(Minghui.org) I've had quite an eventful life, to say the least. I was born shortly after the Chinese Communist Party came to power, and always bullied as a child, because my family was deemed part of the lowest social class. I lived in constant fear of seeing my father criticized and beaten in front of everyone.
My life seemed for a brief period to be very sweet, as I had two beautiful boys after marrying. However, the happy days didn’t last long. My husband divorced me after he had an illegitimate son with another woman. My older son was only ten at the time.
I moved back to my hometown and managed to bring up my boys on my own. My ex-husband never paid any child support, but I was content to have the company of my two sons.
My whole world collapsed in 1995 when my older son was killed at the tender age of 21. I sold my house to cover the funeral expenses, and had no additional money to hire a lawyer to help bring the murderer to justice. My heart bled for the loss of my dear son, and I was consumed with hatred toward the killer.
I came across Falun Dafa when I was at the height of anger and despair, and my life then had hope again. I began seeing the karmic relationship between my older son and his killer, and finally understood that nothing happens accidentally.
I no longer had the urge to seek revenge against my son’s killer. This feeling was so liberating that I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
My new life as a Dafa cultivator was nothing short of miraculous and amazing. Not only did Falun Dafa mend my broken heart, it also healed the many illnesses I had developed as a result of life's hardships.
In addition, Master saved me from danger numerous times while I was out distributing truth-clarification materials. Even my younger son benefited from my practice. His passenger bus was once involved in a five-vehicle pileup, but no one on his bus sustained any injuries.
Though I had no computer knowledge, I was able to learn from scratch how to make truth-clarification materials and successfully run a materials production site. This would not have been possible without the wisdom Master gave me.
I now enjoy being a cultivator and spreading the word about the greatness of Dafa, and the facts about the ruthless persecution. I am deeply indebted to Master for enabling me to have come this far.
I would like to share with everyone my cultivation journey during the past 17 years.
Life seemed very unfailr to me shen my older son died in 1995. Why did I have to bury my child at such a young age? Why did the judicial system allow his killer to remain at large without doing anything? I wanted to seek revenge against the murderer, yet had no idea of how to proceed. I was consumed by enormous hatred towards the killer, and couldn’t concentrate on anything else. In the meantime, I missed my son terribly.
Where was the way out?
When I was in great despair in late 1995, Falun Dafa spread to my hometown, and I learned about the practice from my sister-in-law the following January. She also suffered from poor health just like me, but she changed into a totally different person after visiting her older brother.
Seeing her glowing with health, I couldn’t help but wonder what was her secret. She told me that she had attended a nine-day seminar watching Master’s Fa-teaching videos, and had begun practicing Falun Dafa.
I decided to give the practice a try as well. I subsequently quickly recovered from a cold without taking any medication. From that point on, I never stopped practicing.
I was later hit with a much more severe episode of sickness symptoms. My body hurt so much that I rolled in bed, moaning non-stop. I declined to go to the hospital though, since I knew it was a test for me to pass. To my family’s surprise, I was completely fine after just ten days. I also discovered that my Hepatitis, arthritis, heart ailment, and stomach problem had disappeared.
As I read the Dafa books more, I came to see that nothing happens accidentally, and that my older son had repaid a debt he owed to his killer in his previous life. Little by little, I no longer missed him or hated the murderer that much.
Of course, it took me many tries to finally get over my son’s untimely death. I felt perfectly happy one moment, only to be overwhelmed by a sudden wave of sadness and hatred the next moment. Every time this happened, I forced myself to read the Dafa books. The more I read, the calmer I became.
Just like that, I was finally able to put this tragedy behind me, and I no longer hold any grudges against my son’s killer. Dafa dissolved my hatred and mended my broken heart.
When the persecution of Falun Dafa began in July 1999, the few practitioners in my extended family, including my two sisters-in-law and my niece, were so frightened that they stopped practicing right away. I, however, was not deterred. I knew that the government had made a terrible mistake by suppressing such a good practice.
When I went to the provincial appeals office with fellow practitioners to appeal, we were arrested and sent to different places. Eight of us were kept at a police academy and asked to reveal our identities. When we refused, the police ordered us to squat, and humiliated us for hours straight. We weren't released until after 8:00 p.m. that night.
The local police ransacked my home, but I managed to keep my Dafa books intact. Even my neighbors knew to protect Dafa books. Whenever they found Dafa books, they gave them to me for safekeeping.
After I had a dream in which Master’s Fa-portrait was upside down in the sky, I enlightenment that I must do my best to seek justice for Dafa and Master.
I decided to go to Beijing to appeal to the central government.
My first trip to Beijing was not successful. As a matter of fact, my fellow practitioners and I were intercepted and abducted at the train station. The police confiscated our train tickets and sent us to the Daguang Detention Center.
I firmly answered “yes” whenever the guards asked me if I’d continue my practice or go to Beijing again to appeal for Dafa.
After I was released 15 days later, the local government dispatched people to watch me every day. Even my family members kept a close eye on me, as they didn’t want me to be arrested again.
I managed to arrive in Beijing safe and sound in April 2000. I was arrested while practicing the Falun Dafa exercises at Tiananmen Square, and taken to a detention facility where I was held for two weeks. Only after my homecoming did I learn that my older sister had to pay 2,000 yuan and promise to have me stop the practice in order to secure my release.
I went to Beijing again in July 2000 and was beaten and arrested while practicing the exercises at Tiananmen Square. I was taken to a place in Beijing where agents from my residence city of Changchun in Jilin Province had set up shop to capture local practitioners who came to the capital to appeal for Dafa.
The plainclothes agents were even younger than my son, yet they had no qualms about beating me. They took turns slapping my face. When their hands hurt from the beatings, they grabbed my hair and slammed my head against the wall. Strands of my hair fell out and I had large bumps on my head as a result.
For some reason, I didn’t feel much pain, but the agents kept saying their hands hurt. I later realized that Master was protecting me.
When they began to say swear words towards Master, I immediately stopped them. My righteous thoughts subdued them, and they no longer beat me. I was later sent to the Balipu Detention Center.
Local police and 610 Office agents came to my home in June 2001, demanding that I write a guarantee statement, promising to never practice Dafa again. When I refused, they forcibly took me to the Xinglongshan Brainwashing Center.
The guards tried everything in their attempts to have us give up our practice. I was kept in the same room with two other practitioners, and we encouraged each other to hold firm to our faith.
I realized that I should not passively endure the unlawful detention, so I went on a hunger strike. I began to display sickness symptoms on the 13th day of the hunger strike, and was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis.
In order to shirk their responsibility, the brainwashing center soon released me, but not until they extorted 1,400 yuan from me as so-called meal expenses.
My son urged me to have a checkup when I returned home after a total of 47 days of detention, and to his surprise, all the test results indicated that I was in perfect health, with no liver problem whatsoever.
One winter night my younger son took me on his motorcycle to distribute truth-clarification materials in my mother’s village. When I was done, in the wee hours, my mother begged me to stay with her for a few days. My son, however, insisted that I return with him that same night. I couldn’t figure out why my son was being so stubborn.
The moment we left my mother’s house, the village police arrived looking for me. It turned out that someone had reported me to the police, and Master had helped me avoid the danger.
I was spotted by a resident on another night, while contemplating whether to leave a copy of truth-clarification materials on a motorcycle. He yelled at me, “What are you doing there?” I was startled, but soon calmed down. Thanks to Master’s protection, I finished distributing the last few copies of materials and returned home safely.
My son was very supportive of my Dafa practice and truth-clarification efforts. As a result, he was blessed. He started out by doing odd jobs, but soon made enough money to buy a bus to run his own passenger transportation business.
One day my son’s bus was rear-ended by a truck, and hit three other cars in front of it. The five-vehicle pileup left the bus badly damaged, with broken windshields and seats. Miraculously, none of the bus passengers, including the driver, sustained the slightest injury, not even a scrape.
When the police arrived, they determined that the truck driver was fully responsible for the pileup, and my son didn’t have to worry about compensating anyone.
I was relieved and grateful that Master had saved my son.
A few fellow practitioners and I were arrested while distributing truth-clarification materials one night in February 2002, and subsequently sent to the Heizuizi Forced Labor Camp to serve for two years.
The guards resorted to both physical abuse and mental manipulation in their attempts to coerce us into giving up our beliefs in Dafa. We were often beaten and shocked with electric batons. To make us suffer even more, the guards didn’t allow us to sleep or shower.
Former practitioners who had enlightened along an evil path were brought in to bombard us with their warped theories. I paid no attention to them and just kept reciting Dafa books in my heart.
The labor camp also subjected detained practitioners to slave labor in its pursuit of monetary gains. We were forced to work all day making various kinds of products. The working conditions were extremely harsh, and my entire body ached from the labor.
Guard Zhang Lihong once kicked me so hard in the ribs that I hurt for more than a month.
Whenever the guards forced me to record my thoughts, I wrote down how Dafa had improved my health and morals. In response, they cursed at me and shocked me with electric batons. They even threatened to extend my term.
Master often gave me hints in dreams, encouraging me to remain steadfast. I never wavered the slightest bit in my faith in Dafa, thanks to Master’s encouragement. Because of my righteous thoughts, the guards later lessened their pressure on me to give up my cultivation.
My father passed away at age 88 while I was in detention. I was heartbroken that we couldn’t see each other one last time.
I found myself with nowhere to live when I was finally released in 2004. I stayed for a while at a relative’s house, which was later bulldozed by the government.
Had it not been for Dafa, I wouldn’t have been able to pull through all these years.
I moved in with my son in 2005. At the time he was doing odd jobs in a remote town, and there were no truth-clarification materials production sites there. The local practitioners had to rely on practitioners from other towns to supply materials to distribute.
I figured that it was not accidental that I moved to that town. After talking to A and B, two local practitioners, I made up my mind to set up a materials production site at my son’s place.
I was a bit apprehensive at the beginning. For one thing, I had no idea how to use a computer. In addition, many materials sites had been raided in neighboring cities, and practitioners arrested.
But I knew I must fulfill my mission to spread the word about the goodness of Dafa and the ruthlessness of the persecution. Practitioner B and I went to another town together to learn how to use computers and printers.
With a technician practitioner’s help, I learned to type, upload, download, and print in five days. Practitioner B and I returned to our town seven days later. Miraculously, no one was around while we moved a computer and two printers upstairs to the apartment.
The technician left after he helped us set everything up. But trouble soon followed, as I kept making mistakes while printing, and I became anxious over wasting so much paper.
Instead of looking within to identify my own faults, I blamed practitioner B for everything. I thought that since I was already in my fifties, and he was a younger practitioner, that he should have known about all the technical stuff.
Practitioner B never argued with me. When he moved on to focus on another project, he recommended that practitioner A take his place. I became very upset and complained that he had left the whole mess to me. I later realized my mistake and began to work happily together with practitioner A. After all, as long as the materials site ran well, it didn’t matter who was doing it.
Practitioner A often reminded me to calm down and study the Fa more. I began to study two chapters of Zhuan Falun each day, and soon noticed Master giving me more and more wisdom. Sometimes the cursor would move to the place where it was supposed to be, though I had no idea how to do it.
The out-of-town technician also visited from time to time to troubleshoot my computer problems. With everyone’s help and Master’s protection, our materials site was soon up and running. We were able to produce a variety of materials for distribution.
When we ran out of consumable materials such as ink cartridges, I discovered that I had to overcome my fear. I was worried about being asked why an older woman like me needed to purchase such materials. I sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate my fear.
With Master’s protection, I was able to get all the needed supplies safely. I encountered no trouble in buying and transporting the supplies.
We later had to move to a different rental place where there were many tenants. For the sake of safety, I kept the windows shut both in the summer and winter. Working in a room without climate control wasn’t the most comfortable thing, but I was happy to be making materials to help more people understand the facts about the persecution.
The landlord later rented half of his house to a local court, and we had to share the same entrance and hallway with the court workers. We maintained our righteous thoughts and were determined to not be affected.
Since there was no court worker on duty at night, I often worked late into the night making materials. My son got married and had a son at the time. I helped care for my grandson and used all my spare time to produce materials.
One year later the court moved to a different place.
I was able to run the materials site at my son’s rental home for four years, without any trouble.
When my son moved to a different city in 2009, I followed along. A fellow practitioner gave me a laptop computer and a color printer, and I began making truth-clarification materials again.
I am now busy every day with truth-clarification efforts. I talk to people I meet about the facts of the persecution and distribute materials at different places. I always ask for Master’s protection for a safe return home.
Looking back, I owe Master so much during my 17 year cultivation journey. Had it not been for Master’s tender care, it wouldn’t have been possible for me to make it this far.
My deepest appreciation to Master!