(Minghui.org) I am a 94-year-old Dafa practitioner in a rural area. I was fortunate to obtain the Fa in 1996. After practicing Falun Dafa, the illnesses I suffered for most of my life were gone. No words can express my gratitude to Master! It is Master and Dafa that prolonged my life.
I am almost a hundred years old, yet I feel very young, energetic, and vigorous. I want to share the beauty of Falun Dafa with you.
One day in early 1996, the 67-year-old me dragged my heavy body as usual and limped towards a card room. At that time, the only good time I had was playing cards. But on that day, things were not going well, and I lost several rounds. Upset and depressed, I left the card room and walked home.
When I passed by my nephew’s house, I suddenly had the urge to go in. My nephew’s wife was watching a video and invited me to join her. So we sat on the bed and watched the video together.
“Can you follow the lecture?” She asked me after we finished the first tape.
“Yes,” I answered enthusiastically. “The lecture was clear and very good! My entire body felt warm and so comfortable!”
“These lectures are by Falun Dafa’s Master. Would you like to watch the second tape?”
After watching the second tape, I asked: “Are there more? I want to see more!”
While watching the video of Master’s lectures, I felt that every word Master said flew into my head, and my head was clear and bright. I felt so good! I’ve never felt so comfortable. I thought: “This Master is not an ordinary person. I have found a God!”
I didn’t know what Falun Dafa was then, but I knew it was good. I asked my nephew’s wife to buy me a copy of the tapes.
I felt like I hit the jackpot when I got a set of audio tapes of Master’s lectures from Guangzhou. I listened to the Fa every day. As soon as I turned on the player to listen to Master’s lectures, my body was surrounded by something warm, and I felt so comfortable.
I listened to the lectures every day, over and over. Before I knew it, my legs were no longer cold, my knees stopped hurting, and I could walk normally. I stopped going to the card room and did not want to play cards anymore. I stopped swearing and cursing; in fact, I seldom felt unhappy anymore. My heart was filled with unspeakable joy!
Someone asked me, “Old sister, what panacea have you taken? You look so much younger, and you don’t limp anymore. Our elderly neighbors are talking about you - how come we no longer hear you swearing?”
“I have been practicing Falun Dafa!” I answered. “Have you heard of it? This Dafa is amazing! I haven’t learned the exercises yet, however, my body has changed so much just from listening to Master’s lectures! My legs no longer hurt. My long-term throat disease was also healed. Isn’t Dafa miraculous?” I continued, “Falun Dafa teaches people to follow Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. So I will not swear any more. Otherwise, I will lose virtue!”
Before practicing Dafa, I constantly suffered from many illnesses, especially serious throat problems. Day and night, I was coughing up phlegm and blood. I often could not sleep at night because of the bad coughing. Due to burning pain from my chest to my throat, I had a habit of grabbing and patting my chest, as it seemed to relieve some of the pain.
Every day, I could skip meals, but I never missed taking medicine. I had taken so many medications that it caused my knees to deform and become square-shaped. I had to wear thick cotton trousers even during the hot summer, and my legs were still as cold as ice up to the thigh.
I visited big hospitals, tried Western and Chinese medicines, looked for folk remedies, and so on, but nothing helped. A doctor told my son, “Don’t waste your time or money taking her to doctors. Just let her eat whatever she likes and do whatever she prefers.” That means there was no cure for me. I was waiting to die. Sometimes I felt sad, and sometimes I felt death might be good for me since I would not suffer anymore. To forget my situation and pass the time, I went to play cards. When I was unhappy, I would curse aloud on the street, and no one dared to provoke me.
When I was 68, my illnesses became more serious, and my children prepared funeral clothes for me. No one expected that in the same year, I would obtain Falun Dafa, which cultivates both mind and body and that it would give me a happy, healthy new life. Since then, I have always been full of energy. I rode a bike to the field and happily did all the farm work - from harvesting wheat and corn to watering the fields, to plowing the fields - there was nothing I couldn’t do! In autumn, I leveled the fields with a heavy iron rake. Some villagers asked me, “Don’t you feel tired at such an advanced age?” In fact, I really did not feel tired.
The year I turned 90 years old, the roof of my house had cracks in it. Since my son and daughter-in-law were not at home, I climbed onto the roof at noon and filled the cracks little by little. I was soaked in sweat, and my face was purple-red from the sun. A neighbor saw me and shouted, “Auntie, come down quickly! Don’t overheat yourself on such a hot day!” I said I was fine. I didn’t feel it was hot at all.
When I was 91, it snowed heavily one day, and my son was not at home. I carried a bamboo broom and climbed the ladder to sweep the snow off the roof. A neighbor saw it, took a picture of me with his mobile phone, and shouted, “Auntie, I want to take a picture of you and post it on the Internet so that people can see a 90-year-old lady sweeping snow off the roof! I want to submit it to the Guinness Book of Records for you!”
Back then, many villagers wanted to learn Falun Dafa after seeing the changes I experienced from the practice. So I set up a practice site at my home. We did the exercises in the morning and studied Zhuan Falun in the evening. But I was illiterate; so I wondered what should I do about reading the book. I asked someone who could read to teach me to read Zhuan Falun character by character, and I memorized each word I learned from the book.
With Master’s compassionate blessing, I gradually was able to read Zhuan Falun myself. When the neighbors visited my house and saw me reading, they were amazed, “We have never seen a person at such an age studying!”
When my youngest daughter was 38, her husband passed away suddenly. Their two children were still in school then, and my daughter was in a very difficult situation. She had conflicts with her parents-in-law because of some remarriage issues. During a dispute, her father-in-law hit her head causing a scalp laceration in a rage.
When I found out about it, I felt very bad. I thought, no matter whose fault it was, a father-in-law shouldn’t beat his daughter-in-law! The more I thought about it, the angrier I became. I wanted to reason with them, and my other children and relatives wanted to fight for my daughter’s justice.
If I did not practice Dafa, I would definitely have gone to fight, like bringing a group of people to beat up her father-in-law.
But now I am a cultivator. From Dafa, I understood that nothing happens without a reason, and it’s all karmic retribution. And I should not do wrong things. So I told my family not to go, and I went to her in-law’s house alone. The in-laws were nervous when they saw me.
“I know it is a difficult time for you all with losing your son,” I said. “We still have two grandchildren to take care of. How about I take my daughter to my home until she calms down? Would that be okay with you?”
They didn’t expect me to be so peaceful. My daughter’s father-in-law felt guilty and apologized and said he should not have done what he did.
My daughter came back with me. I read Zhuan Falun to her, and she understood many life principles from it. A few days later, I advised her to go back. “The family can’t do without you, both the elderly and the youngsters. God will see the sacrifices you make.”
More than 10 years have passed since then. My daughter’s two sons have grown up and gotten married. My daughter and her parents-in-law get along very well. Her in-laws were very grateful whenever they saw me: “It is your tolerance and righteousness that made it possible for our family to be like this.”
“Dafa’s Master taught me this,” I said sincerely. “Follow Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and be a good person, and our family will be safe and happy.”
I always thought that Master gave me a healthy body and extended my life so I could validate the Fa and save people. I wondered: How should I do this? So I often rode my bike to markets to clarify the truth. I told people about Falun Dafa and why Jiang Zemin (former Party leader) and his gang persecuted Falun Dafa practitioners. In order for people to remember, “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good,” I often went around and put up truth-clarification posters.
I sometimes encountered people who did not know the truth and wanted to report me to the police. I always patiently told them about my experience of practicing Dafa: “Falun Dafa is the Buddha Fa that cultivates both mind and body. As long as practitioners follow Dafa’s principles, their lives will be extended. In the past, emperors of many dynasties tried to find the secret of longevity, but none succeeded. Today, this once-in-a-lifetime Dafa is spreading around the world. Whoever wants to avoid disaster, prolong life, and have good health, should practice Falun Dafa, and you will benefit endlessly.”
Above is my personal experience. I am a living example of someone who has benefited from Falun Dafa.
(Selected Submission Celebrating the 24th World Falun Dafa Day on the Minghui website)