(Minghui.org) My 80-year-old mother, a fellow practitioner, moved all of her belongings into my brother’s house by herself. My older sister said, “Oh, mama! Are you kidding me? We worry about your safety very much! You have a big family of more than twenty members. To allow our elderly mother to finish moving alone is unthinkable! You had better wait for us to help you this weekend.” My mother answered, “I have become energetic and free of illnesses since practicing Falun Dafa, and I feel like a young lady in my twenties. So, I do not need to waste your time, since I can handle everything by myself.”
My mother started practicing Falun Dafa in 1995. Since then, she has voluntarily assumed responsibility for keeping a public restroom clean for about 100 families. Maintaining the restroom has been hard work, especially during winter. In addition to this work, she takes a long trip three times a month to send forth righteous thoughts at a prison. My mother must travel about 40 minutes just to reach the bus stop, and then she walks nearly fifteen kilometers to reach the prison. She always said, “How lucky I am to have learned Falun Dafa! The imprisoned practitioners' things are also my things. How could I stay home when I know that fellow practitioners are in prison due to validating the Fa and saving sentient beings? As an element of the Fa, I know what I should do after looking inside. ”
I hope that other practitioners of a similar age will not treat themselves as “old ones.” Young practitioners should not entertain human notions about the capabilities of elderly practitioners either. We should remove all attachments and do the three things diligently in order to return to our original home with Master one day. Let us recall Master’s teaching together. Master said,
“As you may know, Zhang Sanfeng attained the Dao in his seventies, and he lived for one hundred and thirty-some years. He formally started cultivation when he was over seventy. That is to say, cultivation has nothing to do with age. It depends on whether you manage to be diligent. If you can really let go of life and death, and think, “Age? So what. Why should I think about things like that? I have obtained the Fa, so I will just keep cultivating,” (applause) when you truly regard yourself as a cultivator, rather than an everyday person, your life will be cultivated continuously and will be prolonged continuously. Your life will increase continuously, allowing you enough time to cultivate.” (Teaching the Fa at the Conference in the Midwest-U.S., 1999)
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