(Clearwisdom.net) Someone reported me to the police while I was attending group study in May 2006, resulting in my arrest and the arrests of almost all the other practitioners. One escaped using the power of righteous thoughts.
Once detained I started a hunger strike to protest the persecution and to reject the arrangements of the evildoers. I had no fear. Later, when the police threatened to subject me to force-feeding, I became afraid and stopped the hunger strike. My righteous thoughts weakened and my attachments grew under those circumstances, until I wrote a repentance statement promising to give up practicing Falun Gong. This is something that a Dafa practitioner should never do.
My practitioner mother and other practitioners from my hometown did not give up on me. I was arrested while traveling out of town. Once they learned of the illegal arrest, they continuously sent forth righteous thoughts to help me escape. Some practitioners saw through their celestial eyes that while at first, my body was shining like gold, later my body became completely dark due to emotional attachments. My mother came all the way to the police station from our hometown and demanded my unconditional release.
Only a few practitioners lived in the city where I was arrested, and the persecution was quite serious over there. Before my mother came, she had sent forth righteous thoughts thinking that she would not only ask for my release, but would also clarify the truth of Dafa to whoever she met. Her thoughts were very pure. She was not selfish and was not afraid of anything. She first stopped at the police station, told the police the true facts, and inquired into the location of my whereabouts, but the police told her that agents from the city's Public Security had arrested me. My mother then went there and clarified the truth. People there advised her to check the city detention center. That's how she came to the detention center. My mother asked where in the center I was detained, and clarified the truth while continuing to send forth righteous thoughts the whole night she was there. After understanding the truth, police at the detention center promised to help her. They told her that I was not at their center and encouraged her to check out other places. I was actually detained in a brainwashing class.
After having been given the run-around from one place to another, my mother still could not find me, so she went to the district police department entrance and sat there, holding a poster. The poster contained the story of Dafa teachings and detailed some of the great physical and mental benefits that practitioners obtained after learning Dafa. The poster also explained the facts about the illegal persecution. She included my picture and the awards I earned at school. The poster attracted attention. While my mother was sat there, another practitioner sat on the other side of street, continuously sending forth righteous thoughts.
When people stopped by and inquired, my mother clarified the facts. She said, "My daughter is a good person. She was arrested because she persisted in her belief. There is nothing wrong with practicing one's belief, is there?" If nobody was around at the time, she held her hand up and sent forth righteous thoughts. The police tried to stop her and attempted to carry her away, but my mother was not afraid. She told them, "Please don’t do that. You know that I have legs. I can always walk back after you take me away." She clarified the truth to the police and the police lost their patience. A chief official came out and tried to negotiate with my mother. My mother persisted with her request to have me unconditionally released. She also told them that she would carry the poster around the streets until I was released and let all the people know how I was persecuted.
My mother’s righteous thoughts and noble actions frightened the police. To avoid having the persecution exposed, the police promised to release me in two days. As a result, I was actually released that very afternoon. Without notifying my mother, the police sent me directly back to the place where I lived. They extorted a 2,000 yuan "deposit" from me. With fellow practitioners' cooperation and under Teacher’s protection I returned home safely.
After this incident we realized that the following guidelines would be helpful when rescuing a practitioner:
1. Everyone should participate in the rescue action, veteran as well as newer practitioners. Don’t let the old forces find an excuse to persecute us. If some practitioners have loopholes we should help them to get rid of them and eliminate attachments according to the Fa. The old forces have no right to test our Dafa practitioners, regardless of whether we have attachments or not. We should not make any excuses for not sending forth righteous thoughts. We should not miss the best rescue opportunity.
2. Other practitioners involved in coordinating a rescue should persist in sending forth righteous thoughts. In my case, practitioners took turns sending forth righteous thoughts throughout the 24- hour period and did not give the evil any break.
3. Expose the persecution on the Internet as soon as possible, so as to frighten the evil. The cell phone number of one police officer involved in my case was exposed online. He received many overseas calls daily. The practitioners told him the truth, and asked him to quit the CCP. Although he did not fully understand what had happened, he knew that many overseas Dafa practitioners were paying attention to what happened in China.
4. It would be better to ask for release with the intervention of a practitioner who is a relative. In order to do so, he or she first needs to rectify his/her state of mind and then cooperate with the other practitioners who are sending forth righteous thoughts. Coordination is very important. In fact, my mother tried to rescue me twice. She was scared and returned home the first time. After she returned, fellow practitioners helped her to find her loopholes and adjust her thinking. She then let go of her attachment. Since she had the correct frame of mind the second time around, the rescue turned out to be a powerful Dafa-validating event.
I looked inside for my own attachments after this incident in order to find what I had done wrong that enabled the old forces to pull me back. In the process of doing so, I discovered several omissions in different areas. These are the reasons I suffered from the persecution:
1. Belief in Teacher and the Fa: I often ask myself, "Do I believe in Teacher?" Of course I do. I probably answer it without any hesitation and there is no doubt that I believe in Teacher. Nevertheless, it appeared that I did not firmly believe in Teacher and Dafa. After the persecution began on July 20, 1999, I became physically and mentally exhausted from frequent arrests and detention. My motivation wore thin and I did not have enough energy to improve myself. I also studied the Fa less than before. I sensed that something was blocking me and knew that mine was not the state of a cultivator. I was so numb that I was idle for a very long time.
Tracing the source, I discovered that I acknowledged the old forces' arrangements and believed that I would be persecuted if I went out to validate the Fa, and that I would be safe if I chose to stay home. In reality, I would be more easily persecuted if I did not do the three things well and did not cultivate well.
Whenever I came across something (e.g., persecution), I would handle it using my human side, and hope that I could escape with luck. I treated the persecution of Dafa as a persecution of humans-to-humans, and did not eliminate the factors behind the persecution. The human thoughts proved useless, but I still used them. I even questioned the effectiveness of sending forth righteous thoughts. All of these are signs that I did not firmly believe in Teacher and Dafa.
Teacher told us,
"Whenever a tribulation comes, you do not see it with the side of your original nature but view it completely with your human side. Evil demons then capitalize on this point and inflict endless interference and damage, leaving students in long-term tribulations. As a matter of fact, this results from an inadequate understanding of the Fa by your human side. You have humanly restrained your divine side; in other words, you have restrained the parts that have been successfully cultivated and have prevented them from doing Fa-rectification. How can the uncultivated side restrain your main thoughts or the side that has already attained the Fa? Having humanly fostered the evil demons, you allow them to capitalize on the loopholes in the Fa." ("Expounding on the Fa" from Essentials for Further Advancement)
2. Fear: On the surface I was consistently, discreetly and carefully doing everything. In actuality there was fear in my mind. I feared being persecuted, feared being followed, feared losing a lucky chance; feared this and feared that.
3. Emotion and lust: Looking at me, people get the impression that I am a traditional and conservative person. I am well behaved, keep a distance from the opposite sex, and take relationships seriously. Prior to practicing Dafa I had a great fondness for literature and had read many literary works about love and art. I still yearn for happy emotions and enjoy someone caring for me. I liked and admired people who had some special talent in arts (although I did express the feeling in words). I knew this is absurd and is just a fantasy. Although I knew this was a kind of attachment, I did not stop it, but instead made excuses for it. Actually, as a Dafa practitioner, one should have strict requirements for oneself and control one's thoughts and actions. One should not think about emotion and lust. One must know that emotion and lust are materials that can accumulate over a period of time. As soon as one has these notions one has to quickly and completely eliminate them.
4. Listening to others too much: I grew up receiving praise from many of the people around me. I had a very low tolerance for criticism and could not listen to others, even if I knew they were right. I would often find an excuse to argue. This was because my vanity was challenged. I had a huge ego and this problem had become obvious. I think my vanity is a very big barrier. I care too much about my personal reputation and fear losing face. I would do anything to regain my reputation. How big this attachment is! I have to eliminate this through cultivation.
5. Neglecting self-cultivation: I remember that I used to look into myself according to Dafa. As soon as something happened I would first ask myself the following questions: Did I do something wrong? Did I have the right state of mind? Was I happy when hearing praise? Did others influence my emotional state? Later, I began to slack off in cultivation. As I cultivated less and less, I mingled with ordinary people more and was too lazy to look into myself. I no longer looked into myself when encountering conflict. I relaxed and fell asleep when I tried to study the Fa or practice the exercises. Fa study had become routine, as a test to be completed. This led to me being unable to understand the Fa well. How could I call myself a disciple! I constantly condemned myself, but was not able to elevate my state of mind during this period in my life.
When I found these loopholes, I should have quickly awakened. The unconscious feeling I experienced proved very dangerous. Increasing the number of times for sending forth righteous thoughts and studying the Fa assures that one can walk correctly on the cultivation path, which is very narrow. We must be strict with ourselves.
I hope that my fellow practitioners who are in similar circumstances awaken and improve their xinxing.
