Immense Gratitude

(Minghui.org) When I was a child, I often heard people say that they had a master who was the most capable and powerful among all masters. I then thought that my future master would be the number one superman in this universe. It must have been my competitive mentality which led me to think this way. Our entire family started practicing Falun Dafa in the spring of 1997. I have the number one Master in the universe as I wished. I have become the luckiest and happiest person.

Festering Deformed Hand Returns to Normal

My father was released from illegal detainment in a forced labor camp at the end of 2000. He was infected with scabies due to the dark, damp, and isolated environment in the forced labor camp, and it gradually spread to our family members. We had vesicular pustules on our bodies. I had the worst infection. I had pustules on my palms, the back of my hands, and fingers. Every bit of them was covered with pustules. I couldn't use chopsticks or spoons. My hands were deformed. There were pustules on my hip, belly, and feet. Some pustules were so bad that bone could be seen through them.

It was very painful and itchy. I could not scratch them. I couldn’t wash my face, brush my teeth, or wash my hair. It was even difficult to put on or take off my clothes. I often went to see my grandmother. A doctor who often visited my grandmother said that I was suffering from sepsis and it would be incurable if I didn’t go see a doctor. I would be ruined as a young girl. Many relatives didn’t dare come to my home again after they saw how miserable I was, because it was an infectious disease.

But it was strange that only Falun Dafa practitioners were infected. Other people didn’t get it. My father said that the inmates beat practitioners who had pustules on their bodies with shoes until all the pustules were broken. It was excruciatingly painful.

Because I couldn’t hold books, I listened to Master’s audio lectures to help me bear the pain and itching. Three months later, at 2 or 3 a.m., I could no longer bear the excruciating pain, so I found a basin in the dark and broke all the pustules despite the pain. I then went back to bed. To my surprise, the next morning I had almost recovered, except for several small pits. My deformed hands were back to normal. No scars were left.

From a medical perspective, many skin diseases are incurable and relapse every year. But I haven’t had any relapses over the past two decades. My hands don’t even have scars, and look more smooth and delicate than before. Thank you Master for bearing all the suffering for me.

Trusted at Work

One bus went from my village to the county each day. I was on the bus to go home, and as I was about to get off the bus the driver asked me, “Can you help me collect the ticket fees? My wife is going to give birth and can no longer do this job.”

This bus had the most passengers and was the most profitable route in our county. It ran twice a day from the county to my village. No tickets were issued on the bus. The fee collector had to remember who got on to the bus and where they got off and charge them accordingly. The fees collected were not fixed. The driver didn’t trust his own cousin previously. It was so easy to put the money into the collector’s own pocket.

The driver had a relative who was a Falun Dafa practitioner. He knew that our entire family practiced Falun Dafa and I would not put a cent into my own pocket. So he asked me to be the fee collector. I didn’t have a job at the time, so I accepted the job. When I went out to have lunch, I always bought the cheapest food and never spent a penny more. I performed the job wholeheartedly. The driver and his wife were very happy.

Due to the persecution and some personal reasons, I didn’t work at any particular job for a long period of time. The longest job I had was as a cashier in a supermarket. It was near my home, so I could save two or three hours of traveling every day. Before becoming a cashier, I had to stock the shelves for a few months, which was a bit tiresome. I needed to move big boxes of drinks.

After I had worked for a month, I noticed that the wages I had received for the first month were not correct. I told the boss that I had been overpaid. He said, “You have done a good job. I gave you the full salary. No probation period for you.”

I became the cashier after a former cashier left. I found that no one stocked the shelves. So I had to be the cashier as well as the shelf stocker. Several young people were recruited for shelf stocking, but they left one after another because the job was pretty tiresome and had low pay. Young people didn’t want to do it, and older people were not able to handle this physical job. The daughter of the boss and her husband came to help sometimes. Most of the time I had to do both jobs. I never complained about it.

One day all the employees went to the boss's home to celebrate his birthday. I remained at work to look after the shop. I had to do everything on my own. A drunk man came in to buy alcohol. I picked up a bottle according to the money he gave me. He didn’t want it and asked me to get a different one. He asked me to open the cap for him. I tried several times but couldn’t open it. I asked him to open it himself. He was not happy and started to curse at me. I didn’t take it to heart and continued doing what I had to do. He suddenly swore about my father who had been persecuted to death several years ago in prison. This went beyond my bottom line. I was about to throw his bottle into the street, but held back. Master told us:

“...not fight back when you are beaten or sworn at—you must be tolerant.” (Lecture Nine, Zhuan Falun)

At the end of the day, when I counted the cash, 30 yuan was missing. The rule was that the employee had to make up shortages out of their own pocket. I seldom made mistakes. Sometimes when the boss's son-in-law trained a new employee and cash was missing, I made it up out of my own pocket. The boss didn’t take it this time because he was apologetic for leaving the shop to me. But I gave him the money anyway, because that was the rule and I couldn’t break it.

The next day the boss’s daughter and her husband asked me how I put up with the drunken man. They had watched the surveillance video and thought no one could put up with that under the circumstances.

On another occasion, a customer paid 100 yuan for goods and left before I gave him the change. No one would know it if I put the change into my own pocket. If I put it back into the cash box, the cash register would not balance. I gave the change to the boss and asked him to pass it on if the client came back for the change. But the client never came back.

There were many such examples.

The boss’s family were all very good to me. When I was arrested by the police, the boss went to see the leader of the Domestic Security Division and asked him to release me immediately, because he couldn’t find another employee like me.

Validating the Fa in Prison

I was detained at a detention center once. As a Dafa practitioner, I validated through my actions how wonderful Falun Dafa is and how great Master is. The inmates couldn’t see it from my words, so I put the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance into practice. People around me praised me highly.

I went on a hunger strike at the detention center to protest the illegal trial. I didn’t participate in the morning exercises, work on duty, or participate in any head count by shouting out my number. I didn’t wear a prison uniform. I practiced the Falun Dafa exercises when all the inmates sat on the plank bed to study. There were more than 30 people in the room. No one, from the guards to the inmates, said anything to me. Many of them learned the truth and were blessed.

I’d like to share some stories about validating how great Falun Dafa is.

Auntie Li was in her 50s. She suffered from high blood pressure and heart problems. She was easy to anger and would then get sick. She took medicine that didn’t help her, and she snored loudly while sleeping. No one was willing to sleep beside her. She was then moved to sleep beside me. I comforted her every day and told her to stay in a good mood and she would be able to get over everything. I clarified the truth to her. She agreed to withdraw from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and its affiliated organizations. I told her that she would be blessed if she sincerely recited “Falun Dafa is good and Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.”

She gradually no longer got angry and didn’t get sick. She recited the nine auspicious words every day. Her mood changed. A member of her family told her that she would be sentenced to at least a one-year term during her first trial. When she came back from the trial, she was still in a good mood. She would have blown up if she was still in her original state. I asked her if she recited the nine words. She said that she recited them day and night. I told her that if she recited them sincerely, miracles might happen one day. She was sentenced to seven months at the second trial. She had already stayed in the detention center for over six months. She was transferred to the transit cell a short time later to get ready to be released to go home.

Ying Ying was 24 years old and was detained for organizing armed fights and injuring people. She looked like a tomboy. She gave birth at the age of 18 and got divorced afterward. She snored loudly at night. When she moved to sleep beside me, I told her stories from traditional culture, the principles of behavior, and facts about Falun Dafa. She listened, but she didn’t want to quit the CCP. She said that she might be sentenced to three years after the first trial. The night before her second trial, when we went to the bathroom together, she said, “I will be on trial tomorrow. Can you and another practitioner help recite the nine true words for me?” I said, “Yes we can help. But your choice is crucial. You still haven’t agreed to withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations. Even if we are to help you, our efforts would be in vain if you haven’t quit the CCP.” She agreed to withdraw from the CCP using her real name. She was released in the court the next day.

Ying Jie was in her forties and had been detained for almost a year. After I had been detained for about ten days, she came to me and said that people in her hometown also practiced Falun Dafa. When she saw me, she believed that Falun Dafa was real. She could recite Master’s poems and liked to study and recite the poems from Hong Yin. One Sunday she sat in front of me on a small stool and said that she would be detained for a year on July 1. If she couldn’t be released, she would no longer believe in anything [a lay Buddhist had asked her to believe in Buddhism]. I asked her, “Did you recite the nine true words with sincerity? How sincerely you recite them is how powerful they will become.”

That day I told her a lot about Falun Dafa. Finally she said that if she was not sentenced, she would look for Dafa practitioners after she went home, and start to practice Falun Dafa.

One year passed. She was still not released. I asked her if she still believed in Falun Dafa. She said, “You are correct. No matter whether I can go home or not, Falun Dafa is real.” Thirteen days later when she was holding a meeting in the evening, someone shouted her name through the window and asked her to pack up. She asked why. The guard said “go home!”

She was so happy that she cried. It came as too big of a surprise. Her family member had told her that she might be sentenced to three years after the first trial.

She bowed deeply to me and did heshi to me. I smiled while looking at her. She had been saved.

To validate the Fa in the detention center, I always considered others first and thought from their perspectives. I put the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance into practice. The inmates respected me very much. They called me “sister” regardless of their age. One inmate said, “I will call you ‘sister’ because I respect you. You have done things that other people will not do.”

One swindler who was sentenced to ten years said to me, “You are so nice. Why are you here? This is not the place you should be.”

At one meeting a drug trafficker who was sentenced to death with reprieve said to all the inmates, “She is your example. All of you must learn from her.”

A chief guard, who was the harshest among all the guards, asked the inmates in my cell at a meeting if there was any good behavior they would like to share. There was dead silence for a while before an inmate mentioned my name. He said, “No need for you to mention her. Why don’t you learn from her and do some good deeds? Any stories of good deeds besides her?”

Because I didn’t give up my belief, I was not allowed to have a shower for a month. I was not allowed to go to the toilet for 17 hours while I had my period. I was forced to sit on a small stool without moving. It was intense mentally. I communicated with my body every day. I said, “Every cell in my body, my five sensory organs, four limbs, internal organs, fingers and toes, from my hair to skin, flesh and blood, bone marrow, etc., everything that composes my body, please assimilate to highest characteristic of the universe. Please recite with me ‘Falun Dafa is good’ and ‘Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good’.”

I sat on the small stool until I was released. I didn’t have buttock ulcerations, swelling in my legs and feet, etc. It was extraordinary in all the inmates’ eyes.

I didn’t have any resentment toward the inmates who were assigned to watch over me. I felt sorry for them instead. They had done so many bad things and committed huge karma. They would be doomed. How pathetic they were!

One day an inmate who was called “the head of demons” by the other inmates was to be transferred to another cell. I said to her sincerely, “If I could, I would replace you and let you be released and go home first! That way you would get to leave this filthy place earlier and might still have time to be awakened. If you continue staying here, you will accumulate more and more karma and lose the last hope of being saved.” She became soft this time and said, “You are indeed a good person. You are a good child. It is pity that you are detained here.”

The inmate who was called “beater” by other inmates said to me, “I will open a beauty salon after I am released. I will ask you to be the shop manager.”

Another inmate who was sentenced to life for fraud said, “I will miss you.”

I was forced to sit at the entrance where there was strong wind. I had lower back pain 15 days before I was to go home. I was not able to get up. I felt very cold. I had to lean against the wall and get up bit by bit, and then put on my clothes slowly. I had to hold my waist if I wanted to move. But I still told the inmates who watched over me the last weekend before I was released, “I will help wash your bed linens.” One of them had a deformed spine and had to walk while leaning against the wall. Another one had trembling hands. The third one had a hysterectomy and couldn’t touch cold water. She didn’t have strength. The fourth inmate had herpes zoster and was in her seventies. They didn’t know the meaning of their lives and had damaged their bodies so badly. They were very pitiful. I joked with them, “This is your last chance. You will not get another one if you miss it.”

I washed all of their sheets and covers. I put up with the strong pain every time I bent my body. They were very moved when they saw this. On the last day the cell leader borrowed a bag of noodles and cooked a farewell dinner for me.

They felt the kindness of a Falun Dafa practitioner.

On one occasion a test was held. There was one question that slandered Master. They told me specifically that I must complete that one, otherwise I would be sent to another team where I would be severely persecuted.

I wrote the following words under this question: “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is most righteous. I will be Master’s disciple forever. No one can change it. I have found the best Master in the universe. He has taught me to become a good person, a better person.”