(Minghui.org) My sister went around bookstores in Beijing during her spare time after work. She had a strong feeling of looking for a book. Which book? She didn't really know.
Finally, one day, she saw the book Zhuan Falun. She felt that might be the book she was looking for. She bought it immediately, but she didn't read it herself. Instead, when I flew in to Beijing for my honeymoon, she gave the book to me.
On my return flight home, I glanced through the book. “I have to get Mom to read it. I'm sure this book can help her and our family,” I thought to myself.
My Mom
Since we were little, my mom had been battling health issues—high blood pressure, kidney problems, and chronic skin scaling that left almost no good skin on her body. She took lots of medicine and still suffered from these ailments. Because of her physical discomfort, she was short-tempered and was always tense with my dad.
My mom was very strict with us, and my sister, brother, and I were all very afraid of her. After my sister and brother graduated from college, they both moved out and didn't want to come back.
My mom was lying in bed reading a book when I came back from my honeymoon. I gave her Zhuan Falun and asked her to read it. She looked at it and put it aside.
I kept pushing her to read the book. A month later, I asked whether she had finished it. “There's another one for you to read after you finish this one,” I said.
“I don't know why. I don't feel sleepy when I read other books, but when I read the book you gave me, I felt so sleepy that I would fall asleep after reading two pages. I have only read a dozen pages...” she said to me.
I was very upset and lost my temper with her. How I wished she would read the book quickly to gain better health and a nicer temperament!
Seeing that I was upset, my mom promised to read the book. When she picked it up again, she didn't feel sleepy at all, but read it from cover to cover.
It turned out she really loved it!
A few days later, she had the thought of learning the Falun Dafa exercises. Soon, an old acquaintance of hers visited and brought her to a group exercise site.
During that time, we saw changes in her every day. She no longer need her reading glasses and was full of energy. She had a rosy complexion, and her skin became very smooth. Most importantly, she stopped fighting with my dad.
She brought me with her every time when she went for group study or to do the exercises with other practitioners. I also started practicing Falun Dafa.
When my sister and brother came home for the Chinese New Year several months later, they were all impressed by the changes in my mom and me. A family on the edge of breakdown was brought back together, and it was so warm and harmonious. My mom took care of the whole family every day, and she did so with a smile on her face.
My sister and brother also went to the exercise site with us. Impressed by the strong positive energy and compassion coming from Dafa, they both started practicing as well.
Although my dad didn't practice, he saw all the changes in us and was very supportive.
My Grandfather
My grandfather grew up in a northeastern province in China. When he was only three years old, he learned meditation by himself. His parents asked him why he always sat there and didn't want to play with other kids. He told them that he could see a very beautiful world when he closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes, the world he saw was filthy.
Every day before dawn, he saw many small Buddhas rotating on the window. They would fly out of the window and circle his head. Then, they flew into his head one after another. After they all entered, my grandfather would get up.
When he grew up, he helped his parents work the farm. When he was tired, he would meditate in a field. He saw huge metal boxes moving quickly but didn't know what they were.
Many years later, when he went back to his hometown and saw trains, he realized what he saw during meditation were in fact those trains. It was his supernormal ability of precognition and retrocognition that had come forth at that time.
My grandfather had a strong wish to cultivate Buddhahood. Although he was forced to marry and have children, he tried to leave them and go to the temple several times. Each time he left home, my grandmother would find him. My grandmother said he had a red aura above his head and that she could see it from afar, so he was never able to leave.
During the Cultural Revolution, my grandfather was persecuted. However, he never wavered in his desire to cultivate. After my grandmother passed away in 1993, my grandfather became a lay Buddhist and read the scriptures all day at home.
He didn't want to go to temples anymore, however. He said that when he went to the temples in the past, he found that the monks there were lost and didn't know how to cultivate anymore. Some even persuaded him to go back home and enjoy life. When he asked them about things in the Buddhist scriptures, none of the monks could answer him.
After our family started practicing Dafa, my mom brought Zhuan Falun to him. He was skeptical at the beginning, but after he finished reading the book, he excitedly told us, “This is the real Buddha Fa.” As a result, my grandfather also learned Dafa.
After he practiced a while, he looked a lot younger and more energetic. When he was walking with my dad on the street, people often thought they were brothers.
Before learning Dafa, my grandfather saw, during his meditation, my grandmother standing next to him, together with their kids, looking miserable. My grandfather felt so sad that he couldn't concentrate in meditation. After he started practicing Dafa, he asked Master Li (the founder of Falun Dafa) not to let him see that scene again. He indeed never saw my grandmother in his meditation again.
My Baby Girl
I gave birth to my daughter in 1997. When she was only a year old, I held her in my arm and said to her, “What have you come here for?”
I didn't expect an answer, as she didn't even know how to talk at that time. To my surprise, she answered me very seriously, “Mommy, I came here to obtain the Fa.”
I was shocked. She was just a baby!
I made up my mind that I must help her gain the Fa and live up to her expectation.
I couldn't see anything in other dimensions, but she could. Sometimes, when I read the Fa with her, she often waved her little hands in the air, telling me that the Falun in the book was rotating very beautifully.
One night, I went to a room next door to do the exercises after she fell asleep. After an hour of exercise, I went back to her room, very quietly. I thought she had good sleep that day and didn't wake up during my exercises.
To my surprise, as soon as I entered her room, I saw the little one waving her hands in her bed, very excited. “Master just left,” she said to me.
I almost cried when she said that. I was shocked and yet moved. I didn't know whether Master's Fashen was strengthening me during the exercise or helping me to look after the child. After all, he is with us all the time.
When I read the Fa to my daughter every night, she would jump around. If I stopped, she would say to me, “Mommy, don't stop reading.” Sometimes, if I was tired and didn't read the Fa to her, she would come over, put the book in my hand, and ask me to read it.
In addition to studying Zhuan Falun, she also learned poems in Hong Yin and memorized them.
I did the sitting meditation one day after she fell asleep. When I was struggling with the exhausting pain in my legs, the little girl suddenly woke up. She rubbed her eyes, sat up, looked at me, and put her legs in the double lotus position. She closed her eyes and started to meditate with me. I knew Master was encouraging me through her. I felt really touched.
When the persecution started years later, my daughter also distributed flyers with me. She was so pure and innocent, like an angel from heaven.
That period of time was the happiest of my life. Practicing Dafa improved my health and uplifted my mind. I became more humble and peaceful. I no longer fought for personal gain or to stay ahead of others. My whole worldview changed completely.
No Regret
One year after my grandfather learned Dafa, the Communist Party launched its nationwide persecution of Dafa in 1999. My uncle and aunt were afraid that my grandfather would be persecuted again, like what happened during the Cultural Revolution. They burned all of my grandfather's Dafa books, watched him closely, and would not allow him to practice, just as my grandmother did to him when he was younger.
Not long after that, my aunt had a very strange illness and became bedridden. The hospital couldn't find a cure, and my uncle began to care for her.
When my grandfather's cultivation environment was destroyed, his physical and mental condition gradually went downhill. He eventually passed away in 2005.
On the day he passed away, I saw in my dream countless lotus flowers fall from the sky. I knew that my grandfather had gone to a good place, but it was so sad that he wasn't able to complete his journey in Dafa cultivation.
My sister was a government employee. As soon as the persecution started, she was fired from her job, and their house provided by the government was taken away. Her family was suddenly left in a dire situation.
In 2002, she was arrested for telling people about the persecution and sentenced to eight years in prison. My brother-in-law was sentenced to three years with five years of probation. My younger brother and his wife were also arrested for passing out flyers and seeking the release of other practitioners; both were given two years of forced labor.
As the authorities put my sister and brother's family into prison and labor camps, they didn't spare me. Soon after they put me under surveillance, they also arrested me and sentenced me to 13 years in prison.
For my mom, the police and local 610 Office had identified her as the local coordinator and arrested her on July 22, 1999. She was detained for two days and denied food and sleep. The police extorted several hundred yuan from her before releasing her.
The police kept coming to harass her. While we were all imprisoned, the police threw her into a brainwashing center in an attempt to “transform” her and force her to renounce Dafa, leaving behind her two four- and five-year-old grandchildren home alone.
My mom was so worried about the children that she signed a renunciation statement at the brainwashing center. She hurried home to find the two kids starving. She quickly prepared some food for them, and they gobbled up everything. Later, my mom wrote a solemn declaration expressing her regret about the statement and hoped to do better in the future.
In 2007, my mom was reported to the police when she was talking to people on the street about Falun Dafa. She was detained for ten days, during which time she appeared to be seriously ill and was released by the police.
For many years, despite all the adversity in our family, my mom remained firm in Dafa cultivation and tried her best to let people know about the persecution. Meanwhile, she and my father, the only two people in our family who remained outside of prison, worked very hard to save enough money for us.
Sadly, when we were all released and came back home, my mom developed serious physical problems and passed away in 2015.
While we were all detained and my mom faced the danger of being arrested at any time, my father, who did not practice Dafa, bore tremendous pressure that no one could imagine.
My father was a top executive at a big national enterprise. He lost his position after the persecution started and faced the constant fear of losing any one of us at any time. The Communist Party Secretary at his workplace kept pressuring him to divorce my mom and leave us behind to regain his position. He refused and said to the Party Secretary that it was wrong for the Party to persecute good people and tear families apart, just as they did during the Cultural Revolution.
During those extremely dark days, my father made it through with his love for our family. He waited for us to come back home and be reunited with him. Although he didn't practice Dafa, he was greatly blessed. After all the hardships, he is still in good health and enjoys our company at his side now.
For us, despite all the harsh persecution, we still have the steadfast heart for Dafa. We now cherish every day and take the time to cultivate ourselves well and let more people know about the persecution.
Dafa brought peace and happiness to our family. Without the persecution, more families would have benefited from Dafa.
