(Minghui.org) I’m a 64-year-old Falun Dafa practitioner who resides in the countryside of Northeast China. I have been practicing Dafa since 1997.
I was well-known in my village, but to be truthful, my notoriety wasn’t for having a good reputation. I cursed frequently and got angry very easily. My cursing of my husband could go on for the whole night. If people stole the corn from my field, I’d steal other people to compensate for my loss. Regardless of whom I stole from, it had to match how much I lost. Thus, I created a lot of karma and developed all sorts of illnesses, such as neurasthenia, heartburn, vomiting acidic water, enteritis, and rhinitis which made it difficult to breathe. I also had a lack of blood supply to the brain, and could easily faint. I could just fall to the ground and lose consciousness, then recover after a while.
My sister lives in Chongqing and was a teacher. She wanted me to go to her home to find out about Falun Dafa in 1996. However, my husband was afraid that something would happen to me on the way there and didn’t let me go. However, I found a way to visit my sister’s place in 1997. She had only been practicing Dafa for a short time and didn’t have an in-depth understanding of the Fa. She thought that if I practiced Falun Dafa I could recover from my illnesses, and save on medical expenses.
I told her that I wasn’t interested and didn’t believe in Dafa. But, when she did the sitting meditation, it looked very peaceful. One day, I said to her, “I watched when you were doing the Dafa exercises, and it looked very comfortable. I also want to do the exercises.”
Master Li (Dafa’s founder) began to take care of me. I had a heavy cold, which made me feel very uncomfortable. I was also embarrassed about getting sick at her place.
It didn’t bother my sister, and she read Zhuan Falun, the main book of Falun Dafa, to me. While reading, she noticed something happening to me. She asked, “Did you hear me?” I only replied with a moan. I couldn’t open my mouth and had it tightly closed. It seemed as if I was having a seizure. My sister was worried, but it only took a couple of minutes before I recovered.
My cold symptoms disappeared the next day, and I felt very comfortable. I said cheerfully, “Sister, let me do the exercises alongside you this time.” I relapsed three times, and then it never came back. I also recovered from all my other illnesses.
I hadn’t read books for many years, and couldn’t recognize many of the Chinese characters. Thus, I stayed at my sister’s place for a month and learned the characters needed to read Zhuan Falun, as well as the five sets of Dafa exercises. I took with me the books that my sister prepared for me and returned home.
At home, I thought that this Fa is truly great. If every villager were to learn this Dafa, then nobody would do anything wrong any longer. People’s morals were very low in our township, and there was a lot of theft, and burning others’ piles of firewood. If your firewood caught fire, you would think that someone else lit it, and would burn someone else’s firewood. They would then think the same and burn another person’s firewood. This went on and on. In the cold winter, when there was no firewood for cooking, we had to go up the mountains to chop more wood.
I thought: How could I spread Dafa? I found a few people, but nobody believed in me, nor wanted to practice Falun Dafa. It was probably because of my bad reputation. So I spread the Fa to my relatives. First, I went to look for my uncles. One of them was a high school principal, and the other uncle and his wife were senior teachers in a primary school. I went to one uncle’s home, and his wife told me that he was practicing something else, and was not interested.
I went to the Dafa exercise site in the township and explained to the assistant the situation in our village. She responded, “I’ll go there and play Master’s lecture videos next week.”
She rode her bicycle to our village one day after work. It was already dark by the time she arrived. I called people from all over the village, “Come to my home to watch videos!” The villagers liked to have a good time, so soon enough, I had a full house of people. The assistant then began to play Master’s videos. I noticed that my uncle didn’t come, so I went to find him. He asked what video I was playing. I didn’t tell him, and said, “It’s truly great! Look, the blisters on my body are gone. It’s great for healing illnesses and keeping fit.”
Only two days after my uncle came to watch Master’s video lectures, he began to go through karma elimination. In the experience sharing that my uncle’s wife later wrote, she said, “My husband was addicted to drinking alcohol, and couldn’t stop. Since he began practicing Dafa, he just stopped and his health improved. Our two daughters also started practicing Falun Dafa.”
Since my uncle began practicing, it motivated many other school teachers to learn. Within two months, more than 80 people, in our village alone, had started practicing Falun Dafa. I was responsible for playing the exercise music every day.
My uncle had many grape vines in his backyard, and protected them from being stolen by putting up extra fencing. After he started to practice Falun Dafa, he removed all of the fencing. With many people joining the practice, the morale of the village improved, and people stopped stealing and taking revenge on others for their misfortune.
Since my uncle was well-educated, we recommended that he become an assistant. The number of practitioners in our village rose to close to 100. One time, when a sharing conference was held, more than 300 people came from a few nearby villages.
That wonderful time will forever be kept in my memory.
I was taken to the Heizuizi Forced Labor Camp in Changchun City in 2002, and held there for 18 months. I owed 3,000 yuan at the time, and my family was short of labor for the planting season. My husband broke his leg while working in the field. Miraculously, he didn’t feel any pain and continued to work. After he came home, he noticed his vegetable patch had fallen down, so he fixed it. When he woke up in the middle of the night, he heard his bones cracking, that’s when he knew his leg was broken. The next day, my daughter took him to the county hospital and had a cast put on.
Other people had finished planting crops. My husband thought not to plant anything this time, but my daughter insisted. It was too late to plant anything else but sesame seeds, so he did that. Sesame seeds don’t bring in as much money as sugar beets. However, in the fall sugar beets became worthless, and the ones that couldn’t be sold ended up rotting in the field. But we sold our sesame for a good price. With the money earned, we were able to pay back the debt we owed.
The following year, everyone grew sesame. We grew a lot of sesame and a small amount of corn. When I returned from the labor camp, the sesame corps were growing well. Everyone else’s sesame seeds were ripe and ready for market, but we were behind. We only sold two bags, while others had sold all of theirs. Finally, I had a house full of sesame seeds. However, the price of sesame seeds had dropped.
We didn’t worry about it, and began to sell the corn. When we were done, I went to inquire about the price of sesame. It had skyrocketed. The next day, I took the sesame seeds out, and we made over 30,000 yuan.
My son got married the next year, and our family moved to the city. With the help of practitioners in the city, both my son and daughter-in-law found jobs. A few years later, my family bought a house, and our life greatly improved.
Four years ago, through the introduction of a fellow practitioner, I became a caregiver in a family, taking care of an elderly woman who was bedridden. She was very difficult to care for. I couldn’t handle dirty things, and I had to pick out her stool. I thought: since I am Master’s practitioner, I could do it without feeling dirty. I also thought: if it were my mother, would I do it? I took good care of this woman, and her daughters were satisfied with me. If I didn’t practice Dafa, I wouldn’t have taken the job, no matter how much I was paid.
She was a middle school history teacher before she retired. I had clarified the facts to her. When she called me, she shouted my last name. I said, “Please don’t call me by my last name. You could just say ‘Falun Dafa is wonderful!’ As long as you say that, I can hear you, otherwise, I can’t.”
As soon as she woke up, she’d start shouting, “Falun Dafa is wonderful!” I played Master’s lecture recordings and the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party for her, which she enjoyed listening to.
I had looked after her for a couple of years when I told one of her daughters to find someone else to do this job. I was already in my 60s. But the daughter told me, “I don’t want to find someone else. You have worked for us for two years. I know you. How about I raise your salary? You could ask your husband to come as well, so you can work together to help my mom.”
Thus, my husband came. We worked together to look after the elderly woman for another two years until she passed away.
Her daughters often said to their mother, “If it wasn’t for her [me] taking great care of you, you’d have passed away long ago.”
Before I went home, I left a copy of Zhuan Falun with them. A few days ago, both daughters came to see me and brought me clothes and shoes as gifts.
I went through a serious tribulation of sickness karma in 2020, which was the most serious one I’ve had. I was fine in the morning, but after I finished sending forth righteous thoughts at noon, I went to the washroom. After I came out, I had to sit on the floor, suffering from tremendous stomach pain.
I sat there for over 40 minutes. I wanted to vomit and had diarrhea. I didn’t want to trouble my husband, but I had to call him to help me get to bed. My whole belly ached. I couldn’t sit or lie down, and kept sweating. I also had trouble in sending forth righteous thoughts, and could only think, “Falun Dafa is wonderful! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is wonderful.”
My husband wanted me to go to the hospital, but I said, “Please no. I won’t go there. I’m not sick.” I had thought that since I practiced Dafa, I should leave myself to Master. My husband was so upset and challenged me.
Without realizing it, my belly stopped hurting. I lay down and fell asleep. I only slept for a short while, and when I woke up I was fine. My husband later told me that he was terrified and thought that I might have acute appendicitis.
My son ran into a conflict with my daughter-in-law. After my son got married, he built a house near his in-laws’. My daughter-in-law then asked both my husband and me to move in to look after their daughter. My daughter-in-law was also from the countryside. Before she married, she was given some land. They then bought more land. We were asked to look after their child while working in the field, saying that they would pay me 5,000 yuan, plus a meal allowance. Then they went to the city to take on labor work.
We had a good harvest that year. By the time January came, we had earned over 30,000 yuan from selling corn. I called my son to come back to collect the money. He paid me 5,000 yuanat the same time. I told him that I bought some pork, which cost me a little over 600 yuan. It’s not convenient to buy pork in the countryside, as we had to wait when there was a market, and that was far away. My son’s child also liked pork. I put it into the fridge and saved it for a long time. After he paid me for it, he left.
My son and daughter-in-law came back to celebrate Chinese New Year. On the fifth night, they had a fight. Soon enough, my son came to me in tears, saying, “I want to divorce her.”
When I asked him why, he said his in-laws were not happy that I spent 600 yuan on pork, and used the electric fan in the summer. Since we were soaked in sweat in the summer, we liked to use the fan for a short time while having our meal.
My husband is not a Dafa practitioner, and became upset and told my son’s in-laws, “Did I spend your money to buy pork?” They were so upset and left the house.
My son and daughter-in-law went back to the city two days later. Usually, my husband never strolled around outside, but he decided to go out, while both my granddaughter and I stayed in the house.
My son’s father-in-law came. I asked him to sit down, and said to him, “See, the young couple have already made up. Let’s not get mad with one another.” He stood up and cursed at me loudly. He then punched me twice. My granddaughter was so scared and started crying.
I forgot I was a practitioner and wanted to call the police. But, I saw Zhuan Falun on my bed. Even though I thought about Master’s Fa, I still felt that I was being wronged, and couldn’t hold back my tears.
After my son learned about this incident, he was determined to get a divorce. He agreed to every condition that my daughter-in-law put forward, including giving up their house and field. He had custody of their child though. We packed our things and went to stay with my daughter. They divorced on January 13 and we moved out on January 17. Even though I remembered I was a practitioner, I still didn’t do well.
I didn’t study the Fa, or do the exercises for quite a while. I took Zhuan Falun, to my room to read. When my husband saw me, he questioned how I could be in the mood to read the Falun Dafa book. Actually, I was very anxious and couldn’t sleep for three days.
There was no heating in the room, so I wrapped myself in a blanket and started reading Zhuan Falun. When I later fell asleep, I saw Master in my dream looking at me with a straight face. When I woke up, I knew I had done wrong.
My son rented a place in the city a few days later, and his daughter, father, and myself moved in to stay with him. As soon as we settled down, my daughter-in-law called, saying that she wanted to come back as she missed her child. I said, “Then why don’t you come back!?” She wanted to make up with my son. She also mentioned that her parents also regretted their behavior.
I said, “If you want to remarry him, I won’t stop you. You know what I practice.” She went back and told her parents, who were thrilled.
The next year, we bought our own property, and my son and daughter-in-law remarried. My daughter-in-law said her parents wanted my son and daughter to move in with them. I wasn’t happy at first, and asked, “Why would they do that?” Then, I remembered that I was a practitioner, and corrected myself. I said to her, “Forget about what I said. Go back to your parents and be in peace. Remember ‘Falun Dafa is wonderful!’”
The relationship between us and my son’s in-laws got better and better. After I let go of my personal grievance, my son’s in-laws understood more about Dafa, and quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations.
In 2005, we rented an old house in the city, with very basic amenities. The gas stove was next to a wooden table, which was tiled, and the gas pipe was connected to the stove right on the table. It was winter, the house wasn’t warm, and the kitchen window was covered with thick ice. I used a kettle to boil a large pot of water every morning.
At that time, we just bought a new house close to the rented one. My husband and I went to the new house and did renovation every day. One day, my brother came, and my husband went to the new house with him. He asked me to take the child to school, which he usually did. I boiled the water over medium heat and went to take the child to school. When I came back, I forgot all about the boiling water and went to the new house. I went back to the rented house to do some things around noon but still didn’t remember about the boiling water, as the kitchen door was closed. I picked up the child from school in the afternoon. The child went to play at a classmate’s house, so I took a nap.
I got up and went into the kitchen. I froze in horror. When I came to my senses, I turned off the gas, picked up the kettle, and threw it on the ground. Nearly 12 hours had passed since I started boiling the water. The tiles on the wall were all red, the thick ice on the windows had melted, and there was water all over the floor.
Without Master’s protection, the consequences would have been disastrous. My son said, “If the gas pipe caught fire and exploded, this place would have burned down. Thank you Dafa! Thank you Master! Master, thank you so much!” I burst into tears hearing this. Our family came from a poor rural area, how could we be so lucky.
I said, “It’s Dafa’s Master who is in charge of us!”
My son smiled and repeated, “Dafa’s Master is in charge. Dafa’s Master is in charge.”
I was clarifying the facts on the street and ran into a man who came for treatment from another city. While I was talking, he suddenly shouted out loud, “Falun Dafa is wonderful!” Which caught me by surprise.
Five years ago, a practitioner sent a large box of truth-clarification banners that he had saved for many years. In the evenings, several practitioners and I found a road lined with trees. We tied stones to the banners, then threw them up in the trees, hoping they would latch onto the branches. One night, a police car came and we quickly hid. When the car had gone, we continued our work. We also hung a banner on the frame of an unfinished house. All of the banners remained there for several days.
A few days later, we received truth-clarification couplets. We visited people and told them that we brought blessings as the Chinese New Year was just around the corner. There were couplets and desk calendars, just in time for the Chinese New Year. All of them were accepted.
One year my husband was on duty on New Year’s Eve, so after I made dinner I took the small plastic-wrapped banners and hung them in residential areas. Only when I went back home, did I realize that I hadn’t taken the house key with me. I waited in the hallway until almost midnight before my husband came home and then entered the house.
My cultivation path has not been smooth all these years. Sometimes I did well, and other times I did not, but Master has always been by my side to protect me and hinted whenever it was needed. I can’t express my gratitude toward Master. Only by cultivating diligently and doing the three things well, can I pay back Master’s compassion towards us.