(Minghui.org)
My family was poor, and I lost my mother when I was young. I have five siblings, including my oldest brother, who was henpecked by his wife. He did not dare to speak unless his wife gave him permission. His lack of backbone left my father, sister, and me vulnerable to his wife’s bullying and verbal abuse. What I found hardest to forgive was her reaction when I was admitted to a key provincial university in the 1990s as the first woman in my village to attend university. She refused to lend me money for the tuition, and her cold attitude was hurtful. I made up my mind to have nothing to do with my brother and his family.
I began practicing Falun Dafa in 1997. My child was born in 1999, just as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched its persecution of Falun Dafa. In 2000, my sister-in-law brought her son, who had Hepatitis B, to stay with me while seeking medical treatment in the city. Hepatitis B is contagious, and my child was under a year old, an age that is highly susceptible to infection. Both my mother-in-law and grandmother worried a lot, saying, “Your baby is so young. What if he gets infected?”
Through studying the Fa, I understood that karmic retribution is the root cause of illness. So I calmly welcomed them into my home for two days while they waited for a hospital bed. I also bought gifts and visited them in the hospital. I told them how wonderful Falun Dafa is and the principle of karmic retribution. I also encouraged my nephew to say, “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.”
If I wasn’t a practitioner and given how my sister-in-law treated me in the past, I would certainly have stayed away from her. Once my nephew’s condition stabilized, they went home. My sister-in-law’s attitude towards me changed dramatically, and our relationship became harmonious. Whenever I returned to my hometown, she always welcomed me warmly.
My other siblings had long held grudges against my sister-in-law due to her past behavior. I used the principles I learned from Dafa to counsel them and persuade them to take a step back and have a broader perspective. Gradually, the family conflicts were resolved.
My siblings supported me while I was in college. After I began practicing Falun Dafa, I repaid them with gifts and financial support well in excess of what I owed them. I also did my best to help out when they built their homes, organized weddings for their children, or if they became sick. As a result, I was welcomed whenever I visited, and the younger generation respected me and sought my advice on major life decisions. All this laid a solid foundation for me to clarify the truth about Dafa to them. Eventually, around 70 of my relatives and neighbors agreed to withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations.
My father-in-law developed a lumbar disc herniation, and his second wife could not bear his stinginess and greed. She divorced him after 20 years of marriage.
My father-in-law was already in his 70s when they divorced. Although he wanted to stay in his hometown, my husband and I worked in the city and couldn’t care for him. My older brother-in-law suggested that we take turns caring for him, and I immediately agreed.
However, when it was his turn, he called, saying, “My wife doesn’t want to live with Dad, as she’s in poor health herself. Can he live with you instead? I’ll cover the expenses.” I replied without hesitation, “No problem.” My father-in-law lived with us for six years until he passed away.
My husband explained that his mother lived in a constant state of anger at his father, and then she died. His stepmother had left after 20 years of constant quarreling. If I did not practice Dafa, I wouldn’t have been able to get along with my father-in-law so harmoniously during his final years.
My husband was persecuted by the CCP for years because he practiced Falun Dafa. He was illegally sentenced to forced labor and later long-term imprisonment. I had to shoulder our family’s financial burden alone, and I had very little savings. After my husband was released, his professional skills were outdated, which made it difficult for him to find a job. In order to accommodate our children and my father-in-law, we took out a loan to buy a three-bedroom apartment.
When my father-in-law moved in, he agreed to give me a few hundred yuan from his pension for living expenses every month, at my brother-in-law’s urging. However, he stopped paying after just two months. I was already stretched thin financially due to covering the mortgage, my children’s school expenses, and daily household costs.
After a full day at work, I had to rush home on my e-bike. It was manageable in summer, but the brutal cold and wind during winter meant I often arrived home freezing and hungry. Yet, my father-in-law would wait for me to cook dinner, claiming the meals he made did not taste good.
I began to develop resentment towards him, as he failed to honor our agreement, had no consideration for others, and did not contribute a single penny when we got married or took out a mortgage to buy our home.
Furthermore, when I was illegally imprisoned at the forced labor camp for my faith, he brought my child to visit me, but deducted the travel expenses from my wages. Whenever those things crossed my mind, I was filled with resentment and completely forgot that I am a Dafa practitioner. Naturally, family conflicts followed.
Realizing my mindset was wrong, I thought of Master’s Fa lecture,
“A wicked person is born of jealousy. Out of selfishness and anger he complains about unfairness towards himself.” (“Realms”, Essentials for Further Advancement)
I knew I was falling far short of Dafa’s standards, so I wanted to change. Master saw my heart and gave me the opportunity. I visited a fellow practitioner and asked how she got along with her in-laws. She said, “My in-laws didn’t have a daughter. To avoid upsetting them, and also to ensure they would help look after our children, I just handed all my salary to them as soon as I received it.” I was shocked to hear this and astonished at her high moral standard. I also felt ashamed, realizing I was behaving worse than an ordinary person in this regard, even though I cultivated it for many years.
I began to look inward and identified many attachments, including resentment, self-interest, jealousy, and fear of hardship. I also considered my father-in-law’s contributions to the family. When the CCP’s persecution of practitioners began, five of our family members were imprisoned in various facilities, including detention centers, forced labor camps, brainwashing centers, and prisons. Throughout those dark times, my father-in-law tirelessly traveled from place to place petitioning for our release. Yet he never complained or showed any disrespect towards Dafa. Then he grew old and simply wanted a decent meal and a stable home, but I held so much disrespect and resentment towards him.
Filled with shame, I gradually let go of my attachments. Whenever a feeling of resentment or unfairness arose, I immediately sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate these negative notions. I began to genuinely care for him. I cooked the dishes he enjoyed and accommodated his wishes. When he neglected his personal hygiene, I viewed this as an opportunity to eliminate my aversion to dirt and hardship, and tried my best to help him out. When he wanted to visit his hometown, I drove him there if my husband was busy.
My father-in-law developed dementia not long before he passed away and accused me of stealing his money. But I remained calm and took it lightly. My husband’s extended family witnessed my kindness over the years and praised me. An uncle in his eighties, whom I had only met twice, told me he had a very high opinion of me.
After my father-in-law passed away, we honored his final wishes and held a funeral according to local customs. I put together a dozen packages of gifts brought by relatives and distributed them to the neighbors in his hometown to show our goodwill and sincerity. To express our gratitude, we hosted a meal with two tables at a local restaurant. We asked my husband’s third uncle to say a few words. He raised his glass and said, “Please raise your glasses and toast your sister-in-law. Listen closely, you should all learn from her as a model of filial piety!”
When my husband and I married in 1996, his home was very basic, as his siblings were still attending university and needed support. There were only two mud-brick rooms and a plot of land designated for six additional rooms. In 1998, my eldest brother-in-law discussed plans with us for building those six rooms.
Due to the CCP’s persecution of Falun Dafa my siblings and I were illegally detained, sent to forced labor camps, or sentenced to prison at various times for refusing to give up our belief. So the house extension took 10 years and was finally finished in 2008. When building the courtyard wall, local customs dictated that the south wall facing the road should have an inscription to bring good fortune.
My father-in-law asked my eldest brother-in-law for his opinion. My brother-in-law had strong righteous thoughts and suggested, “Nothing will be better than ‘Falun Dafa is Good! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is Good!’” My father-in-law happily agreed and hired a stonemason to engrave “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is Good” on a rectangular block of stone, which he placed directly facing the road. Anyone walking by could see the words.
For over a decade, we followed Dafa’s principles in our words and our actions. When the third uncle encroached on our land, we took it lightly. Yet, when the same uncle got into a long-standing land dispute with the other uncles, my eldest brother-in-law asked his former classmate for advice on how to resolve things, so the third uncle could build his new home. When the second uncle blocked the path to our old house to build two extra rooms, we raised no objection. Later, when he asked us for more land to build his courtyard wall, we also agreed without hesitation.
A paternal uncle living next door had held a grudge against my father-in-law for many years over a boundary wall dispute. But we never brought it up. Yet, after we spent tens of thousands of yuan to build a garage, the uncle’s son asked my husband for the key to park his car there. My husband handed it over without any hesitation. I also helped the uncle’s other son when he attended university in the city where we lived. The uncle was very grateful to us.
Our high moral conduct was well-known in the village, so no one listened to the CCP’s slander against Dafa. For well over a decade, the stone engraved with the words “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is Good” has stood firm through rain and shine, fulfilling its purpose of assisting Master in saving people. No one has ever caused us any trouble because of that engraved stone.
In 2012, I was arrested by the Domestic Security Division and the local police station. They attempted to fabricate evidence to prosecute me. They interviewed my students and colleagues to see if I ever clarified the truth about Falun Dafa to them.
One time, a captain from the Domestic Security Division interrogated me. I asked him to release me unconditionally. I told him I committed no crime and suggested he talk with anyone who knew me to learn what kind of person I was. He said, “We already investigated your students and your superiors. Your students said you are a great, kind teacher.”
I asked what my superiors said about me. He hesitated and didn’t reply. I knew they hadn’t said anything negative about me. Otherwise the police would have used their comments to fabricate evidence against me.
He continued, “It is also not true, as some claim, that practitioners neglect their children. Your child passed the Grade 8 Chinese Zither [Guzheng] exam at age 12 and attends a top middle school.”
I said, “If you know all this, why didn’t you report this to your superiors?”
He replied, “I did report it. I even got into an argument with my superiors over your case, but I am powerless.”
In the end, I was still illegally sentenced to one year of forced labor simply because I persisted in practicing Falun Dafa.
For over 20 years, my good moral character has been widely recognized. I haven’t fought for personal gain, and I maintained harmonious relationships with my colleagues. My supervisor was also a righteous person. Despite the tremendous pressure from the CCP, he stood up for me and spoke highly of me when the CCP personnel harassed and persecuted me.
After I was released from the forced labor camp, my family went with me to meet with the school’s top official, the Party Secretary. He understood I was a good person and reinstated me as a teacher, even though the CCP pressured him. Later, due to threats from the 610 Office, the school was forced to transfer me to another role instead of teaching. However, this ultimately gave me a lot of flexibility to do Dafa-related work.
It has been nearly 30 years since I began practicing Falun Dafa. I’ve occasionally stumbled and wavered, and endured life-and-death ordeals. Yet, my heart is filled with gratitude towards Master and Dafa. Studying the Fa has kept me from sliding into the abyss of the material world. Studying the Fa has revealed the real meaning of life: to return to our true self, and has provided me with the guidance and strength to navigate this life journey.
Thank you, Master, for your compassionate salvation! Thank you, fellow practitioners! And thank you to all the predestined people who have helped us along the way!