(Minghui.org) I was fortunate enough to begin Falun Dafa cultivation in 1997 and have greatly benefited from Falun Dafa cultivation for more than two decades. My gratitude to Master, the founder of this cultivation practice is beyond description. It was Falun Dafa that took me through a complete transformation.
I was born in a farmer’s family. My mother was illiterate, and my father only graduated from junior high school. My parents fought with each other very often. When it came to public holidays, it was very rare that they didn’t have a big fight.
My family ran a food processing factory; thus, our family was better off financially when compared to other people in the same village. After I grew up, I married into a poor family. My husband was the only son and an honest person. My father-in-law was eloquent, but my mother-in-law was very quiet. My in-laws were nice to me, but I didn’t appreciate it. I encouraged my husband to play Mahjong. I also spent as much money as I wished.
It was only after the birth of my son when I realized that my in-laws lived a thrifty life. In the fall they cooked a pot of Chinese cabbage, which lasted them for a few days. In winter they cooked a pot of radishes and tofu, which lasted them for a few days as well. At that time, I often couldn’t fall asleep and lay there thinking about how to do some business to make money so as to improve our financial situation.
Later, my parents agreed to transfer the processing factory to us. But after we operated it for a couple of years, it didn’t help improve our living situation. When I overheard that my mother-in-law told my father-in-law in secret that we were poor because I had no control over my spending, I had a big fight with her and made her ill. From that point on, I stopped buying things for them. I didn’t like my in-laws, nor my husband. In the end, we stopped running the factory, and returned it to my parents.
The next spring, I asked my in-laws for a portion of land. In addition, I contracted about two acres of land in my parent’s village. I also raised some pigs. With all this work to do, my husband still wanted to work out of town, which was supported by his parents. However back then, it was hard for farmers to find outside work. When he returned home, he only brought back close to 500 yuan. But, I earned 8,000 yuan that year.
I had to take care of everything at home, including a five-year-old child, without any help from my in-laws. I was so upset. With such resentment building up, I fought with my husband over something petty. Although he was dragged away by other people, I picked up a shovel and was about to hit him. I also took the most precious thing in my family, a color TV, to the courtyard and smashed it.
One relative said to me, “Oh my goodness! How many TVs can you buy with money earned for the whole year?” I was dumbfounded. After that, someone said that I went crazy and that I became mentally unstable. I only recall that at that time I only knew how to work. I didn’t eat, drink water, or sleep. Later, I lost the ability to do any work. I didn’t sleep at night and wandered around during the day. Given my situation, my mother planned to send me to a psychiatric hospital.
At that time my aunt brought me the article Master had newly published, titled “Principles for Disciples Who Are Monks and Nuns” to have me read it to her. After I read it to her, I said I felt this was written for me specifically. At night, when I was about to go to bed, my mother tried to play Master’s recorded lectures for me. I refused to listen to them and attempted to break the CD player. She was so petrified that she quickly turned it off.
After a while, she thought I was sleeping and turned it back on. I still wanted to smash it, but I had no strength. When Master was lecturing on “Transformation of Karma,” and about the white and black substances, I fell asleep. The next day, I wanted to be a practitioner. However, I didn’t know what cultivation was about, nor how to be a good person. I just loved reading Dafa books. After I finished reading Teachings at Conferences in the United States, I read the rest of Master’s lectures over time.
At almost the same time, my mother-in-law also began to practice Falun Dafa. And my father-in-law began reading Dafa books. Thus, a Fa-study group was set up at my home. From time to time, my husband helped by playing Master’s recorded lecture series. At that time, I only remembered what Master said,
“Even though you practice and your spouse might not, it is not permitted for you to get a divorce because of the practice.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)
After I read this, I dropped the idea of divorcing my husband and made up with him. When my mother-in-law cooked, I gave her a hand. When my in-laws worked in the field, I also helped them. When my husband accepted contract work, he gave the money he earned to my mother-in-law. I also gave my mother-in-law all the money I made on the mountain when picking produce and selling them at the market. When I went back to my mother’s house for the Chinese New Year’s Eve celebration and my mother-in-law gave me a little bit of money, I used all of it to buy gifts for my relatives.
I changed from being a tyrannical woman with a strong sense of self-interest to a virtuous and kind person who was indifferent to fame and fortune. Falun Dafa transformed me. My father-in-law praised me to whomever he saw. The village woman’s director also said, “We were unable to repair the relationship between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in this family, but they reconciled after practicing Falun Dafa.”
The unprecedented persecution of Falun Dafa was launched in July 1999. I was arrested multiple times and imprisoned for close to seven years. However, these tribulations didn’t change my faith in Master and Dafa, nor the support from my parents.
My father brought his 97-year-old mother to live in his home in 2011, and asked her to recite the phrases, “Falun Dafa is wonderful!” “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is wonderful!” She listened to him and often recited it loudly. My nephew was born in April 2013, so we had four generations living under the same roof. At the age of 100 years old, my grandmother passed away in peace.
In a dream, I saw dark clouds rolling towards my father in August 2013. I stretched out my hand involuntarily, and the dark clouds immediately dispersed. A few days later, a devastating flood hit our mountain village. After the flood, only my father’s house and a few families around him were not flooded. In the places washed away by the flood, houses had collapsed and many villagers lost their lives.
In the middle of the busiest street in our town, there was a large ditch created by the flood that was as deep as a house. A two-story building on the street was washed down by the flood, and 24 people hiding up on the roof died. The next day, villagers from nearby villages buried countless bodies on the mountain. A television station reporter went to the disaster area but reported that no one died. Angry villagers chased him away because he lied.
The villagers in my mother-in-law’s village escaped during the flood. It’s because when my mother-in-law was illegally sentenced to prison for a four-year term, almost every household there signed a letter of appeal demanding her release. During this great flood, none of the houses there collapsed, and only a very small amount of land was destroyed. The villagers’ kind actions led to blessings in return. No water got into my mother-in-law’s house, all she lost was a very small bit of land. My father-in-law recalled, “That year, grain production went up by nearly 5,000 kilograms compared to the previous year.”
One of my cousins understood the truth about Dafa (as opposed to the defamatory lies made by the Chinese Communist Party), and always carried a Dafa amulet with her. When the flood came, she and a dozen of her neighbors climbed onto the top of a flat and stayed there overnight. Just when the water was about to submerge the flat, the flood gradually receded.
Falun Dafa provides hope for people to be saved!