(Minghui.org) I was born with a stubborn personality. Before practicing Falun Dafa I was hard to please and would fight with my husband if he disagreed with me about anything. We spent our marriage in constant battles for ten years.
I began to practice Falun Dafa in 1997. I then tried to live every moment according to Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. I felt all the worries and troubles in my life had disappeared. I was happy, and my home became harmonious for the first time. My husband and son also saw my changes and knew Falun Dafa is good. They sometimes even read the Fa with me.
Walking Out of Tribulations During the Persecution
After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started the persecution against Dafa in July 1999, I was repeatedly arrested and persecuted in brainwashing centers for not giving up my belief. I was also illegally sentenced to four years in prison.
In the early days of the persecution, my home was ransacked multiple times, so we had almost nothing. My employer was then forced to fire me.
My husband did not have a stable job, so we had to do temporary jobs here and there. We made less than three hundred yuan a month.
To make matters worse, my husband developed the bad habits of excessive drinking, being unfaithful, and gambling. He stopped supporting our family and did not care about anything, including our only son’s wedding.
I became the sole breadwinner and had to deal with everything. To make a living and support our family, I started a business selling building materials with my friends.I spent more than 10 hours a day in the store. After work, I had to buy groceries and take care of the household chores.
Over the years, I was exhausted physically and mentally. I gradually developed a great resentment towards my husband. My cultivation state was bad; I fell asleep when studying the Fa, doing the meditation, and sending forth righteous thoughts.
I did not even know what I read after studying and felt dizzy every day. The practitioners in my area worried about me, and they repeatedly reminded me to study the Fa more and look inward at my own attachments.
However, I didn’t even know how to cultivate at that time, let alone look inward. Fa-study, doing the exercises, and sending forth righteous thoughts all became a formality to me.
I tried to look inward but could only find superficial problems. I did not understand how my husband could be so ungrateful when I sacrificed so much for the family. I felt deeply hurt, and my pain and resentment all came welling up. I behaved like an everyday person.
One day, Master Li gave me a hint in a dream. I walked on a dimly lit street and saw my husband playing cards. He saw me but did not say anything, as if I was a stranger. I became outraged!
I immediately turned my head and did not even want to look at him. At this point, I woke up at once. The feeling of resentment in the dream remained vivid and did not disappear.
I thought about the dream again and knew Master was hinting that my resentment towards my husband had become a rock. I then realized my cultivation had a problem; I was not looking inward unconditionally and could no longer treat cultivation as a formality.
Master clearly pointed out,
“In cultivation practice, there may be two scenarios when dealing with specific conflicts or when others treat you badly. One is that you might have treated this person badly in your previous life. You feel in your heart that it is unfair, “How can this person treat me like this?” Then why did you treat this person that way in the past? You might claim that you actually did not know it at that time, and this life has nothing to do with the other life. That does not work.” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)
I enlightened to my fundamental attachment and recognized that I had an attachment to “self.”
I thought I was superior to my husband in all aspects. I was so capable because my monthly income was higher than his annual salary. Everyone thought highly of me, so I believed I was so good and looked down upon him.
The thing I could not tolerate most was his betrayal of our marriage. His affairs made me lose face. I looked down on him from the bottom of my heart. How could I cultivate with so many strong and dirty attachments?
Master said,
“Studying the Fa with attachments is not true cultivation. Yet during the course of cultivation, a person may gradually become aware of his fundamental attachments, rid himself of them, and thus meet the standard for a cultivator. What’s a fundamental attachment, then? Human beings acquire many notions in this world and are, as a consequence, driven by these notions to pursue what they yearn for.” (“Towards Consummation” from Essentials for Further Advancement II)
Wasn’t my husband helping me get rid of my attachments and improve my xinxing? Then why did I have resentment towards him?
The resentment just showed I could not let go of sentimentality. I hated him because I yearned for a life and a husband that met my standards. He destroyed my desire for the life I dreamed of!
Master said,
“Since human beings have sentimentality, being upset is sentimentality, so are happiness, love, hatred, enjoying doing one thing, resenting doing another thing, preferring one person to another, hobbies, and dislikes. Everything belongs to sentimentality and everyday people just live for it.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)
When I remembered Master’s teaching, the harsh feelings toward my husband lessened, and I could appreciate him more. He is actually a compassionate person. My husband supported my cultivation, and he was friendly to all my fellow practitioners.
He always helped me deliver truth-clarification materials, no matter how far he had to travel. Once, he brought more than 20 copies of a booklet to another practitioner, only to find out nobody was at home.
He waited and waited and had to take them to work an hour later. There was nowhere for him to hide the materials, so he left his bicycle in a distant place and brought them home at noon.
He was scared but he did not complain. I also remembered that, in the early years of the persecution, my husband often helped me deliver Master Li’s lectures and brought back the money which practitioners donated to help me print materials.
He always paid the living expenses and the penalty for me when I was detained in brainwashing centers. He went to pick me up every time when I was released.
In 2015, when I sued Jiang Zemin, the former head of the CCP, for launching the persecution of Falun Dafa, my husband not only supported me but also posted his own letter to sue Jiang and signed his real name.
I regretted I did not cherish the lost opportunity to improve in my cultivation. I started to adjust myself and hold myself to the Fa's requirements. I no longer quarreled with my husband and did not argue about who was right or wrong. I cared about him and considered his feelings ahead of my own.
I also no longer asked him to give money to the family, nor demand to know how he spent it. I always bought clothes for him, and I would cook his favorite dishes. He felt my change, and the atmosphere again became harmonious.
Clarifying the Truth Face to Face
I went out to clarified the truth face to face with another practitioner for more than six years. There was a lot of construction in my city, so many workers from out of town were hired.
These workers all lived at the construction sites. I distributed dozens of DVDs after work every day at every site. Most of the workers played the DVDs as soon as they received them. In late 2017, I withdrew from my business so I could have more time to do the three things required of practitioners.
I went to hand out truth-clarification materials every day after studying the Fa and doing the exercises. We were able to help more than 10 people to quit the CCP every day. We cherished every brochure and did not casually give them out, but instead, we wanted every material to play its role in saving people.
We persisted every day except for extreme weather and always asked for Master’s blessing and sent forth righteous thoughts before we went out. We hoped all the sentient beings listened to the facts of Dafa and accepted the truth-clarification materials; the results were good.
After the lockdown ended in our region, we went to surrounding cities to distribute brochures. We took the first bus after sending forth righteous thoughts and usually arrived at our destinations before 8 a.m. We covered each area at least twice and could distribute more than 100 copies smoothly each time.
Recently, we started going to the rural villages to distribute materials and clarify the truth door to door.
One day, it occurred to me that over the past few years I clarified truth in all the surrounding areas and cities except for the community where I live.
It has been 10 years since I moved into this community. When I moved in, nobody knew I was a Falun Dafa practitioner.
Out of concern for my safety, I did not want other people to know I am a practitioner and was reluctant to clarify the truth to strangers. One day, a person greeted me when I picked up my granddaughter at the kindergarten.
I asked how he knew me and he said, “You gave me a DVD the other day. It is great!” He then asked for more materials whenever he saw me.
Sentient beings have been waiting for the truth, however, I did not distribute materials out of consideration for protecting myself. Then I decided to distribute truth-clarification materials in my community.
Everyone in my community knows each other. For safety reasons, I did not want my neighbors to see me distribute the materials. So I sent forth righteous thoughts more frequently and asked Master Li (Dafa’s founder) for help. I hoped all the residents did not come back home or go out when I distributed materials to their doors.
On the first night, I selected two floors of a seven-story building and distributed them successfully. The next night, I finished nine floors in three buildings. When I looked up, however, I found a surveillance camera.
I then went around the community and found more than a dozen cameras, and I became a little bit afraid. I thought about going out again with an umbrella only when it rained and also thought about giving up.
Master said,
“My fashen in another dimension knows everything on your mind. Because the concepts of the two time-spaces differ, in another dimension the formation of your thoughts is seen as an extremely slow process. It will know everything even before you think of it. Therefore, you should abandon all of your incorrect thoughts.” (Lecture Two, Zhuan Falun)
Master also said,
“If you practice cultivation, they will help you all the way to the end.” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)
My righteous thoughts strengthened. I thought to myself, “These monitors won’t work on me with Master’s protection.”
I distributed the materials for six consecutive nights and covered every building and residence. Under Master’s protection, it went smoothly, and I didn’t encounter anyone during those nights.
As long as Fa-rectification is not over, I will not stop clarifying the truth for even one day. I will persist in doing what I should do and follow Master to the end of my cultivation.
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Category: Improving Oneself
