(Minghui.org) Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
It has been 20 years since I began to practice Falun Dafa in January of 1999. My son was only seven months old then, and now he is 21. Looking back, I’m so glad that I found Dafa and have been walking on a path to return to my original, true self.
The past 20 years have been the most important period of my life, and I’ve cherished every moment.
Memorizing the Teachings
I recited Zhuan Falun from memory three times around 2005. The biggest change I noticed in myself was that I was able to send forth righteous thoughts with a calm mind. It was a pity that I did not keep doing it.
My cultivation reached a bottleneck in 2015. My son was in high school and my daughter was only a year old. I did not have a job and we were struggling financially. My in-laws didn’t offer any help and were sometimes sarcastic about our situation.
My resentment reached a peak and I felt miserable. Because of strong hatred, I began to have physical issues. My left breast swelled and leaked. I had constant pain on my left side and wondered whether I had cancer.
One day I read an experience-sharing article that deeply touched me. It mentioned that if fellow practitioners who were in prison could recite the Fa, they would be able to break free. That article really inspired me. Compared to the ordeals of those imprisoned practitioners, what I was facing was nothing.
Two days before the 2015 New Year, I picked up Zhuan Falun and told myself I would begin to memorize the book again. I thought that, since I had memorized it three times in the past, it would not be that difficult this time.
After I began, however, I found it was totally different. I was able to memorize it quickly, but instead of feeling the tranquility that I did last time, I was restless. I could not sit or stand still for any length of time. I kept moving from the bed to the floor. My head felt like it was about to explode. My face was hot. My eyes hurt. I felt miserable from head to toe.
No matter how bad I felt mentally and physically, I kept telling myself that it was a good thing and that Master was helping me. In fact, the more I memorized the Fa, the more humbled I felt, and the more respect and admiration I had for Dafa.
It took me six months to finish memorizing Zhuan Falun this time. When I was finished, I sat there for a long time, and a thought came through: “I am a cultivator.” I suddenly realized what it meant to me. From that day on, I’ve never stopped memorizing the Fa.
The more I memorized and recited the Fa, the easier it was for me to look within for attachments unconditionally. I seized every thought that surfaced and cultivated away any that were not righteous. I learned to view things from a cultivator's standpoint. I became kinder and developed compassion.
As I improved my mind, my body also recovered. All the discomfort went away.
Things at home also improved. My son was accepted at a top university, my husband got a big raise, and I found a job with a lot of free time. My in-laws also took turns helping to take care of us.
Every time I finished a round of memorizing Zhuan Falun, I felt as if I’d shed a shell. I enlightened to different things each time. It was so wonderful and beyond words.
Facing the Impossible: Rescuing a Practitioner from Prison
In the fall of 2011, more than 50 Falun Dafa practitioners in my hometown were arrested. Two weeks later, 35 of them were taken to forced labor camps. I cried all morning when I heard the news. How could I stand by and do nothing?
At that time, I’d just been released on bail after being held in a detention center for over a month. I had not recovered from the trauma I suffered there. I became forgetful and could not recall many things I knew before.
I felt obligated to go back to my hometown even though I was still not in the right state. My husband worried whether I could handle it. Tears ran down my face as I said, “So many people were arrested. I have to go back.”
With only a few practitioners involved, the rescue mission was extremely difficult. At the same time, we also had to deal with the pressure from other practitioners who blamed and complained about the targeted practitioners for becoming lax in their cultivation. Many of the practitioners’ families made negative comments about Dafa. But those of us who’d decided to rescue those practitioners just carried on.
Some of those who participated in the rescue efforts were fearful and often interfered in our decision-making. For example, we hired a total of seven lawyers to represent the practitioners, but some didn’t want the lawyers to stay in the local hotel. That didn’t faze me. I took five of the lawyers to the restaurant and hotel and later to the courthouse. I felt it was my honor to do that.
I realized that the old forces were using other practitioners’ attachments to set us against each other. No matter how chaotic things looked on the surface, in order to negate the persecution, save sentient beings, and rescue fellow practitioners, we had only one option: clarify the facts.
The police were carrying out their work mechanically, and I knew they might not be evil. I treated them like relatives and friends. I clarified the truth to them naturally, and they accepted it easily.
I was seven months pregnant at the beginning of 2013, and I still went to the prison almost daily to rescue a practitioner who’d been sentenced to 14 years.
When we visited her, the right words to clarify the facts to the guards came to us naturally. We acknowledged it wasn’t easy for the guards to do their job, but we encouraged them not to participate in the persecution so that they wouldn’t be held accountable in the future when Falun Dafa was exonerated.
Although many of the guards couldn’t openly express their support, they quietly helped us. They delivered critical information to us and made suggestions about what we should do next.
The fellow practitioner was transferred between five prison wards, but nobody wanted to keep her. Even the warden wondered what was going on.
Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t be possible for someone sentenced to 14 years to be released ahead of time. We weren’t influenced by human thinking and just focused on cultivating ourselves and saving people. We knew Master would take care of the rest.
In October 2013, after 22 months of rescue efforts and when my daughter was two months old, we went to the prison and brought the fellow practitioner home.
We created a miracle, turning the impossible into reality. We witnessed the mighty power of Dafa, as well as our fellow practitioner’s firm conviction and perseverance in raising awareness about Dafa despite the persecution she was enduring.
News of the rescue became a sensation in the local area, and the response was huge. Other practitioners were excited and encouraged, and some who had stopped practicing Dafa resumed their cultivation.
We realized that as long we are able to let go of ourselves, truly cultivate our hearts, and do things on the basis of the Fa, the impossible can be possible.
People also remarked that Falun Dafa was outstanding: “They rescued someone who was sentenced to 14 years without spending a penny.” The lawyers involved also admired our efforts.
Making and Distributing Informational Materials
When we learned about setting up material production sites in our homes, I quickly set up my own. I worked a regular job five days a week and made materials on the weekends. I also went out at night to distribute the information.
I heard that very little information about Dafa had been distributed in the suburbs and decided I would cover them. Three to four of us usually worked together. We took a bus to the suburbs and then went our separate ways to cover the different villages. The more often we went, the more practitioners got involved.
It happened many times that, as soon as we finished, when no bus was available, a taxi would show up and take us home. Later on, practitioners with cars participated and made our deliveries much smoother and faster.
Before each trip, I usually scouted the route first: I counted how many villages there were and how many homes were in each village to get a brief estimate of how many materials we would need. I also looked for the best place to get out of the car and for us to gather after we were done.
I usually arranged for us to be in teams of two, pairing senior practitioners with younger ones. The roads in the suburbs are usually pretty poor, and I had to make sure they could support and help each other. We usually went out every three weeks, about 20 of us each time.
I once went out with another young lady to a village where the road was terrible, with a lot of potholes and small hills. We distributed our information and hung our banner quickly and got home before midnight.
Several days later, a fellow practitioner asked me if I’d gone to that particular village. When I said I had, she told me that a relative of hers who lived there recently paid her a visit. Her relative said, “Falun Dafa is amazing. The other night, two celestial maidens in white outfits came to our village. They seemed to glide through the neighborhood. After they left, there was Falun Dafa information at each household. Their banner was hung really high, higher than any average person could have hung it!” I was delighted to hear that.
Years later, we revisited those villages and talked to the occupants face to face and urged them to quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations. Most readily agreed to do so. I wondered if it was because they understood the facts after reading the materials we’d left them years before.
Raising Awareness of the Persecution by Making Phone Calls
After my daughter was born, I couldn’t go out and talk to people about Falun Dafa anymore. I asked Master for help to find a new way to fulfill my mission as a practitioner.
In the summer of 2014, four other practitioners and I began to make phone calls. We did it manually at first, and it was very slow. Another practitioner later installed software on our phones that would automatically make calls for us. She also taught us how to use it. But when we ran into problems and asked her for help later on, it turned out she couldn’t remember that she’d helped us, nor did she know how to use the software. We realized that it was Master who’d helped us!
From then on, I began to learn the techniques myself and eventually became an expert on the software. It automatically dialed the number for us, played recorded truth-clarification messages, and provided the option for people to quit the Chinese Communist Party over the phone.
Making phone calls provided me with many opportunities to improve my xinxing. One day I talked to a graduate student and told her that I’d studied the same major. But things had changed a lot in that area after I graduated, and much of what I said wasn’t accurate anymore. In the end, she accused me of lying and hung up.
I thought a great deal about that incident. I realized that I was attached to showing off, competitiveness, jealousy, and complacency. I was ashamed of my behavior. From that point on, no matter who answered, I would speak with a respectful and humble attitude.
After making many phone calls, I realized that I had so many xinxing issues to work on. I had too many human mentalities and lacked compassion. I was unknowingly validating myself. Through Fa study and constantly searching within, I got rid of most of my attachments. I learned that only when we do the three things well can we truly improve and elevate ourselves.
With the improvement of my xinxing, the number of people who quit the Party over the phone also increased.
Exposing the Persecution in a Forced Labor Camp
The local labor camp ramped up its persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners in 2012. We often went there to send forth righteous thoughts in close proximity.
One day, I saw a guard who was notorious for beating practitioners out in public. She was smiling, talking to a friend, and playing with a dog. I was surprised to see her innocent and kind side.
After discussing it with other practitioners, we realized that the labor camp guards were just ordinary people who had their roles to play: they could be parents, children, or one’s next door neighbor. But once they put on the uniform, they acted as if they were possessed and manipulated by the CCP's evil spirit, viciously persecuting Dafa practitioners.
When we understood that, our compassion surfaced. We felt sorry for the guards–they were unknowingly doing harm to themselves as well as their families. In order to save those guards, it was absolutely necessary to disintegrate the system of labor camps and free the guards from the evil environment.
A practitioner suggested that we find out the guards’ home addresses and distribute information near their residences to expose their involvement in the persecution. With the effort of numerous practitioners, within three months, we collected the addressees of the guards involved in the persecution and had them published on Minghui.org.
The persecution inside the labor camp stopped overnight.
According to a practitioner who was later released from that labor camp, he noticed that all the guards came to work deflated one day, without their former arrogance. The guards asked among themselves, “What happened? How do they know our home addresses?”
A year later, the CCP announced that the labor camp system would be abolished.
Summary
Looking back over the past 20 years, some of the people I knew struggled for fame, fortune, and sentimentality. Some have enjoyed successful careers, while some have fallen into poverty.
But for me, I’m so glad that I found Dafa. Although I don’t go on vacations, watch movies, or enjoy other such things, I’m elevating myself and walking on my cultivation path towards divinity. Some of my friends once told me that they admired my conviction and courage.
During this time, I have gone from being an ignorant person to a humble one. By means of countless slips and falls, I’ve become rational and mature. I have no regrets. I only have deep gratitude for Master and everything he has done for me.
Thank you, Master, for choosing me as your disciple and for granting me the mission of saving sentient beings in the Fa-rectification period. Thank you, fellow practitioners, for the improvements and elevation we’ve made together over the years. I cherish it all with my heart!
