Letting Go of Human Notions When Operating a Small Food Truck

(Minghui.org) My daughter and I set up a small food truck on the roadside of our community in mid-May 2024. A fellow practitioner named Ailing also came to help every day. We mainly sold breakfast. If there was any leftover food from breakfast, we offered it at noon.

To sell breakfast, I needed to get up early in the morning. I woke up at 3 a.m. every day to prepare the ingredients. If I had even ten minutes of spare time, I did one set of Falun Dafa exercises. Since my time was limited, I couldn’t complete all five sets of the exercises in the morning, so I made it up during my afternoon break. During the two or three months we were operating the food truck, even though I couldn’t always do the exercises and send forth righteous thoughts on schedule, I did not dare slack off in cultivating my xinxing. I had laid a good foundation by reciting the Fa during my early years of cultivation.

Letting Go of the Attachment to Profit

Two years ago, my daughter returned home with her ten-month-old daughter. Because the child was so young, my daughter could not get a full time job. I was also in my fifties, and finding a suitable job at my age was not easy. After May 1 last year, my daughter enrolled her child in kindergarten, which gave her the time to manage the breakfast business with me.

My daughter could not contribute much in the early stages, since she did not know how to handle the operation. My fellow practitioner, Ailing, and I had worked at a food stand for a period of time before COVID, and I worked part-time for a breakfast restaurant many years ago. So we were familiar with how to operate such a business. Although my daughter could not do much work, she acted like the boss and gave instructions to Ailing and me occasionally, making it seem like we were her employees.

I have used messages on currency banknotes for many years to clarify the truth about Falun Dafa. In today’s society, people rely heavily on mobile phones, and use platforms like WeChat or Alipay for transactions, and there were few exceptions for our food truck. As a result, aside from a small amount of cash, most of our daily income was deposited into my daughter’s account. I had to report the small cash amount to her each night, as she needed to keep track of the daily income and expenditures. In addition to paying Ailing’s monthly salary, my daughter gave me a few hundred yuan to ensure I had around a 1,000 yuan available in cash to run the business. However, I didn’t see any additional funds in my bank account for several consecutive months.

During this period, I focused solely on how to do my job well each morning, and stopped worrying about how much I would earn. Once I let go of my attachment to profit, and released my feelings of  jealousy and the urge to compete, I didn’t want to argue with my daughter anymore. It felt meaningless. Sometimes, my daughter seemed unreasonable, and her scolding and accusations no longer affected me emotionally.

“It tastes bland.”

I prepared the wonton filling with some celery and extra meat, seasoning it moderately with salt. In short, it tasted pretty good. One morning, two girls ordered two bowls of wontons. After making them, Ailing brought the bowls to the table. I cleaned up a little, then sat down in front of them and asked them how the wontons tasted. Unexpectedly, one of the girls sitting across from me had a stern face with no emotion. Coldly, she squeezed out three words: “It tastes bland!” Hearing this, I felt awkward, and my face turned red, probably all the way to my neck.

At that moment, I noticed the other girl looking at her friend in surprise and whispered to her, “It’s not bad. I think it tastes pretty good.” This made me realize how attached I was to praise, and to hearing compliments. Embarrassed, I stood up, and moved aside to send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate these human notions. In my heart, I thanked the girl who said, “It tastes bland.”

Removing the Attachment That I Shouldn’t be Wronged

I was wronged by my mother-in-law about six or seven years ago. She said that I stole 600 yuan from her. At that stage of my cultivation, I felt like it was a life-and-death test. Fortunately, Master enlightened me and freed me from extreme pain. This attachment that I shouldn’t be wronged has been weakened by the constant conflicts with my daughter in recent years. Now, I feel that they no longer move my heart.

I once met an elderly lady who was 75 years old and lived not far from our stall. Ever since we started selling breakfast, she would come to eat almost every day as long as it wasn’t raining. She used a small four-wheeled cart to help her walk. When she got tired, she would sit on the cart to rest for a while.

During a conversation, she shared that 20 years ago, her husband took her to work on a motorcycle. Unfortunately, they were involved in a car accident. Her husband died at the scene. Although she survived, the accident left her with severe brain injuries that caused paralysis on the left side of her body, making it difficult for her to move normally.

She was impatient. She carried a bag on her back and always insisted on paying first. She said she feared she would forget to pay because of her memory problem. Leaning her body on the cart, she picked up the bag with her right hand and bit the lock with her teeth to open it. While taking out the money, she told us that she had to walk half an hour from her home to our stall each morning. The distance was very short for others, but not for her. We felt sorry for her. Life is not easy for some people.

One day, the old lady said she wanted to eat wontons again and asked me how many were in a bowl. We told her that a small bowl with 13 wontons cost 10 yuan, while a large bowl with 20 wontons cost 15 yuan. The old lady frowned immediately and said unquestionably, “That is not right! I have eaten wontons here several times and always had ten wontons in a bowl.” She continued, “When others asked me, I told them one yuan per wonton.” I responded, “Auntie, that’s impossible. I always count wontons before cooking. How could there be ten wontons?” At that moment, she was a little excited and said affirmatively, “Yes! I have eaten it several times, and I counted every time. I am right!” I immediately comforted her and said, “Auntie, it’s okay. If that is the case, I will make it up to you right away. Please don’t be upset.” The old lady smiled.

Later, when I cooked wontons for her, I added two extra wontons. Unexpectedly, she was angry again for the third time. She said, “It is wrong. The wontons are still ten.” I immediately put down my work, grabbed an empty bowl and a small spoon, and helped her count the wontons one by one. After counting to ten, there were still five wontons in the bowl. The old lady smiled sheepishly at this point, “I counted wrong. I’m sorry!” I reassured her, saying, “It’s okay, Auntie, as long as you are happy.”

The next time the old lady came to eat wontons, I gave her two bowls and asked her to take out the wontons from the soup, so that the wontons would cool off faster for her.

Others didn’t want to sit at the same table with her since she had the cart, so she ended up taking a small square table for herself. Sometimes, when I was busy caring for customers, she would call me anyway to help her. I ran over and asked her what she needed. She often requested extra napkins, boiled water, or help checking for something wrong with her cart. Understanding her situation, we always made sure to care for her until she was satisfied.

I was not moved by the old lady’s repeated grievances and the negative impact of her promotion of my wontons for one yuan each. I let everything go with the flow.