(Minghui.org) As I think back on my journey of cultivation, I realize that Master has been supporting and enlightening me every step of the way. Words simply can’t express my great respect for Master. I have written down my experiences of being blessed by Master’s mercy to share with my fellow practitioners.
I was born in 1946 in a small mountain village. I came into the world crying, and I cried so much that I irritated everyone. My father was a manual laborer, and he often came home tired from a day’s work. But my crying kept him from getting any sleep at night.
Before I turned one, my father joined the army and left our village. Four years later, he lost his life in Guangdong Province. Some people said that my crying was.the cause of his death, and my relatives began calling me “the bringer of bad luck.”
When I was 6, my mother and I moved into my stepfather’s home. My mother had me take basins of water to my stepfather every day for him to wash his face and feet. I was small for my age and had difficulty carrying the full basin to the oven. Whenever I accidentally spilled any, I would get a scolding and a slap in the face.
At the age of eight, I was expected to look after my younger sister or do housework. Whenever my sister spat out biscuits or rice that she didn’t want to eat, my stepfather would order me to eat it, which I would refuse to do. I would not be allowed to eat until I finished all the housework I had been assigned. By that time, I already knew the taste of tears.
My mother wanted me to appear well-behaved and to say good things about my stepfather in front of our relatives. When I refused to comply, she would scold me for being “dumb.” I was scolded until I was in secondary school.
During the Cultural Revolution, I was assigned to a very remote part of the country. At work I was diligent and didn't complain. But my salary, which should have been higher than most workers my age, was half that of others. My husband scolded me for "having a screw loose.” One of the older colleagues where I worked comforted me, saying, “Child, always be honest and true. Suffering is a blessing.” How could I have possibly understood that at that time!
My mother-in-law, who lived with us, had all kinds of rules. At home, I dared not speak too much. When I tried to walk around softly, she said that I looked like a thief. When my steps were just a bit louder, she accused me of trying to scare her to death. For the sake of my two children, I swallowed my unhappiness and put up with it for many years. By the time I was in my 30s, I had all kinds of health problems. In particular, I had heart disease and had to sleep sitting up. I had nightmares whenever I lay down to sleep.
I endured this until 1997, when my two daughters finally found jobs and lifelong partners. At that point, I could finally say that I had fulfilled my responsibility.
My mother had already started practicing Falun Gong, and she asked me to practice, too. My mother cannot read, so one day she came over with a copy of Zhuan Falun and had me read it to her.
I read Zhuan Falun until my mother fell asleep, but I felt like I had awakened to seeing things clearly. I read the entire book in one breath, finally finishing it near dawn. I understood that this practice is not an average qigong practice, but truly cultivation. I cried when I realized this. While looking at the night sky, I really wanted to shout, “Now I can also cultivate!” I became a Dafa practitioner in February 1997.
When I first started doing the exercises, my movements weren’t precise. Once while doing the fourth exercise, when I drew a circle around my feet with my hands, there was a brilliant arc of light. I was startled and at first mistook it for a trick of my eyes. But when I slowly drew a circle around my feet again, I saw the brilliant arc of light again. I was very happy, and knew that Master was encouraging me to have unwavering faith.
When making two fists behind the back during the fourth exercise, I was worried that I wasn’t doing the movement correctly, so I glanced at the other practitioners. But they were all doing it differently. At that moment, Master appeared in front of me doing the movement repeatedly. Then, in the blink of an eye, he disappeared.
About 10 days after I began studying the Fa, I went to a fellow practitioner’s home to watch Master’s videotaped lectures. I sat in front of the television and watched with full concentration, worried I would miss something He said. It seemed like everyone else in the house had vanished, and I was the only one present. Before Master began speaking about Tianmu (the Third Eye), I felt the muscles between my eyebrows tensing up.
Master spoke about cleaning out other qigong books at home, so when I got home I tore up and burned all the qigong books I had. At the time, my body was full of warm energy, and when I read Zhuan Falun that night, I could feel something turning in my abdomen.
When I went to bed, I had a restless sleep. Then I had the sensation of a thick rod hitting my back three times. It really hurt, but when I touched my back there was no blood. From then on, my body was always light. People who knew me said that I had changed into a completely different person; they also recognized the goodness of Dafa.
The persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999. I went to Beijing that December 25, but before I could find the appeals office, plainclothes officers arrested me and took me to the Tiananmen Square police station. I was escorted home, and when the police car had reached the outskirts of Jinzhou City, I heard celebratory drums and music playing. However, when I looked out the window, all I could see was miles of desolate, open land and not a person in sight. I understood that the beings in another dimension were celebrating the fact that I had done the right thing.
In the spring of 2001, I started distributing truth clarification materials for the first time. I was so scared that my heart almost leapt out of my chest. That night, I dreamed that Master’s Law Body appeared in front of me, and the Law Body was immensely tall and radiated divine light. This strengthened my resolve that I had done the right thing.
In November 2001, I was arrested, and my home was raided. While in the detention center, a fellow practitioner and I went on a hunger strike. By the fifth day, my lips were cracked and bloody, my heart rate was way above normal, my hands were trembling, and my breath was shallow. But in the interrogation room, I smiled as I clarified the truth about the staged “self-immolation” at Tiananmen Square to the police officers, who listened meekly.
In 2004 my husband had bleeding in the brain, which required surgery. He was in a coma for four days. Personnel in the ICU said to me, “Your sister-in-law sought out a fortuneteller, who said that because you practice Falun Gong, he’ll wake up, because he got the good fortune from you.”
My husband woke up the very next day, at which time my sister-in-law (who is not a practitioner) immediately told him to say, “Falun Dafa is good.” When his colleagues visited him, he would greet them with, “Falun Dafa is good.”
My husband was hospitalized for 40 days, and during the first two weeks I had only an hour or two of sleep each night. I had to stand or walk while studying the Fa, and I couldn’t sit down, as I would fall asleep the moment I did. I noticed that the busier I was, the faster the Falun in my body turned. So whenever I offered incense to Master, I would say, “Thank you, Master!” Whenever I felt the Falun spinning rapidly I would also say, “Thank you, Master!”
I distributed informational booklets and told stories about Dafa to the other patients in the ward. Two dangerously ill patients were saved as a result. One patient's relative was a tall, well-built man, who got down to kowtow to me in front of the entire ward of patients and their kin. I hurriedly stopped him and said, “No need to thank me; you must thank my Master and thank Falun Dafa. Get a copy of Zhuan Falun for your relative to study, and he will recover even faster.”
During that time when my neighbors saw how busy I was every day, they said, “Falun Gong is really good. That lady is so capable, even a young person can’t compare to her.”
At that time, my dreams were just like what Master described: I would be floating as I walked, and the floating would become flying. I once saw some celestial maidens. Thinking they were wall murals at first, I reached out to touch them. They suddenly smiled at me, which startled me.
In 2007 some fellow practitioners were arrested, and printing the Minghui Weekly was temporarily stopped. My fellow practitioners told me to lay low as well, and they told me to refrain from going to other practitioners’ homes.
That was an ideal time for me to quietly study the Fa. I memorized the Fa and copied the lectures. The quiet was so great that even the noise from the television and surrounding neighborhood disappeared. All that remained was the book in front of me, my notebook, my hand writing, and my consciousness that was memorizing Master’s Fa. Master said to “... read the book and read it more,...” (“Teaching the Fa at the Western U.S. Fa Conference”) Studying the Fa is a joy that cannot be described.
For a period of time, I was helping fellow practitioners change the characters in the Dafa books. At first, the pasted characters were dirty and couldn’t be seen clearly. So I had to find the same characters in copies of Minghui Weekly and cut them out and paste them over the dirty characters. And I had to make sure that the dirty characters were completely hidden. I had to do this for almost 300 characters. It took a very long time, and I worked until my back and trunk hurt.
To catch up with Fa study, I would study three chapters of Zhuan Falun every day. But my vision was blurry, so I would stare as hard as possible in determination to finish three chapters per day. A miracle then happened - the pages in my old edition of Zhuan Falun became white again, and the characters became large and clear - at times, they would even glint in bright colors.
Once, I spent an afternoon distributing the materials to homes in a village. That night, as usual, I was helping fellow practitioners correct characters in their copies of Zhuan Falun . Without missing a word, I studied, read out, and copied out the words under lamp light, which took a bit of effort.
Suddenly, I noticed that there was a bright light coming from underneath my hand that was holding the book open. I lifted my hand and looked at my palm, but there was nothing on it. When I put my hand down on the book again, I saw the bright light again. I was very excited and enlightened to the fact that, as long as I walk a righteous path based on the Fa, Master will guide me along to walk it well.
Our entire family will never forget Master’s mercy, particularly during a shocking incident I haven’t dared to speak about for many years. It happened in 2003, when China was struck with the SARS epidemic.
My second daughter had just gotten a job in Beijing, but 10 days later, due to the epidemic, the school she was working at announced a long break. All the students went home to avoid infection.
At the time, I hadn’t realized how bad the epidemic was, so I asked my daughter to see if she could find a temporary job in the meantime. She wasn’t successful and came home two days later. She had been feeling unwell in Beijing, but, because she didn’t have a fever, she made it past the temperature checkpoints when boarding and getting off the train.
When she got home, she laid down and didn’t want to move. I thought she was worn out from looking for work and from the journey home, but after a day, I discovered that she was unconscious and could not be roused. She was unable to drink and was foaming at the mouth, all of which were symptoms of SARS.
As I stood next to my daughter, I said silently to Master, “Master, let the germs be confined to my home, and let our family bear it. Please don’t let the disease be transmitted to anyone else. Our district hasn’t had any SARS cases yet. If she’s sent to the hospital, she’ll never make it back, and it’ll also cause more trouble for all those who must come into contact with her. Let our family bear the burden instead!”
I wiped the white foam from her mouth with a tissue, and threw the tissue into the furnace. Her father slept in another house to avoid being infected, and I stayed by her side. After three days and nights of fearful vigil, she finally opened her eyes and weakly spoke to me.
Soon after, she developed toothache but didn’t dare to go to the hospital. A few days later she developed an anal fistula that required surgery. Less than 24 hours after the surgery she was going to the toilet in the hospital when she suddenly shouted, “Mom, I can’t hold on anymore. Quick!” And then fainted. I caught her as she fell.
It was the middle of the night, and I couldn’t call out for the doctor for fear of waking the other patients. I had to send righteous thoughts silently: “Eliminate all the evil, rotten demons, and dark minions that are using my attachment to family to intimidate me!” I called my daughter’s name and said, “Come with Mother!”
With great effort, I half-dragged and half-carried her to her bed and then went to call the doctor. My daughter’s face was deathly pale. She finally woke up after a long time. Crying, she said, “Mom, I understand now. I was able to narrowly escape death two times because you practice Falun Dafa.”
Before returning to Beijing, my daughter helped me put up banners and distribute materials, even though she had not yet fully healed from her surgery. On May 13, 2009 (World Falun Dafa Day) she accompanied me to the Tiananmen gate tower to send righteous thoughts, helping me fulfill a long-held wish.
Even now, when people ask my daughter about her parents’ health, she tells them that her mother’s health is very good since she practices Falun Gong, that her father also benefited and had his life prolonged. As such, she can work far away from home without worry.
She also holds herself to the Fa-principles detailed in Zhuan Falun in her day-to-day life. Every year she comes home with fruit to pay respect to Master, and sometimes she’ll call me and say, “Last night I had a nightmare, but Master came to save me again.” She says, “Falun Dafa is good” wherever she goes. How can we not thank Master for his compassion and for saving us?