Buckets of Water Equal to Buckets of Kindness

Somewhere in a small village located near Wuxue City, Hubei Province, lived a lonely elderly couple and nearby, an elderly widow. In recent years, due to their advanced age and rapidly declining physical health, they were having a difficult time fetching water each day. However, the water tank in their homes had never been empty, no matter if it was the hot summer or the icy cold winter weather. How could this be?

The husband was in his late seventies and his wife was seventy years old. They lived in a small village with a population of approximately 20 households. Because they had no children and the well in the village was quite a distance away from their home, maintaining an adequate water supply had become a significant problem for them in recent years.

One day in the spring of 2006, a 50-year-old Falun Gong practitioner carrying two buckets of water passed by the couple's home. He saw the husband standing in front of his house with a worried frown on his face. He asked him, "Uncle (a common Chinese term of respect used for one's elders), do you have any water available in your house?" The man shook his head with a wry smile. Just then the practitioner remembered what Teacher has told us:"With everything you should think of others--first think about others, and then think about yourself. " (Teaching the Fa at the Fa Conference in Australia) So, he carried the buckets of water and poured them into the couple's water tank. He also thought of another elderly widow in the village who was having difficulty with her water supply. So he offered his service to the two households and supplied their daily water needs all by himself at no charge.

The village access road is a yellow, mud road that can make walking very challenging. On hot days, the dried mud hurts one's feet, and on rainy days, when a person's feet sink into the wet mud, it is very hard to pull them out. This practitioner maintained his daily conduct in accordance with Teacher's words: "Qigong practice requires one to value virtues, do good deeds, and be kind. One should conduct oneself this way in everything and under all circumstances." Zhuan Falun No matter how bad the weather, the state of the road conditions or how busy his farm work, he never stopped distributing water to these households.

The temperatures were unbearably high from mid-July to early August of 2006. It was also a busy agricultural season for the farmers. The water usage increased for the two elderly households with laundry, bathing, vegetable washing and so on. In the past, they would go to the well to fetch water every other day. This practitioner owned and operated more than ten acres of farmland and was very busy with planting and harvesting. However, no matter how demanding his farm works, he took time off and brought the water to the elderly villagers.

The village and surrounding areas encountered severe snow storms and cold weather in the winter of 2007. The ground was covered with thick icy-snow and the water inside the well was frozen. In order for the villagers to get water, they needed to break the ice first. The icy ground was so treacherous that with the slightest mistake, a person could fall into the well easily. But the difficult weather had never deterred this practitioner from bringing water to the village's elders.

In his daily life, besides supplying water to these two households, this practitioner often checked on them to see how they were doing and told them the truth about the persecution of practitioners by the Chinese Communist Party. He also told them about the wonders of Dafa, which he noted could not only miraculously heal illness and improve one's physical condition, but also teaches people how to become more truthful, compassionate and tolerant.

The elderly widow died peacefully in 2008. The other elderly villager passed away two years later without any complication. Because a neighbour had installed an automatic motor-pump, the husband no longer needed help with his water supply. But the story of the practitioner who volunteered to help the village's elderly with their water supply continues to be told. Moreover, the truth about Falun Gong and saving sentient beings continues to circulate in the village. Some villagers praise this practitioner by saying: "Your buckets of water are equal to buckets of kindness."
Posting date: 11/13/2009