Look Within to Improve the Family Cultivation Environment

I obtained the Fa in 1995. In the personal cultivation period before the persecution, my husband was supportive of me in practicing Dafa. When the persecution started in 1999, I went to Beijing to appeal. After I came back home from Beijing, my cultivation environment in the family declined due to the media's defaming Dafa and the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) harassment of my family.

My husband didn't allow me to study the Fa or practice the exercises at home. If I did, he would beat me and take away my book. Thus, I had to do these things when he was not home. I was beaten many times due to my practice and several copies of Zhuan Falun were taken away. As Dafa practitioners did more work clarifying the truth later on, I was handling those materials and hid them in places that I considered safe. However, my husband often found and destroyed them.

I have been laid off for many years, but my husband was fine with the situation and nice to me. However, in those days, he was mad at me constantly and didn't want to talk to me. He would not give me a basic living allowance, either. I had to start a small business with a little money borrowed from others. My husband would not do any housework. When I bought heavy stuff for the family, like sacks of rice or flour, he would not lend a hand to carry it upstairs but walked away, and I had to ask a neighbour to help me. When I talked to fellow practitioners, I always complained about his mistreatment and injustice to me.

Once I went to his work place to ask for the return of the Dafa books and DVDs he had taken from me, thinking that he would want to keep face at his work place and that I could clarify the truth to his co-workers as well. However, not only did he not give me back the books, but he called the police to arrest me. Later, he told me that he had filed for divorce and asked me to choose between divorce or giving up Dafa. I replied firmly: "I don't want to choose either. Master told us to be a good person in the family and in society. Divorce is not a good thing. If you don't want to live with me, I can't force you to. But that is only your choice, and you cannot tell people that I initiated the divorce because of my practicing Dafa. You must not defame Dafa!"

That evening, he asked my family members and his family members to our home to try to talk me into giving up Dafa. I told them that I had benefited from cultivating Dafa and Dafa was widely spread all over the world. That didn't seem to move them much. My mother cried and begged me not to divorce, and my father was so angry that he wanted to cut off our relationship; his family said that I chose Dafa over the family, and they felt ashamed of my practice of Dafa. When I was in this lonely situation, I saw golden rays dancing in front of my eyes--I knew that was Master's encouragement to me because of my steadfast belief in Dafa. At the end, all the family members left without any results.

I asked myself: Since Dafa is sacred, how did this situation develop? How was I going to validate Dafa and clarify the truth to people?

Master told us that Dafa practitioners should be one body.
"The next person's things are your things, and your things are his things." (Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. Fa Conference)

So I turned to fellow practitioners for advice. Some practitioners helped me in sending forth righteous thoughts, some looked for Master's lectures after the persecution started for me, some provided a place for me to study the Fa, and others wrote letters to my husband. Little by little, my righteous thoughts were getting stronger, and I enlightened from Master's lectures that I had loopholes in my cultivation:

1.My understanding of the Fa was not clear and correct because I considered the interference from the evil in other dimensions as the persecution from humans;

2.I had not looked within enough to dig out my deep attachments such as self-satisfaction, zealotry and complaints;

3.I had not paid enough attention to sending forth righteous thoughts. Master had passed divine powers to us, but I had not been able to use them due to the restriction of human notions.

4.I had not realized the great mission of Dafa practitioners in the Fa-rectification period, so my compassion for ordinary people was not strong enough. As a result, my actions in clarifying the truth were not heartfelt.

When I recognized my attachments and shortcomings, my husband behaved like a new person. He didn't want to divorce me any more, and vowed that he would not destroy my Dafa books and truth clarification materials again. He asked me to study the Fa well and practice the exercises so that he could benefit from it, too.

Now he is very nice to me. He does a lot of housework after coming home, and compliments me on my cooking, looks (before, he didn't compliment me even when we were dating), knowledge and capabilities.
My husband had pain in his fingers and shoulders which no medication could help. I realized it must be because he had damaged Dafa books and materials. I told him what I thought, and asked him to write a statement expressing regret for having made mistakes due to believing in the CCP's lies, and a willingness of make it up to Dafa. Upon doing so, all his aches were gone! Dafa's miraculous nature changed my husband's mind into believing in Dafa. He now has withdrawn from the CCP organizations with his real name. When others mention that I am a Dafa practitioner, he always smiles with pride.

The change of my cultivation environment in the family taught me that looking within is the key. Dafa is almighty, as are Dafa practitioners with righteous thoughts and actions.