Master taught us in Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Boston,

I would like to share some enlightenment about solidifying our righteous thoughts based on my Fa-rectification experiences and what I observed happen to fellow practitioners.

During these three years of cultivation in the Fa-rectification period, whenever I could smoothly pass trials was when my righteous thoughts were very strong. At the end of 2000, I was arrested and brought to a "610 Office" [an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems]. Because their crimes of torturing Falun Dafa disciples were exposed on Clearwisdom Net, they suspected that I was involved in this action, and tried to get some information from me so that they could further destroy our materials site in the region. They pretended to be very nice to me at the beginning and told me that they were not after me and only wanted to find out something inconsequential. I saw through their plan and told them that I knew their purpose was to find more of my fellow practitioners. In the end, they not only did not get any information from me, but also felt ashamed that their attempt had failed.

Seeing that their soft approach was not working, they locked me in a small room with seven or eight policemen. One of them said, "You did not like those nice words we were using, now we will really force you!" Facing such a threat, I was a little scared at first, but I collected myself quickly, calmly solidified my righteous thoughts, and reminded myself that I would never give in to them. They put handcuffs and ankle shackles on me, tore off my clothes, pressed me down to the floor, put a chair on top of my body, and made a heavy policeman sit on the chair. And then another police officer started to shock me with an electric baton. I had only one thought in my mind, "This baton will not work on me!" A miracle happened. Although the electric baton produced loud buzzing noises, it only felt to me like there were some ants biting my toes. The police officer holding the baton said, "How come it doesn't work? Is it out of batteries?" Another police officer said, "Impossible! It just got recharged." So they shocked me from my toes to my head. I did not make a sound, and silently recited Master's poem Non-Existence to myself. They were quite discouraged by now. They used another baton on me that had just been recharged, but I was still unmoved. At this time the head of the group came up to me, and while hitting my face, asked, "Are you still going to cultivate?" I answered loudly, "Of course!" He asked, "Will you still go to Tiananmen?" I answered, "Yes!" He asked, "Are you going to appeal to the United Nations?" I answered, "If I can get out this country!" He asked, "Will you cultivate until your last breath?" I answered, "I will cultivate until I am dead!" They saw such firmness in me that they totally lost their strength. They said among themselves, "This guy is solid like steel, there's no way to deal with him." Suddenly I realized that I should not let them torture me any further. So I shouted with all my strength, "Police beat me!" And flipped over the chair that was pressed on top of me. My shouting shocked them and they hurried to close the door. Some of them shouted, "Stuff his mouth with a towel!" But no one dared to move. The head police officer said, "Electric shocks are not working on him, how about we cuff him backwards now." Two big guys came up to twist my arms backwards, but they could not do it because my resistance wore them out. They gave up.

They wanted me to sit on my knees [a form of torture when done for long periods], but I firmly refused and sat on the floor. At this time, they totally lost their arrogance. They stood around me looking straight ahead, and could not figure out how to deal with me. I suddenly felt out of breath, my heart beat fast, and my four limbs were shaking. I fell to the floor and lay there, although I was still conscious. They were afraid to take responsibility for my life, so they quickly took off my cuffs and shackles, put my clothes back on me, carried me to the bed, kept calling my name, and sent one person to get medicine from the drug store. They also called a doctor. When the doctor told them that my life was in no danger, they relaxed a bit, but were still scared. Later when I recovered, they wanted me to watch TV programs and read newspapers, both of which slandered Dafa. I refused all of this. I told them, "If you force me to read or watch these again, I will go on a hunger strike." After that they left me alone. Whenever those police officers saw me, they smiled and said, "You are really a good one!" The night police tortured me, my body was full of blackened burns, and my toes were all burnt black.

In the labor camp, I experienced the effectiveness of righteous thoughts many times.

One evening, a policeman on duty came to our cell. The entire class was there when he said some disrespectful words about Dafa. He then took out a booklet that slandered Dafa, and wanted me to read it. I said, "That booklet is full of nonsense to deceive people, I will never read it!" Then he walked up to me, and shouted dirty words at me. I stood up, looked straight into his eyes and said, "You do not respect yourself. How could a policeman behave like you?" He could not believe that I criticized him. Feeling shocked, he looked at me but could not utter a word. I continued to look into his eyes without blinking. We looked at each other for at least 20 seconds. Then he turned around, and left quietly.

Others thought I would be in big trouble for this. But I had no fear at all. After a while he called me into the office. I went peacefully. When I got there, he said to me, "You are in a labor camp, why are you acting so recklessly?" I answered calmly, "Do you mean to say that labor camp police have the right to beat and curse people? In what kind of way did you study the constitution?" He asked, "What kind of rights do you have?" I said, "I still have the right to report and accuse!" He appeared scared when heard this, "Who will you report to? Even if you want to see an official, do you think you'll get the chance?" I said, "There is no need for me to look for them, they will come and see me." He saw that I was not scared of him one bit. He couldn't say anything for a long-time and then let me leave. After that, he never said even one dirty word at me. Sometimes he dared to say dirty words at the person next to me, but then I would give him the look and he would leave. After they heard about this incident, no other police officers said anything disrespectful to me either.

Once the higher authorities wanted them to brainwash us. At first, they used the method of forced-standing and not allowing us to sleep. The first night, they made us stand from 7 p.m. until around bed-time, and they made practitioners who firmly cultivate Dafa keep standing. The group leader said, "Whoever does not want to stand any longer, go talk to the team leader." I thought I should not be punished like this, so I said, "I am going to reason with the team leader." The two most vicious team leaders were on duty. One of them was the director. He appeared very nice, and asked me what was the matter. I said, "You physically torture us. You deprive us of our right to rest, which is wrong!" He quibbled, "We are not torturing you, it is letting you think over your mistakes while facing the wall." I said, "I have not made any mistakes to speak of!" Then I told them the truth about the persecution, and revealed the fact that they had violated the law. They got scared. Another police officer happened to stop by in their office, and allowed them to save face by saying to me, "You can talk later, now you can go." I went back to our cell, and directly went to my bed without looking at our group leader. He let other practitioners sleep also.

After several days, they saw that sleep deprivation did not work, and they started to beat us. One evening, the group leader told me that they were going to beat me that night. "Since your term is almost finished, we settled the matter by just assigning you to another cell." When I went to that cell, I realized I was the only Dafa practitioner there. They isolated me, so that my righteous thoughts would not help other Dafa practitioners. In the beginning, they let me stand by the wall, and asked me several questions all at once. I clearly and straightforwardly answered them. They saw that I wasn't moved, and then they told me to stand with my legs bent [a form of torture when done for long periods]. I absolutely would not cooperate with them, and sat on the floor quickly. Two prisoners came up, and tried to hold me up, but I tried very hard to stay down. They had to give up because I was very strong. I told them, "The team leader will not let you rest because I refuse to change. He is putting pressure on you and trying to turn us against each other. You should realize who the real bad guys are. Since you do not understand why I refuse to give in, I have stood a little while for your sake. If you try to conduct any further torture, I will not even stand for you." Then the group leader came over and slapped my face. I asked, "Who told you you could beat people?" He said, "The team leader told me." I replied, "Do you dare to write down the name of that team leader on a piece of paper?" He lowered his head instantly and became quiet. After a while, he said, "Then stand a little while, otherwise the team leaders will curse us." Then he went to report to the team leader. Other fellow practitioners in our old cell were all beaten, some severely beaten, because they did not resist this persecution and endured passively.

Through my experience I enlightened time and again that it is very important to solidify our Dafa disciples' righteous thoughts. When you dare to look straight into the evil's eyes to validate Dafa, when you dare to resist the forced persecution, and when you dare to reveal the evil's viciousness, these are righteous thoughts in themselves. Just like Master said,

Only when a Dafa disciple acts like this can he be called a Dafa disciple, making the old evil forces speechless in front of our Master, so that Master can protect us amidst the persecution. On the contrary, if one faces the evil with fear, does not dare to righteously look the evil people straight in the eyes, or even tries to escape the torture by seeking help from some official he knows, how can he be sending forth pure, powerful righteous thoughts, even if he recites the Fa-rectification verses repeatedly?