(Clearwisdom.net)
Editor's note: The writer had suffered from severe, difficult and complicated illnesses. However, only a few months after she had the chance to practice Falun Dafa she made a full and miraculous recovery. In 2000, she and her husband were illegally detained and have been imprisoned in a forced labor camp ever since. Their physical and mental health have been devastated due to inhuman torture and persecution. During her detention at the Shibalihe Women's Forced Labor Camp in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, one of her legs was broken as a result of the severe beatings she suffered. Their child was forced to leave the work place and go from place to place. The suffering endured by this family of three is all for one simple reason -- refusing to give up cultivating Falun Dafa. Falun Dafa has turned a dying patient into a healthy and good person who pursues a high moral standard. However, Jiang's regime, on the contrary, has arrested healthy and kind people and has handicapped them through brutal torture.
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I feel incredibly sad that such a great cultivation way has been slandered and persecuted. I have been thinking about one question: Why it is so difficult to be a good person? Teacher Li Hongzhi is immensely benevolent and unimaginably kind. He has gone through innumerable hardships and has done countless good deeds for the people in an effort to save countless sentient beings. The people in power have not only failed to thank him, but even persecute him instead. I feel saddened to see our Teacher being attacked and slandered with lies by the state run television station.
Our Teacher has taught us how to be good people, moral and noble people. What is wrong with that? Our Teacher has purified our bodies and saved tens of thousands of people like me from the jaws of death. In addition, he has taught us to cultivate according to very high-level principles. Is there anything wrong with that? If more people come to practice Falun Dafa and become good people, the moral standard of the whole society will be improved. Isn't this good?
My personal experience is most remarkable. I am 49 years old and was a medical worker. When I was 36 years old, I suffered from serious illness in my digestive system along with contracting anemia and severe neurasthenia. In three months my weight had plummeted from 120 Jin [~132 pounds] to 90 Jin [~99 pounds] and I became a chronic invalid. In order to improve my health, I tried various doctors, home remedies, and all sorts of treatment. However, my health condition showed no improvement.
A day seemed like a year to me then. The wearing down of my body through the chronic illnesses resulted in malnutrition and poor resistance to other illnesses. In August of 1995, I contracted acute rheumatic fever. The fever did not recede and I felt as if all my bones were aching. The fever eventually developed into rheumatic heart disease and I was once again admitted to the hospital. During my stay in the hospital, check-ups showed that I had tubercular bacillus in my urine and that my liver suffered from substantial damage. Every day I was woken up by the pain two to three hours after I went to sleep. I would be drenched with sweat. I suffered severely from lingering pain and felt that I was one step away from death.
I changed to traditional Chinese medicine after the treatment of Western medicine produced no effect. Three months hospitalization had cost me tens of thousands of Yuan [Chinese currency, the monthly salary for an average Chinese urban worker is about 500 Yuan]. The severe illnesses brought my family to the verge of collapse and we suffered great loses financially, physically and mentally. My husband was in particular affected. He felt extremely stressed every day. As a result his health deteriorated, he often felt pains in his chest.
My family members went to a lot of trouble while looking after me and felt worried all the time. Even my eighty-year-old parents went to the hospital to see me. I just could not bear the suffering anymore and the thought of suicide came into my mind. However, I did not succeed in my attempt.
Just at that moment when I felt no hope to seek survival and could not commit suicide, a friend of mine recommended me to watch the Falun Gong video lectures. That was in April of 1996. I had practiced dozens of Qigong and whenever a Qigong master came to teach a class I would attend. I spent thousands of Yuan but it was all to no avail. Therefore, I did not trust Qigong any more. I was unwilling to go, but out of consideration of my friend's feelings, I reluctantly accepted the invitation.
My husband had to take me there on his bike, however, I was able to walk back home all by myself. It was beyond my imagination that Falun Gong could produce such an instant result to a person like me who had suffered from various illnesses and had not stepped out of the house for several months.
Falun Gong is really wonderful. On the first day when I practiced the exercises, it felt like my entire body was emitting chilled air and I was soaked in perspiration. One week later the dropsy vanished, the fever was gone, my bones stopped aching and I could sleep soundly. All kinds of illnesses disappeared several months after I began practicing Falun Gong.
I am extremely lucky. For a quite long period of time, whenever I practiced the exercises my eyes would brim with tears. Words could not express my gratitude towards Teacher. It was Teacher who had given me a second life and it was Teacher who pulled me back from the verge of death. I have once again become a healthy person and happiness returned to my family. It's Falun Gong that has saved my family.
I have studied Falun Gong very seriously. The book Zhuan Falun has taught me how to be an upright person. Only when your xinxing [the nature of the mind or the heart, moral character] and moral standard have been improved could one really become a health person physically and mentally. As practitioners of Falun Gong we must follow the principles of "Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance" to constantly improve your xinxing. Also, we should not strive for fame and gain. In doing things we must think of others first and when confronted with conflicts look inside ourselves to see if there is anything that we did not do well. Our Teacher says, "I also want to tell you that your nature in the past was actually based on egotism and selfishness. From now on, whatever you do, you should consider others first, so as to attain the righteous Enlightenment of selflessness and altruism. So from now on, whatever you do or whatever you say, you must consider others--or even future generations--along with Dafa's eternal stability." ("Non-Omission in Buddha-Nature", Essentials for Further Advancement)
We have benefited a great deal from cultivating Falun Gong and firmly believe Falun Gong is a truly wonderful exercise. Isn't it beneficial for us to have more good citizens who are kind and work hard?
External pressure cannot change people's hearts, and coercion can only make the government lose the trust of its people. I sincerely hope the Chinese leaders at all levels will take an attitude of showing responsibility for the country and the people, and do the right thing by supporting Falun Gong.