master’s help and reinforcement, I managed to persevere in my cultivation till this day.

4. Clarifying the Truth to Save People

After about nine months of cultivation, I’ve finished reading all the Dafa books and have understood the importance of clarifying the truth to save people. Feeling the urgency to save people, I wanted to support fellow practitioners as often as possible at truth-clarification sites but was constrained by my family commitments. So, I could only distribute truth-clarification materials. At first, following an article on Minghui.org, I bought a printer, printed a three-fold leaflet, and distributed it in a plastic sleeve to every family in my neighborhood.

When the pandemic began, fellow practitioners created many online channels for truth-clarification, which I took part in. I kept on reading truth-clarification materials, collecting photos and videos, and giving out factual materials to the Chinese people I came into contact with every day. After a period of perseverance, some sentient beings followed my advice, read the material, and quit the CCP (Chinese Communist Party). Later, a practitioner asked me to take part in some online truth-clarification activities to support fellow practitioners’ verbal truth clarification, urging sentient beings to quit the CCP. When I first joined, I encountered a lot of difficulties and interference. We had to learn to create our own [Window of Hope] to make friends with sentient beings in groups, to greet and care for them, to learn to connect with others, and to clarify the truth. There were only five or six people in our group at the time, but everyone was very diligent. Every night, we met online to send righteous thoughts, share methods, and coordinate and share our understandings.

Afterwards, we sent righteous thoughts, studied the Fa, and cultivated together. We carried on every day without any breaks. After about six or seven months, our group had grown to 70-80 people, two-thirds of whom are older practitioners from different countries in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. We can help fellow practitioners persuade 50-60 people to quit the CCP each day, sometimes 70-80 people.

After my family moved to Europe, I was worried that I would be unable to cooperate with fellow practitioners doing the same things as before due to the time zone difference. But in my heart, there is always a desire to save Chinese people. The most suitable time for Dafa work and for ordinary people is between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m., or even earlier. I recite the Fa, send righteous thoughts, and share with fellow practitioners and practice verbal truth clarification. I then do the exercises in a park and do housework when I get back home. I continue to clarify the truth verbally at lunchtime, which is evening in China. Where I live, I am the only practitioner. Despite the usually rainy and windy winter weather, I carry on going to the park by myself to do the exercises every morning. I finish my work, studying the Fa and doing the exercises in the morning, leaving plenty of time in the afternoon and the evening to take care of my family and children.

I cherish the process of calling Chinese people. If I slack off a little bit on memorizing the Fa, doing the exercises, and sending righteous thoughts, sentient beings will not answer when I call, or they’d be very unkind. So I often get up very early to recite the Fa before calling. During the call, if I get impatient, seek results, have conflicts with fellow practitioners, or harbor any bad thoughts, the entire call would be ineffective. Only by correcting every single thought, strengthening righteous thoughts, saving sentient beings with compassion, and constantly asking Master for help, can the communication achieve great results.

Every day I spend about five to eight hours calling. Sometimes I’m on the phone for five hours straight and make four to five WeChat calls at the same time. I use three different nicknames to call three sentient beings. Whichever line is picked up, I would switch off the other two. While clarifying the truth over the phone, I interact with sentient beings, send them truth materials, and save their information in the system. I do not waste any time through verbal truth-clarification. I can go on like this for hours without feeling tired. I know that Master is always by my side to support me. Every time I make a call, I think of Master and I have more confidence in saving people. Each call results in many sentient beings quitting the CCP and listening to the truth. Many people have thanked us.

Whenever I call a predestined being, they would answer and quit the CCP. Once some people listened for five minutes and switched off. I called back a second time. They listened for one minute and switched off. Afterwards, they took the initiative to call and quit the CCP, while listening to the truth for 13 minutes. They thanked fellow practitioners for their clarification. Another person made fun of truth clarification with a friend nearby while listened to it. But they listened for about 10 minutes. After the call, I sent them another three accounts, saying that I wanted to be their friends. They said they could not talk as they were using a company account. But before I could answer, as I was busy calling other sentient beings, they used another nickname to send me friend requests, asking if I was there and if I could call them right away. So I called back. They listened with very kind voices and promptly quit the CCP. During the call, they kept muttering to themselves, and then turned on the music, as if they were afraid to be heard. After the call, they texted me to say, “Thank you. What you said made sense.” His words stirred up a train of melancholy thoughts. I felt that Chinese people were so pitiful. They wanted to listen to the truth but had to do it in secrecy.

During the process of calling, I also experienced sickness karma and the illusion of being infected with COVID. My body was hot and cold. I felt so tired that every fiber of my body seemed tired. My thoughts were floating. I lost my sense of taste and couldn’t eat or drink for two weeks. At that time, my husband was also quarantined at home with COVID. I took care of him and three young children by myself. Although I was very tired, I still tried my best to complete everything. Additionally, my husband was irritable and angry because he was sick and tired, and he took it out on me. At that time, I really felt I was improving through the tribulations. Even so, I still got up between 1 and 2 a.m. to do the exercises and make phone calls to clarify the truth, without a single day of rest. After about two weeks, my symptoms abated, when all of a sudden I received a voicemail. I felt like I had just awoken from hibernation and everything seemed foreign to me.

But at that time my mind was very calm. It was easy to reach the state of tranquility while sitting at the table. I realized that Master had helped me eliminate a lot of karma. My body was completely purified again. So after experiencing the sickness karma, my xinxing improved a lot.

At first, I was very unhappy about having to move to Europe, where the timezone is completely different. But then I realized that Master has already arranged everything for me. Now I am busy cultivating and saving people every day. I am very happy to be able to immerse myself in Dafa each day, practice with fellow practitioners, and save sentient beings.

Finally, I quote a passage from Master’s Fa to share with fellow practitioners:

“For a Fa-rectification period Dafa disciple, personal liberation is not the goal of cultivation: when you came, saving sentient beings was your great aspiration, and that is the responsibility and mission history has bestowed upon you in Fa-rectification. Thus great numbers of beings are to be saved by you. Dafa disciples, don’t forsake the magnificent responsibility that has been bestowed upon you in Fa-rectification, and even less should you disappoint those beings, as you are now their only hope for entering the future. For this reason, all Dafa disciples, students both new and veteran, should get to work and begin comprehensively clarifying the truth.” (“Let Go of Human Attachments and Save the World’s People,” The Essentials of Diligent Progress III)

Whenever I look back on my cultivation path, I am always infinitely grateful to Master for his benevolent salvation. Although I still have a lot of attachments to let go, I will definitely try my best to do better and save more lives in this final phase.

The above is my personal sharing of how I obtained the Fa and my cultivation and truth-clarification. Please kindly point anything inappropriate.

Thank you, benevolent Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners!

(Sharing paper submitted to the 2022 European Fa Conference)