(Minghui.org) In 1997 and 1998, everyone in my family begin practicing Falun Dafa. Even my stubborn father was impressed by the changes he saw in us and abandoned atheism. I’d like to tell you our stories.
I always believed in the divine, but I did not know anything about cultivation. On June 3, 1997, a retired coworker had a question about her pension. While we chatted she mentioned Falun Dafa, and I asked if the practice could cure diseases. She said Dafa is not limited to health improvement; if someone practices diligently, they may experience enormous spiritual benefits.
I was interested and asked if she would buy three copies of Falun Dafa books—one for my mother, my mother-in-law and one for me. “This is something very sacred,” she said. “It’s better if you come to the group practice site and get the books there.”
When she said the word sacred, I felt happy. I saw a scene with Buddhas, Bodhisattva Guanyin, and other divine beings. I showed my neighbor a necklace which had a Tathagata Buddha that I wore for years, and I explained I’d been searching for a genuine spiritual practice.
I had a lucrative job that my relatives and friends envied and a harmonious family. The only fly in the ointment was my poor health. Suffering from multiple diseases, I only weighed 80 pounds. I frequently visited hospitals and pharmacies.
When I got Zhuan Falun, the main teachings of Falun Dafa, I read more than 20 pages that evening before I went to sleep. My brain was very clear when I woke up at 6 a.m. the following day. I did the sitting meditation I learned the day before.
The insomnia that bothered me for years disappeared. Other diseases I had were also gone within a month. I haven’t taken a single pill for 26 years and I am very healthy.
Because I felt Falun Dafa was so amazing, I decided to tell all my relatives and friends about it. On June 18, 1997, my 12-year-old son suddenly told my husband and I, “I will practice Falun Dafa.” It was two days after he took the middle school entrance examination.
He explained, “I’ve secretly been reading the Zhuan Falun that is under your pillow. I knew that when I grew up I would become a monk and travel around to find something that could transcend life and death. After reading Zhuan Falun, I know that Falun Dafa is what I am looking for. The characteristics of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance—Falun Dafa is an unprecedented universal Fa.”
My husband and I were stunned. I instinctively knew that Dafa could help people cultivate Buddhahood while achieving good health. However, I hadn’t seen anyone his age practicing at the group exercise site, so I advised him to focus on his schoolwork.
But my son was determined and said, “Dafa was introduced for people of all ages. Please don’t stop me. This is what I want.”
My son became the first young Falun Dafa practitioner in our area. His celestial eye opened when he started practicing. However, he never mentioned it to anyone and only occasionally described some scenes he saw.
After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began persecuting Falun Dafa on July 20, 1999, my son joined the adult practitioners to appeal for Dafa in the provincial capital. A policeman asked him why he practiced Dafa at such a young age since many people practiced to improve their health. My son said, “I have no health issues. I practice Falun Dafa for spiritual enlightenment because this is truth.” He was 14 and in the second year of middle school.
Over the past 26 years, my son has cultivated well and done many things to validate Dafa, both inside and outside China.
My parents-in-law came from their hometown to my place on July 10, 1997. They asked me about Falun Dafa. My father-in-law was in his 70s, and my mother-in-law was in her 60s.
My mother-in-law was illiterate, so I read Master’s biography, which was attached to the book Zhuan Falun, to them. When I was halfway through, my mother-in-law said excitedly, “Oh, Master is the real Buddha. I finally found him.” I asked why she said that.
She said, “When I was very young, someone told me that human beings could cultivate towards the divine, but the time for that had not yet come. So, I went to a temple when I was nine, hoping to become a Buddhist. However, the temple required everyone who stayed there to pay for two loads of food rations, which was beyond my family’s financial capability. So I gave up.”
Both my parents-in-law began practicing. My mother-in-law soon became illness-free. She previously had to be admitted to the hospital two or three times a year. More amazingly, within one year, she was able to read Zhuan Falun. Before this, she could not read or even write her name.
Her older son didn’t believe that his mother could read Zhuan Falun and tested her with a random passage in the book. She read it smoothly and correctly.
My mother came to my place on July 20, 1997. She had been diagnosed with a terminal disease by doctors at the Huaxi Hospital in Chengdu and told she would not live much longer. Before she picked up her medicines from the hospital, I told her about Falun Dafa and its miraculous health effects. My 65 year old mother immediately began practicing.
As soon as she began practicing Falun Dafa, she was illness-free, and her body felt light. The disease that tormented her for decades was completely gone. She was extremely moved by this.
The next day, Mother told my older sister about the physical changes she experienced. After returning to her hometown, she told her relatives, friends, neighbors, and other villagers about her miracles and the goodness of Dafa. More than 20 relatives began practicing Falun Dafa.
In July 1997, my older sister found a local group practice site and also embarked on the path of cultivation practice.
On September 26, 1997, my husband started practicing Dafa right after he read Master’s lecture, “Practicing Cultivation After Retirement” in Essentials for Further Advancement and watched the video of Master’s lectures in Guangzhou.
My father was a stubborn atheist. He often laughed at practitioners, and said we were superstitious and ignorant. He turned a blind eye to many miraculous incidents that happened in our family, including a mute girl who was able to speak three days after she listened to Master’s lectures. To my father, a good retirement would be sipping tea and gossip in the morning, sipping wine at meals, smoking cigarettes after lunch and dinner, farming the crops during the day, and watching the news or reading martial arts novels at night.
The 1998 Chinese New Year arrived in the blink of an eye, and the entire family celebrated it at my parents’ home. My older sister and I planned to tell our father and younger brother’s family of three about Dafa during the gathering. After the New Year’s Eve dinner, everyone chatted about their work and life during the past year.
My sister and I mentioned the physical and mental improvements we experienced after we began practicing Falun Dafa. We shared some of the wonderful sights other practitioners saw in other dimensions and miracles they personally experienced. My mother also talked about her experiences.
My younger brother and his family listened with great interest and asked questions. My father remained silent and listened as we happily chatted for about two hours with his eyes half-closed and his legs crossed. He then suddenly opened his eyes and asked me many questions.
He said, “You have talked animatedly this evening about cultivation and Buddhahood. Where is the divine in this world? Have you or other people seen a divine being? You practitioners are all deceiving yourselves. You and your sister keep saying that people can become divine beings through cultivation. People also insist on the existence of Bodhisattva Guanyin. If you can tell me where I can see Bodhisattva Guanyin in person, I will immediately practice Falun Dafa.”
I answered my father’s question with what Master said,
“Spiritual improvement and enlightenment are the priority; being able to see [other dimensions] is secondary.” (Lecture Given at the Conference in Sydney)
On Chinese New Year’s Day, my sister went to visit our brother and his family in the city. She continued telling them about Dafa while I accompanied my parents to their place. My sister took out Zhuan Falun and started reading the opening section, “On Dafa.” As my sister read the second paragraph, my eight-year-old niece’s celestial eye opened. She described the wonderful scenes she saw in other dimensions, including golden lands, golden Law Wheels, colorful mountains, rivers, towers, and pavilions. This time, my brother and his wife were interested. The family of three began practicing.
My sister returned home with my brother’s family at noon. As soon as my little niece entered the house, she loudly told my parents the scenes she saw. She then ran around the house from room to room and loudly exclaimed that Grandma’s house was full of spinning golden Law Wheels. She also saw Master smiling at her. She told my father, “Grandpa, what my two aunts said is right. I saw many Law Wheels spinning. You should also start practicing.”
My father loved this granddaughter. He smiled and said what my niece saw was an illusion. He insisted that he would practice Dafa if he could see Bodhisattva Guanyin in person. Everyone was speechless. His deep-seated atheism was my biggest worry.
To encourage my father, I asked my mother to play the audio recording of Master’s lectures in Guangzhou during meals every day. This way, he could hear the lectures while he ate. He did not object because he saw how mother’s health was restored after she practiced Dafa.
My sister and I returned home to celebrate my father’s 70th birthday on March 13, 1998. We brought with us a copy of Master’s new lecture that we wanted to read to mother. Our parents were preparing lunch when we arrived. I told my mother that I wanted to read Master’s lecture to her since I needed to take the copy back when I left. I told my father he could leave the kitchen if he did not want to listen. To my surprise, he asked me to read it.
I explained what I understood as I read. My father became impatient with my explanations and told me to just read. Thus, he listened to Master’s lecture.
My father reads martial arts novels in bed every evening until he falls asleep. My mother replaced the martial arts books with Zhuan Falun.
One morning in early May 1998, my mother called me and said excitedly that my father finally saw what he wanted to see in another dimension. I asked what happened. My mother described it in detail.
My father listened to Master’s lecture recordings with mother every day. He also thought about the connotations while listening. He began reading Zhuan Falun every night after my mother put the book on his bed. As he read the book, he understood that he must do the exercises in addition to studying the book. Sitting on the bed, he found that it wasn’t long before he could cross his legs like my mother.
After my father closed his eyes for a while, Master opened his third eye, enabling him to see many wonderful sights that he never saw before. He saw Bodhisattvas and divine beings. He also saw Law Wheels spinning around his body and over his head. Afraid it was a hallucination, he opened his eyes. He was shocked to see many colorful Law Wheels spinning in the room. This phenomenon destroyed the stubborn atheism that he held on to for decades.
My mother said that my father sat in full lotus position for more than 40 minutes, and he felt wonderful after he meditated. He said that he would continue to practice Dafa from then on.
I couldn’t stop my tears from flowing upon hearing those words. Dafa finally awakened my father, and he completely abandoned atheism.