|
The Story of My "Older Sister"
By Chen Xiuyie, a Falun Dafa practitioner from Taiwan
(Clearwisdom.net) One day in January 2005, a woman in her fifties came
to our Falun Dafa exercise practice site at six o'clock in the morning. Upon
arrival, she immediately sat with us to send forth righteous thoughts. It
appeared that she could comfortably sit in the double lotus position (the
sitting position for the fifth Falun Dafa exercise, where one leg is crossed on
top of the other). After we had finished the exercises, I asked her how long she
had been practicing and how it was that I had never met her before. She replied
that this was her first day and she had only read six pages of the Falun Dafa
text, Zhuan Falun over a period of two days. She is the main
character of this story. Since she is older than most of us, we all call her
"older sister" and her husband "older brother." "Older sister" did not have a formal education. She started to act
in plays at age thirteen. She said she had a natural talent in acting, language,
and sewing. She is pretty good at playing any type of character. She learned to
read from memorizing her lines and learning different languages. But she only
knows a limited number of Chinese characters. Traditional plays are mostly based on historical stories about loyalty,
piety, virtue and righteousness. Thus "older sister" has a deep
understanding of traditional values. She is a very kind, righteous and gracious
person. But she has a bad temper. "Older sister" had a hard life. Her
parents divorced when she was still very young and so she grew up with her
father and stepmother. She did not have a happy childhood and she went through
many hardships. Perhaps those hardships established a foundation for her
cultivation in her later years. In February of 2004, she found an abnormality in her breast. She was
diagnosed with breast cancer. "Older brother" tried to get hold of the
best medicine available for her, yet they all had a foul smell and taste, but
nevertheless she continued to take all sorts of Chinese medicines. However, the
effect was limited. Ever since her illness, she never had a good nights sleep.
She had to take sleeping pills that resulted in drowsiness and confusion. She
felt bad physically and mentally. In January of 2005, a friend introduced Falun Dafa to "older
sister" and her husband. This friend also gave her a copy of Zhuan Falun
and told her that many genuine practitioners recovered from terminal illnesses
without taking any medicine. "Older sister" half believed and half
doubted what she heard. That night, she spent half an hour reading Zhuan
Falun. Because she does not know all the characters, she read very slowly.
She read three pages, but she slept really well that night and felt pretty good
the next day. Since she had not had a good night's sleep since her illness, she
was a little moved. She thought she would try again. She read another three
pages the second night and again she slept very well. She was so excited and
amazed by the power of Falun Dafa; she came to believe this would save her life.
On the morning of the third day, she found the Falun Dafa exercise site. Ever since "older sister" started practicing Falun Gong, she has
always been the first one to arrive at the practice site and she always
practices for the full two hours. "Old brother" worries that she goes
out so early in the morning, so he came with her. As a result, he also started
to practice. Every day, the two of them arrive at the practice site before
anyone else, never missing a single day. Only after a week of practicing Falun
Dafa did "older sister" start to tell her friends and family members
about the practice. She used herself as an example. She wanted all her friends
and family to know about such a wonderful practice. Although she spoke well, it
seems that few of them have the same standard of enlightenment quality as her. The second day "older sister" started the practice; she asked about
the meaning of sending forth righteous thoughts and why we do it. We told her
about the purpose, meaning, time and mnemonics. Since then she does it everyday
without letting up. One day in March, we were sharing some experiences about
informing people about the practice and the persecution. "Older
sister" did not seem to understand. We thought since she was a new
practitioner it would be difficult to ask her to immediately participate in the
activities that we take part in to allow people to learn about the practice and
the horrific persecution, so at first we did not tell her the importance of such
activities. But she took the initiative and asked. She does not know how to
write and she cannot ride a bicycle. So she would drag her small shopping cart,
walk to fellow practitioners' home, and take home hundreds and thousands of
Falun Dafa materials already placed in envelopes. She would then put stamps on
them and mail them out. Her daughter has a computer, so she asked some
technicians to install a software program used for clarifying the truth about
Falun Dafa on it. Although she does not know how to operate the computer, she
asks her daughter to help her and to use the Internet as a means to let more
people learn the truth. For the entire first week that "older sister" started practicing,
she slept very well. On the evening of the eighth day she saw some expensive
Chinese medicine made of musk at home. She thought, "It is a waste not to
eat such expensive medicine. Maybe my illness will be cured even faster if I
take the medicine and practice Falun Gong." So she took several pills, but
she could not sleep well the whole night. The next morning, she woke up with
coughing and other cold symptoms. She then took some cold medicine. On the way
to the practice site, she vomited all the medicine out. After two hours of
practice, her whole body felt better. She immediately enlightened to that she no
longer needs to take medicine. "Older sister" is a very good actor. Whenever there is a play, the
theatrical troupe boss would ask her to play. In the past, she would get angry
and started scolding if something upset her. There is one time after she started
practicing Falun Dafa when the boss threw a fit at her for no reason, but she
did not get angry and stayed calm. She said she felt that her character had
changed. One time she had very bad stomachache right before the taping. She
thought, "Teacher, I came all the way to play. But my stomach hurts so bad
that I cannot play. How embarrassing is it for me to get paid for doing
nothing?" Suddenly, her stomach stopped hurting and she was able to finish
taping. She remembered that Teacher had said in his lectures once, that one
could ask Teacher for help when in need and that is also a test of whether one
believes in Teacher or not. Because "older sister" cannot read very well, she is very slow when
it comes to reading. Some of the concepts in Zhuan Falun are not easily
understood, such as molecules, atoms, the universe, time-space, micro-cosmos,
and macro-cosmos, etc. We tried our best to explain them to her and she seemed
to gain a better understanding. We often download articles from Falun Dafa
related websites and pass them around at the practice site. Although "older
sister" reads slowly, she remembers the complete contents after reading the
article only once. I truly admire her ability. Her illness karma manifests on her body in the way that she could see it
everyday. She is being tested daily. Sometimes she would think about using
medicine to help speed the recovery. But on her second thought, she realizes
that there is no need for any bandage or medicine. Many cultivators' tests come from those around us. Her husband occasionally
would say something unkind to her, and "older sister" would feel very
bad and she would tell us about it. We told her that that was her tests and she
needed to eliminate karma and pass the test in order to improve. Because she is
new to cultivation, we try our best to help her. Whenever she has tests, we do
our best to tell her how to approach it from perspective of the principles
taught in Falun Dafa. She has very good enlightenment quality; she can usually
immediately enlighten to it. When we later share our understandings, she could
always speak from the' perspective of the teachings laid out in Falun Dafa.
Although she read slowly, it does not interfere with her understanding of Falun
Dafa's principles. Her character improves very quickly. Her complexion improved
daily, and she looks younger too. Her face shows an appearance of kindness and
compassion. She told her husband, "Falun Gong has saved my life. Otherwise, I would
still be in bed waiting to die. I would be suffering and you would be suffering
too. You should thank Falun Dafa." She also thanks Falun Dafa for giving
her a new perspective on life - to return to ones true self. She said she
would do her best in The Three Things and not waste the new life that Teacher
Li, the founder of Falun Dafa, has given her. Thank you, merciful Teacher.
|