(Minghui.org) I was so fortunate to learn about Falun Dafa just as it seemed that my life was about to end! I'd like to tell my story.
Before I began practicing Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) I was very ill. The hospital notified my family that I was in critical condition five different times and that they should make my funeral arrangements. One of my relatives gave me the book Falun Gong. I was still lucid enough to read it and realized that Falun Dafa was what I had been looking for.
Although I was too weak to get out of bed, I did the exercise movements as best I could. I was soon able to sit up and then get out of bed. I could walk and eat. I told my wife, “Let’s go home. The hospital can’t help me. I want to go home and practice Falun Dafa.” The hospital staff were afraid they'd be held responsible if I died, so they tried to stop me. I told them that I just wanted to go home and that I wouldn't hold them responsible.
I live out in the country. A young man in our village had begun building a house. It was not built to code, so the government razed it. The young man retrieved the bricks from the walls but left the heavy foundation bricks behind. I thought he had abandoned them, so I collected a few. When my neighbor saw them, he told me he wanted to build a wall and asked where I'd gotten them. I pointed to the house foundation on the hill and explained what had happened.
My neighbor took his shovel and started digging up the bricks. When the young man saw him, he asked, “Who told you you could dig here?” My neighbor told him that it was me.
The lad was furious and went to find his friends. He and two women came to my home and began to swear at me and threatened to beat me. I apologized and explained that I thought he no longer wanted those bricks.
Before I could finish speaking, they started to slap my face. My face swelled and burned. Then they began hitting and kicking me. Nearly half the village came out to watch, but not a single person tried to help me or stopped them.
Before I began practicing Falun Dafa, I was bad-tempered and nearly every day I verbally abused or hit anyone I thought offended me. I once beat my wife so badly that she asked for a divorce. I'm a supervisor at work. If anyone got in my way I would swear at them or beat them. Once, I even threatened to stab someone.
After I began practicing I calmed down and did my best to follow what Master [Li Hongzhi] said,
“As a practitioner, the first thing you should be able to do is to not fight back when you are beaten or sworn at—you must be tolerant. Otherwise, what kind of practitioner will you be?” (Lecture Nine, Zhuan Falun)
I had just begun practicing, so my understanding of the Fa was pretty shallow. However, I clearly understood that this was a tribulation for me to endure, that I was eliminating karma, and that it was also an opportunity for me to upgrade my xinxing. I realized that I must have harmed them in another lifetime, so I was repaying the debt I owed. I could not retaliate as I would have before I began practicing.
Just imagine what would have happened if I didn’t practice Falun Dafa! When they humiliated me in front of such a huge crowd, I might have done anything to show that I was stronger than those two women and the young man. How could I still have shown my face in the village?
Finally, the three of them were exhausted and their anger was gone. They continued to swear at me but walked away. The villagers who came out to see the fight went home. When I touched my face, I could feel how hot and swollen it was. My entire body hurt.
By this time my wife had heard what was going on and rushed over. When she saw me squatting on the ground, she encouraged me by reminding me of a story Master told in Zhuan Falun, “This is a big tribulation, just like the one that Han Xin went through when he endured the humiliation of crawling between someone’s legs.” After she witnessed my amazing recovery from all my illnesses, my wife had also begun practicing.
She said, “On my way here, some policemen stopped their car when they saw me. They told me if you needed to be hospitalized they would make those who beat you pay the bill and compensate you. When I asked how the police had heard about it, she said, “The people who beat you were so shocked that you didn’t fight back, they were sure that you planned to sue them, so they reported the incident to the police.”
As the day progressed, I began to understand that, as a cultivator, it was easier to bear the physical suffering. The hardest thing to bear was the humiliation—the xinxing aspect. One has to knowingly suffer losses and lose face or be humiliated and let go of one's attachments. But most importantly, one should remain calm and not be resentful. If one can achieve this, then one is truly cultivating.
An Opportunity to Help the Man Who Harmed Me
Afterward, my wife wanted me to look for the people who beat me. I said, “This happened so that I could improve my xinxing. I'm won't sue them, so why should I look for them?” She said, “We need to let them know that, because we practice Falun Dafa, you won't cause them any trouble.”
My wife went to the lad who beat me and said, “Young man, my husband mistakenly took those bricks, and he apologized to you. Why did you beat him like that? His face was swollen and almost everyone in the village saw what you did. I came to tell you that we could have gotten you into a lot of trouble. We practice Falun Dafa. That's why we let you off so easily. My husband could go to the hospital and stay there. We could make you pay all his medical bills. Even the police told us to go to the hospital. Please remember that all Falun Dafa practitioners are kind because our Master taught us, ‘...you won’t fight back when you’re beaten or sworn at..'” (Zhuan Falun)
When my wife came home she said, “The young man who beat you is quite poor. It looks like there's nothing to eat in his house. Shall we give him a sack of rice?” I said, “Sure, I'm not angry at him.” Before I practiced Dafa, I would have been looking for revenge. Now I felt compassion for him.
My wife brought the young man a bag of rice. He was filled with regret for what he had done and didn’t know what to say.
I thought it over afterward. I'm a man but I allowed myself to be beaten by two women and a lad. I was humiliated before the entire village. If I didn’t practice Falun Dafa, I couldn't have shown my face in public.
The young man seemed to think that I might retaliate so he kept coming to my home and apologizing. I kept explaining that I was a practitioner and I would not harm him.
My wife and I told him about our amazing experiences after we began practicing Falun Dafa and that the things the Party said against Dafa were lies. The young man kept nodding his head and said, “From the way you handled the beating, I believe you.”
Because of this incident, all the villagers knew that I practiced Falun Dafa and they began to admire me.
People from the police station, the 610 Office, and the Domestic Security Division started to harass my wife and me. Once a 610 Office head brought a group of people to my home and questioned us. They demanded to know why we still practiced Falun Dafa. I said, “Before I began practicing I was so sick my life wasn't worth living. The hospital contacted my family five times and told them to prepare for my funeral.”
When he began repeating some of the Party's slanderous propaganda about Falun Dafa I asked him if Falun Dafa had harmed him or his family. When he said no, I said, “I used to fight with everyone, now I like to sit and meditate. Who am I harming?” He thought about it and then said, “Maybe one day when I retire I'll practice Falun Dafa and learn to meditate.” He never came back.