(Minghui.org) I have been very blessed since taking up the practice of Falun Dafa in 1996 because revered Master Li (the founder) has been looking after me ever since.
The Joy of Discovering and Promoting Dafa
It was on January 14th,1996 when my husband got home from work and immediately said, “My coworker is practicing Falun Gong. It seems to be quite good. Our neighbor is showing the Falun Gong video at their house tonight. Why don’t you go and watch it first?” My husband volunteered to babysit our three-year-old child so I could go after dinner. My neighbor welcomed me warmly into her peaceful house and served me tea. In the video, Master’s loving and compassionate face drew me deeper and deeper into the Fa he was expounding on. I felt the Fa resonating deeply in me as if I had finally discovered the meaning of life.
When I got home that evening, I could hardly contain my joy, “Today is my true birthday, I must make a record of it!” With a pen in hand, I could not find an appropriate place in my house to record my life-changing discovery so I told myself, “I don’t need to write it down, I just need to remember it.” I composed myself and went to see my mother-in-law in her house in the north wing. I told her, “Our neighbor, Auntie Liu, is showing the Falun Gong video at her house. I went to watch it today, it was great. We could go to watch it together tomorrow night.” My mother-in-law agreed.
We both went the next day. When we got home she started having a fever accompanied by diarrhea but did not feel sick at all. I said, “Wow, that is amazing. Master is taking care of you already.” We went to watch the video again the same evening and she was fine by the end of it. A few days later, she took two other neighbors along with her and they too became Dafa practitioners. Starting with us three practitioners in the family, others in my husband’s extended family including his sister-in-law, his sister and his sister’s husband soon became Dafa practitioners, too. Naturally, my mother-in-law’s house became the venue for Fa-study and my husband became the Dafa coordinator. Our routine at the time was exercises in the morning, Fa-study on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings and exercises at the park on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evenings. As the number of practitioners swelled, we set up a new practice site outside a nearby department store.
What could have been complex relationships in a large extended family changed forever. Now everyone got along well and joy and laughter abound. My mother-in-law spread the good news far and wide. Armed with copies of Zhuan Falun, she introduced Falun Dafa to the families of my husband’s uncles and aunts. My husband’s paternal aunt in Beijing and maternal aunt in rural Hebei Province all became Dafa practitioners. His uncle composed poems praising Dafa and had them scribed in traditional calligraphy. Although no one from my side of the extended family practiced, everyone followed the teachings of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and lived in harmony.
Since I started practicing, all my ailments vanished and I was always full of energy.
I worked in a kindergarten school where my boss and coworkers all knew I was a Dafa practitioner. I got along well with everyone including the parents at the kindergarten and worked hard at my job. Seeing the changes in me, a few of my coworkers also became Dafa practitioners. My boss was very supportive of Dafa; she even provided a venue for us to show the video of Master teaching the Fa. Even those who did not become practitioners identified with the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. I was the team leader of one of the two buildings in the kindergarten and had been honored for my service two years in a row. One time when the road in front of the kindergarten was being repaired, some rocks and debris were left behind on the roadside. It was awkward for parents to walk in and out to pick up and drop off their kids. Two coworkers who were also Dafa practitioners worked with me to clear the debris after work one day. The next day everyone unanimously said that they knew that the good deed was carried out by Dafa practitioners at work. That all made the boss’ work much easier as everyone got along and worked well together. To me that was all a blessing from Master.
On Saturday mornings, practitioners from the whole county used to congregate at a park near the main streets to do the exercises and promote the practice. Dafa coordinators were there to teach anyone who wanted to learn. On Sundays, some of us also went to villages to promote Dafa and teach the exercises. Some practitioners went as far as getting in touch with the village committees to pre-arrange a venue for us and sometimes the village brigades would use loudspeakers to advise villagers of our arrival. Gradually, more and more practitioners joined in these Dafa promotion activities.
Once while we were doing the exercises at a village near our county capital, it started to rain and it got heavier over time. The villagers who came to watch us all ran to nearby shops to stay out of the rain. But we all kept practicing, oblivious to the rain, keeping pace with the exercise music. No one moved during the second exercise, the Falun Standing Stance. Even the coordinators who were teaching newcomers the exercises were not in the least disturbed by the rain. The rain was still falling when the exercises were over but everyone was chatting and laughing as they left the site. That same evening, we exchanged experiences on the activities of the day. Everyone said their bodies felt extraordinarily light. A new fellow practitioner set up their house as a Fa-study venue on that day and has been going ever since to this day. I fondly remember how fellow practitioners would ask each other about where they were going to promote Dafa on Saturdays.
My home village is about 100 miles from the county capital where we live now. My parents also moved here a long time ago. My husband taught at a primary school in my home village for three years but we moved to the capital after we got married, when our child was still five years old. So I have been away from the village for quite some time but I still loved the people there and wanted to bring the good news of Dafa to them. We organized with some fellow practitioners to pay a visit to the village in the second half of 1998.
I remember on the day of our outing, everyone brought their own food and water for the day. We hired two vans and drove two hours to my home village. My village was one of five in the region. We spent the day in two of the villages. We visited the village production brigade whose leaders received us warmly. Because my parents are very nice people and are well regarded, the villagers were very friendly towards me and some asked me to pass on their well wishes to my parents. One brigade leader even said my husband was “the son-in-law of the village”. I raised my voice to speak into the loudspeaker, “Dear fellow villagers, I am back! Anyone who wishes to learn Falun Dafa please come to the village brigade and we will teach you the exercises free of charge.” And came they did in large numbers. They were all glad to see me and were surprised that all these outsiders with me were Falun Dafa practitioners. An old neighbor and my older sister invited us to eat at their houses but we turned them down because we did not want to inconvenience them. Besides, we had brought our own food. I was particularly pleased with the large turnout with some wanting to learn the exercises and obtain a copy of Zhuan Falun immediately. The Dafa coordinators were considering coming back another time to show the video of Master teaching the Fa.
At the end of 1998, older practitioners in the county capital, working in three groups, managed to have televisions and video players transported to three separate villages where they showed Master’s video. They went back and forth on the 100 mile journey and finally finished showing the nine lecture video series on the eve of the 1999 Lunar New Year. My husband took advantage of the New Year holiday period and took the train to my home village to study the Fa with the practitioners there. Today, the practitioners there are still firm in their faith in Dafa. One elderly practitioner who is 79 is still strong and capable of hard labor work including doing housework, going up the mountain and working on the land. She has been reading one lecture of Zhuan Falun a day since she took up cultivation, with no interruption. It’s truly amazing, thanks to the power of Dafa.
Thank you, Master, for sowing the seeds of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance in the hearts of my fellow villagers!
Maturing in the Face of the Persecution of Dafa
My husband and I took part in the peaceful appeal in Beijing on April 25th, 1999. We also went to Beijing on July 21, 1999 to appeal for justice for Dafa for two days. Since the start of the persecution, my husband had been illegally detained repeatedly, sent to a forced labor camp and sentenced to prison. I, myself, have been detained twice and we have both lost our jobs. We have matured in our cultivation journey over the past 19 years. Our family, friends and colleagues have been supportive of Dafa and have been blessed in return. Some of our friends have become genuine Dafa practitioners. Some police officers we have met have become aware of the truth about Dafa and refused to take part in the persecution against Dafa practitioners.
When my husband was incarcerated, my father asked me if we gained any monetary benefits from practicing Dafa. I told him no. He said, “If you are not making any money from it, why are you persisting with it against all odds?” I said to him, “That is because of human decency.” Surprising, he said, “That’s my girl!” My father has helped protect my Dafa books and everyone in the family understands we all have to live by the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance.
At the end of 2014, my mother lost all feeling in her legs after suffering a stroke. She could no longer walk and had to use a wheelchair. The doctor likened her condition to an old rotten tree and gave up on her. I told my mother, “You have always been very kind-hearted. The reason you can’t stand up now is because you have been worried to death all these years about our safety (as a result of the persecution) and that stress is taking a toll on your body. There’s nothing wrong with living by Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. If you can, from the bottom of your heart, say, ‘Falun Dafa is great! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is great, you will definitely be able to stand up again.” My mother repeated the words with all sincerity and she did stand up. Around the Lunar New Year, a month or so later, my mother was able to cook for us again and everyone was delighted.
In the summer of 2015, my mother vomited blood and was rushed to the hospital. I was not with her but before she was rushed to the emergency room, my sister reminded her to recite “Falun Dafa is great,” in her mind. She did just that and survived the ordeal and was discharged in 10 days.
At the end of 2017, my mother was 80 and fractured her hip after a fall. Everyone in the family persistently and sincerely recited “Falun Dafa is great! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is great!” She was able to walk again one month later. My parents’ hair is becoming darker – with their gray hair turning black again – they appear younger. Everyone on my side of the family no longer worries about our safety.
I am pleased to say that we have also resumed our twice a week group Fa-study at my mother-in-law’s house.
At the end of 2000, while my husband was still detained in a forced labor camp, my boss was pressured to fire me because I chose Dafa over my job. When the parents of the children at the kindergarten heard of my departure, they pasted a big poster on the wall praising me and the other teachers there. They said to my boss, “She is the type of teacher we want here, regardless of her belief.” My boss made a compromise and retained me as a casual member of staff, with the same position but at a lower pay. I took the opportunity to tell her the truth about the persecution of Falun Gong.
The teachers at the kindergarten all sympathized with my plight – and that of my husband who was still locked up in a labor-reeducation camp purely because he was caught distributing Dafa pamphlets – and condemned the regime’s persecution. A teacher in the same class with me said quietly to me one day, “You did well and deserved to be a team leader back then, but now you earn less and you are still doing such a good job. You have my respect for that! I work under you but I am earning more than you.” I just smiled in agreement. The teachers there started reading the Dafa truth clarification material and some said, “Read them if you want and ignore them if you don’t want to. Why do harm to others by reporting to the authorities?”
One year later, I was again forced to leave my job at the kindergarten. I moved on, but was determined to spread the goodness of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance wherever I went.
Police Officers Making the Right Choice for Themselves
Once when the police came knocking on my door, I refused to open it and in the struggle I cut my hand. A police officer kindly brought me a band-aid. They ransacked my house and took my computer, but the police sergeant returned it later. I remember one time a teacher colleague of mine told a police officer not to harass me or my family and to let us live in peace. Having dealt with many of us Dafa practitioners, many police officers are aware of the truth about Falun Dafa.
In June 2000, for a whole week, about 60-70 practitioners from our county went to the county police department to appeal. We told them about how we had benefited from the practice and handed over a letter of appeal requesting our rights be respected and that Dafa and our Master be exonerated. Everyone at the police department listened to our stories and requests without arresting anyone.
In 2003, while my husband was away from home evading arrest, four or five police officers came to the kindergarten where I worked, forced me into the back of a police van and took me to the police station. One police officer questioned me about my husband and I responded by telling him about the goodness of Dafa. He said he was not against Dafa. I said to him, “If that’s the case, please let me go or else my mother-in-law will be very worried.” He asked another police officer to drive me home. I found out later I had been talking to the deputy chief of the station.
Around 2017, a new police officer knocked on my door as part of the latest harassment campaign. We talked like old friends and he apologized for disturbing me when he left.
As a result of Dafa practitioners’ tireless efforts over the years in clarifying the truth about Dafa to police officers, many of them do try their best to protect us, thereby choosing a promising future for themselves.
Ordinary people are also awakening to the truth because they are touched by our selfless acts of spreading the truth and the goodness of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance wherever we go.
