(Minghui.org) I was the youngest child in my family. When I was young, I grew up rather spoiled.; I would get angry very easily and had frequent, strong feelings of jealousy. When I grew up, I found myself in an unhappy marriage. I felt that fate had treated me unfairly, and I cried often. In the early 1990s, I began to develop severe health problems and began thinking of suicide, but I never seriously considered it since my son was only three years old and I did not want him to grow up without a mother.
In the spring of 1997, I read Zhuan Falun for the first time. Immediately, my view of the world completely changed. At that moment, I looked back upon the thirty-seven years of my life and felt ashamed of how selfish I had been. Soon thereafter, my health improved, and I became a Dafa practitioner.
My in-laws have three sons and one daughter, my husband being the youngest one. His second brother's family was punished by the government after they had a second child, going against the one-child policy. As a result, his brother’s salary was reduced substantially and his wife lost her job. To help them cope, my in-laws took them in and even gave their house to them. That made the other siblings angry, and even I found it unfair that they gave everything to one son without consulting the other children.
However, after practicing Dafa, I began looking at things in different ways. Of course, it was natural for parents to want to help their poorest child. Human relationships are based on karmic retribution. My in-laws must have been in debt to the second brother in previous lives, and they did not owe anything to me. Egalitarianism is a part of the communist party's idea, and it ultimately manifests as a primary source of jealousy.
My mother-in-law lived until the age of ninety-three years old, although she was paralyzed for the final fifteen years of her life. My father-in-law had passed away ten years earlier. During those last fifteen years, my mother-in-law spent every winter at her home with the second brother's family and the rest of her time at my home. The only part of her body she could move was her head. I really felt sorry for her, and I tried all I could to make her more comfortable. I turned her into different positions often. I always fed her first before having my own meals. Every morning, my husband and I cleaned her whole body with warm water. In the night, I would sleep on the same bed as her so that I could take better care of her.
Those years were not easy, but I took it to be a good opportunity to eliminate my karma, especially my attachment to fear of filth. Perhaps in a previous life, she had helped me in the same way, I thought.
Witnessing how well I was treating my mother-in-law during the most difficult times for her, other family members, relatives, and friends saw that Falun Dafa must be good. My mother-in-law kept telling other relatives that I was so good to her, even better than her own daughter. My father-in-law used to say, "My daughter-in-law, who practices Falun Dafa, is the best person in the world!" Even my neighbors were going around telling others that I was the best daughter-in-law in the entire province.
When I was illegally arrested during the persecution, both my in-laws cried a lot for me. They both knew that Dafa is good; my mother-in-law even listened to Dafa lecture recordings.
At the beginning of the persecution, most of my family members and relatives believed the government and were against me continuing to practice Dafa. When I was arrested, my husband's sister tried to stop other family members from visiting me. I did not harbor a grudge towards her. I knew that they had been cheated by the communist party, and I treated everyone nicely regardless of their actions towards me. Eventually, she came around and was very touched by how I cared for her paralyzed mother, telling me that she supported my practice.
Because I refused to give up practicing Dafa, my oldest brother beat me, insulted me, and cursed me, saying that he wished I would die. Later, when he had health problems, I tried my best to help his wife taking care of him. I showed him a defense statement from a lawyer defending Falun Dafa practitioners. My brother came to understand the truth and quit the communist organizations. He even began telling others that Dafa is good.
Similarly, my own father also refused to speak to me for five years in light of the persecution and my status as a Dafa practitioner. Still, I went to visit him regularly and brought him presents as usual. He also began to understand the truth and quit the communist organizations.
Although my husband's oldest brother's wife never helped to take care of our paralyzed mother-in-law, I did not complain. I treated her well as usual and provided help to her family whenever needed.
When the persecution started, I was arrested multiple times, fined, and fired from my job. Furthermore, our home was ransacked, and I was taken to a "brainwashing center." I had no hatred towards the people who participated in persecuting me, as I knew they were misled by the communist party's lies. I treated them as my family members. I clarified the truth about Dafa to them, and I was always very polite to them. In return, they were polite towards me as well. After 2010, many of them, including leaders from my old workplace and local policemen, helped me request to high-level officers to allow me to return to work.
Altogether, it was Dafa that taught me to have a big heart and be compassionate towards anyone and everyone.
I had a strong attachment to name and fame. Since I was young, I always wanted to be on top of everything. I was a top student in my school. When I worked as a teacher for a time, my class was named the "model class" in the county. I was so used to being praised all the time, and I was afraid of not doing well out of fear of embarrassment. So naturally, life played a joke on me. My son, whose IQ happened to be lower than average, was falling behind in almost everything compared to his peers. I became very distressed, that is until I started practicing Dafa in 1997.
At the time my son was in the second grade. I held him in my arms and promised him that I would not dislike him no matter what test scores he got.
Sometimes he would come home crying after being bullied by his schoolmates. I explained to him how karma transformation works. “If someone bullied you, then perhaps you bullied him in past lives,” I said. “Now he returned your virtue to you.” That would always cheer him up and make him smile.
I also taught my son to be tolerant of others and think of others first. Once in middle school, the boy who sat next to him stole 25 yuan from him. He asked me to report the incident to the teacher. I suggested that he talk to the boy first. If other students found out that he was stealing, he would face a difficult time in school. Soon after, my son told me that the two of them had a good talk, agreeing to be good friends and help each other.
When my son had difficulties in his classes during elementary school, I always told him that working hard would pay off in the long run. As a result, he pushed himself to do math problems three times over while his peers would only do them once. While he was in high school, I never forced him to study, since I saw that he was already working hard on his own. I often told him not to feel pressured about the college entrance exams as long as he did his best. The day he received his college acceptance letter, he told me that he was so proud to have a mother like me. He said he would not have been able to enter college without my encouragement. I reminded him that it was Master Li (the founder of Dafa) looking after him at all times.
A friend of mine once asked my son whether he wished to go to a top-level college through a personal connection. Before I said anything, my son said, “Mother, I will not take anything which is not mine. I will go to the college that accepted me based on my scores.” I was very happy with his choice.
Six months after my son got married, he complained that his wife was too impatient and that he could not bear her; he wanted a divorce. I told him not to. It would be very harmful to her since it is difficult for a divorced woman to find another man. Divorce is not good human behavior and marriage is a part of one's fate.
My son has been married for six years now. Both he and his wife have benefitted a lot from Dafa. Our family is always in peace and harmony. “The luckiest thing in my life is that I have a mother-in-law who practices Falun Dafa,” his wife once told her old classmates. “If you are looking for a good in-law family, try to get a mother-in-law who practices Falun Dafa!”
My husband used to work in a county office. As a part of his job, he often visited different villages and towns. He always brought back presents given by the people from the places he visited. After I practiced Dafa, I told my husband “no loss, no gain” and that he should not take these things from others for free, as it would cost him some of his virtue in exchange. From that time forward, my husband would refuse to take things for free. In some cases, the offers would be really hard to refuse, so he would be sure to pay them back. Some people even sent cash to our house, but we returned all of it. Some wanted to give my husband new houses; we rejected that too. Some people thought my husband had become stupid under my influence. We could have had ten sets of new houses if we did not reject those offers, but Dafa had taught us what was right and what was wrong, and that is more important.
I have been practicing Falun Dafa for more than twenty years. Not only have I reached a state of good health, but also many people around me have benefitted greatly. I try to guide people around me to follow Dafa's principles and always think of others first. I truly experienced what Master said: “The Buddha-light illuminates everywhere and rectifies all abnormalities.” (Zhuan Falun )