At seeing my husband and I take a walk shoulder by shoulder, our neighbors would always say: "Look at you two, such a happy couple now." They say so because they know we used to have difficult times and even filed for a divorce. Their words always remind me of those days when my marriage was falling apart because of Falun Gong.
My name is Liu Hua and I'm 46 years old, working at a hospital in Linyi. My husband is my first love and we were classmates at senior high school. We used to be so happy after marriage; but since I practiced Falun Gong, we had become strangers to each other and just this close to divorce.
In 1997, since I had worked at hospital for a long time, I was terrified to feel the coming of old age and the passing of youth. I heard people said that to practice Falun Gong would make people young against ageing. So I became a practitioner. After a period of time, I'd got rosy cheeks once again and my skin also looked lustrous. These made me in favor of Falun Gong, for I didn't see that these were the natural results of doing exercises but believed instead what Li Hong said in Zhuan Falun was true: "After our Falun Dafa students cultivate a while, the way they look changes a lot. Their skin becomes delicate and fair, it glows with health…This is all common…you truly do a dual practice of nature and longevity you'll naturally get that, and I can guarantee you won't need to do facials." I'd always wanted to be a pretty woman and that's why I admired Li Hongzhi so much at that time and thought his Falun Gong amazing. Gradually, I lost the capacity of thinking like a normal person and, as an intellectual, I was so obsessed that I forgot exercises would help with blood circulation and build up health. I trusted Li Hongzhi against all reasons and believed that his Falun Gong would make people healthier and more beautiful.
I communicated more and more with my fellow practitioners and the belief on Falun Gong building up health gave me this feeling that I became so strong that I could change the entire hospital into the place for practicing Falun Gong. So I took all the opportunities to publicize Falun Gong among colleagues and even patients. What I had done got the attention of top executives at the hospital. One hospital leader took a look at Zhuan Falun I recommended and pointed out honestly to me that the things mentioned in the book were inappropriate and told me not to publicize the ideas without any concrete evidence. But at that time, I thought they had no idea on what Falun Gong was really about and ignored their suggestions and advice. I went on practicing Falun Gong but in a more secret way, and my obsession on it deepened. I believed that Falun Gong was good and it was my duty to publicize it so that more people would get to know and benefit from it.
According to the requirements of Li Hongzhi, one of the things that practitioners must do is to clarify truth. He said in Digging the Root: "Dafa students in Beijing used a special method to make those people stop doing damages to Dafa, they're right actually in doing so… at the critical moment when I ask you to break from ordinary people, you won't follow me and every chance is offered only once and nevermore." Therefore, I took it as the most important task to publicize Falun Gong; except for working, I spent almost every spare minute on the study and the promotion of Fa. Accordingly, I spent little time on home and my kid; my husband was extremely dissatisfied with me and talked to me several times, asking me to take good care of the family and the kid. My husband worked at the local law enforcement department, was busy and always on business trips. I used to spend spare time in tidying up the house and taking care of the family; but since I started to practice Falun Gong, he would always call me on the way, telling me to see after our daughter. But I couldn't listen to him and, to make things worse, I told him that I didn't care about anything else after work. My husband could do nothing but to arrange three meals a day at junior high school for our daughter. This made me free from all household chores and I devoted all the spare time to Falun Gong and gradually became an advanced Dafa disciple. My daughter was at her critical moment of life both physically and mentally and, as a mother, I should have taken good care of her. But I did nothing to help her; instead, I was in favor of Falun Gong over her and had done great harms to her. I still remember her words in diary: "I have the feeling that I'm a kid without a mother; for Mom is busy with practicing and ignores me. I don't known when the practice will come to an end. I want my Mom back." But I didn't realize all these till I had the transformation; when I practiced Falun Gong, I believed that everything I had done was selfless and great; I wouldn't admit whatsoever that I was doing something harmful to my family.
I did another thing to further push the limits: I forced my husband to leave home and to live in dormitory. Li Hongzhi said: "They (human beings) live just for this sentimentality. Affection among family members, love between a man and a woman, love for parents, feelings, and friendship, doing things for friendship, and everything else all relates to this sentimentality…If this sentimentality is not relinquished, you will be unable to practice cultivation" (Zhuan Falun); "But as a cultivator you can't confuse yourself with an everyday person. To put it a bit seriously, you're no longer human…humans have various emotions and desires, and live for emotion (qing). During the course of cultivation you are gradually taking these things more lightly and gradually letting go of them until you completely discard them" (Teaching the Fa in New York City); "We don't seek the things ordinary people want, but what we gain is what ordinary people can't, even if they want to" (Zhuan Falun). Therefore, I quoted the excuse of practicing and refused to share the bedroom with my husband by saying that I wanted to do it alone and that he would affect my practicing. At the beginning, my husband left me alone by spending the night on the sofa in our living room. Then he became angry and insisted on sleeping on the bed. So I locked up the bedroom door with a new lock. My husband was very busy and usually went back home late at night; so I would lock the door in advance before studying and practicing in the bedroom. He could do nothing but to sleep on the sofa. As time went by, he became so angry that he smashed the lock one day. But I didn't stop and did something more extreme: when he left for work one day, I changed the lock of the main entrance and he couldn't come in ever since. My husband treasures his and family fame very much, for fear that our neighbors would laugh at him, he moved into the office and had lived there for eight months. During this period of time, he called me several times, begging me to let him go back home for our marriage and for our daughter. But I said no to him, for I always kept in mind the words of Li Hongzhi: "Cultivate away fame, material interest, and emotion, Reach Consummation, ascending the firmament." Seeing that I paid no attention to his feelings and needs, my husband had nothing to do but to file up a divorce. At that time, I thought this was a good opportunity to give up emotion and affection and didn't hesitate a second to sign the divorce agreement; but my kind-hearted husband didn't sign it. I knew he wanted to give me another chance; but all I wanted was to cultivate and to reach consummation as Li Hongzhi said, instead of appreciating his tolerance, I even complained about his intentional delay in signing the paper.
When the news that my husband and I was separated spread out, a woman used to be in love with my husband and had got a divorce not long ago wanted to get married with my husband. She came to me one day and told me that she wanted to compete with me for such a good man. At seeing and hearing her, instead of feeling jealous and bitter, I held her hands and thanked her, asking her to keep in touch with my husband and telling her that we'd finished as a couple. To tell the truth, my husband is such a good man; if it were not that Falun Gong distorted my values of life, in ordinary situation, I would have tried my best to be with him. But at that time, I took myself as a practitioner superior to any ordinary people including my husband. According to Li Hongzhi, ordinary people are garbage; so how could I treasure and be reluctant to leave him?
At hearing that my husband was forced by me to get married with another woman, my maternal family came to talk to me. My elder sister scolded me in tears: "You're such a fool; he's an excellent husband and the dream husband of every woman. Look at what you have done, you drove him away. If it were not for the kid, do you think he would still want you? Look at him, losing so much weight these days? Do you still have conscience with you?" My younger sister even begged me: "Sister, come back; if you keep doing all these, you'll really get divorced. I don't want to say other people, but look at our Dad. He's 75 years old and he can't take such a blow. Dad hasn't been well these years and our retired sister-in-law takes care of him and we also often visit him at home. But you haven't seen him for a long time and Dad misses you so much. Sister, Mom died when we were young and Dad worked so hard to bring us up. Now he's getting old and we can't do this to him. Stop practicing Falun Gong; what's so good about Li Hongzhi? He's such a liar and fools you around like this." I was angry to hear my sister said bad thing about Master and cursed her: "You'll be punished for saying that." Seeing that I was so hopeless, my elder brother slapped me in the face. But still, I believed that this was the test arranged by the Master. My sisters and brother finally decided to leave me alone and my husband continuously slept in his office.
If it were not for the sake of our daughter, my husband would have left me long time ago. In 1999, the government ordered to ban Falun Gong and my husband found and sent me to a local the rectification and treatment center, where the staff helped me to analyze my situations, pointing out that my so-called "practicing" was based on the pains of my family and relatives and was therefore selfish. I thought about it carefully and realized that what they said was true. When I started to practice Falun Gong, I wanted to be a better person; but after many practices and studies, let alone a better person, I could barely make it to be an ordinary person, for ordinary people are usually good to their parents, take care of their kids, and love their husbands. But look what I did: I left alone my seriously ill father, didn't take care of my teenager daughter, failed to fulfill the duty as a wife. That made me far from being a better person.
Then, the staff at the rectification and treatment center showed me the video programs such as True Stories about Li Hongzhi, Interviews of Yao Jie and Li Chang, The Truth about April 25 Incident. Then I got the message that the Master that I used to admire so much was actually a liar. He's an ordinary man himself but lied about his birth date by claiming that he was born on the same day as the Buddha. He legendized himself and bragged that he had four magic powers of making his body invisible, moving objects, controlling thoughts, and predicting future. He said that he was the leading Buddha in the universe and told the practitioners that Falun Gong would help them to remove illness and to improve their health, which were shameful lies cheating so many people. Some practitioners believed in his words and refused to seek medical care after they fell ill, some even lost their lives because of this. In front of these facts, I finally accepted it that I had been fooled.
I gave up Falun Gong eight years ago and have worked hard to mend the almost broken marriage with my husband since then. Now, when I take a walk with my husband in spare time, I will usually put my hand around his arm, for I treasure what I have and I would never do anything to harm our relationship ever.
(Kaiwind.com, December 18, 2008)
