(Minghui.org) I was released from prison on May 20, 2006. I thought, “When I return home, I want to read all of Master’s Fa Lectures given overseas. I couldn't read the lectures in prison.” Because I had that wish, it was arranged to be with other practitioners. I read the Fa eagerly, sent righteous thoughts and read practitioners' sharing articles on the Minghui website. My cultivation improved a lot. I found many of my attachments and cultivation gaps, and I once again felt like I did when I just started cultivating.
Validating Dafa at Work
Soon after I came home, in order to make a living I leased a small business, a store outside the prison where I was persecuted. The store had things for people to buy and provided meals and boarding to the people passing by. I understood that I was arranged to be there because I had a wish while I was persecuted in the prison.
While I was imprisoned, besides the practitioners imprisoned there, I often had contact with the inmates who were assigned to monitor me. I told them how amazing Falun Dafa is, and they shared what I said with their family members. Some of them let me read the letters from their families and also asked me to help them write letters to their families. When I helped them I said, “After I am released, I may even have a chance to meet your family.”
In my little store, the people I served were mostly the family members of those fellow practitioners and the inmates I had close contact with in prison. If it weren’t for Master’s arrangement, I may never have met them. Some of them bought things in my store for their imprisoned relatives and some who traveled a long distance stayed in my store overnight.
I treated them as though they were members of my family. While chatting with them I told them that I had also been imprisoned there and thus we felt a lot closer. Some of the practitioners’ relatives couldn't understand why practitioners were being imprisoned. I explained that it's because the Party is persecuting innocent people.
In the beginning I was afraid and did not openly talk to people about Falun Dafa. I had ordinary people’s thoughts of trying to protect myself from being persecuted again. Through studying the Fa I gradually corrected myself. I was able to deal with the people that the prison arranged to monitor me. I thought, “No one can take away my thoughts, and no one can stop me from explaining the truth and talking about my personal experiences.”
I talked to the police who came to transfer inmates, and talked to 610 Office police from different areas. I wanted the people to know that Falun Dafa practitioners were not intimated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and we did not disappear because of the persecution. I wanted people to know that I had been persecuted for several years and that I didn't do anything wrong and that now I needed a way to support myself.
When I went to the local police department for my identification card, I talked to the police and the department director about my experiences of being persecuted. They quickly issued my ID card.
I also went to the residential office to talk to the office secretary. I told him my name and said, “Because I practice Falun Dafa, I was imprisoned for five years. Now I'm back. Since you are responsible, I want to meet you.” I chatted with him and told him my experiences, and I treated him with sincerity and compassion. I told him that while enduring severe persecution, practitioners are trying their best to explain the truth and save people.
The business owner from whom I leased the store came back and wanted the business back six months later. When I returned the business to him I only took the money I put into it. I didn't take any extra. After six months I only earned my food and board and didn't make any money. But I met a lot of people and explained the truth to them.
During those six months I met a male practitioner who obtained the Fa while imprisoned, and we got married. I thought that I had already discarded the attachment of lust, however, this hidden attachment showed up. I felt ashamed and felt that I was unworthy of Master’s salvation. I stumbled and tried hard to discard this attachment. Finally I was able to get rid of the sentiment and lust.
In order to make a living, we moved to Changchun City. We met with various conflicts and we found a lot of our attachments. Through cultivation we gradually discarded those attachments and were able to follow the progress of Fa-rectification.
In Changchun, we sold vegetables in the morning farmer’s market for more than a year. While selling vegetables I explained the truth to the people I met. I advised them to withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations and asked them to remember, “Falun Dafa is good! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good!”
One rainy day, there was water on the road. When my husband put the vegetables on the ground, the water splashed on a person’s clothes. The person asked for laundry expenses and I paid him. However, another person also came to demand money. My husband got angry and didn't want to give it to him. I explained the truth to the person and told him, “I cultivate Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. I can give you the money but you must remember that Falun Dafa is good and that the CCP's persecution of Falun Dafa is wrong. If you can understand the truth it will be good for you.”
There were a lot of administrative personnel at the market. I talked to them and told them about my experiences. They said, “You don’t look like the kind of people who do this type of work. Now I understand that you've lost your job because of the persecution.” Before we left the market I wrote a letter to the market office explaining the truth to them. After he received the letter, the person in charge of the market came to me to learn the truth. I remembered that I am a practitioner and I bring the truth wherever I go.
We opened our own shop in a mall selling wallpaper in 2009. In my shop I treated every customer as my family and I put clarifying the truth as my first priority. For several years we smoothly did the three things and awakened many people. Many of our customers told us that they had relatives, friends or neighbors who practiced Falun Dafa. Most of the customers accepted what we said.
We also encountered some situations that tested our xinxing. When this happened, I followed the principles of Dafa to conduct myself. Once, two customers came to me shouting, complaining the wallpaper they bought bubbled on the wall and they wanted me to pay for their loss. Other people around could not stand their complaint.
I maintained my xinxing and told them that I would deal with the situation, and that I cultivate Falun Dafa and that if the situation was our fault, I would pay for their losses. Two days later, they called me and told me that the wallpaper bubbles disappeared, and they apologized to me.
Cultivating in a Family Environment
At home the conflicts were often very sharp. My husband and I were both married before and we both have a son from our previous marriages. After we got married we had a daughter. After we invited my husband’s nearly 80-year-old parents to live with us, our home was really crowded.
My mother-in-law often said bad things about my son behind my back, and this caused my husband to complain about his mother to me. I followed the principles of Dafa, and did not say anything that I should not say and comforted him. Sometimes when he was in a bad mood he also complained about my son’s faults; it was painful for me.
His son didn't live with us, but he always made excuses to get money from us and he had gotten about 50,000 yuan. One time, my husband lent 30,000 yuan to his son behind my back. I did not know about this until a year later when we needed the money to pay our debts, but his son couldn't return the money to us. My husband felt very bad and he suggested we divorce. I followed the principles of the Fa and did not agree to a divorce. I thought that the complicated situation was paving our path back to heaven and I should not take a detour when facing conflicts. I told him that we would pay the debts by ourselves.
My mother-in-law sometimes bad-mouthed people who she disliked. I did not like her. Through studying the Fa I came to understand that I shouldn't look down on her and I should explain the situation to her based on the Fa's principles. She has now started listening to Master's Fa lectures.
My husband fought with others when he was young. He injured others and caused someone to die, so he was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment. He always had strong negative thoughts and a competitive mentality, and he had strong attachments to jealousy and lust. He sometimes verbally abused me with dirty words, beat and kicked me, and he would not listen to my reasoning. It was very hard and my tears flowed. I thought that even when I was in prison no one treated me as badly as he did. I felt very bitter and my mind was very unbalanced.
When I was sad, I read the Fa, and I memorized Master’s Lecture, "The Closer to the End, the More Diligent You Should Be". Master said,
“But in reality, what human society takes to be truths are, from the perspective of the cosmos, inversions of truth; when humans go through hardship and suffer it is so that they may pay off karma and thereby have happiness in the future. A cultivator thus needs to cultivate by correct and upright truths. Going through hardship and suffering is an outstanding opportunity to remove karma, be cleansed of sin, purify the body, elevate your plane of thought, and rise in level--it's an extraordinarily good thing. This is a correct and upright Fa-truth.” ("The Closer to the End, the More Diligent You Should Be")
Living in Harmony with the Fa
I looked inside. I wanted to have a good life, to live comfortably, and I did not like it when people criticized me. All of these were ordinary notions that I must discard. He was helping me to eliminate my karma and to improve myself. I should thank him. When I identified my gaps I sent righteous thought to eliminate my attachments to resentment, jealousy, lust and various other attachments.
One day, my husband beat me again. Compassion arose in my mind for the first time and I said, "Please go out and calm down. You need to be responsible for yourself.” Driven by demonic nature he said some words about giving up cultivation. I then had a conversation with him afterwards and helped him understand his problems.
He then published a solemn declaration on the Internet. Since then he became more and more diligent in cultivation and he became determined to discard his attachments. Our family also became more harmonious.
With all the human languages I could not express my gratitude toward our Master. Let us remember Master's teaching,
"Now meanwhile, for Dafa disciples, the easier your environment becomes, the more you should pay attention to your own cultivation. That’s because it will be easier for those attachments of yours that you cannot detect to act up, and you are more likely to let your attachments grow. You must be sure to keep up your guard. No matter what the situation, you must be mindful of cultivating yourself. If you can keep going with that same heart you had at the beginning all the way to the end, you will undoubtedly succeed." (“Fa Teaching Given at the 2014 San Francisco Fa Conference (Lecture Portion)”)
http://www.minghui.org/mh /articles/2014/11/19/找回修炼如初的信心-300143.html63_Improving_Oneself
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Category: Improving Oneself
