(Minghui.org) I was brainwashed from a very young age by the Chinese Communist Party and its atheist doctrine. My mother-in-law practices Falun Gong. Besides telling me that I needed to be a good person, she also sometimes told stories about karma and about Buddhas.
I didn't understand it at first—my mother-in-law was well educated: how could she believe in these superstitious things? Then a miracle happened and completely changed me. It showed me that Buddhas and gods really do exist.
My mother-in-law's left breast started to fester in 2013, and the entire family panicked. By the Chinese New Year, her condition had worsened. Her left breast bled all the time, and she looked very pale. We took her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer that had spread to her brain and lungs.
To me, cancer means death. My mother-in-law was in the last stage of cancer and it had spread. There was nothing we could do to help. Although the family actively sought treatments, we knew the chances of her surviving were slim.
My mother-in-law, on the other hand, was more hopeful than any of us. Her practitioner friends visited with her daily. They read together and sent forth righteous thoughts for her.
I didn't say anything just to be polite, but I really didn't think what they were doing was going to help. How could the cancer go away just because she erected her hand and sent righteous thoughts? How could she be healed by just reading a book? The rest of the family felt the same. But as my mother-in-law grew weaker and weaker, we thought if it made her feel better, then she could do whatever she wanted to.
My mother-in-law got worse and worse. After rushing her to the emergency room one day, the doctor looked at her pupils and told us, “She may only have a few hours left, a few days at the most. Be prepared.”
We didn't know what to do and could only prepare for the worst. But her practitioner friends apparently didn't think she was that bad—I heard one of them whisper in her ear, “You're doing great! You have pretty much passed this test. I can tell by the look in your eyes that you have no doubts. Just hang in there, you're almost there. Things are bound to turn around after reaching an extreme. Just hang in there.”
Now, I had no complaints about my mother-in-law's fellow practitioners. They were all nice people and visited my mother-in-law many times a day after she got sick. She seemed to be very close to them and it brought her a lot of comfort.
Though we didn't believe what they said about her overcoming the tribulation if she had faith in the Fa and the master, we were touched nonetheless, seeing that they truly cared about my mother-in-law. However, she was so sick that it was hard to believe she could be cured just by belief.
I saw Master Li Hongzhi when I visited my mother-in-law one day, right in her ward in the hospital. I just looked up and saw Master. There was a beautiful glow around his body and it was such a wonderful sight. But when I tried to look closer, everything disappeared. It only lasted a few seconds.
When I told my mother-in-law about it, she said I had good inborn quality and was very lucky. I started to doubt myself—maybe it was just an illusion? But it was not; it was so real at that moment. I was so heavily influenced by the Communist regime's atheist theories that I doubted what I saw with my own eyes.
After that, I started to wonder if Buddhas and gods really existed. I especially felt that what my mother-in-law and her practitioner friends talked about made a lot of sense—one should examine oneself when there is a conflict and try to live up to the standard of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
I tried conducting myself according to these principles and was surprised at how smoothly things went at work. When I don't think about things in a negative way, fewer bad things happened.
But still, what they said about “letting go of life and death, then death will be far away from you” was beyond me. If a person could truly let go of life and death, wouldn't this person be a god? Had my mother-in-law really let go of life and death?
The day after the doctor told us to be prepared, my mother-in-law started to get better, much to our surprise. She had not been able to talk, but started responding to us and had facial expressions again. She even ate a little the very next day.
From then on, her recovery was nothing short of a miracle. She made significant progress every day. The family was happy and her practitioner friends were very happy too. Our attitudes changed, and we now truly believed in Buddhas and gods—without the help of higher beings, my mother-in-law could have never survived.
After she was discharged from the hospital, we found Udumbara flowers blooming all over her home. I looked it up on the internet: Udumbara blossoms are holy flowers of the Buddha school. They are telling people that the true Buddha Fa is spreading throughout the world.
My attitude and outlook on life have completely changed. Our lives are not meant to be human--we came here for the great Buddha Fa. What is the meaning of life? Fame and wealth are just illusions--family and career are our cultivation environment. We are lucky to have been born in such a great era when the Buddha Fa is being taught. Truly assimilating to the Buddha Fa is the way to eternal life.