(Minghui.org) Greetings, esteemed Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
I would like to share how, under Master’s compassionate care, I learned step by step through tribulations how to cultivate, improve, and save people.
In 2023, I experienced a serious state of sickness karma. To explain what happened, I have to start with my husband. My late husband and I were married for 15 years. We owned a house, the mortgage was paid off, we each held two jobs, and we put away several hundred thousand dollars. Just when we felt we’d earned about enough and would not have to work so hard anymore, we found out that he had cancer. We took him to the hospital, and within a month he was gone.
In the past, my husband had obstructed my son’s cultivation and mine in every way, and even mistreated us. But during that month I did my best to care for him. I wanted to live up to what a cultivator should be.
Just before he died, with tears in his eyes, he said, “You are a good person. You have been so good to me. Thank you.” I told him, “Don’t thank me. Thank Master. It is Master who taught me treat you this way.” He said, “Thank you, Master.”
This was a second marriage for both of us, and he handled all of our family finances. He had a son from his first marriage. Before he passed away, he told me the house would be split evenly between us, with his half going to his son, and that the cash was mine.
Only after he died did I discover that all of our money sat in his account. There was not a cent in mine, and everything in his account went to his son. On top of that, my stepson’s birth mother came forward to contest half of the house. And so, with the grief over my husband’s death and a fight over family property striking me at the same time, serious symptoms of sickness karma appeared.
I worked two jobs for years. I was always rushing around, and I rarely studied the Fa. At that point my understanding of the Fa was still that of someone who just started practicing. I did not know how to cultivate. Facing a tribulation like this, I knew in principle that I should look within, that as a cultivator I must not fight with ordinary people, and that I had to let go of my attachments. But inside, the pain cut me to the bone, and I was full of grievance and resentment.
Master gave me a hint. One night I dreamed that all my abdomen held was a few empty lunch boxes. And during group Fa study, when we were all sending righteous thoughts together, my son, who was sitting across from me, saw many heavenly soldiers and generals come out of our bodies, form ranks, and eliminate the evil.
But a few months later, the symptoms got worse. At first I thought, I will just risk everything—if I die, I die. But fellow practitioners urged me to go to the hospital first and preserve my human body, because only then would I have the chance to save people.
Master said,
“So in these circumstances I think that when newer practitioners, or those who haven’t managed to improve in their cultivation for a long time, are dealing with a sickness-karma test, sometimes it’s fine for them to see a doctor. It’s fine for them to go to the hospital. It will just be regarded as an episode along the way in their journey of cultivation.” (“Teaching the Fa in Washington, D.C. in 2018,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. XV)
I honestly evaluated myself. For years I was busy earning money and I truly had no time to study the Fa. I probably read less Fa than a new student who studies a lot. I also felt at the time that I had already done my best.
I decided to go to the hospital. If I could keep this human body, then when I came home I would focus on studying the Fa and I would cultivate properly. As long as I could save people, I was willing to let go of anything.
Looking back now, my cultivation foundation was really weak. I had so many attachments. On the surface, I was letting them go, but deep down I hadn’t let go at all. There were also many attachments I was not even aware of. Even if I had wanted to let those go, I could not have. My xinxing was not there yet. To grit my teeth and refuse to go to the hospital would only have been forcing things.
So, with no other choice, I went. And I settled one thought firmly in my mind: “I place everything in Master’s hands and leave it to Master to arrange. If I can only walk out of here alive, I will advance with courage and diligence, assist Master in Fa-rectification, and help him save sentient beings!”
From that point on, whoever I met in the hospital — doctors, nurses, anyone at all — if they were from China, I told them about quitting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations. My son and I did our best to tell every doctor and nurse we interacted with about Shen Yun.
I remember the moment just before they took me into the operating room. There was a tube in my neck and I was lying on the surgical table. One of the young male assistants on my surgical team looked East Asian to me, so I asked whether he was from China, and racing against the clock, I helped him withdraw from the Communist Youth League and the Young Pioneers. At that moment I did not know whether I would come out of that room alive. I had no mind for anything else. All I wanted was to do as Master says and save people. Every single life is important.
After the surgery, the mass had been removed, but my abdomen was still badly swollen. At first I was a little worried. “Did they fail to take all of it out?” Then I caught myself. I am a cultivator! I should measure myself with the Fa and correct these incorrect states.”
After my husband died, and especially once the sickness became serious, I’d stopped working and studied the Fa a great deal. Little by little I came to understand the Fa more deeply, and my righteous thoughts grew much stronger. This time I reminded myself that I must look within.
One day a practitioner came to the hospital to see me. She could see the resentment in me, and she pointed it out. She shared with me, and together we went over “A Sacred Song” from Hong Yin IV:
Life proves confusing at timesYet whenever I lose my wayA song in my heart softly sounds:Don’t complainStay good and kindMost people came from HeavenWe’ve become human to await the CreatorIn this lies the hope of each and every lifeThis song awakens meThis song gives me strengthThe sacred melody brightens the sky
(“A Sacred Song,” Hong Yin IV)
Master’s words touched me deeply. The practitioner also taught me to sing the song. From then on, whether I was on my way to Fa study or on my way to an activity, I sang this song, and constantly reminded myself not to complain. And just as the song says, it gave me enormous strength. When I faced death, it kept me from being crushed.
What stirred up the most resentment in me back then was my stepson fighting me over the property.
Master said,
“If something is yours, you will not lose it. If something is not yours, you will not have it even if you fight for it.” (Lecture Seven, Zhuan Falun)
So I kept reminding myself: when my husband was dying, he said this was mine and that was mine. But none of it was truly mine. It may well have been something I owed others from a past life. So whenever I noticed a complaining thought, I immediately eliminated it. When those thoughts bubbled up I cleared them out.
Removing resentment was not just about that one thing. It showed up in many things. For example, at that time I could only take liquid food. When my son made me porridge, I told him I did not eat glutinous rice. But the second time he made it, he added glutinous rice anyway, and I said angrily, “I don’t want a single bite of this porridge.” The moment the words left my mouth, I realized my complaining mind had come out. So I caught it right there and eliminated it.
From the time I became aware of this resentment, whenever I found it I rejected it immediately and got rid of it. Gradually, I found I had less and less resentment, and I could turn around and think of the other person instead.
In the end I was able to hold no attachment at all about how the property was divided. Whatever my stepson gave me was simply what it was. I ended up with only a quarter of what my husband and I had owned together. When I moved out, I let go of the furniture and everything of value. I took my pots and pans and dishes and my quilts, and left the rest behind.
So I did not find this resentment all at once. It was in circumstances like those that I removed it, bit by bit. At the beginning, letting go cut me to the bone. But as I kept removing the resentment and improved in the Fa, I could truly let go with a calm heart. Now, I do not hold the slightest resentment toward my stepson. Sometimes I even put myself in his position and worry for him: if he cannot rent out a house that size, the financial pressure will be too much. My heart aches for that child. I worry that he will scrimp and go without and shortchange himself.
As I kept correcting myself, the swelling in my abdomen gradually went down.
According to the hospital’s treatment plan, the next step after surgery was chemotherapy. One day I read a sharing article on Minghui in which a practitioner wrote that he dreamed chemotherapy was a poisonous snake, doing more harm to the body than the cancer itself. I realized Master was using that practitioner’s article to give me a hint: I should not undergo the chemotherapy.
So I told the doctor that I watched my husband’s condition worsen after chemotherapy until he died, and that I did not want it. But no matter how I refused, the doctor insisted—very forcefully, very sternly. Because I objected so strongly, he said that before making the final decision, they would run one more test and decide based on the results.
On the way to that test, my son and I sent righteous thoughts the whole way, denying any arrangements that were not Master’s. As we did, we both sensed a great deal of bad substance, and disintegrating it was extremely hard. My son saw something enormous and very stubborn, so he sent righteous thoughts and burned it with a great fire. He burned it for a long time but it would not burn away. Only after he asked Master to strengthen him did he see it finally destroyed.
And here is the remarkable part. The doctor arrived half an hour later than scheduled, which gave us that much more time to send righteous thoughts. After the test, he told me I did not need chemotherapy after all. He was smiling, warm and kind—a completely different person from before.
While I was in the hospital, promotion for the 2024 Shen Yun season had already begun, and I could not even walk. It grieved me. I kept thinking: how wonderful it would be to go out with fellow practitioners and do things that validate the Fa. If I could just get out of the hospital, I would let go of anything.
After I was discharged, I still felt a heavy, life-taking pressure closing in around me. So I stepped up my Fa study, sending righteous thoughts, and doing the exercises, and the rest of the time I listened to Minghui Radio. I wanted my mind filled with Dafa and with righteous factors, so that no bad thoughts and no bad factors could slip into my field.
When I did the exercises in those days, I could feel powerful energy rushing through my body with a whooshing sound, and my body swelling in waves. Even now, that powerful energy still comes when I do the exercises.
After about two months, I felt I should go out and distribute Shen Yun door hangers. My body was still very weak, and there was still a dull, numb ache along the incision, so I took a map for an area very close to home, on fairly flat ground, and started out. At first I could only cover twenty or thirty houses in one outing. Little by little I covered more each time, until eventually I could do more than a hundred in a single go.
There were tests of my xinxing and my understanding along the way. Once, I came to three houses in a row with very high staircases, and my first thought was, “Can I really manage this?” But I knew right away that the thought was not righteous, and that the difficulty in front of me was only a test. Then I thought: if I have run into this, it is because Master sees that I can do it. Holding that one thought, I completed every outing. My body grew stronger and stronger, and I felt lighter and lighter. During last year’s Shen Yun season, we went over to the island to hang door hangers. Our city was very short of hands, so I made the trip more than four times.
When I went to Port Moody to collect signatures on a petition against the persecution, at first hardly anyone signed. I felt a little dejected, and was unsure whether to keep going. Just then I heard a voice. It was very pure, and it drew me in. I remember thinking: this is simply not a sound that should exist in the human world. I followed it and found a street performer singing.
I did not disturb him. But just as I was about to leave, he called out and asked what I was doing. I handed him the clipboard. He asked my name, and then, casually and laughing, he started reading out my name and the words on the petition. I could not understand the rest of what he said, but I could see his manner was not very respectful. So I settled one thought in my mind: no matter what he thinks, I am here to save people.
At that, the whole scene changed. Two people walked over, and the performer handed them my clipboard and told them to sign—and they actually did. After that, I found several more people nearby who signed. In a short while, counting the performer himself, eight people had signed. I am deeply grateful for Master's guidance, which kept me from missing these people with a predestined connection.
One day I went to a park in Coquitlam to collect signatures. A light rain had just passed, and there were very few people about, but one table where people were eating caught my eye. Still, I wanted to go somewhere with more people, so I did not park and went elsewhere first.
On the way back I was still thinking about that table, hoping those people would not be left behind. When I reached the park, they were still there — as though they had been waiting for me.
I asked them to sign, and gave them a flyer about Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance—so they could learn about it. After they signed, a pleading look came over them. I could not understand what they were saying, but I could make out the word “Palestine.” They seemed to be telling me their country was at war, that shells were falling, and they were asking me what their country should do.
I wanted to tell them that Master and Dafa could protect them. But I don’t speak English. What could I do? I was anxious. On the spur of the moment, I made a gesture. I stretched out my hand and looked up at the sky, then said the name of their country, and put my palms together before them in heshi.
What they did next stunned me. Every one of them put their palms together and bowed to me.
I’d cultivated for more than ten years, but because of the pressure at home, I seldom studied the Fa. Only when that sickness-karma tribulation bore down on me did I discover how little I understood of the Fa’s principles—and the old forces could not wait to strike at me hard.
But Master is compassionate. Seeing that I had a heart that wanted to cultivate well and wanted to save people, he watched over me and enlightened me the whole way. He not only restored my health. More importantly, Master taught me, little by little, how to cultivate properly, and to look within when I run into problems so that I can rise above them. All of this, so that I can assist Master in Fa-rectification and save sentient beings.
These days, apart from working two days a week, I go out to collect signatures, join the group exercises, and introduce Dafa. I treasure this reborn self that Master’s compassionate care gave me, and I try my best to come closer to the standard Master asks of practitioners. But I still often find that I am far from what the Fa requires of me. Fortunately, I am still alive, I still have this human body, and I still have the chance to be more diligent.
I’m grateful to our compassionate, great Master. Thank you, fellow practitioners for your help.
(Presented at the 2026 Vancouver Fa Conference)