(Minghui.org) I live in a rural area and started practicing Falun Dafa in 1998. My husband has planted peach trees for many years, and our hazelnut tree started to produce fruit last year.
I would like to share my cultivation experience of how I presented the beauty of Dafa to people while selling our produce at the wholesale market. At the same time, how I looked inward, found my attachments, and improved my xinxing.
The quality of the peaches we grow has gotten better and better over the past few years. They are big and have a nice color. We have insisted on not using bulking agents and adulterating the fruits. My husband believes that this is a benefit from believing in Dafa, and allows people to see the power of Dafa.
As soon as our peaches hit the market, many vendors gather around, praising our goods and asking the price. Some say our peaches are very good, and the price is reasonable. Some say our peaches look beautiful even from a distance. There are those who want to barter on the price, and some directly give a high price and take them away because they know that good produce waits for no one.
There is an open secret in this market: if you sell produce here, you will lose money if your goods are not adulterated, so vendors simply believe all produce is adulterated. I said to my husband, “No matter how much our peaches sell for, we must be honest. As practitioners, we must be honest. We don’t mind if people call us stupid for not trying to cheat with our produce or price. God sees what we do.”
He agrees and understands many of the Fa principles, so we have been doing this for many years now.
Our peaches are some of the best at the market, so the price is naturally high. When some vendors bargain for a long time, I have become impatient, and I forgotten that I am a cultivator. Selling at a good price is not wrong, but it is wrong if what I said is not in accordance with the Fa.
A vendor who had never bought my peaches, said to me, “You are too dominant.” I immediately became vigilant, and realized that Master was using this person’s mouth to point out my problem! I looked inward and was shocked to find that I had many bad thoughts. I didn’t cultivate compassion, had a strong attachment to self, looked down on others, and didn’t mind my speech.
I have removed many attachments, little by little. In the last few transactions, I no longer cared much about personal interest. Some people wanted to take our goods at their price, so we accepted. Seeing them happy, my husband and I were also happy.
We also take good care when selling hazelnuts. We take out the bad ones, small ones, and those with impurities. Our aim is to guarantee the quality and quantity.
Hazelnuts are hard shelled, so we also carry a small hammer. When someone comes to see our hazelnuts, I let them have a taste and crack open the nuts. Some people said, “Don’t crack any more, you’ll lose too much.” I simply smile, and say, “Meeting each other is our fate. It’s okay. The nuts are planted by our family.”
Hazelnuts are not common in the market, so many people ask the same questions every day. One evening I said to my husband, “I’m getting impatient again. I must get rid of it completely.” The next day, the same questions were asked again and again. Sometimes my husband answered, and other times I did. I finally eliminated this stubborn attachment.
Because we are practitioners who bear positive energy, people are willing to approach us, and they come to hear the truth. I always take the opportunity to show them the beauty of Dafa.
When my mind is calm, the hazelnuts are naturally much easier to sell. No matter who buys them, we take an extra one or two yuan off the price, and take a bit more off when retailers buy them. One retailer has been buying our produce, and felt that other vendors’ hazelnuts were not as good as ours, so he liked to buy ours. He said, “My wife said your hazelnuts can be re-sold directly to the market without extra work.”
I replied, “Yes, our hazelnuts are handpicked every day to ensure good quality, so both buyer and seller are happy.”
One one rainy day at the market some vendors bought boxed lunches, and the men liked to drink alcohol. People in the two cars parked next to ours had two boxed lunches, a few bottles of liquor, and beer. It was still raining after lunch, and not many vendors were around. I was strolling around, and noticed empty glass bottles on the ground that were left after drinking. They could be quite dangerous if cars drove over them, as they may puncture tires or hurt people.
I picked them up and put them in the trash. One of the people who was drinking saw what I did, gave me a thumbs up, and said, “That is very thoughtful, what belief do you have?”
“I am a Falun Dafa practitioner,” I replied.
He inquired why I learned it, so I went on to say, “Falun Dafa is wonderful! My Master taught us to follow Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.” I continued, saying, “The self-immolation on Tiananmen Square was fabricated by the Chinese Communist Party. Falun Dafa is freely practiced in other countries around the world, but it is being persecuted in China. Do you think that’s right?”
He responded, “Well, it’s because too many people are learning it, and the CCP is afraid.”
I gave him examples of the physical and mental benefits from practicing Falun Dafa, and asked him, “Who is willing to give up such a good practice if they are told not to practice it?!” He nodded with a smile.
My husband and I were at the market in the early fall. Vendors normally get up very early, and take a nap during the day. My husband and I were not sleepy, and were chatting. A middle-aged woman in thin clothing was lying on the seat of her tricycle next to ours. She looked a little cold, so I covered her with our small blanket. She opened her eyes, smiled, and said thank you. She looked very tired, so I rolled up our cushion and put it under her head as a pillow, saying to her, “You can rest more. It will make you more comfortable.” She smiled, closed her eyes and went back to sleep.
After a long while, she got up, and asked me to sit with her on her tricycle. She told me that her lower back was not good, and she couldn’t bear it if she didn’t lie down for a while. She asked, “Why are you so good?”
“I practice Falun Dafa,” I replied, and then naturally told her the truth about Dafa. I asked her to often recite, “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good,” as it can restore health. I said that once my husband’s lower back hurt so much that he didn’t dare to move, and he recovered by reciting “Falun Dafa is good.” I also talked about the miraculous things that happened to me, how Dafa teaches people to be good, and how the CCP persecutes Dafa practitioners.
I asked her, “Has anyone told you that quitting the Party can give you a safer life?” No one had, so I told her, “I can help you quit the Party, and if there is a catastrophe in the future, it will have nothing to do with you.” She agreed to quit. I was very happy to see that she chose a bright future for herself. I knew that everything was done by Master, and it was Master encouraging me!
During the period of selling our produce last year, eliminating attachments was actually not so heart-wrenching. I learned to look inward, and eliminated attachments that I was unaware of before. My every action and word represents the image of Dafa practitioners. Thank you, Master, for your compassionate enlightenment!