(Clearwisdom.net) In January 1996, I watched Teacher's video lecture when it was shown for the first time in my area, and it completely changed my philosophy of life. I began my cultivation path from the perspective of an everyday person.
After I started practicing Falun Dafa, all of my illnesses were eliminated. I was then able to do my housework and other chores again. When my family saw the changes in me, they were all very supportive, and some even started practicing Falun Dafa. My husband was especially supportive. When I brought up the idea of setting up a Fa-study group in our home, he happily agreed. This resulted in the first Fa-study group in our city.
When the persecution started, seven practitioners (including myself) planned to travel to Beijing in order to appeal for Falun Dafa, in early 2000. We were arrested halfway there, detained for fifteen days and fined over 3,000 yuan each. After my release from the detention center, I encountered pressure everywhere designed to prevent me from practicing. The police often came to my home to harass me, my children begged me to stop because they were afraid that I would be arrested again, my husband changed from being totally supportive to being completely against my practice, my parents begged me tearfully to give up Falun Dafa, my manager at work threatened to fire me if I continued to practice, etc. In the beginning I was determined not to give in. However, as the persecution worsened, I heard news about practitioners who were persecuted to death, and other practitioners who were crippled, or mentally disabled. More practitioners lost their jobs or were expelled from schools. The pressure increased on me as well. At the same time, I had attachments to fear and an emotional mentality. I started to slack off in my practice, and lived as an everyday person. I even did some things that were not up to Dafa's standards, and my xinxing dropped quickly. When I look back at it now, I have deep regrets.
Falun Dafa cultivation is not for curing illness. When I stopped practicing Dafa--stopped studying the Fa, doing the exercises, paying attention to my xinxing, and did wrong things, the karma naturally was returned to me, and I started showing symptoms of various illnesses. My complexion worsened daily, and I lost a lot of weight. I became fearful, and my family took me to a hospital. I took medicine and injections, and totally forgot about the Fa. At that point I was again just an everyday person.
The fact is, that the more medication I took, the worse my condition became. Finally, I couldn't get out of bed. It was hard for me to even open my eyes, but my mind was clear. I remembered Teacher, I remembered Dafa. There was a light in my heart, and I still wanted to practice Dafa. I still wanted to be a cultivator. I picked up Zhuan Falun and read it out loud. The more I read, the better I felt. Tears started flowing. After reading the book once, my body was noticeably better. I was able to get out of bed and practice the moving exercises of Falun Gong. Master and Dafa saved me once again. I thanked Teacher for giving me another chance. I returned to the path of cultivation and validating the Fa.
During the Chinese New Year celebration of 2008, my father-in-law suddenly fainted from an illness. The scene was very scary. When he woke up later, he said that he could not continue living. All the neighbors and doctors told us to prepare for his funeral. This happened so suddenly that everyone in the family was crying, and it was a chaotic scene. My father-in-law developed a yellow complexion and couldn't even drink water. I calmed myself, sat next to him and said, "Falun Dafa is good." I told him that he should recite "Falun Dafa is good" in his heart. Two nights later, he suddenly started to shout "Falun Dafa is good" over and over throughout the night. The next morning, his complexion returned to normal. He started drinking water and ate some congee. He told the visiting neighbors that Falun Dafa had saved him. This miracle deeply moved the neighbors, and they understood that my father-in-law's return to health from his deathbed was due to Dafa's mighty virtue and compassion. They all agreed that Dafa was amazing and wonderful.
Some fellow practitioners and I used this opportunity to promote Falun Gong to all the visitors, and advised them to withdraw from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations.
My father-in-law has two younger brothers who came to visit him. When I first started to talk to them about the benefits of practicing Falun Gong, they shook their heads with ridicule. They even used some coarse language because they had been poisoned by the CCP culture. I sent forth strong righteous thoughts to eliminate all the evils that were controlling them, and to dissolve any evil factors from the CCP. At the same time, I was strict with myself, because I wanted them to see that practitioners were different from everyday people. As usual, I carefully nursed my father-in-law, washing him, feeding him and helping him to use the toilet. After a few days, the two uncles told my father-in-law in tears, "You are so lucky to have such a good daughter-in-law." I told them with a smile that this was because I was a practitioner, and cultivated Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and that practitioners treat everyone well because we are compassionate. They started to scold the evil party and said that everything shown on TV was lies. I spoke to them about withdrawing from the CCP and its affiliated organizations, and why they should withdraw. Both of them happily withdrew, and said that they would share this with their families. They kept saying "Falun Dafa is good."
The current cultivation environment in China is still very difficult, but we are blessed with the compassion and mercy of Master Li, so the hardships cannot count for anything. We should study the Fa more and do the three things well so that we can save more people lost in the maze and in danger. Only then will we meet the requirements of our Master.
I have expressed my limited understanding, please kindly point out any shortcomings.
