(Minghui.org) My morning routine is to finish the five sets of exercises and send righteous thoughts. Around 6:30 a.m., I walk out of the bedroom. My husband has made congee and a dish of stir-fried vegetables, and he awaits my arrival so we can start our morning meal. I am grateful for his kindness.
He hasn’t always been like this. Remembering how he was a few years ago and realizing how much he has changed, the incredible shift is hard to comprehend.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began persecuting Falun Dafa in July 1999 and unleashed a wave of propaganda that vilified Dafa practitioners as mentally ill. My husband became fearful and locked himself in a room. I thought he simply didn’t want to be disturbed, but later he told me he was afraid that I would kill him in the middle of the night.
I was shocked. He was a strong man, so strong that even men felt pain when he grabbed them by the arm. His reaction showed the harm caused by the CCP’s defamation campaign.
I went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Dafa in 2000. When I returned home, the 610 Office pressured my work unit to detain me. My husband did his part to force me to “transform” and give up my spiritual beliefs. He pushed my head into the table so hard it bled. He also didn’t let me sleep.
After I returned to work, my work unit told my husband not to let me go out or interact with other Dafa practitioners. But I held a deep belief in Dafa and would not give up my faith. I studied the Fa behind his back. Sometimes when I heard him open the door, I hid the book because I was afraid that he would destroy it or damage Teacher’s photo. When he did try to take them, I fought unsuccessfully to take back the book and the photo. Gradually, I grew resentful.
Eventually, I reconnected with fellow practitioners. I read Minghui Weekly and began doing the three things asked of Dafa practitioners. My husband picked fights, chased me with a knife, and threatened to kill me. Sometimes he would throw a hot bowl of rice or soup at me. Although it hit me, I was always safe thanks to Teacher’s protection.
Once in the middle of eating, he got angry for no reason and threw all the cups, bowls and chopsticks everywhere. Then he got up and left. I didn’t dare to say anything and quietly cleaned up the mess. It was common for him to throw and break things around the house.
Through consistent Fa study, I realized that I was attached to fear. The more I feared that my husband would throw things, the more he did it. I asked myself: as a Dafa practitioner, what do I fear? Do I fear that I will lose my family? Would Dafa practitioners fear this? No. I also did not want to lose face or have neighbors laugh at me. Wasn’t this a manifestation of seeking fame?
This enlightenment helped me to come up with ways to deal with my situation. When the evil made my husband angry, I opened the windows and doors so that my neighbors would hear. What did I fear? Nothing! It was the evil that was afraid. They didn’t want their crimes to be exposed. This was an effective way to stop him from being so arrogant.
Sometimes my husband would hit me very hard, and I had bruises all over my body. When he hit me at night, I still went to work the next day but dared not let others know. I tried to hide it so that people wouldn’t laugh at me. I pretended I was cheerful and living a happy life.
One time when he hit me, I couldn’t stand it any longer and decided to leave home. I stayed with another practitioner. My husband and in-laws looked for me everywhere, but they couldn’t find me. This scared him. Some days later, I went home and wanted to file for divorce. He didn’t want to, saying that he didn’t want his mother to get angry. From then on, he hit me less, but the two of us still fought over small things.
I continued to study the Fa. With help from fellow practitioners, I realized that Dafa practitioners should not put up with being beaten.
Teacher said:
“Whenever a tribulation comes, you do not see it with the side of your original nature but view it completely with your human side. Evil demons then capitalize on this point and inflict endless interference and damage, leaving students in long-term tribulations. As a matter of fact, this results from an inadequate understanding of the Fa by your human side. You have humanly restrained your divine side; in other words, you have restrained the parts that have been successfully cultivated and have prevented them from doing Fa-rectification. How can the uncultivated side restrain your main thoughts or the side that has already attained the Fa? Having humanly fostered the evil demons, you allow them to capitalize on the loopholes in the Fa. When a tribulation arrives, if you, a disciple, can truly maintain an unshakable calm or be determined to meet different requirements at different levels, this should be sufficient for you to pass the test. If it continues endlessly and if there do not exist other problems in your xinxing or conduct, it must be that the evil demons are capitalizing on the weak spots caused by your lack of control. After all, a cultivator is not an ordinary human. So why doesn’t the side of you that is your original nature rectify the Fa?” (“Expounding on the Fa”, Essentials for Further Advancement)
I understood that even an ordinary person would not hit his wife. It was my wrong understanding that had given the evil its energy.
One day after he hit me, he pretended that nothing had happened and invited his friends over to our house. He wanted me to cook for them. While we were having dinner together, they maligned Falun Dafa, and my husband talked about how well he treated me. This time I realized that the evil was persecuting both of us because I had created loopholes they could exploit. So I rolled up my sleeves and let them see the bruises. I talked about his violent behavior. He had nothing to say. He knew he shouldn’t have hit me. He said, “I won’t hit you again. I won’t hit you again.” Indeed, from that day on he didn’t.
By then I saw very clearly that it was the evil in other dimensions that controlled him. I needed to send righteous thoughts to eliminate it, and I had to let go of my hatred. Practitioners often told me not to hate him because that was not the true him, but I couldn’t enlighten to it. Sometimes I even dreamed about having a fight with him, and tears would choke me up. Then, I couldn’t go back to sleep for a long time. I knew that in my heart I held great resentment toward him. I enlightened that the problem started from me, as he could feel the substance of hatred in me. I should have known that Dafa disciples carry energy.
This teaching came to mind:
“Normally, any brain-shaped material that a regular person emanates while thinking will dissipate before long, since his or her thoughts don’t have energy behind them. But the material will last much longer in the case of practitioners, owing to their energy.” (The Fifth Talk, Zhuan Falun)
I never realized that it was the resentment I held against him that was having an impact on him. When I looked at the situation again, I felt regretful. I was thus determined to get rid of this attachment from the root.
It was not easy, however. As the saying goes, three feet of ice doesn’t form in one cold day. That piece of ice in my heart was as hard as a rock and difficult to melt away. I studied the Fa over and over again. I tried to apply the Fa principles to my daily life, one bit at a time. I examined my every thought and action and eliminated resentment whenever it appeared by thinking, “I don’t acknowledge you. That’s not me.” Gradually, I felt the resentment lessen.
Teacher saw my enlightenment and effort, so he removed many bad substances for me. When I truly understood my problem and got rid of the attachment of resentment, I thanked him from the bottom of my heart.
All these years, because of me, my husband had to endure pressure from his work unit, family, and friends. Because I didn’t cultivate genuinely, I made many mistakes unknowingly. I didn’t clarify the truth about Dafa to him and made him miss opportunities over and over again. The sins he committed were because of my ignorance. Therefore, I wanted to try my very best to make up for the mistakes I had made. The family tribulations were finally being resolved.
There was an incident that took me several years to figure out what went wrong. My husband and I worked in the same unit. He liked beer and was often invited out with friends. So whenever someone looked for him at work while he was out drinking, he asked me to cover for him.
As a result, I seldom had time to do the three things that practitioners ought to do, as I had to do my own work, his work, and household chores. As Dafa practitioners’ time is precious, I felt I shouldn’t accommodate him all the time. After all, he was just spending time on getting drunk; if I kept putting up with it, wasn’t I condoning his actions?
Later he asked me to cover his weekend shifts while he took a break to entertain himself. I knew it wasn’t right, but I didn’t know how to handle it. Therefore, whenever this happened, we would quarrel.
I looked inside and was puzzled. What mistakes had I made? I knew it was right not to replace him, but why did people say I was wrong? I realized that it was because I wanted to save face. I was too afraid of being labeled as “not good,” and I didn’t want people to say that he was not good either. All this was based on human thinking.
Therefore, I told people in the office that he went to drink with friends while expecting me to replace him. It wasn’t right, I said. When people understood the scenario, nobody said anything again. Some even told him not to drink too much. When he had weekend shifts again, he no longer asked me to replace him, but he still held a grudge.
On the surface, this incident seemed to have passed. But I didn’t realize that the old forces were using him to break up my family. They made him think that I had become uncooperative after taking up Falun Dafa.
Not long ago, it was time for him to work weekends again, but he wanted to do something with his friends. He said, “Don’t worry. I won’t need you to cover for me. I will pay someone a thousand yuan to do my job if I have to.” Then he went to his room and slammed the door.
I calmed myself and tried to think. All of a sudden, a thought came to me: The old forces are trying to break up my family. I have to send righteous thoughts to eliminate them. I thought, “Nothing should interfere with my husband or control him. I will not allow any evil factors to destroy my family through any way, shape or form.” I felt very strong energy.
The next day, everything went back to normal as if nothing had happened. He didn’t mention anything about replacing him and took the shift himself. After his shift, he went to do whatever he wanted to do with his friends. Nothing was delayed.
Finally, I understood that it was the old forces that wanted to take my time away and drag me down. They also wanted to harm my husband and break up my family.
I realized that I didn’t cherish the time that Teacher extended for us, which gave the old forces excuses to persecute me. As a Dafa disciple during Fa-rectification, we must cherish this time and do the three things well. We should not slack off. It was because I understood this principle that Teacher gave me opportunities to do better.
Teacher said:
“When disciples have ample righteous thoughtsMaster has the power to turn back the tide”(“The Master Disciple Bond,” Hong Yin Vol II)
The key is that we must look inward, be righteous, and look at issues from the perspective of the Fa. It is of utmost importance how we send righteous thoughts. As Dafa practitioners, we know we are the protagonists and cannot be controlled by external factors.
Our thoughts are divine, when we go by the universal principles, everything will follow through. Everything is arranged by Teacher. Therefore, it is crucial that our thoughts align with the Fa. We will improve when our thoughts are correct.
My husband used to be grumpy, but he is now always smiling. He has changed a lot, and I am becoming purer in cultivation.