(Clearwisdom.net) I was an avid reader of books since my childhood. One evening in August 1996, my husband said just before dinner, "I have a book. Do you want to read it?" I picked up the book and immediately the three Chinese characters for "Zhuan Falun" caught my eyes. I began reading and the more I read, the better I understood the Fa principles. By midnight I had finished half of the book, and I read the other half the next day. I was a little excited and shocked at the same time. I had learned it was the Buddha Fa that taught people to do good deeds. The book answered many questions I had throughout my life, but had not found answers for anywhere.
I read the book whenever I had free time and I was fascinated by what it told me. I read the entire book every three days. By mid-September, just one month since I began reading this book, I knew that nothing could stop me from becoming a genuine Falun Dafa practitioner.
The next day, at a dinner party at my work unit, I let everyone know what I had decided. Everyone showed disbelief, as they knew that I was an agnostic. Therefore, I took the opportunity to talk about my reasons for wanting to practice Falun Gong. I told everyone that practitioners set a higher standard for themselves in accordance with the Fa principles "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance." I told my supervisor, "I will no longer be entertained by clients who don't have a business relationship with me. I no longer want to be a freeloader." It was my first time introducing the Fa in a public setting.
Before winter set in, we sealed the windows to keep the heat from escaping. That year, when I was about to finish I found that I had used all the paste. I was responsible for ensuring that enough material was always available, and it was easy for me to take home what I needed. That day I hesitated. I thought that this did not meet the standards I should set for myself. It was not an issue of value, but of maintaining my ethical standard as a cultivator and being strict with myself. Therefore, I went to the supermarket and bought a bottle of paste.
Before I became a practitioner I was rather popular. Therefore, my colleagues would stay aloof out of deference. One day, an employee from another unit came into my office, sat on the sofa and said, "It's really very good for you to learn Falun Gong. Otherwise, I would not dare to sit here and talk with you. I would not even dare to come into this office. We all talked about you and agreed that 'You seem to have changed into another person. We all know it's Falun Gong that has changed you'!"
At the end of the year, we made sure that all had paid up what they owed. Sine we owed more than what we were able to pay we bribed those who were responsible for the collections. This has become the norm in a corrupt country. For example, a restaurant owner came to pay what was owed to our company. She put an envelope in my desk drawer. At the time I was very busy and she left after paying what she owed. In the afternoon, I looked into the envelope and found four hundred yuan. I told the cashier that I must return the money to her. After arriving at the restaurant I told the owner that I was returning the money to her. She was a bit embarrassed, "I know I should have given you more. But, my two sons are at the university and lot of people who came here to eat have not yet paid what they owe." I explained that she misunderstood, and told her, "I learned Falun Gong and our Teacher asks us to become better people. Therefore, I can not accept what I did not earn." After about an hour she finally seemed to understand. But she had a hard time believing me. I assured her that even without that money I would do whatever I could to help her.
From that time onward, all those who came to do business with me listened to this story first. This activity accomplished two things, one was to avoid unnecessary trouble, and the other was that it helped spread and validate the Fa to these people.
In the past the cashier respected me, or I should say that she was a little afraid of me. Since she derived a lot of benefit through me, she always listened and followed my advice. Alas, our relationship worsened after I became a practitioner. She began complaining, broke things and swore at me. One day, before going home, I was reading the Fa. She came into my office, began breaking things, and said a many very ugly words. When she realized that I ignored her she came close and pointed her finger at me, "What's wrong with you! You only care about your cultivation, but nothing else. I am behaving atrociously, but you still ignore me. In the past, people had to do what we said! However now we are bullied by other people!" Then she started to cry. I learned that my boss asked her to purchase some office supplies and she did not receive any benefit from the purchase. I was very much disgusted about her attitude, so I said to her in a lukewarm tone, "Cultivation is my own business. I don't want to get petty advantages, but I did not stop you from benefiting. Why are you yelling at me like this?" She responded, "If I had had your abilities, I would not come here to seek your help." I said it had nothing to do with me and asked her to go back home.
After returning home that day, the issue was bothering me the entire evening. Teacher said,
"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." (Zhuan Falun)
Since there was no one I could talk with and share my problems at home, I got into the habit to reading the Fa more when faced with problems. Therefore, when my children went to sleep I sat down to read the Fa.
When I did the exercises early the next morning Teacher's Fa pointed to the answer,
"Attaining the righteous Enlightenment of selflessness and altruism" ("Non-Omission in Buddha-Nature" from Essentials for Further Advancement)
I knew that Teacher gave me a hint and that this was a situation where I had to do well. I enlightened, "What I have been cultivating for is the righteous Enlightenment of selflessness and the prerequisite of it is to consider others first. If I cannot meet this requirement then how can I continue to cultivate?"
At work, I told the the cashier, "I should not have talked to you the way I did. I am a practitioner and it was me who failed to cultivate well. I can see now that I mistreated you in the past and today I wish to sincerely apologize to you. I hope you will forgive me." Her attitude changed after I rectified my field. In the future, I thought about the other person's reaction first whenever a conflict occurred. This shows the forbearance of practitioners.
My two children and I could sit in the double lotus since birth and we sat for 40 minutes when we did the sitting meditation for the very first time. At the time, my daughter, a high school student, suffered inflammation of the muscles and rheumatoid arthritis. In spring and autumn her legs and hands swelled and became very stiff. I needed to take her and pick her up from school on my bike. She was dependent on daily medication, which did not help. Her illnesses disappeared after we began practicing Falun Gong. When people with the same illnesses as my daughter asked me what happened I told them that practicing Falun Gong cured her illnesses.
My son was a first grader in primary school at the time, and when coming home from school he listened to Teacher's lectures on the cassette recorder. He also listened while playing around or doing his homework. When fellow practitioners came to share he would said, "Mother, what he said was not right. It's different from what Teacher said." One day after coming home from school he told me how he found one yuan during a physical education class but did not pick it up. However one of his classmates picked it up and felt very happy. I told him he was a practitioner but his classmate was not, so he did not know the principle of "no loss, no gain."
One afternoon his teacher phoned and asked me come to the school. On my arrival his teacher said, "Let's go to the hospital." Then she explained, "During recess your son had to go to the second floor. He was carried up and thrown down by two boys. We tried to take him to the hospital, but he refused to go. So, we had to call you to take him to the hospital." My son told me that there was nothing wrong because Teacher protected him.
On the morning of July 20, 1999, when my son and I arrived at the practice site there were only a few practitioners. I learned that practitioners around the country had been arrested. Therefore, some practitioners had gone to the provincial government to appeal for Falun Gong. I immediately got on the bus with my son and two other practitioners, to go to the provincial capital. We arrived at about 9:00 a.m. and saw it surrounded by armed police. We were told that the government would not talk to anyone and that the practitioners who came to appeal all went to a stadium. When we arrived there, the gates were guarded by a large contingent of armed police who didn't let us in. Not long after, the practitioners who were inside the stadium were all taken away in police cars. After the practitioners inside the stadium were taken away, practitioners outside the stadium were arrested. At around 1:00 p.m. we were put onto a bus and taken to a school some one hour's drive away. Many practitioners were already in the yard. Several loudspeakers were broadcasting materials that slandered Falun Gong. The practitioners were reading Teacher's articles in unison. That was a soul-stirring battle between the righteous and the evil!
On December 5, 2000, three practitioners and I went to Beijing. Upon our arrival we went straight to Tiananmen Square. We followed the music and found a group of people there. We squeezed in and took the banners out of our pockets. When the crowds scattered I raised my arms and unfolded a banner. I shouted, "Falun Dafa is good!" "Falun Dafa is a righteous Fa!" "Restore justice for our Teacher!" and "Restore justice for Falun Dafa!" It seemed that everything became quiet. People around me were shocked. At the same time I really experienced the dignity of a great god. I ignored the existence of the plainclothes officers who ran toward me, and the police cars, and used the limited time to shout the words. Other practitioners in all corners of the square echoed. One police officer grabbed my arm and two other officers snatched away my banner. Then they ran after other practitioners. My tears burst out upon seeing the steadfastness of the arrested practitioners.
We lost our group cultivation environment and practitioners all felt tremendous pressure. I called a few of the diligent practitioners to my home and said to them, "This massive tribulation has arrived, so we need to form one body more than anything else. Since all the members of my family are practitioners, you can come here if we need to discuss matters of importance." Everyone was very glad.
Quite a few practitioners came to my home, and we watched and listened to Teacher's lectures. I still remember I had a dream one day in which I saw a very big bus parked by the roadside. I sat in the driver's seat. I thought that I couldn't drive a bus because I didn't know which pedal was the accelerator. But I gently put my foot on one pedal. It was the accelerator. The bus began to move, but it became more and more difficult. The road was wide but the surface was very rough. I was not nervous at all and steered the bus steadily. I drove the bus to my home. Suddenly I woke up. I knew it was Teacher encouraging me.
I often went to a printing shop to print materials. Since I clarified the facts to the owner he supported me. I often asked him to print the materials I downloaded from the Minghui/Clearwisdom websites. At the beginning practitioners did not fully realize the importance of "clarifying the facts" about Falun Gong. When the first batch of truth-clarification materials was printed no one came to pick them up, so my husband and I distributed them. Gradually, more and more practitioners stepped forward, so we needed more and more truth-clarification materials. I didn't want to bring any trouble to the owner of the print shop, so I decided to buy a printer. Then, every practitioner took some and distributed them in different areas at the same time.
We also did some research and found the phone numbers of the police departments and stations, detention centers, forced labor camps, prisons, government institutions, shops and factories in our province. We sent them a letter offering a word of kind advice regarding treatment of practitioners.
On May 15, 2005, we successfully held an experience sharing conference in our city. The practitioners, as a whole, could all "take the Fa as Master" and "let each and every thing be measured against the Fa." Every practitioner knew what to do and we firmly and rationally did what we should do in validating the Fa. Some practitioners who had a fear mentality gradually stepped forward to join the truth-clarification efforts when seeing fellow practitioners return safely from their truth clarification activities.