(Minghui.org) I started practicing Falun Dafa in 1998. Looking back on the path of cultivation I have walked over the past two decades, I have experienced the joy of moral improvement, the happiness of being physically purified, and the pain and entanglement of getting rid of attachments. What’s more, I have experienced Master’s compassionate care and encouragement, because I have believed in Master and the Fa in the midst of tribulations.
Wanting to Be a Good Practitioner
Before I began practicing, I was a profit-oriented, competitive person. I was unscrupulous and mercenary in order to make money. I was addicted to gambling. I often slept during the day and gambled until late at night. My wife had to take care of our children, do laundry, cook, and do housework, so she always quarreled with me, and the atmosphere in our family was tense and not peaceful.
Not only that, in those years, I had a lumbar disc herniation and headaches, and whenever it was cloudy and rainy, my back hurt unbearably. I had to have my son step on my waist to alleviate the pain, but it was still unbearable afterward. When I had a headache, I had to take two or three packets of headache powder. Because this medicine contains morphine, most people can only take one pack, but I had to increase the dosage for it to have any effect. After living such a muddled life for a long time, I felt empty, and that life was too boring!
In 1996, Falun Dafa spread to our village. The following year, my wife obtained the Fa. After my wife practiced, she no longer quarreled with me, nor scolded me. She often persuaded me not to gamble and told me about how wonderful Dafa is and the joy of practicing cultivation, but I was not tempted.
I was drinking with a friend one day, and during a chat, I suddenly had an idea about cultivating, so I said to my friend, “Today is the last time I will drink with you.” My friend was surprised and asked me what I meant. I said, “I don’t want to be so foolish, it’s too boring; I want to practice Falun Dafa with my wife. After practicing, she is happy and lighthearted, and her health has improved, too.”
I went to the practice site with my wife the next evening. The practitioners were reading Zhuan Falun. After a practitioner finished reading a paragraph, they asked me to continue reading, and Master was talking about the issues of drinking and smoking. After I finished reading, although I didn’t understand the inner meaning of the Fa, I knew that if I wanted to practice, I had to quit smoking and drinking.
The next day, I gave away my last seven packs of cigarettes and my lighter. The day after that, there happened to be a party in the village, and everybody was smoking, drinking, and playing drinking games. But that day I just held back and didn’t participate. The people around me felt that was strange, and I said to them, “I have been practicing Falun Dafa and I will no longer smoke and drink, or gamble. I must be a good practitioner!” I had abandoned these vices for good.
In the days that followed, I studied the Fa in the evening and did the exercises in the morning. I lived happily all day long. Before I knew it, my headaches and back pain had disappeared, and I was disease-free. I remember I once said to my wife, “Even if I’m offered the position of prime minister, in exchange for my practice, I won’t do it!”
My body and mind underwent immense changes, and my whole worldview really changed too! I became a good person in accordance with Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, and was responsible to my family and relatives. I lived a down-to-earth life, starting from being a good person, being kind to others, and treating people with sincerity. If there was something that needed to be done in the village, I rushed to do the dirty work that others were unwilling to do. The road was uneven and muddy, so I took the initiative to build paths to facilitate pedestrians. The wells, where dozens of households got their water, were full of sludge, so I pulled stones to them with another Dafa practitioner to level them and clean them up.
Many people in our village practiced Falun Dafa, and everyone was nice to each other. When conflicts arose, Dafa practitioners were always willing to suffer. The atmosphere in the village gradually became better than before. When people from neighboring villages saw this, they praised us, “These practitioners are really powerful!” The village cadre also said, “It would be great if everybody were like you, and our jobs would be easy.”
Original Intention Does Not Change Amid Tribulations
Just half a year after I started practicing, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to persecute Dafa. On the evening of July 20, 1999, CCP personnel called me and another practitioner to the township government and forced us to watch TV programs that slandered Master and Dafa. I thought: “Cultivation is my personal matter, and what does being a good person according to Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance have to do with the government? The Dafa books are mine, why should I hand them over?”
On the way home that evening, the fellow practitioner and I felt heavy in our hearts, tears flowed continuously, and we really felt that the sky was about to fall! Sitting on the riverbank, both of us were silent for a long time. When I got home, my wife hadn’t slept and was waiting for us. We stayed up all night until dawn.
My happy and harmonious home was thrown into disarray because the CCP was now persecuting Dafa. People from the county police department, the domestic security division, the local police station, the township government, and the judicial office broke into our house every day to monitor and harass us, and we could not even do normal farm work. After a month of continuous harassment, it eased slightly. My wife and I had just obtained the Fa for a short time then, and we had not studied the Fa in depth. We were confused and did not know where our path was. But we did not stop studying the Fa or doing the exercises.
One night in early 2000, I heard that some practitioners had gone to Beijing to petition the government and appeal for justice for Dafa. My wife and I were very happy and wanted to go to Beijing to petition. But my mother was in her seventies, and we had a three-year-old child and a nine-year-old child; if we were both gone, who would take care of our family? We decided that I would go to Beijing to petition first, and my wife would go after I came back. I thought that I might not be able to come back, and even if I couldn’t come back, I would go, because I must appeal for justice for Master and Dafa!
On March 4, 2000, a practitioner and I took a train to Beijing. After arriving in Beijing, we went directly to the Appeals Office, but we were faced with interrogation, insults, and detention. Our local police drove to Beijing to pick us up. On the way back, we were locked in the trunk, and we had to lower our heads and bend our backs during the more than 1000 kilometers (621 miles) journey.
When we got back, we were taken to a detention center, and the guards continuously interrogated, intimidated, and coaxed us to sign the three statements to give up our cultivation, but we never cooperated with them. We were released a month later.
My wife and I became the target of key surveillance and persecution by the evil Party’s members. For the past two decades, we have experienced persecution at all levels, such as provincial, prefectural, and county public prosecutors, judicial departments, the 610 Office, township governments, and administrative villages. We have been subjected to many types of persecution, such as harassment by knocking on doors, being arrested, our home being ransacked, being forced to attend meetings, being criticized, and being detained in brainwashing centers and forced labor camps. We were subjected to harassment no less than 100 times.
The so-called sensitive days for the CCP meant that the harassment would be more frequent. It was often the township government that came to harass us in the morning, and the police station in the afternoon. They took turns harassing us, so that our family had no peace, and our family was greatly harmed. The various media and public opinion tools of the evil Party broadcast overwhelming rumors and slander that brainwashed the world every day, making people who did not know the truth hate Dafa, and even some relatives and friends looked at us differently and spoke to us coldly.
Despite the evil Party’s attempt to persecute us, it could not shake our firm belief in Dafa! My wife and I worked during the day, studied the Fa at night, got up early to do the exercises, and exchanged understandings on the Fa every day, encouraged each other, and practiced diligently.
Dafa Protected Me Through a Life and Death Test
On the path of cultivation, I have always firmly believed in Master and Dafa, and during life and death tribulations, I have been protected by Master and not been in real danger. I have witnessed Dafa’s miraculous and extraordinary nature, and I will never forget these experiences.
One afternoon in 2002, I was riding a motorcycle around a corner, and a large truck came toward me in the opposite direction very fast. I dodged it and accidentally ran over a stone, which caused the bike to lose control. The motorcycle and I fell into a drainage ditch on the side of the road, and the motorcycle pinned me down. The ditch was made of concrete, very hard, and I couldn’t move or push the motorcycle, so I had to take out my mobile phone and call a fellow practitioner. The fellow practitioner came and helped me out of the ditch.
My whole body was in stabbing pain that night, especially my two shoulder blades, and I couldn’t lie down because of the pain, so I could only sit up until dawn. I kept reciting:
“When it’s difficult to endure, you can endure it. When it’s impossible to do, you can do it.” (Lecture Nine, Zhuan Falun).
The next afternoon I was able to sit up and study the Fa and do the exercises. During this period, fellow practitioners came to encourage me. After 20 days, I was back to normal and able to work.
A month later, my wife and I went to the hospital to visit a patient. When we were there, I wanted to see if I had broken a bone. In fact, I wanted to validate Dafa and see if I wasn’t injured. The results showed fractures of the left and right shoulder blades and collarbone, which had recovered completely. At that time, I told the doctor about the process of recovering from my fracture in 20 days. The doctor didn’t believe it at all, saying that it would take 100 days to recover. I told the doctor: “What I am saying is the truth, I am a Falun Gong practitioner. I recovered by doing the exercises. I did not take a single pill, and neither was I given a single infusion. This is true.” My wife and nephew also confirmed to the doctor that this really did happen. The doctor laughed, feeling it was so amazing and incredible.
The other time was one morning in the first month of 2012. I was helping a friend repair his house when I fell from a wall more than three meters (10 feet) high. My head hit the cement steps of the old house, and my waist was on a pile of scrap bricks. I fainted. The villagers told me that everyone present was stunned. When I woke up, I found myself lying in a van. Only then did I realize that I was on my way to the hospital. I thought: “I am a practitioner with Master’s protection, and I’m fine.” I said to the people in the van, “No need to take me to the hospital, I’ll be fine.” But they didn’t listen and sent me to the hospital.
The examination results showed no fractures, and there was no problem with my brain, but some muscles and ligaments were injured. The doctor repeatedly said that I should be hospitalized for observation. I said to the doctor, “I am practicing Falun Dafa, and I can recover by practicing when I go home, I don’t need to take medicine, and I don’t need anyone to be responsible.” At my insistence, the doctor reluctantly agreed to discharge me.
I fell from such a high wall onto concrete steps, but my injuries were so light. I knew that Master had endured this great tribulation for me! Thank you, Master!
When I got home, the friend whom I had been helping with the house came to visit me twice a day. I said to him, “You don’t have to be like this, you are busy. Go ahead and finish repairing the house. You know that I practice Falun Dafa; we are good people according to Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and Master taught us to be considerate and act for the sake of others in whatever we encounter. So, don’t worry, I’m fine, I won’t blame you.” I asked my wife to give him 200 yuan (USD$28), which was the hospital’s examination fee that he had paid, but he wouldn’t accept it.
I hurriedly studied the Fa, looked inward, and did the exercises. After a week, I was able to work normally. The people around me witnessed the extraordinary nature of Dafa!
Through these things, I deeply felt Master’s immeasurable compassion and protection of practitioners. This enabled me to go through life’s dangers again and again.
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