(Minghui.org) Falun Dafa practitioners refuse to give up their faith despite the persecution even though they risk losing their jobs, families, vested interests, or even their lives. People are often baffled by their choices and ask them, “What’s in it for you?”
So what's in it for us?
Falun Dafa was first taught in China in 1992 and in a short period of time nearly 100 million people began practicing. Many of them quickly became free of illnesses, and would never give up the practice. People experienced the joy of having harmonious family relations and success at work after embracing the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.
The persecution has lasted 27 years, and the horrific crimes committed against practitioners are unprecedented, including the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) harvesting practitioners’ organs while they are alive and profiting from the sales. Many steadfast practitioners lost their families and jobs. From the moment the practitioners decided to continue to practice after the persecution began, some lost the joy and blessings they once had, including their money and reputation, their loving spouses, and children and grandchildren.
In this world of “everyone for himself,” practitioners choose to expose the crimes against them and tell people what Falun Dafa is. Despite the pain they suffer in the persecution, they want to help people see the evil nature of the CCP, and save them from participating in these crimes.
So what's in it for the practitioners? This is the million dollar question the practitioners’ families and friends, and even the culprits in the persecution, couldn’t answer for these past 27 years. Why does this group of people persist and are unafraid of losing their vested interest and lives?
Practitioners want nothing from this world. We practice Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. What’s in it for us is to let people know the joy of practicing Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, and resonate with these universal values. This way people will reconnect with traditional, universal, moral values and enjoy the beautiful life that only a morally upright person can. The CCP’s propaganda and lies will have no place in people’s hearts.
Twenty seven years is long enough for a newborn to become a young man, for a young man to become a middle-age man, and for a middle-age man to become elderly. It can change a person, and answer unsolvable questions. Every practitioner has their own stories to tell. I’d like to share mine, which involves how my practice changed my relationship with my family members.
My parents have two daughters. My younger sister went overseas to study and lives in another country. She occasionally called home and talked to us. The responsibility of taking care of our parents fell on me.
When they were young, my parents were busy with work and I was busy with school. They went from worrying about my performance at school to my marriage. Overall I got along with them well.
After the persecution started in 1999 and I was twice arrested by the police for not renouncing my faith, my parents began to think that I was a danger to the family. It was taboo to talk about Falun Dafa at home. Brainwashed by the CCP’s ideology for decades, they couldn’t see through the regime’s lies and wouldn’t believe what I told them. They became cold, and the way they looked at me was indifferent and distant, like I would kill myself or others at any moment.
Being in such an extremely hostile family situation, I seized every opportunity I had to clarify the truth to them. I tried to follow the requirements in the Fa (teachings) and put myself in their shoes. I wanted them to know what a real Falun Dafa practitioner is like. If I couldn’t communicate with words, I did so with my behavior.
As time went by, my parents reached the age of retirement. They went from being busy and lively to being bored. They were once surrounded and respected by their subordinates at work. Now they became lonely and needing company. It was the right time to help them understand what kind of person I really was.
I hired a helper and a driver to help them with their routines. I paid all their expenses, and arranged for their activities and walked with them. I cleaned the house regularly. When the help wasn’t around, I did everything for them and provided everything they needed. Many of their friends were sent to nursing homes. Every time they saw that I accompanied my parents to places, they were envious and said that their children couldn’t even call once a week.
The years I spent with my parents are a wonderful opportunity for me to improve myself. We didn’t spend much time together before they retired. When we had to spend almost every minute together, our differences were magnified. The friction and their hostility toward me became unbearable at one point. I especially couldn’t stand my mother because she was so unreasonable. She believed everything she heard on the Internet and wouldn’t let me use an electric water heater, drink bottled water, or charge cell phones at night. She got upset when I offered dishes to guests instead of to her. If I mailed my sister-in-law gifts during the holidays, she complained that I didn’t mail anything to her friends. She blamed the help for stealing from her when she couldn’t find her things. Everything she did annoyed me. I tried to reason with her but she wouldn’t listen, plus she was hard of hearing and it took a long time to explain one thing to her. For a long time I refused to talk to her when she came up with unreasonable demands.
My mother became hostile and treated me with disdain after I was arrested because of the persecution. I couldn’t believe that my own mother would behave this way, and for a while we seldom spoke. When we did, we argued. If I weren't a practitioner, I’d have sent them to a nursing home or hired someone to care for them. I would have moved to another country and lived comfortably. However, as a practitioner, I couldn’t let them continue to believe the CCP’s lies. I looked within and studied the teachings, trying to figure out what to do with such a stubborn old woman and how to be compassionate toward her.
Through studying the Fa, I knew that there wasn’t a quick way to achieve this. I had to let the teachings guide my every thought and action, always consider her needs, tolerate and care for her, and ask nothing in return. I told myself to care for them as though they were my children. I would do what they needed me to do, even it was something childish and ridiculous.
This was easier said than done. There was always part of me who wanted to argue with my mother. With Master’s help, I gradually improved. For example, she wouldn’t let me use the electric water heater, so I showered with cold water, even on winter days. I followed all her orders. Slowly she realized that her stubbornness and paranoia resulted in mistakes and chaos, yet I never complained. When no one paid attention to her demands to not use the water heater, the daughter who she disliked would shower in cold winter so that she didn’t have to worry about getting electric shocks. Her attitude began to change.
The moment she learned that I gave up a job offer that paid over a million yuan a year so that I could take care of them, she became a different person. She looked at me in a gentle way, with a smile that I hadn’t seen for a long time, “You came from the country of good people, didn’t you? I don’t think I could find a person as kind as you in the world.” I knew she spoke from her heart. In the process of giving up self and becoming altruistic, my grievances disappeared. Now my parents feel that I’m a wonderful daughter.
My parents look 20 years younger than their age. Their friends and former coworkers told them that they were envious of them for having a good daughter. Only a practitioner could give up a good life overseas and precious time with her children and grandchildren so that she could accompany and take care of her elderly parents year round. Our families, friends and neighbors often raised their thumbs and told me, “You are unbelievable.”
Filial piety is the most important traditional Chinese virtue. What is in it for me to be a good daughter is that I want my parents to know that Falun Dafa is good. I want them to see from my actions that practitioners are good people, and that Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance are magnificent principles.
They now know who’s evil and who’s righteous. Especially with the news coming out exposing the CCP officials’ corruption in recent years, they are convinced that the CCP lied about Falun Dafa to justify the persecution. Both of them chose to quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations.
My father often recited “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance are good.” He’s now free of illness. Witnessing the miracle, he knew that it was a result of the power of Falun Dafa. That night he quit the CCP, I saw with my celestial eye that the sentient beings in his world cheered for a very long time.
My husband lost his parents when he was little, and he became an introverted and quiet person. He was protective of himself, spoke in a dominant tone, and liked to give orders. He was an outstanding student and majored in science and engineering, and he wanted people to talk to him with scientific logic. After I was arrested, he believed that I was deceived into practicing because I didn’t know science and I had no logic. I knew that in order to change his mind, I had to show him how kind and knowledgeable practitioners are.
Because he liked to have in-depth and logical discussions, I studied the topics that interested him. I also explained historical and cultural topics that he was not familiar with in a simple way. Slowly, he was convinced that my choice to practice was correct, and agreed with my values and decisions.
I had to prioritize him, his needs and feelings. It was hard: he didn’t like me to socialize with friends, especially male friends; he wanted me to spend all my free time with him. Before I became a practitioner, I had a lot of friends and I liked to be around people. If I weren't a practitioner, I’d choose to prioritize my needs and not lose my friends and social life. However, as a practitioner, I knew that I had to be traditional and a good wife – I stopped socializing with male friends, and only occasionally met with female friends. If I had to attend social events where my male friends were present, I took my husband with me. My friends should be his friends too. I did not contact those whom he didn’t want me to interact with.
Seeing that I went from being a social butterfly to a traditional wife, he was very happy. In the process of so-called “losing my individuality,” I in fact lost many degenerative ideas. A good wife and mother should not lead the popular casual lifestyle between men and women.
In a morally degenerate era, Falun Dafa has given my husband a virtuous wife, and he knew that. He has high respect for Falun Dafa.
My husband’s father was killed during the CCP’s Cultural Revolution when he was five. He lost his mother the following year. Growing up he was poor, and was often bullied and looked down upon by others. He had a strong need to control money. He took all the money we made. He even took the money I made on my own and only spared me a little living expenses each month. He tried to control me by controlling my money. For a modern woman, this might be intolerable, but for a practitioner, I never complained once.
I spent about 1,000 yuan (US$150) a month. None of my friends believe that I have never gone to a beauty salon, and never bought myself any expensive jewelry or cosmetics. Everything I owned was the most basic. No one believed that I, a corporate executive, have never been to a gym, gotten a massage, or wore jewelry. I even hesitated to buy something that cost only 300 yuan. However, I know that a practitioner is naturally healthy without needing to go to a gym, and looks young without needing cosmetics.
My husband is an ethnic minority, and I am a Han woman from the South. I didn’t like most of the food he liked to eat. When we first started dating, he’d ask me what I liked to eat, and we’d order what I liked. Slowly I realized that he didn’t like the food I picked, and sometimes he wouldn’t even touch it. Later I let him decide what to order, and I’d eat whatever was in front of me. For decades, whether we ate at home or outside, it was never my decision as to what we ate. It was a very difficult process, because there were so many things I had to give up. At first I resented him. Gradually I was able to swallow the food I didn’t like, in the end I was able to enjoy the food. It was a process of improving my xinxing, and cherishing the food given to me.
After we got married and lived together, I realized that I lost financial freedom and I was unable to socialize freely. I couldn’t even eat what I wanted. I thought of getting a divorce because I became irrelevant and the marriage was meaningless to me. However, I knew that the raging voice coming from my heart wasn’t the altruistic life Master wanted me to be.
Falun Dafa has given me guidance and power to choose between being an indulgent person or a practitioner who follows strict standards. I chose the latter. When I tried to put into action the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, my husband changed, and our family became harmonious.
Falun Dafa is magnificent, and it made every bit of me selfless and altruistic. It lets all beings around Falun Dafa practitioners experience joy, harmony, love, and respect.
Most husbands couldn’t stand their wives’ endless nagging and complaining. The wives’ strong desire to control their husbands prevents the husbands from feeling warm and free at home. My husband is very proud that it doesn’t happen in our house. I knew I must respect his freedom and habits and I should not repeatedly nag him. No one in the family ever heard me complain about my husband or pry into his interactions with others. He has his friends and wants his privacy. I listen to what he wants to share with me, and I don’t touch on things he doesn’t want to talk about. When he cooked a meal, cleaned the house, or fixed an appliance at home, I praise him. I always see his positive side of him and give him positive feedback. The things he didn’t do well at home, I fix them. He also became more caring and considerate.
If every member in a family could follow the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, how wonderful would their family life be?
It’s a continuous process of cultivation for me to raise our child and nurture his character. My child grew up in the grace of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.
When my son transferred to an English-speaking middle school when he was young, he felt alone and helpless. He failed courses because he didn’t know English, fell in love with a troubled girl, became obsessed with rock music, and began smoking cigarettes. I told myself to handle this like a Falun Dafa practitioner. I needed to understand him, tolerate him and guide him without accusing him and becoming upset. I knew I had to find a way to guide him through his adolescence.
The first time I found my son smoking in his room and doing all the silly things his girlfriend asked, I was about to explode. I struggled to calm down and told myself to study the teachings, which always helped me get my reason and peace back.
With my patience and guidance, my son broke up with his girlfriend, stopped smoking, and no longer listened to rock music. He was accepted by a very good university. He told his friends, “My mother has never raised her voice with me. She’s my best friend.”
My son now lives in a different city. He chats with us online every day to ask how our day went and to tell us what happened with him that day. He knows that his parents, especially his mother, are his best friends for life, friends he can talk to about anything, friends who will not criticize him for his mistakes or shortcomings, but will discuss things and talk to him nicely.
After my son got married, facing my daughter-in-law, I swore that I’d treat her as my own. I devoted more love and care on her than I did on my son. I taught her traditional culture, helped her to become lady-like, shopped with her, bought her things she liked, and cared about her feelings. For the past eight years, when she visited, I made her feel comfortable like it was her own home. She told her mother, “Mom, the tricks you taught me about how to handle my mother-in-law are never needed. My mother-in-law is the best in the world.”
My daughter-in-law’s friends all knew that she was closer to me than her mother. I was the first person she shared her worries and happiness with. I was her protector, supporter, mentor, and friend. She told me that she wanted to become a mother like me.
My drawer is filled with the letters she wrote me when she went back to the city where they live. The letters are full of her appreciation and love for me.
Among all relationships, it’s the hardest to fake a good relationship with our family members. We cannot fake how we feel about them because being together every minute exposes all of our attachments. If we are able to properly deal with our family members, dealing with our friends, coworkers, and neighbors should be easier. When we put others first in everything we do, all our friends know we are considerate, our coworkers feel our righteousness and compassion, and our neighbors see we are kind.
What's in it for Falun Dafa practitioners? We want people to know that there is a righteous teaching in this world, and a group of people who uphold the best values in this chaotic world.
We want you to remember “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good” so that you can be blessed with good fortune.
We want you to resonate with the most simple yet valuable values of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, so that you and your loved ones can have good futures.
We want you to read the flyers Falun Dafa practitioners gave you, because we are telling you the truth. Please treat practitioners kindly, because that will be protecting the kind, and you will be doing yourself a great favor.
(Selected submission in celebration of 2026 World Falun Dafa Day on Minghui.org)