(Minghui.org) I began to practice Falun Dafa before the persecution started. Prior to that, I wasn't doing well physically. If I didn't get sick for two days, then on the third day I would definitely be feeling under the weather. I even had the nickname “Ms. Always Sick.” Moreover, I had a strong temperament and wasn't easygoing.
My sister introduced me to Falun Dafa because I was always ill, and said that it was amazingly effective in healing illness and keeping fit. She gave me a copy of Zhuan Falun and Master's portrait. I was so excited to bring Master's portrait home. I bought a picture frame and hung it on the wall.
From then on, I spent my spare time studying the Fa and doing the exercises at the practice site. I knew that Dafa taught people to be good, and when I had sickness karma, I knew that Master was cleaning up my body. My heart wasn't moved when I felt ill, since I knew it was a good thing for me. However, the place where I fell short was my shallow understanding of cultivation itself.
As I lacked a deep understanding of the Fa, my cultivation state went downhill when the persecution started. However, I knew that Dafa was good, and that I would never leave Dafa.
Seeing that other practitioners went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Dafa, I couldn't follow suit due to my fear and sentimentality toward my family. I felt that I let Master down. I was in great agony deep down inside and often cried about it at home.
Because I couldn't maintain my daily Fa study and exercises, I became like an ordinary person from then on.
Working with Other Practitioners
I resumed cultivation in 2005 and began working with other practitioners to make truth-clarification materials. I wanted to make up for lost time and to let more people know about Dafa.
Due to my lack of Fa study, I always ended up running into conflicts with other practitioners. I couldn't look inward, and later decided to work on my own. I bought a printer and computer, went online to download materials from the Minghui website, and started making informational materials at home. After that, I went out to distribute them.
I was cultivating alone as well. Through Fa study, I knew that wasn't correct. After I looked inward, I realized that I had the attachment of looking down on others, of being attached to my ego, and holding on to fear. I also thought that it was safe to be isolated from other practitioners.
It wasn't until I began to file a criminal complaint against former Chinese President Jiang Zemin for initiating the persecution of Falun Dafa, that I changed my cultivation state for the better. In addition, Master helped me to remove many of my attachments.
Since then, I have been supplying Dafa materials to a few other practitioners, and I set up a group Fa study at my home. Everyone in our group has been doing the three things that practitioners are supposed to do, at their own cultivation level.
Resentment Toward My Husband
I became healthy after I started practicing Falun Dafa. My husband was also very supportive, and said that Dafa was wonderful. When I made informational materials, he supported me financially by buying the ink cartridges as well as other supplies. He often recited, “Falun Dafa is good. Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good,” and he received good fortune.
My husband worked in construction and often had to work out of town. About 12 years ago, when I went to visit him one time, I saw him walking with a woman on his way home. They seemed to have a very close relationship.
As a practitioner, I wanted to trust him, but I found it very hard.
After that, when he came home for a vacation, I started to have a strange feeling toward him. I felt that I shouldn't say anything, so I quietly observed him. I noticed that he liked to buy his clothes on his own, and he didn't seem to care that much about me anymore. Our home was like a hotel for him. I parented our children on my own, and he didn't seem to care much about them any more – from the beginning of their schooling, up to their marriages.
By 2007, when my husband went to southern China for work, he and the woman stopped seeing each other. One day, she called my home to look for him. When I answered the phone and asked her who she was, she was stunned. From then on, I knew for sure that my husband had an affair with her. This hurt my feelings greatly, but I didn't want to bring it up with him, nor share it with my relatives. I ended up swallowing my pain.
One day, my husband called me from another city, which made me very sad. I didn't talk back to him, and cried out loud after the phone call. I thought: When he wasn't home, I had to take care of everything. I never challenged him on his pay. I just took whatever he gave me for his portion of covering the living expenses.
Throughout our marriage, he never bought me a decent gift. He never showed any appreciation for what I have done to raise our children, nor for what I did for his parents. On top of that, he even said bad things about me. From then on, I developed resentment toward him. If our children had been older, I would have divorced him. I felt a lot of emotional pain.
Master said in Zhuan Falun:
“But normally when a problem arises, if it does not irritate a person psychologically, it does not count or is useless and cannot make him or her improve.”
Master also said:
“One’s Buddha-nature is Shan, and it manifests itself as compassion, thinking of others before acting, and the ability to endure suffering.” (“Buddha-Nature and Demon-Nature” in Essentials For Further Advancement)
I began reciting these sentences every day, and it made me feel better.
My husband stopped traveling in 2017 and worked from home. At home, he would give me a straight face or act up from time to time. I felt that I almost couldn't endure it. I asked him once, “Do you have someone else? If you don't like me, or don't want to stay here, why don't you go?” He didn't say anything.
One day, I discovered from his cell phone that he had an affair with another woman. When I asked him about it, he was speechless. I didn't fight with him, for I had been enduring the same thing from him for over a decade. Yet my heart was still going up and down.
Master said in Zhuan Falun:
“Why do you encounter these problems? They are all caused by your own karma. We have already eliminated for you many, numerous pieces of it, leaving only that tiny bit which is divided into tribulations at different levels for upgrading your xinxing, tempering your mind, and removing your different attachments. These are all your own tribulations that we use to improve your xinxing, and you will be able to overcome them. As long as you upgrade your xinxing, you can overcome them. Unless you, yourself do not want to do so, you can make it, provided you want to overcome them.”
Master clearly stated that it all comes down to our own karma, and what was left was to be used to cultivate our xinxing. Sometimes when the resentment popped up, I tried to suppress it.
Gradually, I could let go of sentimentality toward my husband, which was replaced by compassion. I began to feel that my husband was so pitiful, for he was lost in delusion and couldn't tell right from wrong. We practitioners have Master and Dafa. We are truly the most fortunate.
Master said:
“But now you are a cultivator, and so for the sake of your improvement circumstances like that have to be created for you. It won’t do if you don’t have these troubles, and I will utilize these troubles to improve your xinxing. As your xinxing is improving your gong increases, and your xinxing will be improving. Whoever causes trouble for you will be giving you virtue at the same time. While you are in pain your own karma will also be transforming into virtue. You will gain four things in one stroke, so you should actually be grateful to the other person. If you still hate the other person or can’t stay patient with him, that’s not correct.” (“Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Houston”)
When I came across this passage of Fa, I smiled. I said to my husband, “Let me read a part of my Master's Fa to you.”
I did so, and then said, “I was wrong to hate you. It was all caused by my own karma. I won't do that anymore.”
He was moved and replied, “Don't say that.”
I could feel his regret.
“If it were not for Master and Dafa, I don't know what I'd be like. I must thank Master for his saving grace.”
Now, between my husband and me, it seems as if nothing happened.
During the limited time left for cultivation, I will do well what a practitioner should do in terms of the three things and use the Fa to rectify myself, be a true practitioner, and return home with Master.
Thank you Master!
Category: Improving Oneself
