(Minghui.org) Since I took up the spiritual practice Falun Dafa (also called Falun Gong) and cultivated according to the universal principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, I’ve become much more grounded.
I used to be arrogant and thought very highly of myself. I had zero tolerance and couldn’t stand any wrongdoing. I have since increased my tolerance and am able to view this world, people, and things around me with compassion.
My co-workers and supervisors were glad to see these changes in me—they no longer had to deal with the fast-talking, combative, and stubborn co-worker and were much happier to work with the easy-going and kind person that I became.
When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched the persecution against Falun Dafa in July 1999, my principal told me, “We talked about it and all agreed that you should continue with your practice. If you go back to your old ways, we won’t be able to handle it. Just be careful.” I felt that I had cultivated pretty well up to this point—from my students to their parents, my co-workers to my friends and family, everyone thought I had become a completely different person.
After I was detained for my faith, I was not allowed to teach and was demoted to a janitorial position. However, I didn’t complain and was happy to clean and do maintenance work. One teacher told me, “The CCP didn’t make you a good person but Falun Dafa did.”
I went to Beijing to petition the central government for the first time in 2000. I had never traveled by myself and I didn’t even know how to buy a train ticket. My home was being monitored at the time but I figured out a way to leave. Master gave me hints that I should take the train to Beijing. I didn’t have a lot of money and I could only afford to take a slow train with temporary service to Beijing that was scheduled to leave in three days.
I spent the next three days waiting in the train station lobby. To save money, I barely ate anything. The two young men sitting next to me were going to a different city. We started chatting and got to know each other pretty well. Before boarding their train, one of them gave me his older brother’s contact information and insisted that I call him if I needed any help in Beijing. He told me his brother was a chef and that I just needed to mention that I was his friend.
I asked him, “Aren’t you worried that I’d scam your brother?” He shook his head and smiled, “I can tell you’re a white collar. It’s March and you’re in such a hurry to go to Beijing. You must have important business. I can also tell that you’re different than most people. You are a kind and honest person. You must be going for good reasons. I don’t have money but I will try my best to help you.” I thanked him. I wanted to leave him my phone number but I was concerned for his safety. I tore up the piece of paper with his brother’s number on it.
While boarding our train, a 29-year-old young mother from the countryside asked for my help. With her new born baby girl in tow, she left home to avoid the village Planned Birth Committee. She told me she was heading to Shiyan City in Hubei Province to look for her husband who worked there. Her only piece of luggage was a fertilizer bag stuffed with some clothes and a big bag of starch. She planned to use the starch to start a small eatery to support herself once she was in Shiyan.
I tried to hold the baby but the baby cried so I helped her with the big bag. It was towards the end of the Chinese New Year holidays and a lot of people were heading back to the cities. The train that we took was temporarily added to this route to accommodate the demand. Our cabin was crowded and we could only stand. I counted the money in my wallet and took out more than a dozen yuan to buy a plastic stool so the young mother could sit down. The train moved slowly and stopped for a long time at every single stop, regardless of how small it was.
By the second day, I couldn’t stay on my feet any longer. I asked the young mom if I could sit on her bag but she said no, worried that I’d break it. Before I could say anything, a man nearby said to her, “Aren’t you selfish? I noticed that she bought the stool for you to sit on. She’s been standing since we boarded yesterday. That trash bag of yours—why can’t she sit on it? If you don’t want her to sit on it, then let her sit on the stool. You can stand.” I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it but once the passengers around us heard the man, they wouldn’t let me continue standing and insisted that I sit on the young mom’s bag. She was embarrassed.
It also became obvious that the young mom didn’t know how to take care of her baby. She explained that back home, her mom took care of the child. She didn’t give her anything to eat and when the baby cried, she cried too. She also let the baby relieve itself on the cabin floor. People around us were very annoyed. The young mom could tell that people were not happy with her and thus she became even more anxious. She didn’t know what to do.
To help her out, I spent more money and bought a bag of over-priced crackers and a small bag of oranges. I smashed the crackers into fine crumbs to feed to the baby and squeezed orange juice into the baby’s mouth. With a full tummy, she finally fell asleep. I found some old newspaper, cleaned up the baby’s urine and stool, and threw away the trash.
A young man nearby asked me, “You don’t look like you’re related to her at all. When you went to throw out the trash, we asked her. She said she didn’t know you and didn’t even know your name. Is that true?” I nodded. He was even more curious, “You two don’t know each other, but you helped her so much. Why? What are you helping her for? I wouldn’t. You are really nice. I’m surprised to find there are still people like you nowadays!”
There were many police on the train going back and forth checking on passengers. I didn’t tell the young man that I was a Dafa practitioner. However, when I turned around, an older man smiled at me knowingly, “I know who you are. You’re a Falun Dafa practitioner.” I was surprised. He continued, “We have many practitioners in our village. They are all nice people, just like you.” I was relieved to hear that. I told him, “Please don’t tell anyone. I’m going to Beijing to petition the government and I don’t want to be stopped before I get there.” He said, “Don’t worry. I won’t say anything.”
After a while, I realized that I should have told the young man I met at the train station that I am a practitioner. Because of my selfishness and my worries, I missed the opportunity. However, Master arranged for me to be where I am now, surrounded by these kind and precious beings. I can’t miss any opportunities, otherwise I’d regret it. So I told everyone around me that I was a Falun Dafa practitioner and that I was going to Beijing to petition the government.
The more than a dozen people around me were all going to Beijing as contract workers. They were surprised to hear what I planned to do and thought it was admirable. A well dressed man seemed to have more experience working and living in a big city. He revealed that he was going to Beijing to be a chef.
He asked me to write down the name of the book Zhuan Falun on his notebook. He told me that a friend of his also practiced Falun Dafa and had told him about the practice but he didn’t believe him. He thought that the qigong practices nowadays were all sham. However, my story made him curious about Falun Dafa. He said he was going to find a copy and read the book Zhuan Falun when he got home.
One man warned me, “You can’t go to Beijing. We have seen the police arresting practitioners in Tiananmen and they also beat them up. It is very dangerous for you to go there. If you don’t have a place to go, come with us and we will help you.” I thanked them for their kindness.
The train arrived at the Beijing station. With the 30 yuan I had left, I took a taxi to Tiananmen Square.
The second time I went to Beijing, I brought my five year old along. I already knew how to take care of myself and my child. I also had a few hundred yuan in my purse. However, a 14-year-old young practitioner from Beijing and the two of us were arrested by police officers from the Huairou District and detained for two days. We were released on the evening of the third day.
The three of us walked for a while and ran into two vendors selling sodas on the street. I told them we were Falun Dafa practitioners and how practitioners were tortured at the detention center. The vendors were very sympathetic. One of them said, “There are quite a few Falun Dafa practitioners in our village. I used to practice as well. You wait here. I’ll go get a taxi to take you to the subway station. Then you’ll need three yuan to ride the subway to the Western Train Station. Hurry and take your child home.”
The cab came and we agreed on 150 yuan fare. After taking out money for the train tickets to go home, I only had a few dozen yuan to pay the driver which was not enough. Luckily, the 14-year-old young practitioner had 50 yuan that another practitioner had given her.
It was the beginning of October, the end of a national holiday, and many people were traveling back home. A young woman without a ticket had taken my seat on the train. After all the passengers boarded the train and settled into their seats, I was the only one standing. When the young woman found out that she had taken my seat, she was embarrassed. I told her we could share.
The train arrived from the Northeast region. The passengers gradually warmed up to one another and began chatting. One passenger said that when people boarded trains in the Northeast, everyone was required to condemn Falun Dafa. People were baffled and wondered what was really going on—why was the CCP making such a big deal out of Falun Dafa?
An old man in his 60’s had a distinctive mannerism and no one wanted to talk to him. When I told my child to greet him, he was pleased and nodded at us. When the conversation switched to Falun Dafa, he spoke up. Slowly, but soundly, he said, “Let me tell you. I know Falun Dafa. It is a good practice.”
Someone asked him, “How do you know?” He didn’t respond so I did, “This gentleman is right. Falun Dafa is good. I am a Falun Dafa practitioner.” Everyone turned and looked at me incredulously but admiringly. A middle aged woman said, “Wow. You’re so brave. You’d be arrested in the Northeast.”
When we got home, my mother told me that the local police repeatedly called trying to find out where I was. However, everything was fine when I went to work.
Because of the persecution I had to leave home. On New Year’s day in 2001, I purchased train tickets for more than a dozen practitioners from a remote mountain town, a few local practitioners from my city, and myself. More than 20 of us traveled to Beijing.
The day we arrived at Tiananmen Square, there were endless waves of people shouting “Falun Dafa is good” and Dafa banners were everywhere. I stood right at the gate to Tiananmen and joined them, calling out, “Falun Dafa is good!”
At first, I worried that I’d lose my bag so I carried it on my back. Then I thought in case I fell down, I’d use my bag as a landing pad so I wouldn’t get hurt. I was thinking all these trivial and random thoughts. However, as soon as I raised my arms my racing thoughts came to a halt. All I could hear was the tourists around us saying to one another, “Look! Falun Gong!”
Two police officers ran toward me. They were only a few yards away but as if in a different dimension, they ran in slow motion like in the movies. I kept shouting, “Falun Dafa is good! Falun Dafa is good!” and nearly lost my voice when they finally came close to me. One grabbed my arms and the other tried to cover my mouth. With a wave of my hand, they both fell backward.
Their walkie-talkies came on, “How many? A woman? Shut her up.” One of the officers asked for help, “We don’t have enough manpower. We need support.” The person on the other end didn’t get it, “Are you telling me the two of you can’t handle one woman?”
Two more armed police officers came and the four of them dragged me to the side. I was arrested and detained in Yanqing County. So many Falun Dafa practitioners were detained that almost all the criminal inmates were released to make room.
The winters in Beijing are bitterly cold. The wooden boards that we slept on were bare without any bedding and there was no heat. Dozens of detained practitioners had been on a hunger strike for several days. Some were injured during the interrogation and couldn’t move.
Just when I wondered what to do next, a young girl read Master’s new scripture out loud and this passage caught my attention,
“A God comes down to save people, yet humans nail him to a cross—what a huge sin people have committed! They are still paying for it today. But that wasn’t done by human beings alone. It was caused by the degeneration of beings at higher levels.” (“Teaching the Fa at the Great Lakes Fa Conference in North America,” Guiding the Voyage)
It was like a light bulb was switched on! I said, “We can’t stay here. We descended to this world to save people, just like those enlightened beings. If people persecute us, they will be committing sins as huge as nailing Jesus to the cross. Even if we can endure it, the persecutors will be destroyed. With all that’s been inflicted on us, our physical bodies would have not lasted to this day without Master’s protection and enduring pain for us. However, we can’t stay. We must get out of here. We have to use our wisdom, be rational, and stay calm.”
The guard and staff were flustered. One of the officials yelled, “Damn Jiang (referring to Jiang Zemin, the former head of CCP who launched the persecution against Falun Dafa)! He doesn’t do any good but causes trouble for no reason. We have so many detained Falun Gong here in Yanqing County. If they all die, the news will spread before I get home tonight. Why don’t we detain bad guys but instead lock up good people? What the hell?! If you want to crack down on Falun Gong, bring me an official written order! I didn’t get anything beside ‘words’ from the higher ups. Based on what? Who is going to be responsible? Who is going to take the blame?!”
Later that day, all the detained practitioners were released in batches. When I walked out of the detention center I realized it had been snowing hard. People talked about a road closure on the highway. Three elderly practitioners and I flagged down a taxi but did not know that the driver had been replaced by a plain clothes police officer.
He took us to the front of a local police station and told us to get out. Many officers surrounded us. They didn’t come close but watched us from a distance. We were trapped and couldn’t go anywhere. I sat down in the snow and the three elderly practitioners also sat down. Heavy snow continued to fall and covered us like a thick blanket.
After hours of sitting in the snow, an elderly man walking by came up to me and touched my sleeve, “Such thin clothes. This girl must be from the south. You must be dying in this cold.” At that moment, I became hypersensitive to sound and my mind was sharp. I heard a voice from the other side of the street, “The road is closed. Take a train to Beijing.”
I quickly came up with a plan. I lightly squeezed an elderly practitioner’s hand and signaled her to get close to me. I whispered to her my entire plan. I realized at that moment that the four of us were one body, just like the four monks in the Journey to the West. We needed to work together to get out of this situation.
We held on to and supported one another and walked toward the train station. We walked and walked in the snow until we got lost and couldn’t walk any longer. The adults walking by ignored our pleas for help but a group of children took us to the train station. One practitioner looked around and counted more than a hundred police and plain clothes officers at the train station, all just waiting for the four of us.
A little girl told us, “There is no train going to Beijing. It is going to Zhangjiakou.” What to do? We were at a loss. However, the little girl came back and said, “Ma’am. I am sorry. I lied. Those men told me to lie. I remember that mom told me a good kid would not lie. That train is going to Beijing and it’s about to leave.”
I learned that we were able to purchase tickets onboard so we decided to get on the train. We also made plans to shout out loud, “Falun Dafa is good,” if the police tried to stop us. We would tell people all the bad things the law enforcement had done and expose their evil deeds.
We got on the train heading to Beijing. The four of us quickly moved to a different cabin to lose the men following us. Once at the Beijing station, we each took our own ticket and got off separately. Blending into the crowd quickly, I took my glasses out of my bag and put them on. I also borrowed a comb to straighten out my hair.
A thick layer of snow had accumulated on the ground like a fluffy comforter. People had difficulty walking in the deep snow but I felt as light as a balloon. As soon as I stopped at the curb, a taxi pulled up right in front of me. A passenger got out and I climbed in.
Through the window, I saw big crowds stretched on both sides of the road waiting for taxi cabs. The driver said, “It’s as if I came here to pick you up. The lady insisted that I came all the way up here and didn’t want to get out early no matter what. People waved at me along the way but she just wouldn’t let me stop. There was nothing I could do. But as soon as I stopped, you got in.”
I knew that everything was arranged by Master.
(To be continued)