Validating the Fa While Homeless

(Clearwisdom.net) My son and I obtained the Fa in the spring of 1998. The following spring, my wife also started practicing Falun Gong. In the past, I had many diseases and was very thin, little more than skin and bones. My wife had severe headaches, back pain, gynecological disease, as well as other illnesses. All of our diseases disappeared after we started practicing Falun Gong. Our life was filled with happiness.

After the Chinese communist regime began its brutal persecution of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, we persisted in clarifying the truth about Falun Gong to people. I was illegally arrested by Domestic Security agents in 2003. They also attempted to arrest my son. Following my release, my wife, son and I left our city in order to avoid further arrests, and we began to go from place to place. In this article I want to share with fellow practitioners our experiences in validating the Fa while homeless.

At the beginning, we didn't have any money to support ourselves with, so we went to a small town with a very low standard of living and started a small business selling oranges. We usually made around 10 yuan a day, sometimes 20 yuan. It was enough for us to live on. When I first started doing business, I couldn't maintain my xinxing very well. The villagers had a habit: When they bought oranges, they always took some extra ones after paying. At first I felt this was not right. At that time we made just enough to survive, and it was even difficult for us to have a full meal. So, I ran after the villagers to get the extra oranges back, which, of course, caused many conflicts. Through those conflicts, I truly understood what Master talked about in Zhuan Falun: “One must truly temper and upgrade oneself through actual practice.” When I studied the Fa at night, I shared my experience with my wife and son. In the end, we realized that our mission there was to save people, not to fight for personal gain or profit. After I improved my xinxing, my heart was never moved again when people took extra oranges from me. I began to use every opportunity to clarify the truth to them.

After a while, a practitioner told my son about a job delivering goods to a nearby city. My son had never done any heavy labor. Every day after he came back from work, he was very tired. His Fa-study and truth-clarification efforts were affected. Therefore, he quit the job and we moved to another town close to our city.

We found a place to live, but it was extremely hot in the summer and frigid in the winter. Although the conditions were very harsh, we understood that this was our cultivation environment and settled down. The landlord helped me and my wife find jobs repairing shoes and fixing aluminum pans, but we couldn't make enough money to support ourselves. I then heard that a milkman had quit his job, so I took his position. However, he came back after a while because he hadn't been able to find a better job. I felt very frustrated because I was jobless again.

Then I found a job at a lumber factory. One day at work, I was struck hard in the chest by a piece of wood. It was extremely painful, but I immediately remembered that I am a Falun Gong practitioner and that Master is protecting me. As soon as I had this thought, the pain stopped.

The bathroom at the factory was extremely filthy, and no one cleaned it. In my spare time, I thoroughly cleaned the bathroom and it no longer stank terribly. After co-workers found out, they said good things about me. I took this opportunity to tell them that I practice Falun Gong and that Master teaches us to be good people and to be considerate of others at all times. After the workers understood the truth, they became very friendly; when they saw me, they sometimes just called me “Falun Gong.” One disadvantage of working at the factory was that it was very far from my apartment. In order to have enough time to study the Fa and do the exercises, I later quit this job and found another job selling breakfast and vegetables in a village.

When doing business with the villagers, I encountered various xinxing tests. Some villagers took advantage of me and some verbally abused me. There was a person who owed me 10 yuan. For a long time, he didn't return the money or talk to me. At first I felt it was unfair, but when I measured my behavior with the Fa and looked inward, I realized that maybe I owed him something from my previous lives and that now I was repaying the debt.

Because of my family's long-term financial problems, I developed a strong attachment to personal gain. However, I kept reminding myself that I am a Falun Gong practitioner and constantly looked for opportunities to get rid of this attachment. As time went by, I developed very good relationships with the villagers. I took every opportunity to clarify the truth to them and many accepted the truth very well.

During the time when I wasn't doing business, I did some small odd jobs, such as fixing zippers or plastic containers. Some people looked down upon me, some took advantage of me, and some laughed at me. All kinds of things happened to test my xinxing.

I remembered Master's teaching:

“Accordingly, in your future cultivation practice you will run into all kinds of tribulations. How can you practice cultivation without these hardships? If everyone is good to one another without conflicts of interests or interference from the human mind, how can your xinxing make progress by your only sitting there? That is impossible.” (Zhuan Falun)

I inspired kindness from those people by doing good deeds, and I persisted in explaining the truth to them and persuading them to quit the Communist Party and its affiliated organizations.

The three practitioners in my family formed a small Fa-study group. We studied the Fa at night and did the exercises together in the morning. We contacted practitioners in a remote village in the second year after we had started to go from place to place. Practitioners in that village constantly distributed truth-clarifying materials to people, and a lot of materials were needed. Because they didn't have a material production site, we took on that responsibility since we had the wish to help save sentient beings. My son downloaded materials and did the typesetting, my wife was in charge of printing the materials and burning discs, and my job was to replenish the supplies and deliver the materials. We did this work for five years and provided practitioners from that small village with enough materials to distribute.

Meanwhile, my son found several well-paying jobs. He conducted himself as a practitioner and did his job well. His supervisors and co-workers alike had high opinions of him. He also made some good friends with very good hearts.

In the days when I validated the Fa while going from place to place, I went through many xinxing tests. During these tribulations, I got rid of many attachments. Guided by the Fa principles, I have walked my path with determination. I am really grateful for revered Master's compassionate protection.

It is now the final period of Fa-rectification. Most of the evil has been eliminated, and the environment in our hometown has greatly improved. In 2009, we went back to our hometown to validate the Fa in a dignified and upright manner.