(Minghui.org) I’ve practiced Falun Dafa for more than 20 years. My outlook on life changed after I read Zhuan Falun, Dafa’s main text, and I saw my selfishness, big ego, and resentment.
I avoided my mother-in-law before I began to practice. After I read the teachings, I understood that our hostile relationship was due to karma from past lifetimes. I visited her and said, “Let’s forget about what happened in the past and start over. Master Li, Falun Dafa’s founder, asks us to be good and compassionate people.” She was very touched. Dafa’s principles helped resolve our grievances.
With this reconciliation, my xinxing improved, and I was very happy!
Being Sent to a Forced Labor Camp
On July 20, 1999, former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Jiang Zemin used the media to spread lies about Falun Dafa and poison the world’s people. When I went to Beijing to appeal and demand justice for Master, I was arrested and sent to a forced labor camp for three years.
Despite the difficult conditions in the camp, I felt I was the most fortunate person in the world because I was a practitioner. However, I couldn’t study the Fa or do the exercises. The camp authorities manipulated my husband and child to shake my will so I would stop practicing.
One inmate told me, “Just lie and say that you’ve stopped practicing. Then you can go home and practice secretly. Try to be smart. Why are you going through such hardship?”
I then gave her an example about how we should not lie, and she said, “Falun Dafa practitioners are great!”
Only because I was empowered by Master could I continue practicing despite the persecution.
Facing Family Tribulations
When I was released from the labor camp, my daughter was still attending university. She brought her new boyfriend home for dinner. He seemed to be a trustworthy and caring person. My husband and I liked him, so we agreed to their relationship.
When my daughter became pregnant the following year, she called and asked me to come help her. When I got there, she tearfully disclosed that her boyfriend already had a wife. He kept telling her that he planned to divorce and marry my daughter.
This tribulation came so suddenly. Because I’m a practitioner, I understood that she shouldn’t have an abortion—that would be considered killing!
I calmed down and listened to her. Her doctor also tried to stop her from having an abortion. The unborn child was too big, so her life would be in danger if she aborted. However, her boyfriend was pressuring her to go through with it.
An amazing thing then happened—when she went to the hospital, she had a high temperature. But she was fine when she came home. This happened several times. In the end, she decided to keep the baby.
I raised the child after he was born.
However, my daughter gradually became bad tempered and started blaming me for all her misfortunes. She was filled with pain and resentment, saying that when she most needed me, I was in the forced labor camp. If I’d been home, she wouldn’t have dated that man. She said she hated me. Our relationship became tense. I felt some of what she said made sense, so I felt responsible for her misfortune.
I felt sad and that I couldn’t share what happened with other practitioners. Whenever something didn’t go the way she wanted, my daughter got angry at me.
My grandson was once doing his homework. He ran into a problem he didn’t understand, so my daughter sat behind him. As she explained the problem, she kept hitting him. This went on for over an hour. I finally couldn’t take it anymore and told her, “Don’t be angry.”
I was totally unprepared when my daughter punched me, knocking out my upper teeth. My grandson also suffered a slight concussion from being hit repeatedly. My teeth and mouth kept bleeding, and I had to get up several times that night to vomit blood.
I felt very depressed, and my resentment grew. I had all kinds of negative thoughts, such as self-blame and an attachment to my ego. My daughter wouldn’t let me speak to her, so I couldn’t reason with her. If I didn’t agree with her, she lost her temper.
Another Family Trial
I always felt my husband was an honest person. I never thought he’d have an affair. Whenever I saw articles in Minghui Weekly about a practitioner’s husband having an affair and wanting a divorce, I thought it had nothing to do with me.
My husband worked in another city, but he retired a few years ago and I noticed he’d changed—he ignored me and just talked to our daughter. As soon as I walked into a room, he went to another room. This kept happening.
One night, he said, “Didn’t you want to divorce me before? Let’s do it now.” It didn’t sink in, and I thought he’d just said this casually. I replied, “We’ve been married for years, yet we hardly spend any time together. You’re retired now and have returned home. What’s the point of getting a divorce?”
I noticed that his cellphone rang non-stop. When it rang one day, I picked it up and looked at it. It turned out my husband was having an affair. He had many pictures of her family. One message he sent her said that I wouldn’t divorce him.
I was so upset that I shook all over. I showed my husband his phone and asked who the woman was. He lied and said he didn’t write those messages and only forwarded them from someone else. I could see he was nervous.
When I told my daughter, she just stared at me with no compassion. I tried to control my emotions. But when I noticed that my husband transferred money to that woman, I lost my temper. When my daughter heard about it, she yelled and screamed, telling her father to divorce me and throw me out. I couldn’t take it and stormed out.
I couldn’t get over my pain or remain calm knowing my husband cheated on me. I thought, “I was so good to your parents, I worked so hard to bring up our daughter, and I even brought up our grandson. I worked hard all my life for this family.”
When my husband covered his ears and slept by himself, I woke him up and we sometimes fought. This happened many times. When I told him I thought about moving back to my hometown, he agreed.
Returning to “Cultivate with the Heart You Once Had”
After I returned to my hometown, things changed. By reciting and studying the Fa intensively and listening to Minghui podcasts, I gradually became clear-minded and snapped out of my depression. I took all those tribulations as good things, good opportunities for cultivating and tempering myself, and opportunities to eliminate all kinds of attachments which were exposed during the tribulations—I needed to improve my xinxing and rectify myself.
When I thought about my daughter, I calmed down and looked inward. All these years, I seemed to have sentimentality trials. I felt cultivation was hard, and I was exhausted. I was lured by fame and self-interest—I felt lost. My starting point was selfishness and ego, I used the declined standards of today to determine what was good and bad, instead of the principles of the Fa. I learned a big lesson.
I needed to change my postnatal notions. I also realized that no tribulations are accidental. My husband and daughter were helping me expose my selfishness, ego, anxiety, not caring about other people’s feelings, resentment, sentimentality, jealousy, looking for acknowledgment, and pursuing perfection. I should treasure the opportunity to cultivate myself in that complicated environment and use the Fa principles to rectify myself.
Master said,
“Why do you encounter these problems? They are all caused by your own karma. We have already eliminated for you many, countless portions of it, leaving only that tiny bit that is divided into tribulations at different levels for improving your xinxing, tempering your mind, and removing your various attachments. These are all your own tribulations that we use to improve your xinxing, and you will be able to overcome them. As long as you improve your xinxing, you can overcome them. Unless you, yourself do not want to do so, you can make it, provided you want to overcome them.” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)
I realized that Master empowered me so that I could walk my cultivation path steadily in that environment. However, I had to start by eliminating all my attachments. And only by improving myself during tribulations would it count as true cultivation.
Overcoming those tribulations helped me assimilate to Dafa, and I set aside my ego. I understood that my family tribulations came from the karmic debts accumulated lifetime after lifetime. I began to pay attention to my every thought and action and care about my daughter.
When she was busy, I cooked food and brought it to her. When she was tied up with work during the Chinese New Year, my husband and I helped her by cleaning her house. I also stopped fighting with my husband over how he spent his savings. I cared more about him in his day-to-day life instead.
I sent righteous thoughts to eliminate every bad element in my dimensional field. I tried to let go of my attachments and become a selfless person.
When I changed, my daughter and husband also changed. My daughter began to speak to me in a respectful tone of voice, and the relationship between my husband and me also improved. He has now begun to practice Falun Dafa.
Thank you, Master, for your saving grace! Heshi!
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