(Minghui.org) I am a 69 year-old farmer of Korean ethnicity living in China. When I was growing up, my family was poor, and my parents couldn't pay for me to go to school. With no alternative I started working in the fields when I was very young.
I often went hungry, and the field work was very laborious. As a result I remained illiterate, and my health was poor.
Yet I began practicing Falun Dafa on March 3, 1999. In the book Zhuan Falun Teacher said:
“One should return to one’s original, true self; this is the real purpose of being human. Therefore, once a person wants to practice cultivation, his or her Buddha-nature is considered to have come forth.” (Zhuan Falun)
By reading Zhuan Falun, I came to understand why we came into this world. I then began studying the Fa and doing the exercises wholeheartedly. Within three months, I became illness-free, and also quit smoking and drinking. Teacher purified my body, and I experienced the wonderful feeling of no illness.
Due to my family situation, I didn't finish primary school, and when I was attending school, I was studying mostly in Korean. I could barely read Chinese.
I was 52 years old when I began practicing Falun Dafa, so I figured it would be very hard for me to learn Falun Dafa at that age if I couldn’t read Chinese. Since I wasn’t able to read Chinese, I was only listening and watching Teacher's recordings.
As soon as I began to listen, tears ran down my face. I sometimes ended up crying out loud, “Teacher, I can't read. How can I study the Fa? I can't just listen!” I would hold Zhuan Falun and weep.
Then I suddenly heard Teacher's voice echoing in my ear, “Don't look down on yourself.” I stopped crying and began to gaze at Zhuan Falun. Soon, I went to the Fa-study group to study and read along with the others.
I don’t know how it happened, but after a while I became able to read Zhuan Falun with the others. I was so excited about being able to read Zhuan Falun without having been taught. Practitioners from the Fa-study group were very happy for me as well. One practitioner said, “Your sincerity moved Teacher, so he opened up your wisdom.”
I can now can read all the Falun Dafa books. I went from being illiterate to being able to read all the Dafa books in Chinese. I sincerely appreciate all of Teacher's help.
Because my land had been taken away by the government, I couldn’t farm, and was leading a very difficult life. I decided then to take my wife to South Korea to find work to support us.
I soon found a job and worked hard. Because I worked very diligently and had high ethics, my efforts were recognized by my employer. He asked me to be the person in charge of a workshop. He also got permanent resident status for us and paid me very well.
After I participated in a Falun Dafa parade in my area, I cried. I couldn't understand why Falun Dafa was being subjected to brutal persecution in China. How could such a high level practice—which helps people heal their illnesses, elevate their morality, and provides only benefits and nothing harmful—be subjected to such brutal persecution in China?
I couldn't understand what went wrong with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Why would they persecute kind people who follow Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance? Why would they want to push good people away and treat them as enemies?
I made up my mind to go back to China and help raise more awareness of the persecution and clarify the truth to save sentient beings. In doing so, I gave up a very comfortable life and my permanent resident status in Korea.
Because I have a very limited education, I sometimes can't articulate or express myself very well. Plus, when it comes to clarifying the facts, I've encountered many difficulties. Therefore, I began to do other things that could leverage my strength, such as printing and hanging truth-clarification banners, handing out flyers, putting up truth-clarifying stickers, and delivering flyers. I have also been riding my bicycle to deliver materials to several Fa-study groups on a regular basis.
During the process saving sentient beings, I refused to recognize the old forces' arrangements, and have been doing things with righteous thoughts and actions. Wherever I go, I tell people that I am a Falun Dafa practitioner and pass on materials so that the people know I practice Falun Dafa and that Falun Dafa is good.
When seeing my behavior my neighbor once said, “Look at him! He is doing so well practicing Falun Dafa that he seems to be getting younger and younger.” The positive changes of my family and my own health helped people understand the truth about Falun Dafa.
Though I have run into danger a few times while passing out information about Falun Dafa and the persecution, including having the police chase after me, my heart has not been moved. I've kept righteous thoughts no matter what. With faith in Teacher and Dafa, and with Teacher's benevolent protection, I've always returned home safe and sound.
No matter what situations I meet, whether it is the cold of winter or the hot of summer—no matter whether it is windy, snowing, or raining—I still do what I am supposed to do. Over the past decade, I don't know how many people I have helped quit the CCP, but when I run into people with predestined relationships, I help them withdraw their memberships from the CCP and its affiliated organizations.
Group Fa-study is something that Teacher has arranged for us. The Fa-study group is a good way of eliminating one's attachments, improving one's understanding on the Fa, maturing, and strengthening one's righteous thoughts and actions. By studying the Fa with other practitioners and looking inward, our group members feel that we have improved our xinxing quickly.
I coordinate three Fa study groups that are all fairly close to where I live. All the practitioners in my groups are in their eighties and somewhat illiterate, but they all have faith in Falun Dafa. At first they were worried about not being able to read, so I got them together and told them how I learned to read. We began reading the Fa and at the same time, learning how to read.
Through the group Fa-study, the practitioners improved their reading skills quickly. They can now all read through Zhuan Falun, and they have continuously elevated themselves through understanding more and more Fa principles. As their understandings improve, they become more and more mature, and their relatives and friends say that they have improved a lot.
During the more than ten years of my cultivation, the trials and tests have been one right after another. But nothing has stopped me, and I have been holding myself to the standards that Teacher requires of us.
Teacher taught:
“With righteous thoughts and righteous actionsHe is diligent without letting up”(“A Righteous God” from Hong Yin Vol. II)
For over the past decade I have been getting up at 3:30 a.m. every day to do the exercises and send forth righteous thoughts.
In 2005, one of my legs appeared to have symptoms of Vasculitis. In a few days the symptoms went all the way to the end of my leg. My foot was swollen and I could hardly walk. Ordinary people all pushed me to go to the hospital, saying that if the red lines kept extending to my heart, I would be done for.
Some friends also came to see me. They asked me to go to the hospital and become a Christian. They believed that their God could protect me.
“This is not an illness,” I told them. “This is the old forces' persecution. As a Falun Dafa practitioner, I have Teacher Li Hongzhi to protect me. I just believe in Teacher and Dafa, nothing else. In four to five days—if you don't believe me—you can come and check for yourselves.”
Because of my righteous thoughts, Teacher helped me. That evening, I went with a few other practitioners to hand out truth-clarification materials, even though my leg and foot were swollen. I asked them to walk with me out of the local area to distribute fliers. When we got to the remote area, we began passing out the fliers. I passed out the fliers one by one, even though I was having difficulty walking.
Once we had finished and began to head home, the pain in my foot stopped and I could walk freely again. By the time I got home, it was past midnight and my foot was completely healed.
My friends didn't asked me to believe in Christianity or go to the hospital after that. “Falun Dafa is truly amazing!” they said. “We are totally convinced by you.”
The materials production center in our area was destroyed in 2008, and it became hard to find truth clarifying materials. After Teacher's lecture, “Fa Teaching Given at the Fa Conference Marking the Tenth Anniversary of the Minghui Website's Founding” was published, three of us older practitioners, who are 85, 79, and 69 years old, got together to buy computers and learn how to use them.
We took separate training courses, and then trained one another how to use the computers to access websites and print. From there, we began to print Minghui journals and other truth-clarification materials.
For the past few years, we have provided materials for over a dozen Fa-study groups in our area. I have accumulated some experience and managed to handle problems with printers and computers by myself—so as to lessen the burden for practitioners with technical backgrounds.
I began Falun Dafa cultivation as someone who was illiterate, as one who had only used a hoe his entire life. I can now read, and am able to operate a computer. On top of that, I run a Falun Dafa materials production site. It is only because I practice Falun Dafa that these events have transpired in my life.