(Minghui.org) My father is 79 years old. After he started to practice Falun Dafa in January 2013, he was so overjoyed that he kept saying, “Master is great!” and “Our family is wonderful!”
It was not easy for him to start practicing. For years he was a stubborn atheist. Only Master and Dafa could help him. It was such a relief to me that my father began practicing Falun Dafa during this historic time.
Father was a truck driver. He started to smoke and drink in his 20s. After he retired, he smoked and drank all the time, and he always smelled of cigarettes and alcohol.
He was a complete atheist and did not believe in anything. He did not believe that “good will be rewarded and bad will be punished.” He only wanted his children to be “successful.” That meant he often berated my brother for being too honest and kind. My sisters simply did not listen to him. Growing up in such a household, I was used to the arguments and swearing at home.
My father was very outgoing, but he never gave in if he thought he was right. Whenever he came across anything he thought was unfair, he would swear--and he would to swear at anyone!
He had to drive to remote areas for work. One dark night, he saw two lights in front of his car. He thought it was a house. But no matter how fast he drove, the two lights were always ahead of him. He was so scared that he sped up. When he arrived back at work, he was so frightened he was almost unable to get out of his truck.
Another time he saw a man walking in front of his truck. He wanted to offer him a lift so he sped up. But, strangely, the man walked faster than his truck. When he slowed down, the man slowed down. My father stepped on the gas and eventually passed the man. When he got out, nobody was there. That really frightened him.
Sometimes he heard someone calling him but he would not see anyone. Things like this kept happening to him, but still he was an atheist. He said that he did not believe that the supernatural existed, despite these strange occurrences.
I experienced great, positive changes both mentally and physically after I started to practice Falun Dafa in 1998, but it was very difficult for me after the persecution started in 1999. The CCP slandered Dafa and Master with all sorts of lies. The atmosphere was tense where I worked, and officers from many government agencies came to talk to me.
My father was always angry and cursed at me, especially when he drank. He once kicked open my door when he saw it was closed. He swore at me and did not allow me to read Falun Dafa books.
Pressured by our father and the CCP's lies, my sisters were also unkind to me and blamed other practitioners who helped me. One day my father complained about me in front of my brother, hoping that my brother would persuade me to give up Falun Dafa. But my brother said, “Let her practice if she thinks Falun Dafa is good.” He even urged my father to try practicing. My father roared at him, shouting, “Get out of the house!”
My father had always favored me over my brother and sisters. Now his attitude was the complete opposite. I was hurt and resentful. I talked to him many times but with strong sentimentality. Obviously, the results weren't good. Other practitioners came to talk to my father but he was sarcastic. I was very disappointed in him, and I believed that he was thoroughly brainwashed by the CCP.
My mother saw the wonders of Falun Dafa after she witnessed the positive changes in me, and she eventually started to practice.
My brother is kind and easygoing. He is not competitive and not interested in seeking personal benefits, so he calmly endured Father's swearing. He thought about cultivating when he was a teenager, and he endured many tribulations after he got married.
I was pretty sad when he did not start to practice Falun Dafa even though I talked to him about it for almost 10 years. With the help of other practitioners, he finally started to practice. Father was of course angry and cursed my brother even more.
When my father had to have surgery in 2012, I felt this was a good opportunity to talk to him about Falun Dafa. I told him some cultivation stories. He quietly listened. My mother asked him to practice the exercises. He said that he would not practice because he did not want to give up smoking or drinking. But he agreed to listen to Master's lectures.
He listened for a few days and said that they were very good. He decided to quit smoking. He started to practice the exercises on New Year's Day.
He still drank, but several times he either missed the glass when pouring wine or the glass tipped over. One day I overheard him saying, “Master, you won't let me drink? If I shouldn't drink, then I will quit.”
When my brother came to visit us, he did the exercises with us. My father was calm and looked as though he had never opposed us. Never mind that he had roared at my brother just a month before when he saw my brother doing the exercises. My mother looked around and said, “We all practice Dafa now. It's really great!” I could not help weeping.
My father changed a lot after he started to practice. Now he is always in a happy mood. He looks kind and sincere and has stopped swearing. Whenever he hears that someone is sick or in trouble, he says, “I have to talk to them and ask them to recite 'Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good' so that they can get better.”
One day he called one of his old colleagues and told him how amazing Falun Dafa is and tried to persuade him to withdraw from the CCP. I was very happy that my father even started to save sentient beings.
What powerful evidence that, without the communist evil spirit and other outside factors in control, a person can become so pure.
One day my father had sickness karma. My brother thought of Father while he was meditating, and he saw Master, wearing a yellow kasaya, great and compassionate, above Father. Master was very happy that father had started practicing Falun Dafa. Suddenly my brother realized that my father would be all right. Master let him know this so that he would no longer be concerned.
My father's colleagues were amazed when they learned that Father had quit both smoking and drinking. Our own friends could not believe that my father had managed to quit smoking and drinking at his age. They thought it must be that my father was in a poor health, because he had said before that nothing would stop him from smoking or drinking.
Several of my nephews came to visit from Northeast China. They saw how happy Father was and that he did not smoke or drink and didn't swear. He had completely changed. They exclaimed, “Your family is so happy. You must have accumulated a lot of virtue in your previous lives.”
Our family is immersed in Dafa's enormous grace. My father's amazing story is just one of thousands. It demonstrates just how wonderful and glorious Falun Dafa is and how Falun Dafa can change a person.