(Clearwisdom.net) My grandmother endured a sorrowful life. Her mother passed away in her youth, and her father remarried. Her step-mother was as heartless as Snow White's step-mother, only my grandmother never had the loving care of the seven dwarfs nor did she ever find her charming prince.
Grandma's marriage marked the beginning of a new chapter of misery in her life. My grandfather was a handsome and capable man in his day. He was a rather well-known businessman in his youth, and had a lot of money, charm, and quite a few love affairs. Grandma was lovely and delicate, but was never the “beautiful woman” in grandfather's eyes. My grandfather was in love with someone else – a married woman. After learning this, my great grandfather, in a fit of rage, chose grandma to be his wife by arranged marriage. While my great grandfather was alive, my grandfather wouldn't dare act out of line. However, when he passed away, my grandfather became ever more brazen, going as far as to bring his lovers home. At times it made grandma consider suicide. But that was not to be, and she continued to endure.
Grandma was a really good person. She was a handy woman to have around inside and out. She looked after my great grandfather in his remaining years as she would her own father when he lost his sight. She was very kindhearted and would often shed tears for others when she saw their misfortunes. The beggars within several miles of our neighborhood were aided by her and knew of her kindness.
Starting Falun Dafa Practice
Due to her personal misfortune, grandma took up smoking to ease the burdens of her suffering.
The winter that my grandfather passed away, grandma developed a cough. She was on IV therapy for two weeks without getting better. My aunt, who was a practitioner, took grandma into her home and taught her to recite “Falun Dafa is good. Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” Grandma listened to my aunt and recited this phrase over and over first thing every morning and last thing before bed. After a week, her cough was gone and she was back to good health. Henceforth she began walking the road of cultivation in Falun Dafa.
Grandma had been hard of hearing for many years. Even hearing aids didn't help. So she couldn't listen to the Fa. Grandma never had any schooling, so she couldn't read Dafa books either. However, with a predestined relationship, Teacher arranged a way. When grandma first started the exercises, Teacher opened her Celestial Eye. She liked the sitting meditation exercise the most, because as she was meditating she could always see spectacular scenery in other dimensions. She happily told us that she saw many beautiful flowers with vibrant colors unlike anything she had seen, and that the flowers were always rotating. She also told us, when she practiced alone there were fewer flowers, but when she practiced with my aunt, they were more numerous and more beautiful. After her meditation around noon one day, she said to my aunt, “Today I saw a chubby-faced young man smiling at me! (In grandma's eyes, a chubby face was a sign of good fortune.) And later he left.” My aunt quickly retrieved the precious book, and pointed to the photograph of Teacher and asked, "Is this the person you saw?" Grandma responded excitedly, “Yes, it is Him! It's really Him.” This was the first time grandma had seen Teacher's photo.
Cleansing the Body
Teacher talked about phenomena that would manifest in all Dafa practitioners in his book, and grandma had everyone of them happen to her.
One afternoon, I suddenly thought of grandma so I called my aunt and asked about her condition. My aunt replied that grandma was again on an IV. I quickly asked her how this happened. She told me that grandma had been running a high fever since the night before and was very distraught, claiming that my deceased grandfather had come to her to take her away. Accordingly, my aunt immediately called my uncle to find a doctor and put her on an IV. I asked my aunt, “Isn't this Teacher cleansing her body? Then why resort to medicine?” My aunt told me that she couldn't make such a decision on grandma's behalf. After all, it was grandma who wanted to use medicine. I asked whether she had explained such reasoning to grandma. She replied no. I urged her to explain to grandma this part of the Fa. I asked her what grandma was doing. My aunt responded that she was doing the sitting exercise.
The second day, my uncle brought the doctor back again. Grandma still had a fever, but had been getting better. She now understood and would no longer use medicine. With no other choice uncle said he would wait until that afternoon, but if her fever persisted, she should take medicine. Grandma replied that she knew her body better than other people. And so, an elderly woman in her eighties had recovered from high fever without taking any medicine. For my non-practitioner uncle this was beyond belief. From that moment onward, he supported her continued cultivation. He said that recovering from such a high fever without taking any medicine, even for someone in their twenties, would take at least several days. But grandma recovered in one day. Surely, it must be because she was a cultivator.
And so grandma passed her first trial without problems.
As grandma practiced and studied the Fa more and more deeply, the miracles around her also happened one after another.
Due to hard labor in her youth and arthritis in her later years, grandma's hands had become deformed. She could not stretch out her hands completely nor clinch her hands into fists. Suddenly one day grandma said her hands were normal again! Truly, her hands could stretch again, and no longer showed any deformities.
Grandma had been hard of hearing for many years, and some of it was inherited. Her siblings around her age were completely deaf. After she started cultivating, grandma's hearing was gradually restored. One day my uncle was home and his wife was talking about my grandma in her early years. My grandmother sitting at the opposite side of the room suddenly responded, “That's not how it happened.” It gave everyone in the room a shock. What? You can hear us? Grandma responded that she could. This event caused quite a stir within our entire family.
Cultivation is a way of returning to the origin, and this is an indisputable truth.
Cultivating Xinxing
Because grandma was hard of hearing and illiterate, she understood very little of the Fa. However, she knew cultivation was good, so she was always practicing vigorously. Every time she saw my aunt practice, she had to join in. And when my aunt wasn't there, grandma would do the sitting exercise. Before she began cultivation, grandma was someone who always enjoyed chatting. She had a good memory and she could recite events from beginning to end with accuracy. I tried testing her once, and she really did not leave out a single detail. This personality of hers sometimes gave others at home a bit of a headache. But ever since she took up cultivation and was able to see the scenes of other dimensions, she spoke very little. This perplexed my aunt, and so she asked her why she didn't like to talk as much as before. Grandma said that whenever she said something, especially when it was something she was excited to talk about, she saw less and less scenery from other dimensions. Grandma had enlightened to the concept of cultivating speech well.
One day I was reading a part of Teacher's Fa,
“Older people do cultivation in their own circumstances. She might not have any hardships now, but while she sits there she’ll be made to recall things that made her angry some eight or ten years ago. It’s certain she’ll be made to recall those things, which is intended to see whether her mind will remain unmoved or whether she’ll still get angry over them. Some people sit there and get mad as heck. That is, she won’t miss out on anything, I’ll somehow make it possible for her to cultivate. Some of our students, young or old, have had experiences like that, in which they’re made to recall irritating incidents, and it’s to see if they still get angry over them. They’ll be made to recall all of their bygones to see, in one way or another, how they handle them.” ("Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Singapore")
I mentioned this part of the Fa to my aunt one day, when I had called to check up on grandma. I asked if grandma ever encountered something like this. My aunt said, “Of course she has. Why just last night she was sitting there recalling all those times her step-mother mistreated her. The more she talked the more upset she got. She started to cry and began to curse.” My aunt tried to dissuade her by mentioning how practitioners should not fight back when being punched or insulted. But grandma refused to listen and continued venting. The following morning grandma said to her, “Gosh, last night I really shouldn't have said those things. When I practiced the exercises, I could no longer see flowers. I'll never speak ill of anyone from now on.”
One day in meditation, grandma saw a bowl made of jade. There were four distinct words on the bowl, but grandma was illiterate. Later grandma looked for father, and wanted to learn to read. When father taught her, it really took a lot of patience, because it was easy for her to learn one thing and forget another. Her learning to read was also a good opportunity for her mind-nature to improve.
Grandma clarified the truth to people using her personal experience. At the age of 88, she was becoming younger and younger. The wrinkles on her face were disappearing, and she was indeed experiencing a rejuvenation of her youth.
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