(Clearwisdom.net)
Part 1: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/12/16/55622.html
(Continued from Part I)
6. Validating Dafa (experiencing Master's immense benevolence)
In December 2000, several of us firm practitioners were sent to a single cell where the guards had covered the walls with posters slandering Master. We quickly took the posters off the walls. The guards rushed at us and dragged us to the office. The staff of the administration office also came to help. Guan Wei and Wang Jing beat me very badly, and Guan Wei shocked me with electric batons. They then tightly cuffed our hands behind our backs. They taped our mouths shut so we couldn't speak and also stuck on our bodies written notes that slandered Master. When practitioner Wu Xiuqin was taken into the office, she quickly tore those notes off us. A guard handcuffed her to a bed and shocked her with electric batons as well. Later I was sent back to my cell.
Wu Xuqin and He Hua were locked up in small cells for nearly a month. When I tore down those posters for the second time, guards hung me up on the door of a small cell for over ten hours and didn't even allow me to go to the toilet. But quite surprisingly I didn't feel the suffering at all even though I was enduring such cruel persecution. After a while, they said that they were off work. The officer-on-duty took me down. I felt it had only been around one hour since they hung me up instead of over ten. Suddenly I recalled what Du Hongfang said earlier, that when she was being tortured she saw Master protecting her with his body. She saw that all the electric batons landed on Master. I felt pain in my heart, and the tears ran down my cheeks. Master said,
"You know what? Know what I'm doing here? I'm taking all students as disciples to guide,..." (Zhuan Falun).
My fellow practitioners, as long as we have righteous thoughts, even a little bit, Master will sacrifice everything to help us. We cannot let Master's efforts go down the drain.
In January 2001, the loud speakers in the forced labor camp kept broadcasting slanderous reports fabricated by Jiang Zemin and his followers, spreading rumors that Master had colluded with anti-China forces in China and overseas. They were making up stories to justify their persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. After hearing this, I immediately asked for pens to write appeals letters, but they refused to provide any. Several days later, the provincial TV station's reporters came to the forced labor camp to produce TV programs for the coming Chinese New Year. The camp called some "Reformed" former practitioners, asking them to lie about how well the labor camp had treated Falun Gong practitioners. They also produced staged performances to slander Dafa. The forced labor camp was required to arrange an interview with three practitioners who had refused to give up the practice. As I always had the thought in mind to validate the Fa wherever I went, I was determined that I must stand up and speak the truth. So in front of the reporters in the Education Section, I exposed the many forms of inhuman abuse. My body was covered with injuries, and half of my face was black as a result of the electric shocks. I asked, "Why don't they dare to tell the world one sentence of the truth? Everything they say is a lie! Since Dafa is righteous, anything which is against Dafa is bad." I negated all the slander against Master right in their faces.
The camp leaders were very angry. They phoned our team before I even returned. Guard Li Xiaohua said to me cruelly, "Stop! Here comes your opportunity, so let's see how I'll deal with you." I immediately knew that they would torture me again. Right at this moment the film crew came to the Fourth Team with their video cameras. The guards were afraid of having their evildoings exposed, so they hurriedly said to me, "You go back first. We'll come for you tomorrow." I thought a lot when I returned to the cell. With every step I move forward, Master's care and efforts are evident. Master said,
"These things are arranged by the master and performed by the master. Therefore, it is said that cultivation depends on one's own efforts, while transforming gong is done by one's master. You can only have such a wish and think about it like that, but it is the master who actually does these things."(Zhuan Falun).
During solid cultivation I could see the principles of Dafa being manifested again and again.
Later my family told me that the forced labor camp had been on TV, and all the practitioners were claiming they "regretted" learning Falun Dafa. They had also seen me on TV, but there was no sound as I was speaking. It was only the narrator who was lying about the labor camp doing this and that and how they changed, educated, and redeemed the practitioners. I felt very angry and thought to myself, "How could the labor camp deceive people like this? How could the television reporters tell lies like this? And how many innocent people will be duped by such false propaganda? I must get out and expose it."
7. Resisting the persecution and breaking out of the demon's den
Several practitioners and I had been together against the persecution since 2001. We refused to wear name badges or the labor camp uniforms and also refused to participate in any activities in the labor camp.
By the end of November 2001 I had already been detained for ten months. The labor camp continued to abduct practitioners and violently abuse those who refused to be reformed. Some of the practitioners were forced to stand for many days and were not allowed to sleep. They were also tied up to a bed and shocked with electric batons. Seeing all this happening, I felt like a knife was cutting into my heart. On November 30, I started a hunger strike to protest the persecution. I raised three demands to the team leader Guan Wei: 1). Stop violating the law while enforcing the law: stop using torture, including electric batons, to try to force practitioners to give up their belief. 2). The labor camp has no right to extend a detention term at will. It is illegal to do so. 3). Release all illegally detained Falun Gong practitioners.
After I had raised these demands, he said it was impossible to accept them and asked when I would start eating. I told him that I would never eat if my demands were not met, as it was stipulated in the law that one could protest by a hunger strike if illegally detained. This was my right.
On the third day of my hunger strike they force-fed me. Several people held me down and inserted a rubber tube through my nose. I coughed so hard I gagged and could hardly breathe. The food was put into the tube but I threw up and my nose was bleeding. My mouth was bleeding profusely as well. They didn't care about my life or death and said it must be inserted, no matter what happened. During each force-feeding they had to try five or six times to insert the tube. On several occasions, I almost died from suffocation. In fact, little was fed after inserting a tube. They also knew it did not work, but they still force-feed me twice a day. After each force-feeding it was like I had escaped death. I experienced profoundly what it means to be force-fed. But I remembered what Master said,
"If he is able to let go of life and death, he is a God; if he is unable to let go of life and death, he is human."(Lecture at the Australia Fa Conference)
Seeing that my determination could not be shaken, they sent me to Jilin Province's Public Security Hospital for further persecution.
On December 8, the labor camp staff demanded 2,000 yuan from my younger brother, saying the money was needed for my medical treatment. On December 9, the labor camp guards and a doctor from the local medical station went with me to the police hospital. On the way, they kept intimidating me by saying, "So you're on a hunger strike. You will figure what to do when you get there. They have many ways to deal with you in the police hospital." Once inside the police hospital it was like being inside a cage. As soon as I entered, a police officer from the hospital asked me, "Are you going to eat or not? If not, we'll perform an amputation on you!"
Instantly I realized the extent of evilness at that place and what was yet ahead of me. I thought of Master and decided not to give in. I continued my hunger strike. The guards locked my hands and feet to the bed so that I couldn't move. Then they tried to insert a thick rubber tube into my stomach through my nose. The tube was too thick and couldn't be inserted even after several attempts, making me cough so badly that I could hardly breathe. I was sweating all over. When they had finished, I was totally exhausted. They said, "Let's get on with the next," and started inserting a catheter into my urethra. It was extremely painful, and I trembled all over. I couldn't breathe and was in excruciating pain. I felt like I was hovering between life and death. They threw me onto a bed and put me on an intravenous drip. The guard shouted, "Nobody is allowed to care for her." The catheter slipped out and they didn't put it back, leaving me lying in my own urine on the wet blanket. A practitioner saw the urine-soaked blanket, so she put a spittoon under my lower back to help collect the urine. After one night, my lower back was in such a pain that it felt like it was broken. That night I had phlegm in my throat and as I couldn't move because I was chained to the bed, I almost suffocated. The practitioner in the same room secretly helped me remove the phlegm with tears rolling down her face. She took care of me the whole night, and the next day she left the place.
They had the tube in my stomach but didn't feed me anything. For four days I was fed only once with the milk powder and orange juice my brother had bought for me. They didn't remove the tube because they wanted to leave it in to cause me pain. As no one looked after me while I was restrained tightly on the bed, I could only turn my head a little when I needed to cough the phlegm out, and as a result, it was all over my face and body. The catheter slipped out and my urine dripped onto the floor. The other criminal prisoners used my cotton-padded trousers to wipe the floor clean and cursed me for soiling the room. During the day, they would go to another room to avoid being with me and would leave the windows wide open on purpose. It was in December in northern China [note: the average temperature was between minus 20 and minus 30 degree Celsius], and I was wearing only underwear. In addition, the bed was wet and I was only covered up to my chest. I couldn't move, and the pain, cold and humiliation vied for attention in my mind. I endured tremendous pain every day. They forced intravenous injections into me and each time they would carelessly leave the needle in me. Sometimes the needle would miss the blood vessel, and the solution would go into my muscle, causing intolerable pain. On the third day after the intravenous injection was over, no one came to remove the needle. I didn't beg them this time. I looked at the empty bottle and slowly closed my eyes. [Note: It is common medical training and procedure to never leave an empty IV bottle connected to a patient. If the air from the bottle enters into the patient's vein through the IV needle it can cause an embolism and kill them.] I had been tortured beyond tolerance and thought it was all right to die. If I died, I died because of the persecution. I dozed off and did not know how long I slept. When I opened my eyes I saw the empty bottle still up there and I was still alive. A warm feeling came to my heart. My compassionate Master! Your disciple made a mistake. I must do well to assist you to rectify the Fa till the day when the Fa rectifies the human world! I will not let down your overwhelming benevolent salvation! I can't fathom how much Master suffered for all living beings in the cosmos. On the fourth day, with Master's care and protection, the forced labor camp let my brother take me home. Finally, I broke out of that evil place.
8. Only days after I got out of the labor camp, my mother begins practicing
Since September 1999, I haven't been at home much and was in and out of prisons and labor camps six times. This caused my family a great deal of anguish and suffering. Before I was thrown into the labor camp, I was forced to part with my husband. After I was released I became homeless. Later I moved into my mother's home and stayed with her and my younger brother for a short period of time. Prior to the beginning of the persecution on July 20, 1999, eight or nine people in my family were practicing Falun Dafa. After the persecution started, my older sister, younger sister and I were repeatedly detained and tormented, which caused my mother to suffer tremendous mental anguish.
My grandmother told us that my mother had been very weak ever since she was a child. She was at the brink of death several times because of illnesses. Later she started to believe in Buddha and became a vegetarian. She burned incense and worshipped Buddha every day, but she was still ridden with many health problems. As far back as I could remember, my mother was always ill, and we had to cook, wash clothes and do housework since we were children, because she was too sick to take care of us. When mother was in her thirties, she almost died. After I got out of the forced labor camp, my mother saw my plight and she believed in Dafa even more. She started to study Dafa books and do the exercises with me. She finally discarded the medicine that accompanied her wherever she went. She was so happy about her regained health that she told everyone she met, "Falun Dafa is so magical! For the first time in over 70 years I know what it feels like to be disease-free. I'm extremely grateful to Teacher Li Hongzhi! Our whole family is so happy."
9. Clarifying the truth of Dafa; offering salvation to all living beings
After I got out of the forced labor camp, besides distributing truth-clarifying materials, I also clarified the truth face to face to everyone I met. I used my experiences to explain the facts and helped a lot of people who had held hostile feelings toward Dafa change their minds. They all got to know the truth. After I moved into my mother's home, the local police precinct staff often came to harass us, because they thought that I was a stubborn practitioner. I clarified the truth to them whenever I saw them and I also wrote letters to them. During the Two Conferences (the Communist Party Congress and the National People's Congress) in 2003, the police precinct chief and several police officers broke into my home and asked me if I still practiced Falun Gong. I said, "Yes." The chief pointed at a drawer and asked me if there were any propaganda/promotion (meaning truth-clarifying) materials inside. I said, "Today, let me do some promotion for you." Then I started to clarify the truth to them, and none of them did anything. In the end, the director inquired if I would still go out to put up posters. I asked him, "If you see someone at the brink of death, would you offer to help him?" He replied, "As long as you don't stick posters everywhere on the street during the Two Conferences, that's okay." As they were leaving I told them, "I will tell you 'Falun Dafa is great' whenever I see you."
I remember what happened to the wife of someone in charge of the suppression of Falun Gong at his work unit. She used to practice Falun Gong before the persecution started, but after July 20, 1999, she couldn't control herself and did something she shouldn't have done. Later she became paralyzed. Her husband consequently had some bad feelings towards Falun Gong. Through a fellow practitioner, I went to visit his home. The first thought I had when I saw him was that I must redeem him. The first time I went, he didn't believe me and refused to accept the truth. The second time I went, I could sense that I was not welcome, but I wasn't discouraged. The third time I went I told him I knew what he was doing, and that the reason I risked my life to clarify the truth to him was because my Master asked us to hurry up and to offer people salvation. I said to him, "I hope you will listen to me today." Then I started to talk about the Tiananmen Square Self-Immolation Incident and the alleged stories of homicides and suicides broadcast on TV and in newspapers. I answered all the questions he asked, and I also told him my personal experiences of persecution, abuse, torment and torture and how I was almost tortured to death on a number of occasions. I showed him the scars on my hands and feet. In the end he said, "I watched lots of video CD's, but I don't believe Falun Gong is good. The Communist Party can't be as cruel as you said." Later when I went to his home again his wife told me, "After you left last time he told me, 'This person is very nice. What she said is all true.'" Later I heard that during the Two Conferences, Falun Dafa banners were hung everywhere, and when his unit was about to arrest practitioners, he stepped forward and said, "Arrest me if you want to. I did it all!"
On June 30, 2003, my sister and I went to the countryside to distribute flyers and tell people the truth. Police officers from Gangyao Town in the Longtan District arrested us and sent us to Jilin City's Number One Detention Center that evening. The detention center did not allow any practitioner to read Dafa books or do the exercises. I began a hunger strike immediately after I arrived there. I told the guards and the head of the center that we were subjected to all kinds of persecution merely because we believe in Truth-Compassion-Tolerance. They told me, "There is an order from the top. We are just following the order. Now that you are here, you'd better obey the regulations."
On the third day they started to forced-feed me twice daily. Every time seven to eight criminal inmates came up to pin me down onto a bed. They pinched my nose, used a spoon to pry my mouth open, then pushed my tongue aside and poured soup into my mouth. Since I refused to swallow, some soup even got into my nose. It was very painful. My face, nose and mouth were hurt badly. My jaw was swollen. On the fifth day, the head prison guard said that the center head had issued a demand. According to the head, the prison guards did not do a good job, so they needed to keep the pressure on. If I still refused to eat, all the inmates will have to sit with me, and no rest or breaks would be allowed. Family visits were forbidden in the detention center. The inmates could only see their family members on the backyard hills during the break once every three to four days. The prison guards gave the inmates a hard time in order to generate hatred towards me. On the sixth day, the criminal inmates watched me stand there a whole day without moving or sleeping. They became angry and began to punch me. I was beaten so badly that I felt dizzy. Later they inserted tubing through my nostril. One day, after being deprived of sleep for a long time, I fell to the floor. The inmates took turns watching me to make sure the tube stayed in my stomach. I pulled it out quite a few times, but every time they would beat me up and re-insert the tube.
Although they were very mean to me, I did not bear them any hatred because I knew they were deceived by the lies. I treated them as my family members. Even under severe distress I never stopped clarifying the truth to them. I told them about the fake TV propaganda, the Focus Interview programs about the Tiananmen Self-Immolation lies. I told them these were all fabrications. I also explained to them why I made the conclusion based on my understanding of Dafa. I told them that Dafa teaches people to be kind to each other. These criminal inmates agreed with me. They said, "You practitioners don't fight back when hit, don't talk back when insulted." Later they all became my friends. I also felt very close to them. That time I truly experienced the beauty of
"Compassion melts heaven and earth" (unofficial translation from "Fa rectifies the Cosmos" of Hong Yin II)
On the eleventh day, the local police came to pick me up. A criminal inmate kept holding my arm in a friendly manner and wouldn't let me go. She wanted to learn Falun Gong from me. Finally when I left I saw her faint. I was deeply saddened. A prison guard came and said, "Falun Dafa is indeed Truth, Compassion, Tolerance. Today I experienced first hand the compassion of a Dafa practitioner. In fact, there is nothing wrong with your efforts to clarify the truth." Later they sentenced me to two years of forced labor, but with Master's protection I failed the physical exam and the labor camp refused to accept me. I was released.
After I got home, I saw that Master's portrait and all my Dafa books had been taken. I felt extremely bad. With tears running down my face, I sat down to re-examine myself. I realized that the reason for my arrest was because of my attachment. After I came back from the forced labor camp last time, I was highly praised. Gradually, my personal pride and show-off mentality began to grow. I became over-confident and refused to listen to others. I stopped looking inward when issues happened. I kept thinking about myself. Although Master repeatedly gave me hints, I failed to realize my problems. My behavior deviated from Dafa and caused loss to Dafa work, including losing Dafa books and Master's portrait. My attachments made Master shoulder my burdens. The next day I went to the local police station to ask for my Dafa books. The police chief was not in, and someone said he was out of town. I then called his home phone. But every time I called I was told that he was not home. I felt such anguish in my heart because I could not get my books back. In September 2003, I left my mother's house and went to a city to clarify the truth of Falun Gong.
10. By searching within, attachments are rooted out, awareness of integrated group improved
When I worked with fellow practitioners on Dafa projects, more attachments were exposed. When I clarified the truth to people, or even when I was under persecution, I could still demonstrate my compassion and kindness. How come I couldn't do the same with fellow practitioners? When I had different opinions, my attachments became very strong. After deep soul searching I realized that I was nursing remnants of the old universe. I only wanted to change others, but not myself. I stubbornly believed that I was very solid in Dafa. Gradually, my show-off mentality and personal pride became stronger. I did not cultivate myself on solid footing. I recalled that, when I worked in a Dafa materials distribution site in a certain city, I did not cooperate well with other practitioners. Each one of us was doing things our own way. As a result, Dafa work was delayed, and evildoers took advantage of the situation and destroyed two distribution sites; four practitioners were sentenced to over ten years in prison. Protected by Master I escaped. Hard lessons learned! Why can't I realize my shortcomings and change? Sometimes I appear to have given up my attachments, but at the bottom of my heart, they are still there.
Master told us
"Have you noticed that a lot of our students can't take criticism from others? As soon as they are criticized they get mad and aren't able to take it...You're a cultivator, so do you want those ordinary things? Let me tell you, since you're cultivators and you're among ordinary people, you just have to listen to those displeasing words, and you have to be able to listen to those displeasing words. (Applause) Otherwise, when you haven't even resolved this most basic cultivation issue, how could you call yourself a Dafa disciple?" ("Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Chicago Conference")
Reading Master's words, I felt deeply that I am too far away from Master's requirements. I also felt that Master is facing too many difficulties. Today I exposed my attachments. Now it is time to completely get rid of them. I now often ask myself, "Are you qualified to be a Dafa particle? Have you really become selfless? Does every one of your thoughts conform to the Fa? Do you let Master down? Do you have all living beings in your heart?" In this repeated self-examination I have found myself. With a deepening understanding of the Fa, I am strengthening my awareness of the integrated group.
Although I still have many shortcomings, I will not be discouraged. I am more determined than ever to do my best in the Three Things. I will continuously correct and improve myself in Dafa, purify myself, and fulfill my grand wish made in the ancient past.
Recalling my past five years on the Fa-rectification path, I cried many times. I cry for the pain, for the excitement, and for the sadness. But all that has become history. Now the only time I cry is when I do not do well. I cry out of shame before Teacher and the living beings.
First Mainland China Dafa Practitioners' Written Experience Sharing Conference
