PureInsight | November 21, 2005
[PureInsight.org] It was in the summer of 1999, and I was desperately looking for a job. I walked from the Xixiangpang Train Station to a nearby park. It was in the middle of the summer, and the weather was very hot. I was surrounded by wave after wave of hot air. I went to several restaurants and hotels looking for work. They were either too small or weren't looking for people like me. I finally found a restaurant that was looking for a waitress. I thought to myself, "I don't care. I'll do anything. It is not as if I am pursuing anything. Don't be picky." So I went to the restaurant to apply for the waitressing position. The manager of the restaurant interviewed me. I told her about my past experience. She liked me and gave me the job. So I ended up working at the restaurant for about six months.
The work was very hard and the hours were very long. The good thing was that the owner showed a lot of trust in me, which gave me a little comfort. But the days were indeed very long. I spent most of my days battling mud and dirty water. The restaurant constantly lost its water supply. Other waitresses and I had to get water from the movie theater in front of us and carry the water back in buckets. I felt like crying all the time. If I hadn't been a Falun Dafa practitioner, I would have left a long time ago and found another job. The good thing is that the owner was very good to me. She thought I was a good person based on my speech, my conduct, and how I never fought with other people over my self-interest. Toward the end, she trusted me enough to let me handle all the things at the restaurant, big or small. I was not interested in any so-called power or title. But after several people in the restaurant recommended me, I was made into the leader of the shift and worked in that position for more than six months. Sometimes we had to work until after 2 AM when all the guests at the restaurant finally left. When we got too tired, we would go to the private party room inside the restaurant and lay on the table to rest for a little bit. I often became so exhausted that I felt my back was breaking and my legs couldn't move anymore. Sometimes I even just lay on the ground and didn't want to get up anymore. I felt bitter and sad. I couldn't understand why I had to work like a dog. Did I really owe that much to the owner of the restaurant? Why did I have to endure such a difficult job? Sometimes I really wanted to just pass out and never get up again.
After a few months, I went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong and was detained at the Yanshan Detention Center. While I was inside the detention center, I continued to purify myself and was able to see one of my past lives that happened in ancient times. Back then there were forests everywhere and very few people. One could walk 20 or 30 miles and not see any sign of humans. I was born into a rather poor family. I was mentally handicapped. I was a boy, not very tall, and a little chubby. People were mean to me all the time. My mother in that life was the owner of the restaurant that I had just worked in (in this life, she cares a lot about how much respect other people show to her. Even her daughter has to knock on the door first before she can come in. She doesn't trust people easily and thinks people are out to get her all the time). I grew up in a poor environment. I was indeed mentally handicapped and couldn't talk in a coherent manner. Other people made fun of me all the time and wouldn't think twice about hurting or embarrassing me. Sometimes the daughters of our neighbor would make fun of me by asking me to give them a circus performance. They gave me a few sticks and a few plates and told me to use the sticks to rotate several plates at the same time. I couldn't do it and broke all the plates. They thought it was the funniest thing ever and laughed me for being mentally handicapped. When my mother saw that, she would sigh and feel sad that her son was mentally handicapped. I felt very sad inside. Actually I understood everything in my heart. I just couldn't express my feelings.
Finally, one day I got tired of being laughed at and made fun of all the time. So I left my home and my mother. I ran toward the wilderness. I was determined to leave the terrible environment behind and not return even if I was going to die. I ran and ran, and came upon a large forest. Nobody seemed to live nearby. But I was not scared at all. Suddenly from behind the tall trees a person jumped out. He was very strong and towered over me. He cried out, "Stop! If you want to pass me, you have to win over my precious knife. Otherwise, I will take your head." I realized what was going on. He wanted to kill me. I had practiced martial arts in the past and thought I had a good chance against him. Each time the man used the knife to attack me, I was able to get away. He got angry and threw out a piece of red silk that was about 20 meters long and 1 meter wide. I was a little surprised and wasn't sure why he was throwing out the red silk. So I jumped up and grabbed the knife from him, and the red silk fell on the ground. Just as I was about to ask the man why he had wanted to kill me even though we had never met before, the man held his hands in front of his chest to salute me and said, "I apologize for being disrespectful. You now have a very rare treasure. The world is now yours for the taking. You are clearly better than me." He said goodbye and left. I later heard that the knife and the red silk made up a set and they were very precious.
Because I didn't know how to talk, I wasn't very intelligent, and I also looked mentally handicapped, there was no way that I could live on my own. After a period of time, I was too tired to walk and gradually froze to death. I had six fingers on one hand. I looked my fingers and didn't feel they were terrible to look at anymore. A group of solders in armor and on horses came toward me. I tried to open my mouth but my mind had already begun to freeze too. One person told me to get out of the way. Nobody tried to rescue me. I gradually left that world….
I went through life and life after that. In this deluded world, how many people are clear-headed and know what is going on? My mother in that life endured a lot because of me. She suffered a great many hardships trying to raise a mentally handicapped son in that life. It is reasonable that I need to pay her back in this life, albeit it was done a little too quickly. But I have made it through. The cycles of life that one goes through is truly based on karmic retribution. I wrote my story down hoping to open up people's minds.
Translated from: http://zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2005/11/6/34505.html
