(Minghui.org) Greetings, Revered Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
Thank you, Master, for granting us practitioners in China an online platform for experience sharing! During the past ten years of my cultivation practice, countless Falun Dafa practitioners have lost their families due to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) policy of persecution. Practitioners must harmonize their families, save those sentient beings with predestined relationships, and reject the arrangements of the old forces that are preventing more people from being saved. I would like to share my experience concerning my husband's salvation and his acknowledgment of Dafa. Please compassionately point out anything that is not in keeping with Fa principles.
1. Harmonizing My Family after Taking Up Cultivation
Before I learned Falun Dafa, I was in constant pain due to my illnesses. I was frequently faced with unpleasant things and constantly fought with my husband. My husband would often go on excursions, which upset me even more. One time he came home in the middle of the night, which angered me so much that I started an uproar with my in-laws the next morning.
I had no patience educating my child. I often yelled and screamed when I was upset. I could control my temper a little better at work, but I would often fret without really understanding why. My colleagues sometimes asked me what was wrong. At that time I was in such poor health that I had trouble climbing the stairs to reach the second floor. After work, I didn't feel like doing anything but lie down. My husband didn't do much around the house and didn't take care of anything. It was really difficult to live day to day like this.
After learning Falun Dafa, Master purified my body, and Dafa taught me how to be a better person. I underwent such drastic changes in both mind and body that I appeared to be a new person. When I ran into problems, I searched inward to see if there was anything I had not done well, and I did all the housework at home. I no longer yelled at my child or competed for position at work. Even my colleagues said that I had changed. I was the only one among my mother-in-law's children who would frequently look after and provide for her. From then on I never argued with my husband again. Each day after work I joined our Fa study group, and I was cheerful all the time. I experienced the wonders of Dafa firsthand. My husband told everyone he met, "Falun Dafa is good."
2. My Husband Became Lost Through Fear After the Persecution Began
The persecution began in July 1999. I took a train headed to Beijing on July 21,1999, to validate the Fa. I only found out the next day, on the 22nd, about the waves of lies about Dafa that were being propagated everywhere. My husband was terribly frightened. He tore up all the Dafa books that he could find around the house and sent them to my work unit. As I returned home carrying a bag of torn Dafa books, my heart was grieving and I wept. At the same time I felt very sad for my husband, who remained fearful and was unwilling to stand up.
The day after I returned from Beijing I was seized and taken to a mental hospital. They told my husband to keep me under observation all day and not let me leave the hospital. My husband complied.
When I again attempted to go to Beijing in February 2000 to validate the Fa, the police coerced my employer and my family into sending me to a mental hospital again. When my husband saw the physical and psychological pain that I suffered as a result of forced administration of psychiatric drugs, he occasionally helped me by hiding some of the medication. However, he still refused to let me practice the exercises or study the Fa.
In June 2000, after my refusal to sign a guarantee statement promising to give up the practice, my manager at work suspended me from my job and ordered my husband to keep me under surveillance, and prevent me from leaving home. My employer demanded that I promise not to go to Beijing again, which I flatly refused to do, so they again withheld my salary. In March 2001, my employer and the public security bureau joined efforts to arrest me. I was then forced to leave home. For a long period of time, other practitioners came to visit me, and my husband turned them away and cursed at them, and would not permit me to have any contact with them.
When I was placed in detention centers and forced labor camps by the evil party, my husband couldn't endure the pressure from his peers and the psychological burdens, and he was compelled to give up his job. At the time we had a mother to support and a daughter who was in need of money for college. My husband couldn't find a new job, so he had to sell the house to fund our daughter's education. Looking back, the happier days turned into such trying times. My husband blamed everything on my cultivation, and from then on cursed Master and Dafa.
My husband began to treat me as an enemy. One time when some of our relatives came for a reunion, my husband avoided me. During the New Year holiday when everyone was sitting at the dinner table, he acted as if I were a complete stranger. When I was persecuted and sent to a hospital, he came to see me only once and that was it. When I lived alone outside of home to heal my wounds, he showed little consideration for me, as if I didn't exist. The even sadder thing was that he proposed a divorce.
3. Looking Inward, Placing Emphasis on Saving People, My Husband Truly Changed
a. My Husband Needed Salvation as Well
Since the beginning of Fa rectification cultivation, I knew that saving sentient beings was the utmost priority, and I've never slacked off in doing the three things. At the time, few practitioners stepped forward. I always felt that saving sentient beings was the most important thing. I've always done what was required. I thought I could afford to lose everything except Dafa. At that stage my understanding was that as long as I was saving people, the evil would interfere, but I couldn't stop saving people just because of interference. I didn't understand that this persecution was not acknowledged by Master, and I didn't know to reject the persecution.
I remember that during one New Year holiday, I was away and couldn't be at home. My younger brother asked my husband to let me have one thousand yuan. When he gave me the money he said, “Just leave me 200 yuan for the holiday.” As I gazed upon my husband as he was leaving, I recalled the peaceful, happy times in our family. Comparing then and now, how could my husband not understand? What was more, as the evil pursued me everywhere, the feeling of fear was taking hold of me. I knew at the time that the authorities were looking for my husband to take him to my relatives' home to find me. My husband cooperated. When they asked for a photograph, he gave it to them. Was his fear and cooperation with the evil caused by factors having to do with my poor cultivation state? I realized that I must have been deviating from the Fa.
b. Searching Inward, Correcting Inadequacies I Found in Myself
Looking back on the past few years of my cultivation experience, I used to think that other practitioners were not as capable as me, and that I could build mighty virtue myself. I placed myself ahead of sentient beings, and I wanted to show off. I thought that I had more courage to do things compared with the other practitioners around me. I wasn't validating the Fa--I was validating myself. When the persecution came, I didn't understand things from the Fa's principles, but rather I was acknowledging the interference as part of my personal cultivation, and I even thought I had cultivated well. After continued Fa study, I realized that when it comes to cultivation in saving sentient beings, Master didn't arrange these huge tribulations, and so I mustn't acknowledge any of this persecution that I encountered! At the same time I should be correcting myself according to the Fa.
c. Rejecting the Financial Aspect of the Persecution
Many fellow practitioners managed to set up small materials distribution centers in the latter half of 2006, so I had more free time. I talked to another practitioner about setting up a small shop. My husband was happy to hear about it, and naturally this presented opportunities for me to be in contact with him again, and for the other practitioner to be able to clarify the truth to him. However, the other practitioner and I put profit ahead of everything else and overlooked saving sentient beings. As a result, our business venture came to a quick end, and we ended up paying for the losses ourselves. I realized afterwards that we had the wrong starting point.
Soon after that, another practitioner managed to find me a job elsewhere. The local practitioners and I saved people and treated our work unit as a place for saving people. I regularly studied the Fa, practiced the exercises, and sent forth righteous thoughts with other practitioners. My level rose quickly and my righteous thoughts were becoming stronger. On one occasion, the police from the local security bureau came to find me, and I told them to their faces in a dignified manner, “You do not control me!” The interference was quickly dissolved.
The local security bureau and the Political and Legal Affairs Committee later learned that I was clarifying the truth. The head manager and president of my company both told them that I didn't have any "problems." The manager never stopped me from clarifying the truth, and he placed a lot of trust in me. My salary increased steadily, until it was higher than that of our vice-president's. My understanding of the Fa rectification principles became ever more clear.
My husband managed to open a shop also, and he was able to make a living. Every time I went back, I always tried to help our family. I always seized the opportunity to clarify the truth to them, and finally succeeded in getting them to withdraw from the evil party. Soon afterwards, a relative managed to find a job for my husband elsewhere, and he was happy to take it. One time I went to visit another practitioner who lived near where my husband was, and I stopped by to see him. He introduced me to his colleagues. That was the first time he had gone out with me since the start of the persecution. He bought clothes for me and told me he was earning a lot more than before. I told him this was a result of his withdrawing from the CCP.
d. Completely Rejecting the Persecution
The persecution aims at destroying reputations, finances, and health. We must completely reject it. Because I had lost my job due to the persecution, my husband felt that he was left with nothing, and could no longer show his face in public. After I was able to correctly establish relationships despite the persecution, I understood that the persecution was something Teacher did not acknowledge. As long as we face these things with righteous thoughts, they are all just illusions. I was upright in doing truth-clarification at work and managed our family business properly and generously. My husband had also changed. He was now able to be around his co-workers, paving the way for me to clarify the truth to more people.
Rejecting the financial aspect of persecution is also part of saving people. Once I was clear about the Fa principles, Master helped me reach a higher level of wisdom and enlightenment. I was able to do business management based on Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. In the past eight months, our profit grew by 460,000 yuan. My monthly salary is now over 7,000 yuan. Our income from our shop has also grown to 20,000 yuan per month. In February 2012, my husband purchased a 200,000-yuan car. I told him that our improved financial situation over the past few short years were all given by Master to his disciples, and that he needed to continue to support everything that I was doing.
Studying the Fa has taught me much. I now realize that as long as Dafa practitioners walk the right path and stay aligned with the Fa rectification, the old forces will dare not persecute you. In the past I studied the Fa without attaining the Fa, and I was persecuted time and time again. My husband was constantly in fear due to this. I now continually eliminate the interference and reject all forms of persecution as I walk the path of saving sentient beings. For these past eight years, I have been walking firmly and steadily on the path of my return. Having seen me transform from the former days of persecution, as I lay paralyzed in the hospital, my husband admiringly spoke the words to a progressively younger person, "Falun Dafa is good!"
4. Conclusion
In the past decade of Fa rectification cultivation, I have enlightened to the understanding that only by studying the Fa abundantly, and understanding the Fa clearly can we have ample righteous thoughts. Only by taking up the responsibility of saving sentient beings can we reject the old forces' arrangements and interference. If we stay stagnant in personal cultivation and think only of ourselves, interference will come relentlessly, because that is the reasoning of the Old Universe.
Master stated,
"When disciples have ample righteous thoughts Master has the power to turn back the tide" (“The Master-Disciple Bond” from Hong Yin Vol. II)
Good and evil stems from a single thought. We are taken care of by Master. We are here to save sentient beings, not to be persecuted. The relationship between Dafa practitioners and the world's people is one of saviors and the saved. As long as we walk our path correctly, no matter how difficult the journey, we will make it through, because we have Master!
Thank you, Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners!
