Visiting Hometown to Fulfill Vows

[PureInsight.org] My hometown is in a small village in Yunnan province. People there live in the mountains, and they belong to an ethnic minority group in China. The overall population for this group is not very big, however, this group of people has already had a very long history; they all believe in Buddhism. The group is led by a chief, and the chieftain is strictly handed down by the family. I was born into a chief’s family. When I was young, I was very cute, and everyone loved me. One day, a fortune-teller told my mother that I would grow up and get married in a very far distant place, and that my mom would not be able to get much help from me when I grew up, etc.

When I was around 4 or 5 years old, one strange incident happened to me. My father and elder brother were not at home at the time, only my mother and I were home. One day my mother had a strange dream, she saw an old man in her dream. That old man had white beard and he was very tall. The old man told my mother to get up quickly and run to hide because a group of bandits were coming to the village soon. My mother woke up immediately, took me in her arms and rushed out of the house and hid in a small bush outside the village. I didn’t make any noise and soon enough, a group of people got inside the village. Cries followed, the village was burned and then the bandits left. The next day when we got back, it was found that the whole village was destroyed by fire and more than 10 families were killed. We had to leave the village to seek help from relatives.

This miraculous incident made people marvel at me, they claimed that I must have come down with a great mission, so I was treated with great respect afterwards. Later, just like what the fortune-teller had told my mother before, I got married to a family in a very faraway place. The night before my marriage voyage, more than 10 families of relatives and some other village elders came to visit my family. These people sang throughout the night to send me off. People wished me good luck and asked me to come back to visit the village soon. I still remember some of the lyrics of those songs.

A few decades have already passed; memories of my childhood in my village are becoming vaguer. However, deep in my heart, I have a special place for my hometown, and I have always had a feeling that there is this inseparable thread between me and the people there. After I started to practice Falun Dafa, I have come to understand that this special feeling of mine towards my hometown is actually some kind of predestined relationship. I am the only Falun Dafa practitioner within the ethnic group in my hometown. I realized that the reason I got married to a place outside my hometown was to obtain Dafa. It was not just for me to obtain Dafa, it was meant for all the people from my hometown to obtain Dafa. Soon after I learned about Dafa, I started to introduce Dafa to my friends and relatives back at the village. Getting back to my hometown to spread the news of Falun Dafa for the people over there has been one of my ultimate wishes. After the persecution on Falun Dafa practitioners by the Chinese Communist Party started in 1999, I have been illegally kidnapped and thrown into some forced labor camps for a couple of times, nevertheless my wish has only grown stronger.

My celestial eye is open. I’ve seen many re-incarnations of myself over 100 generations. Throughout my previous lives, I found that I had always had some kind of relationship with those people from that particular ethnic group. One day while I was reading the book of “Zhuan Falun”, I came to the following phrase from the book: “When Great Enlightened Beings save people they have their own heavenly kingdoms. When Tathagatas like Shakyamuni, Buddha Amitabha, and Buddha Vairochana save people they each have a world that they preside over. There are over 100 of these worlds in this Milky Way system of ours, and our Falun Dafa has a Falun World.” I immediately saw from my celestial eye that I came down from the same heavenly kingdom together with those people from that ethnic group. The kingdom was full of green forests and mountains, white clouds floated over the sky. I decided that I must go back to my hometown right away to tell the people about the truth of Falun Dafa.

It took me over 2 days to get to the capital city of Yunnan province by train. I then took several bus trips to get close to my hometown. By night time, I still had not reached my village. I wanted to get back to my hometown so urgently that I asked a triple-cycle owner to help me get to my village that same night. Now, there was only one small road that led to my village, and that road went through a dense forest. The triple-cycle owner was hesitant; he was a little bit afraid of the dark forest. I told the owner about my story and assured him that nothing would happen to him because I am a Falun Dafa practitioner. Both of us would be protected by heavenly beings. The father of the triple-cycle owner heard the conversation and came out telling his son: “Go help this lady, I figure this lady is a genuine cultivator, it’s a blessing for the whole family to help a genuine cultivator. Go now and we will wait for your return.”

It was indeed a bit apprehensive travelling through the dark forest. The road seemed like a thin thread, snaking its way in the forest, and it was hard to see the end of the road. The triple-cycle carried me and we moved ahead along the road in the dark forest. We heard wolf howling and monkey screaming now and then. A gust of wind and loud sounds as if some heavy stuff had fallen from the trees. Under normal circumstances, no one wanted to travel in this dark forest at night. I kept telling the triple-cycle owner to remain calm, I told him to murmur the phrase of “Falun Dafa is good, Zhen Shan Ren is good”. I also took the chance to spread the news about Falun Dafa to him. After travelling more than dozens of kilometers and passing over many mountains, we finally got to a village motel to rest. It was already 1 AM. The triple-cycle owner insisted to return home that same night. He said to me: “Aunt, I was not afraid at all going through the forest, I felt that everything in the forest was avoiding us, they were afraid of us and were staying far away from us. I truly believe in the Falun Dafa that you told me.” I then continued to tell him the importance of the “Falun Dafa is good” phrase. I said that as long as he believed in Falun Dafa and kept murmuring the phrase, he would definitely be able to reach his home without any troubles. I also told him that since he had just quit the CCP membership, he would now be protected by the heavenly beings as well. Around 4 AM, I got a call from him telling me that he’d just got out from the forest and that he was about to get home soon. After a while, he called me again to express his thanks to me. He said his father praised me and said I was the best person in the world. He also told me that he was very glad to have run into me. He said I was a genuine cultivator and he kept thanking me for the night.

The couple that owned the village motel happened to be my childhood friends. From them I learned the whereabouts of many other friends and relatives. I also got some information about my schoolmates. There are around 8 villages near the motel and I learnt quite a lot about these villages from them. The next day, my niece came to pick me up, we then arrived at a nearby village. All my relatives living in the vicinity of the village learnt of my arrival and they all came out to see me. Everyone was very excited to see me coming back to visit them as I had never been back to visit after getting married over 30 years ago. Many people knelt before me. This was a traditional welcoming gesture performed by the people in my ethnic group to show respect to those elders or chiefs. I was very calm in my heart, I understood that these people were not kneeling for me. They had been waiting for Falun Dafa throughout their lives, deep in their hearts, and they were expressing their gratitude to me for bringing Falun Dafa to them. I understood it was the great Master that was doing everything. Master was presenting the honors to me. I cheerfully accepted these people’s welcomes and asked them to sit down. I told these people that I was an ordinary Falun Dafa disciple, and my Master is Mr. Li Hongzhi. I had come back to tell the truth about Falun Gong, about “Zhen Shan Ren”. I told the stories of my cultivation in Falun Dafa, the persecutions that I had gone through. After hearing my stories, all the people were moved. With tears in their eyes, they said to me: “We know you are a good person, you are the most respected person in our village.”

My niece drove a car from her village to see me and she then took me to go visiting my grandma’s family. There used to be just four relatives in the village where my grandma lives, now there are more than thirty different families. All the relatives gathered together to welcome me back. My grandma’s house was full of people; many others had to stay outside the house as the house was completely packed. Everyone tried hard to approach me, they knelt in front of me and then hugged me. Some were crying, some were shouting loudly: “You’ve finally returned, how we miss you!”

We started to prepare for the foods, everyone tried to help around, and in the end we ate together and had a big family reunion. The people from my ethnic group are very hospitable. For a person like me who had just returned to visit her family after more than 30 years, everyone in the village was extremely eager to invite me to visit his or her family to eat together. At almost every mealtime, I would get 5 or 6 invitations at the same time. If I couldn’t make it to someone’s house, the family that had invited me would feel uneasy and unhappy. One day, an aunt from a neighboring village started to sing: “Hey, you know, there is this woman in this world, she keeps lying. I have invited her 5 times to have dinner with us, she agrees each time, but she has not come to visit my house a single time. Next time when I invite her again, she will again lie. Anyone wants to bet on that?” She looks down at me. The aunt laughed after she finished her song, and everyone joined the laughter.

This is how people behave in my hometown, people there don’t pay too much attentions to particulars, they sing to express their joys or sorrows and they sing whenever they feel like it. My grandma was almost 100 years old, she was deaf already. When my grandma saw me, she got very excited and raised her thumb: “Granddaughter, how are you?” she then continued to sing: “My granddaughter is so good, so good, she is the golden cradle of my people.”

There was one couple, both of them, were more than 80 years old. My relatives told me that this couple had already visited me for 4 or 5 times. They kept inviting me to visit their home. I said I would go. So I brought some gifts and went to visit this couple’s home. The couple was so excited to see me, they prepared many fresh fruits, such as bananas, apples, etc., on the table and they rushed to prepare some hot tea for me. The couple then came to grasp my hands firmly and said: “It’s been so long, how we miss you, how we expect you to come back to visit us. You haven’t forgotten us, you are a good daughter of our people. You will bring blessings to us, we will live a happy life with your blessings.” I then started to clarify the Falun Gong truth to this couple, the couple began to cry after hearing my stories, they kept saying: “We know what you said are all true, what you’ve brought to us are the best. You’ve been away from us for so long, you must have been collecting Buddhism scriptures all this time for the people here.”

One day while I was walking on the road, suddenly someone hit my head from my back. I turned around and saw a crooked old man yelling at me. The man had a pair of big eyes, his mouth was shrunk. It seemed that he had already lost most of his teeth. The old man then grabbed my hand and raised his other hand to whack my face: “You forgot? You must have forgotten me. I’ve been expecting your return every day, I really miss you so much. Now you’ve come back, yet you don’t seem to recognize me at all. When you were young, one day a thunderstorm came, it was me that took you on my back and carried you to a safe place under a big tree. You didn’t want me to carry you, and you even bit me on my back. You still don’t know who I am?” The old man started to cry, his tears dropped and he drooled. I began to cry as well. I said: “Oh, old brother, I remember you now. I am terribly sorry. I am definitely going to visit your home today.” I wanted to say some more, however, I felt there was something choking in my throat, I couldn’t say anything.

In the afternoon that same day, I brought some gifts and went to visit that old man’s bamboo house. The man was very excited, he introduced me to his whole family. He prepared a very rich dinner for me. I then clarified the Falun Gong truth to the family and told them my stories of persecutions. The old man said: “We all have heard of those terrible things, you have been persecuted badly, you have suffered. The CCP is very bad, I know that, please help quit my CCP membership right now. You should come back more often to see us from now on.” I replied: “Yes, I will keep that in my mind, I will return home more often.”

My elder brother is a very kind person. When I got home, my elder brother like to hear my stories the most, he kept asking me for more, and kept saying: “Falun Gong is good. The CCP is afraid of good people, that’s why it decided to crack down on Falun Gong.” I continued to tell him that Falun Gong practitioners didn’t practice for themselves, they wanted to help others, and they never took any advantages over others. Falun Gong practitioners followed their teacher’s teachings to cultivate their hearts; they understood that anything that didn’t belong to them, they should never try to take such things. They also understood that anything that did belong to them, they didn’t need to worry about the losses of such things. My brother nodded: “Yes, this is the right principle. Falun Gong is so wonderful.”

One afternoon when I was visiting a relative’s house, I saw a wallet on the ground. I picked up the wallet and then asked everyone in the village to see who had lost that wallet. Everyone told me that if no one came to claim the wallet, I should keep it. I said: “No, I am a Falun Gong cultivator, I have to consider other people’s concerns. The person who has lost his wallet must be very anxious right now, I have to find him/her to return the wallet to him/her.” Later on, my elder brother came over, I told him about this lost wallet that I had just found. My brother took the wallet and then started to count the cash inside. I was very surprised. He said: “Oh, this is my wallet. I’ve got around 1000 yuans in here, and I’ve also got two debit cards with couple of thousands yuans. Thank you so much my sister, thank you so much Falun Gong, thank so much Master Li. I believe in “Zhen Shan Ren” even more now. Falun Dafa is good.”

I visited my nephew’s home and clarified the Falun Gong truth to my nephew. I told my nephew: “Nowadays, people don’t care about morals anymore. People just care about money. People don’t hesitate to infringe on others, hurt others just to benefit themselves. However, heavenly beings are everywhere, they are all watching over us. Anyone who has committed sins will be punished later on.” I then told my nephew that he should follow the principles of “Zhen Shan Ren” so that he could keep his family safe. I continued: “The Chinese Communist Party has committed such terrible crimes against humanity, heaven will definitely punish it and destroy it. If we don’t quit our memberships, we will be eliminated by the time this CCP is to be destroyed by heaven. So, you have to quit your membership.”

I then mentioned the story of the lost wallet that I picked up. After hearing my story, my nephew jumped and said: “Aunt, I think I’ve committed a sin. A couple of years ago, my daughter found a wallet on the ground on her way home. I kept the wallet for myself, there were around 2000 yuans inside and I spent them all. In 3 months, my daughter became sick and her body appeared yellowish, she was very weak. I sent my daughter to the hospital and she couldn’t be cured. It’s been more than 3 years now, I’ve already spent quite a big sum on my daughter’s medical bills, even now, my daughter can’t go to school. I am going to get her right away.” My nephew’s daughter showed up, I then began to clarify the truth to her, I told her to keep murmuring the phrase “Falun Dafa is good, Zhen Shan Ren is good.” This little girl listened intensively to my words. Just in a few minutes, the girl appeared very energetic. Later, the girl kept visiting me almost every day, she said: “I feel very comfortable once I am with my grand-aunt.”

Last summer, this same nephew of mine called me and said to me: “Aunt, I wanted to thank you, thank Master Li. The other day I fell down from the hill when I was driving my car. My car got smashed into pieces, I was fortunately thrown off from the car and I fell into a nearby stream. I lost my consciousness and some other people helped to get me to a hospital. I stayed in the hospital for one day. The doctors there couldn’t find anything wrong on my body, I wasn’t physically hurt, I only got a small scratch on my eye lid. What’s more, the money I received from my car insurance company was more than enough to buy a brand new car. Everyone told me that I must have been protected by some strong force; otherwise I won’t be able to get over this accident so peacefully. I know that it must be Master Li that had protected me. I will go and tell others about this incident and praise the goodness of Falun Dafa. I will ask people to remember that Falun Dafa is good, Zhen Shan Ren is good. It is Master Li that has saved my life, Master Li, thank you so much!”

My hometown is surrounded by mountains. Even though there are many roads that connect most of the villages, some of those roads are very dangerous as they wind around the steep hills. Some of those roads look like they are vertically shooting upwards. I was determined to visit some other villages, so I said to myself: “I am more than 60 years old now, I can still go on those roads.” I then asked the younger ones to take me on their motorcycles and started visiting villages after villages.

One of my sisters-in-law had trouble breathing as soon as she moved around. I decided to visit her. I came to her house and asked her to murmur the phrase “Falun Dafa is good, Zhen Shan Ren is good” together with me. In about half an hour, she told me that she felt so comfortable. It had been a long time since she was ill. She said that she felt like her body was floating. Also, there seemed to be something turning around inside her body. I told her: “Wow, you really have the predestination. This is a very good thing. Please go ahead and put your faith in Falun Dafa!” My sister-in-law then went into her room, soon afterwards she appeared with a plate in her hands. There were a couple of incense sticks and one bundled cash on top of the plate. My sister-in-law knelt before me, raising the plate above her head and said to me: “Please take these gifts, you’ve just helped me got rid of my discomforts and kept me safe forever. Thanks so much to Falun Dafa!” I told my sister-in-law: “My grand Master is merciful; we don’t accept any kind of gifts or money. We don’t care for fame and money when we save people. We try to be as selfless as possible. Anything that will be done to you will be performed accordingly, just believe in Falun Dafa, you will be protected from any disasters.” My sister-in-law insisted that I take the gifts, I then said to her: “If you really want to thank someone, please thank our Master.” She then said to me: “Yes, I want to thank Falun Dafa’s grand Master, I want to be a Falun Dafa practitioner as well.”

What my sister-in-law had performed in front of me at that time is a very formal gesture to show one’s respect. Such a gesture is only presented when one tries to honor the deities on very special occasions, or when one wants to express one’s gratitude towards some very honorable persons. I ran into this kind of situations on several occasions while I was visiting my hometown; however I refused to accept the gifts each and every time. People then tried to give me some staples, I declined as well, and I just asked them to remember the phrase: “Falun Dafa is good, Zhen Shan Ren is good.”

Some of the relatives who came to see me were in their 70s or 80s. They were very old; however, as soon as I started to talk, they remained silent and listened to me carefully. I would always tell them how good Falun Dafa is, how cultivators tell no lies, treat everyone with a kind heart, always consider others ahead of themselves and determine to become good people, etc. People told me that they believed in my words, they believed in everything I told them, what the CCP had told them were all fake, Falun Dafa was a Buddhism cultivation method. People also told me that they were all Buddhists themselves already, from then on, they would like to believe in Falun Dafa, believe in Master Li.

Whenever I visited a village, many school kids would approach me. On their way to schools, these kids would greet me. When they came back from their schools, the kids would greet me again. They would often give me all kinds of wild flowers that they had picked up from the mountains. I told them to remember that Falun Dafa is good, Zhen Shan Ren is good. I often ran into the situation where a kid approached me and told me that one of his friends had not yet quit the red-league membership.

Sometimes, I would also go with my relatives to the mountains to pick up wild edible plants. The air in the forest was very refreshing, all kinds of flowers bloomed everywhere. I noticed from my celestial eye that all the trees, plants, flowers rushed to me to listen to my truth stories, I would then shout to them: “Please remember that Falun Dafa is good, Zhen Shan Ren is good.” Two very tall trees stood out, these two trees showed their human figures in the other dimension, they looked very old. After hearing my truth stories, these two trees held their hands together and said: “We’ve been waiting here for 6000 years, we’ve finally learnt of the truths now.”

One day while I was walking on the street, one lady came to me and said: “Do you still remember me?” I took a close look at the lady, I found that the lady’s face seemed so familiar to me, but I couldn’t remember her name. The lady said: “Hey, I used to sell rice noodles, how can you forget about it?” I immediately remembered who the lady was. I then told the lady that I had learned of Falun Dafa, the CCP was now persecuting Falun Dafa. I had been practicing Falun Dafa for more than 10 years. I had come back to introduce Falun Dafa to everyone in my hometown. The lady got very excited after hearing my story and she held me tightly and cried out loudly.

When I was visiting my hometown, I also clarified the truth to other ethnic groups as well. One day, a friend of my nephew’s came to see him. I took the chance to tell the Falun Gong story to him, and helped him quit his CCP membership. Later, my nephew told me that this friend of his had called to say he was building a new house, he asked my nephew to come over to celebrate the occasion. He also told my nephew that I was a good person and he wanted my nephew to take me along to visit him.

One cousin of mine stayed with me for more than a week. He didn’t want to leave me and he insisted that I taught him how to practice Falun Gong. This cousin of mine had never sat in a lotus position before, yet he immediately sat down with his legs in a lotus position and sat there for half an hour. He later told me that he felt very comfortable as soon as he sat down even though he felt pain in his legs, he didn’t want to quit. He felt he had just developed more strength right after his meditation practice. He then kept murmuring the phrase: “Falun Dafa is good, Zhen Shan Ren is good”. He didn’t want to take away the charm that I gave to him once he put it around his neck.

Any old acquaintances that I ran into on the street, I would take the chance to tell the true story and help them quit their CCP memberships. I also ran into people that I never knew before, nonetheless, as soon as I started to talk, most people would feel very comfortable because we all came from the same town, we all had the same accents, same traditional habits, so it was very easy to clarify the truth to them.

I found out that one of my classmates lived in a small town close to the borderline to Vietnam. I called my classmate and took a taxi to her town. The town was situated in a forest of coconut trees; there were many red budded trees on both sides of the road towards the town. Many other ethnic people lived in this town as well. My classmate’s daughter’s husband was an official working for the local county. My classmate as well as her daughter’s family all came out to welcome me. They prepared sweet rice inside the bamboo for me to eat; they also took me to visit their local scenes. I took the chance to tell the story of how I’ve changed after I started to practice Falun Dafa, how good Falun Dafa is and how evil the CCP is. In the end, I helped all my classmate’s family members quit their CCP memberships. My classmate’s son was sick, I told him to murmur the phrase of “Falun Dafa is good, Zhen Shan Ren is good” and the boy kept murmuring to him.

I stayed at my hometown for more than one month, finally, it was time for me to go back. I felt very happy, my people were so hospitable, and their faith in Falun Dafa moved me. I didn’t see any distance between me and my hometown folks. It almost seemed that these people had been waiting for me to tell them the truth about Falun Gong all these years. I was about to leave the next day, many people from all the villages came to farewell me. They all asked me to come back to visit them again. Some told me to retire in the village. One person told me that he would give his tea fields to me if I decided to retire in the village. He promised that I would definitely live a good life here.

The moon was rising up in the sky and people started to sing: “We’ve heard the news of Falun Dafa, our futures are bright. We’ve been struggling throughout our lives, now we will remember the phrase of ‘Falun Dafa is good, Zhen Shan Ren is good.’ Sister, you are leaving tomorrow, tonight, the fruits are sweet; sister, when you hear the birds’ chirping, they are calling for your return to your hometown. Coconut trees bear coconut fruits, coconut fruits contain sweet coconut juice. Sister has come back to save her people, she will reach consummation in her cultivation…”

Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/node/125649