(Minghui.org) I am recounting an experience from almost 20 years ago. I went to Beijing in 2001 to petition for my right to practice Falun Gong (aka Falun Dafa) soon after the communist regime banned the cultivation practice, and was intercepted by police, arrested, and detained.
During my arrest and detention, Master never left my side—he looked after and protected me every step of the way. On a few occasions, I truly felt his presence and the miraculous power of Dafa, which fortified my faith and confidence in my cultivation.
I set out to go to Beijing two weeks after the Chinese New Year in 2001, planning to petition at Tiananmen Square for my right to freedom of belief. The police stopped me in the Qianmen area and took me into custody. I was interrogated, beaten, and later transferred to a detention center, while my case was assumed by my hometown’s liaison office in Beijing.
I was held at the police station the first day. It was sleeting that day, and extremely cold. An officer picked a big tree in the courtyard and cuffed me to it, leaving me little wiggle room. He took my outer jacket and left me outside for the entire day without water or food. My body soon became numb and my cuffed hands were so swollen that the cuffs became buried in my flesh. I couldn’t squat nor move around.
I looked up into the sky through the tree branches and asked, “Heavens above, don’t you think that Falun Dafa is innocent? Big tree, the practitioners live by the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. You know that they are not wrong, and the persecution is wrong, right?”
Sleet fell on the branches and melted into water that streamed down the textured trunk like tears of sympathy. Seeing this, I also cried out, “Big tree, please remember, Falun Dafa is the Buddha Fa, and is a righteous Fa. Falun Dafa practitioners are good people. Whoever persecutes good people is committing a crime and is evil.
It was around dinner time, and I fell asleep as I was speaking to the tree. It was very cold being outdoors without a jacket, and not being able to move. Just as I was falling in and out of consciousness, I saw a person walking toward me—it was Master! Smiling, Master walked toward me with a big comforter in his arms. He wrapped the thick, fluffy comforter around me and the tree. I was enveloped by warmth and fell sound asleep.
Who knows how long I had slept before I heard a voice shouting, “Hey! Hey! Wake up! Stop snoring! Let’s go. Let’s go inside. It’s time to interrogate you.”
My body was stiff and my legs were rigid like metal. I wobbled to the building.
I went inside to a room, and saw two officers peeling and snacking on walnuts. There was a metal stick on the floor and an extra chair. I knew the two men wouldn’t be shy about using that metal stick on me.
I later found out that they were special forces officers transferred to this station to interrogate and torture Dafa practitioners. They could beat and cause severe internal damage to a person without leaving visible wounds or bruises.
The two of them looked at each other and nodded, as if saying “Let’s get started.” One came over and cuffed my hands behind my back and said, “kneel on the metal stick.” I didn’t move. They grabbed me, bent my knees and put me on the stick. One brought over the chair and propped it under my cuffed hands so the back of the chair raised my hands and arms up behind me. Another grabbed my hair and pulled my head back so my face was looking up the ceiling.
One of them stood in front of me and asked, “Are you still going to practice Falun Gong?” I told him yes. He extended his arms and slapped my face a dozen times. He asked again, “Still gonna practice?” I said yes. He slapped me until he was tired then the other officer took over. The second office hit me even harder.
Both of them soon tired out. They sat back down and started peeling walnuts again. “Let’s take a break. We’ll take care of her later.” Somehow it didn’t scare me—it was my first time experiencing something like that, and I was ignorant about how bad it could get.
I was seeing stars but not much else. My vision was dark and blurry. My nose was sore and the drumming in my ears caused a headache. I wondered, “Why is it so loud? Did they slap open my celestial ear?” I then thought to myself, “Who cares! I am already here. Not much I can do.” I recited Master’s poem over and over.
“In life, nothing sought,In death, regretting naught;Washing away all wrong thought,Buddhahood, with lessadversity, is wrought.”(“Nothing Kept,” Hong Yin, Translation Version A)
When they had enough walnuts and were well rested, the two officers rolled up their sleeves, stretched their arms, stood in front of me, and asked, “Why do you practice Falun Gong? Are you still going to practice?”
“Of course. It is such a good practice that is beneficial to people and the country, and it harms no one. Why not?” They pulled my hair back, slapped me, and threw walnuts at my face. “Practice Falun Gong! Why don’t you! I could kill you and report it as a suicide.”
They used all their might to hit me and made loud noises, but it was not painful at all. As if they were slapping a rubber ball, I didn’t feel anything at all. I knew that Master was protecting me.
They went on with the hitting and slapping as I recited “Nothing Kept” from Hong Yin until they were exhausted. One of them said, “My hands hurt,” and the other said, “Let me catch my breath. She’s a tough one.” They decided to give up, and I was cuffed to the tree again.
It wasn’t that I could take a lot of pain, it was Master enduring it for me. I had tears in my eyes and made a promise in my heart, “Master. It’s all because of your protection that I am not injured. I feel so bad that you had to suffer for me. I can’t ever repay you, but what I can do is to keep strong righteous thoughts and righteous actions, and walk my cultivation path well. I will never give up, and never compromise.”
I was taken to the detention center the next day, where more than a dozen practitioners were being held. They were all from different places. There were three other practitioners in my cell.
All the detainees were forced to perform hard labor, but not given substantial meals. Breakfast was always a thin watery grits and dark buns, and a savory version of the same thin grits, and dark buns for lunch. We weren’t given any vegetables, and many of the detainees were constipated. Dafa practitioners were not allowed to study the Fa nor do the exercises.
A few of us got together and decided to have a talk with the center director—we hadn’t broken any laws, and shouldn’t be treated as criminals. But we hardly ever saw the director or the deputy directors. What to do? We decided that since we were already there, we should validate the Fa, and create our own cultivation environment.
We stopped complying with the detention center rules—we didn’t recite the center rules, didn’t respond to roll calls, didn’t follow the schedule, didn’t participate in the military training, didn’t sing any of the propaganda songs of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and didn’t perform the hard labor. Instead, we recited the Fa, did the exercises, and told the inmates about Dafa.
The center director and deputy director soon came to us instead. They ordered the team lead of each cell to monitor us and stop us from doing the exercises, “Whichever Falun Gong [practitioner] doesn’t comply, you can use extreme measures. Whoever can handle Falun Gong [practitioners] will have her term reduced.” With such incentive, the criminal inmates tortured us as if they had gone mad. The team lead of my cell, named Long, was serving a 20 year term and was especially vicious.
When she saw six of us doing the second exercise one day, Long went ballistic. She shouted while charging toward us, and grabbed our arms. She told us to stop doing the exercises, but we ignored her and kept our arms in position. As she grabbed and tried to lower one practitioners arms, the others continued to hold the Falun. Long was infuriated. She stopped to catch her breath, and cooked up a plan.
Moments later, Long called for other inmates, “Hurry up! Come over here!” She told them to fill buckets with cold water. The inmates surrounded us—some tried to grab our arms and some got ready with the buckets of water. Long shouted, “You’re still doing the exercises. Lower your arms! If you don’t, I will douse you as instructed by the director.”
None of us moved. Long waved her hand, “Do it.” The inmates hoisted the buckets and poured the freezing water on our heads. The room was instantly flooded and the water was up to the back of our feet. The inmates kept the buckets of water coming, “Let’s freeze them to death, and see if they still practice.” We didn’t flinch.
Frustrated and desperate, Long came up with another plan. She stabbed us one by one with a needle, grinding her teeth, “I don’t believe I can’t stop you. I can stab you to death, and claim that you committed suicide.” We still didn’t move. Long slumped onto a bed and started crying.
All six of us felt Master’s presence that day. He encouraged us and strengthened our righteous thoughts. Master was continually looking after disciples, as we stood our ground without wavering. The inmates gave up. Defeated, they hung their heads, as Long cried even louder.
After that incident, we talked more openly about Dafa to the inmates. We told them how wonderful Dafa is, and that Falun Dafa is a Buddha Fa. We talked about the universal principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance that the practitioners live by. We shared that the practice had benefited hundreds of thousands of families where people regained health, improved their moral characters, and thus harmonized their families.
We also talked about how Jiang Zemin, then leader of the Chinese Communist Party, abused his power and launched the campaign against Dafa. Jiang and his thugs used the country’s resources, and employed law enforcement to crack down on the practice and persecute its practitioners.
We gave examples from Chinese history where emperors who banned Buddhism either died prematurely or lost power soon in a revolution. We explained that persecuting good people is persecuting ourselves because “Goodness will be rewarded and evil will be met with retribution,” which is a law of heaven.
We asked the inmates not to help the authorities by persecuting practitioners, because it was not good for them. Once the inmates understood what we were telling them, and sensed our sincerity, they stopped helping the guards. Some even volunteered to be on the watch for us when we studied the Fa and did the exercises. Our cultivation environment improved significantly.
As the inmates changed their attitudes toward Dafa, we started clarifying the truth about Falun Gong to the guards, and wrote truth clarification letters to the center directors. Some were more perceptive and accepting of Dafa, but others remained hostile and derisive. There were all kinds of reactions.
The practitioners as a group realized that we should not be held in detention, and decided to go on a hunger strike to protest. The center director’s initially said, “Let them be. Falun Gong [practitioners] don’t need to eat and they will not die of hunger. Worst scenario, we force-feed them after a week. As the Chinese saying goes, it’s okay for a person to go on seven days without eating, but not eight.”
We studied and recited the Fa, and did the exercises every day during the first week of protest without interference. On the seventh day, the director and a group of guards came prepared to force-feed us. We resisted and didn’t cooperate, so eventually they gave up. Our hands were cuffed behind our backs for six days, even when we ate, slept, and used the bathroom. Some inmates helped us when the guards were not around.
On the tenth day of our hunger strike, I woke up in the morning, sat up on the edge of my bed and recited Hong Yinwith my eyes slightly closed. As I recited the poems, a big peach floated toward me in the air. The peach was translucent and from another dimension.
As I opened my mouth the peach jumped right in and melted in my mouth. Words cannot describe how it tasted. I was filled with energy from head to toe, and I felt as if my body had grown infinitely bigger. I realized at that moment that it was a gift from Master.
I felt Master’s compassion and mighty virtue surrounding me. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I couldn’t stop crying. I opened my eyes and turned to the practitioner sitting right next to me. Her face was also covered in tears. A look at each other, we knew what had just happened, and smiled at each other. We said out loud in unison, “Master gave us peaches from the heaven. Thanks to Master! Thanks to Master!”
My biggest takeaway from my experience at the detention center was that we are Dafa practitioners and we are Master’s disciples. Master is always watching over and protecting us. As long as we firmly believe in Master and the Fa, there is no obstacle we cannot overcome or tribulation that we cannot pass.