(Minghui.org) Ever since I can remember, my mother has always been kind and happy. However, she said that she wasn’t always like that. Before practicing Falun Dafa, because of family dynamics, she was withdrawn and timid. When she was unhappy, she would just hold it inside, until she reached the limit. Then, she would lose her temper completely. She did not have a good relationship with her parents or sisters, and later on could not get along with my father or grandmother. But thanks to her cultivation in Falun Dafa, she completely changed; she became happy and joyful.
My Mother Became a Happy Person
My mother has an older sister named Jing, and a younger sister named Meng. When she was little, she did not live with her immediate family, and my grandparents didn’t let her move back home until elementary school. By that time, my mother’s two sisters had always played with each other, and they often teamed up to bully my mother. Because my mother had a simple mind and couldn’t express herself well, she suffered in silence. Besides, my grandmother also didn’t like her very much. Therefore the entire family often ridiculed my mother and also often gave her the cold shoulder. This made her unhappy as a child, but there was no one for her to talk to or to stand up for her.
My mother went to college in another city. During a summer vacation, she was on her way home when she saw my grandmother riding her bicycle. My mother instinctively called out to her, and my grandmother turned around to look and accidentally fell off the bicycle, scraping her hands and feet. My grandmother and Aunt Meng blamed my mother the entire summer for this, as they agreed that it was my mother who caused my grandmother to fall. My mother was very sad, and felt very wronged.
My mother began to practice Falun Dafa in 1995. She understood that all the suffering and injustice she experienced were for repaying karma. She also understood the meaning of life. She became very happy and her health improved for the better. She used to have frequent headaches, but after she began practicing Dafa, she recovered.
One summer, my mother and I went to see my grandmother. We took the train for an entire day and night to get there. But as soon as we entered my grandmother’s house, Auntie Jing said to my mother, “Just look at what you are wearing! Change it quickly! It’s so ugly!” Then, over the following few days, they made fun of my mother. My mother just smiled and said nothing. I felt very upset and asked her, “Why are they like this?” My mother smiled and said, “They are fine. Maybe I’m just used to it.” My mother said that since she couldn’t change other people, she would follow what Master had asked of practitioners.
“...Hearing but hearing not—A mind hard to disturb ...” (“In Dao,” Hong Yin)
Indeed, what would be the point of getting angry? It would only cause harm to herself. In fact, before practicing Dafa, my mother would sulk, and then the others would say she had a weird personality.
After my mother practiced Falun Dafa, she understood that everything has a reason. The close relationship between my aunties and my grandmother was due to their predestined relationships. Their bad relationship with my mother was also due to a predestined relationship. Once my mother let go of the unpleasantness she suffered from her family, she changed completely.
My Mother Became Courageous
My mother had always been timid and afraid of things since her childhood. When she first began to work, she was too afraid to leave her parents to work in another city. However, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to persecute Falun Dafa in 1999, my mother went to Beijing with fellow practitioners to appeal, despite the pressure. Seeing the great Dafa being slandered, she knew she must stand up for justice. Despite all kinds of difficulties and fear, she bravely went to appeal for Dafa.
After she returned from Beijing, in addition to the police station and her workplace talking to her, my grandparents also went to talk to her. My mother later told me, “It’s strange. Compared with the police station and my workplace, I was more afraid of my parents talking to me.” But that was not surprising. My grandparents have always been very strong-minded. Once they made a decision, their children had no choice but to follow it, not to mention that my mother was always in the lowest position in the family. When my mother first learned Dafa, my grandparents were against it and told her not to practice Dafa. That was the first time my mother refused to follow their wishes.
This time, my grandfather asked her whether she was still going to practice Falun Dafa. My mother said without hesitating, “Yes!” Her firm belief in Dafa made her bravely stand up to her parents again. That was the second time that my grandparents failed to influence my mother’s choice.
My Mother Became Forgiving
Later on, my grandparents chose to live with Auntie Jing, and went to her city to help take care of her child. Then, Auntie Meng went abroad, Auntie Jing got divorced, and my grandmother’s health worsened. Every time my grandmother or my grandfather were sick and hospitalized, my mother had to go to their city to take care of them, because Auntie Jing was too busy making money to support her daughter’s study abroad, and my grandparents didn’t want to hire a nanny or move to our city.
But, they were still not satisfied. In order to keep my mother with them in their city, they thought of all kinds of things. First, as I had just graduated from college, they wanted to force me to go work in Auntie Jing’s company, so that my mother would then stay in Auntie Jing’s home and take care of my grandparents. After we refused, my grandmother was furious with us and said a lot of bad things, such as I would not have a future if I stayed in my city and could not earn more than 2,000 yuan a month, and my parents were short-sighted. Once, after a major operation, my grandmother threatened my mother, “If you don’t stay with me here, I don’t want to live anymore!” My grandfather talked to my mother and asked her to stay. My mother said, “I have my own family. My child and husband are both there. You can move there and live with us.” In the end, my grandfather even said, “You can divorce your husband!”
Because of my mother’s refusal to move to their city, my grandparents and aunts were all very unhappy. Auntie Jing would ignore my mother when they ran into each other, and Auntie Meng would not answer my mother’s phone calls. Although my mother would go take care of my grandparents whenever they were sick, their attitude towards our family was never good, and their words often showed impatience and disdain.
A few years later, my grandmother was diagnosed with a rare cancer, and they finally decided to move back to our city. But their attitude did not change. My grandmother would call my aunts to complain, saying that my mother didn’t care about her. In reality, my mother often took my grandmother to see the doctor. She also took care of their groceries and medicine, and chatted with my grandmother for an hour every night. But whenever my mother didn’t do something according to her wish, my grandmother would get upset.
Sometimes I was angry and wondered why there would be parents like that. My mother had already done so much. Why would they still be unsatisfied and complain?
My mother saw that I was angry and reminded me of Master’s teaching,
“Of course, while cultivating in ordinary human society, we should be good to our parents and look after our children. Under all circumstances, we must be good and kind to others, not to mention to our family members. We should treat everyone in the same way. We must be good to our parents and children and be considerate of others in all respects. Such a heart is thus unselfish, and it is a heart of kindness and benevolence—it is compassion.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)
My mother told me, “We just need to do the best we can. What others say is their choice. We don’t need to be afraid of being wronged by others. Grandmother treats us like this because she doesn’t know how to be a good person. She always limits herself to her own thoughts when thinking of others. In addition, she is now tortured by illness and is afraid that her children will not take care of her [in the past, when she and Auntie Jing had a conflict, Auntie Jing said she no longer wanted to take care of them]. We should not blame her, but instead, we should feel sorry for her.”
If my mother had not practiced Falun Dafa, she would not have treated my grandmother like this. She would probably never contact her parents again, let alone take care of them.
Once, my mother told me, “I used to frequently argue with your dad and my mother-in-law [who had a mental illness]. Once, I was so angry that I threw all the dishes into her room one by one.” I have never seen my mother like this, because when I was born, she had been practicing Dafa for more than a year, and had already completely changed.
It is Dafa that constantly reminds my mother to treat everyone according to Dafa’s standards of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. She no longer recalls the unfair treatment and grievances she has suffered in the past. It is Dafa that opened her mind ever more broadly and eliminated all the resentment in her heart.
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