(Minghui.org) Greetings, compassionate and revered Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
Looking back on my nearly 20 years of cultivation in Falun Dafa, I feel both fortunate and grateful.
I feel fortunate because Master chose me to be a Dafa disciple and allowed me to find my true self. I was able to transcend this mundane world and witness history unfolding in this unprecedented period.
I am grateful for Master’s compassionate deliverance and for Falun Dafa, which has allowed me, a former labor camp officer who once persecuted Dafa practitioners, to stop doing evil and become a good person. I was reborn and embarked on the journey to return to my original self.
I would like to take this opportunity of the 18th China Fahui to report to Master my experience of getting my pension, which had been suspended due to the persecution, reinstated and how I cultivated myself solidly and saved people along the way.
After I started to practice Falun Dafa while I was working in a labor camp, I became the target of the persecution myself and was sentenced to two years in prison. On top of the physical and mental torture in prison, I learned that my former employer, the labor camp, stopped my pension when I was over halfway through my prison term.
As a Dafa disciple, I could not acknowledge any form of persecution, so I decided to get my pension back. Most of all, I wanted to seize this opportunity to reach out to more government officials, public prosecutors, and law enforcement officers and clarify the facts about Dafa to them.
Cultivation is the process of removing attachments. With pressure from my family, and facing the long list of agencies to visit, I felt that the situation was far more complicated than in the prison. My attachments surfaced. As a former civilian employee, I used to be well-respected, but now I had nothing. My attachments to fame and saving face made it really hard for me to take the first step.
I quieted my mind and studied the Fa more. Master said:
“Everyone knows that our school of cultivation does not shun ordinary human society in cultivation, and neither does it avoid or run away from conflicts. In this complicated environment of everyday people, you should be clearminded and knowingly lose in terms of interests. When your vested interest is snatched away by others, you will not go to compete and fight for it like others. With different xinxing interference, you will suffer losses. In this difficult environment, you will temper your will and improve your xinxing. Under the influence of different ill thoughts from everyday people, you will be able to reach above and beyond.” (Lecture Eight, Zhuan Falun)
My heart lightened up with a better understanding of the Fa. I said to Master in my heart, “Master, no matter how good or bad my cultivation is, I will firmly believe in Master and Dafa and follow Master to the end.” I want to show the compassion and kindness of Dafa disciples to the world in an upright and open manner.
I decided to go to the local police station first to get back the items they’d confiscated from me. I barely caught up with the newly-appointed chief who was about to leave and briefly told him about my situation and my request. He pointed me to the police officer in charge of my neighborhood and asked me to come back on another day.
I found the officer and recognized him as the one who made the video recording when the police raided my home. My anger flared up. He recognized me as well and was surprised. When he found out what I was there for, he told me that all of my belongings were gone since the officer in charge of housekeeping had died of illness not too long before.
I remembered that officer as well. He’d flaunted his power with me during an interrogation session in the local detention center. I reminded him at that time to treat Falun Dafa practitioners nicely since they are good people. I said to the officer in charge of my neighborhood that the other officer who had passed away might have suffered retribution for his participation in the persecution. I urged him not to follow the orders to do wrong deeds. He understood.
I looked inward after I came back and found that I was still prone to bossing others and was very aggressive. These habits were developed at my former job and nurtured by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) culture. I had to get rid of them and treat everyone with compassion.
I went to the police station and talked to the chief several times, telling him the facts about Dafa. He later gave me an electronic device as compensation for the lost items confiscated from me.
I also visited the former police station chief who was involved in persecuting me and told him more about Falun Dafa. I reminded him to do things honestly in the future. He was also receptive.
Next, I went to meet the director of my former place of work. He had been appointed after I left. I introduced myself and explained the reason for my visit. He apparently didn’t know the facts and treated me with indifference.
Before the meeting, I had learned that he had a degree in law, so I wrote a letter detailing how I’d changed after learning Falun Dafa and analyzing the lack of legal basis for the persecution. I also included everything about my being illegally sentenced to prison for my faith.
At the meeting, I gave him the letter and the materials. I also told him more about myself, including how I had resorted to violence against the practitioners while working in the labor camp, how I changed my view after learning the facts of the staged Tiananmen self-immolation, as well as how I took up Falun Dafa after reading the book Zhuan Falun.
I talked about how I’d become a better person and an excellent civil servant. Because of my outstanding performance, I was given awards at work every year. I gave him documents about my case and asked him to read them. I also asked for his help in my efforts to seek justice. He agreed.
A few more meetings with him after that went very well, and I spoke to him about Falun Dafa every time. He began to take the initiative to help me figure out how to get back my pension. He promised to reinstate my pension if it could be done.
I first went to the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau and found the chief of the payroll section. After listening to my story, she gave me a copy of a document that said that former public servants sentenced to prison will have their pensions suspended from the day of their sentence until the end of their term. After that it’s up to their employer to decide whether to reinstate their retirement payments.
I took the document and showed it to the director of my former work unit. The director had the deputy political director accompany me several times to the Civil Service Enforcement and Discipline Section of the Finance Bureau to seek a solution. We met the deputy section chief, then the section chief. I clarified the truth to both of them, but nothing was resolved.
A few days later, we went back to meet the deputy director of the Finance Bureau, who gave the following instruction: My work unit director would have to submit a case report to the Bureau of Justice, and then the political office of the Bureau of Justice would submit it to the deputy mayor for approval.
My director quickly approved reinstating 75 percent of my pension and submitted the case to the Justice Bureau. I also went to meet the chief of the political office several times to tell him about Falun Dafa and sent him letters with more information. He understood the facts and personally forwarded my case to the office of the deputy mayor.
We later learned that the mayor had responded: “Find a reasonable solution in accordance with regulations.”
I thought that I saw the light at the end of the tunnel but still nothing came out of it. Then I went to the Finance Bureau to find the section chief but was told that I still needed to work it out with my former employer. I realized that I had more people ahead of me that I had to clarify the truth to and that I had to make good use of the opportunities.
During this time, other practitioners went with me to the city 610 Office. I managed to see the director after a few tries. I told him how my health and character had improved by practicing Falun Dafa. He didn’t dare to listen and sent us away.
Then I went to the Petition Bureau for a consultation. The staff member who took me on was sympathetic to my situation, filed a case for me, and forwarded it to the Judicial Bureau.
I never imagined that, as a former labor camp officer and a Dafa disciple, I would be petitioning for my rights and survival after enduring two years of ordeals in prison. It is hard for those who have not experienced it to imagine how serious the human rights violations are under the CCP.
I heard back from my former employer, which had been repurposed as a drug rehabilitation center after the forced labor camp system was abolished in China, that it could not pay my pension since its sole source of funding was government appropriations and that it did not have the funds to pay me. So I went back to the Justice Bureau to submit my appeal. But my employer gave me the same answer. During the outbreak of the CCP virus, I petitioned the Justice Bureau again, and the response was still up to my work unit to decide.
Thus, I started the process of filing an administrative lawsuit with the court. The court directed me to go to the Labor Arbitration Committee first, but the latter refused to accept my case. I made another attempt to file the case with the court, but it also refused to accept it.
I appealed to the intermediate court and had the opportunity to talk with the presiding judge about my past experience, including how I participated in the persecution of Dafa practitioners, how they had never shown any resentment for me or my colleagues, how I started to question the propaganda when I realized that the “Tiananmen self-immolation” was a hoax, and how I changed into a different person and regained my health after I took up Falun Dafa. Then he told me that one of his college classmates also practiced Falun Dafa and that she was graceful and beautiful and excelled in her studies.
A young female staff member was with us all the time and listened to our conversation. When she took me downstairs, I told her about quitting the CCP and its affiliates. She cheerfully agreed to do it. I was so happy for her.
The intermediate court soon informed me that my appeal was rejected and the original decision was upheld. I had no choice but to go to the Petition Bureau once again to appeal.
The Petition Bureau finally issued an opinion letter, concluding that my employer should temporarily pay my living expenses in accordance with the local minimum living standard, which would be adjusted according to the national policy. Given that my work unit only received earmarked funds from the government and had no funds to cover cases like mine, it was recommended that the finance bureau allocate the money.
Despite the petition bureau’s ruling, the finance bureau didn’t implement it. So I went back to the finance bureau several times and told different people the facts about Dafa whenever I had the chance. Once I told a clerk about how the CCP has killed more than 80 million Chinese since it took power in 1949 and that the persecution of Falun Gong was wrong. I said that good would be rewarded and evil punished. I encouraged him to quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations. He agreed and thanked me.
Along the way, wherever I went, I told people the facts about Dafa. Whenever I was at a dead-end, I remembered Master’s teaching:
“If qi ascends to the top of the head and cannot come down, it is only a temporary state. For some people, it may last a very long time or half a year, and it still will not come down. If that is the case, one can find a real qigong master to guide the qi down, and it can come down. In qigong practice, those of you whose qi cannot go through a pass or come down should look for reasons within your xinxing to determine if you are stuck at that level for too long and whether you should improve your xinxing! When you truly improve your xinxing, you will find that the qi will be able to come down. You keep pursuing transformation of gong in the physical body without emphasizing improvement of your xinxing. It is waiting for you to improve your xinxing—only then will you make a holistic change.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)
“Compassion is an enormous energy, the energy of righteous gods. The more compassion that is present, the greater this energy becomes, and it can disintegrate anything that is bad.” (Fa Teaching at the 2009 Washington DC International Fa Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. IX)
Whenever my shortcomings were exposed in the process, I immediately corrected myself. Gradually, I let go of my resentment for others and my competitive mindset. At the same time, my compassion grew. Other practitioners cooperated and supported me along the way. I made progress in my cultivation without realizing it.
Thank you, compassionate and revered Master!