(Clearwisdom.net) I first read "Zhuan Falun" in February, 1999. I thought that it was the most wonderful book in the world. I read it over and over and could hardly put it down. It is hard for me to describe Teacher's magnificence in words. I felt that I could give up anything but Teacher's book—my most important treasure. Whenever I walked to the practice site, all I could see and hear was peace and harmony.
After July 20, 1999, the TV and radio news were attacking and slandering Dafa, but I simply did not believe that a cultivator would kill himself [as alleged by the false reports of the self-immolation on Tiananmen Square]. I didn't believe any of the vicious words intended to smear Teacher's reputation, either. I persisted in studying the Fa and practicing the exercises.
The first poem I memorized was "Predestiny Leads Back to Sacred Fruit" from Hong Yin:
Seeking Master for how many years,
One day seeing him in person,
Obtaining Fa, cultivating to return,
Reaching Consummation, returning with Master.
The second one was "Nonexistence"
Live with no pursuit,
Die not caring about staying;
Clear out all wild thoughts,
Cultivating to a Buddha is not hard.
I urgently read every Dafa book. I read Essentials for Further Advancement seven times. One day, when I was holding the book Zhuan Falun, I couldn't help but cry. I thought that it was my inner self hoping to see Teacher.
I'd like to quote a few words from "Non-Omission in Buddha-Nature" in Essentials for Further Advancement:
"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."
From this paragraph, I realized that human beings are all selfish, and to attain the righteous enlightenment is to always consider others first.
I run a business and once someone overpaid me by 10 yuan. I noticed the mistake the next day and personally sent the money back to him. Another time, the bank made a mistake and gave me an extra thousand yuan, which I returned as well. Whenever I received forged bills, I turned them over to the bank. In my business, I run into different kinds of people but I don't complain or get angry, whatever the case may be. I try my best to meet the standards of Dafa, whether I am at home or elsewhere. I deeply appreciate the magnificence of Teacher and the purity of a true Dafa cultivator. I can see the glories of eternal life and my mind is boundless.
One day, my husband showed me an article in a newspaper and said, "See for yourself—Falun Gong practitioners are being sentenced to ten, twelve or sixteen years in prison." I replied, "It doesn't matter what they say about us. There is nothing wrong with Falun Gong. Falun Gong is the only land of purity. The situation will definitely change."
On April 19, 2000, I was at a fellow practitioner's house when the police illegally arrested me and took me to the police station. They asked why I was visiting other practitioners, whether Falun Gong is good or bad, if I cultivate Falun Gong, etc. I said, "Falun Dafa is good. It teaches people to be good, kind, and virtuous. Practicing the Falun Gong exercises is good for everyone's health." The police put me and other practitioners into a detention center the next day. On the way there, I decided that I would only say that Falun Dafa is good, and that Teacher tells us to practice Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance, the principles of the universe.
In the detention center, I met many other practitioners. The prison cell was not very big but held many people. I thought of my children who were waiting for me to come home, and about not being able to read Teacher's books, and my tears started to fall. A guard told me that I had to write something in order to go home. So I wrote about how good and righteous Falun Dafa was and that we practitioners didn't do anything wrong. Another man in the cell told me that this wouldn't work and that I had to write something like a guarantee statement to no longer practice Falun Gong. I tore up the paper when I heard this.
In the following days, more and more Falun Dafa practitioners were brought to the prison. I kept trying to memorize and write down the Fa we used to study with our group. Gradually, I didn't feel so much sadness in my mind anymore, whereas my thoughts of the magnificence of the Fa and Teacher became even stronger. Learning Dafa is to "gain without pursuit." This in itself is selfless.
Later, we validated Falun Dafa by holding a group hunger strike. A guard said, "Eat when you should eat. Practice your exercises whenever you like. Just write down whatever you want to say." However, after a while, the situation became more severe. Anyone who practiced the exercises would be handcuffed and shackled, forced to sit on the iron chair and shocked with electric batons.
Once, some of my fellow practitioners and I were practicing the exercises when a guard approached us with an electric baton and said, "Stop practicing and stand facing the wall!" I was calm and replied, "I won't face the wall and I don't care how hard you try to force me." I was very determined and the guard just walked away without another word.
Later, we were transferred to another place. The new director of the center prohibited anyone from practicing the exercises, so I wrote him a letter to clarify the truth. Towards the end I wrote, "Even if you shoot us with machine guns, we will still practice Falun Gong. There is nothing wrong with it." Two days later, a man said to us, "Your Teacher is truly remarkable. Falun Gong people aren't even afraid of death." A prolonged period of relative improvements in the environment followed.
"It’s futile for human beings to refute—regardless of what their stance is—the Fa-principles of the cosmos, which transcend all theories in the human society." ("Further Comments on Superstition" from Essentials for Further Advancement II)
I kept those words in mind.
After the so-called "self-immolation incident" was staged, I immediately realized that it was fake. The detention center was under great pressure and the persecution became even more severe. Groups of guards from the Public Security and Judicial System were mobilized. They took away our Jingwen (Teacher's articles) and didn't allow us to practice the exercises. One day a guard said, "I feel guilty that I was not doing better at "transforming" Falun Gong practitioners." I cried and wrote her a letter. It explained the benefits Teacher's Falun Gong had brought to cultivators, and how the practice can maintain a stable society, and asked her not to succumb to a wrong opinion about Falun Dafa. Everyone who read the letter said that it was very well-written. Some people even suggested that I read it out in class. My cell mates' moods seemed to improve. I even noticed that the chief guard was in a better mood. Sometimes she even handed me Teacher's new articles and left us alone when we were practicing the exercises.
Once, all of the practitioners in the cell wrote a letter denouncing Jiang Zemin's policy of persecution. The guards in the detention center handcuffed us for two days and one of us was "illegally sentenced" to forced labor.
During the days and nights of the two following years, I no longer thought about my comfort or eating or sleeping. I only shed tears for the deluded sentient beings who had mistaken notions about Falun Dafa.
In June 2002, I was taken to a brainwashing center. We heard rumors that the 610 Office had assigned an additional ten thousand agents to intensify the persecution. Teachers, police officers, officials in the judicial system and people from all kinds of organizations were involved. They used TV propaganda to slander Falun Dafa. I clarified the truth to them and tried to clear up their misunderstandings. They tried to use "modern science videos," so-called "transformation" videos, slanderous books and TV tapes, but I used my righteous thoughts of Dafa to clear away all interference.
At one time, some thugs talked to me for twenty-three days and nights straight, not allowing me to sleep, trying to "transform" me. I remained steadfast and wrote down only the truth about Falun Dafa: "Anyone who kills himself is not a Falun Gong practitioner. Cultivating Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance will benefit society. We exist to prove the wonder of Dafa in any environment."
Many people who knew the truth didn't even try to "transform" us. At last, a director of the judicial department said, "I have to leave," which meant he was no longer interested in trying to "transform" us. Two principals of the brainwashing center transferred to other locations. Perhaps this was because they had learned the truth, or perhaps it was due to our fellow practitioners' unique righteous thoughts validating Falun Dafa and clarifying the truth.
However, in the following days, I was not able to do well in my cultivation. I didn't cultivate my speech and wanted to prove myself. I thought that some of us were very determined in cultivation and increased my attachment to zealotry. I didn't put much emphasis on sending forth righteous thoughts and I didn't do the first four sets of Falun Dafa exercises. It was a big loophole in my cultivation. The lesson was unforgettable.
This persecution is being forced upon us by the old forces. Teacher says in the article "In Fa-Rectification Your Thoughts Have to be Righteous, Not Human":
"What’s happening is that the cosmos is going through Fa-rectification. [What is taking place in] the human world is merely how low-level beings act when gigantic cosmic bodies are being impacted by the Fa-rectification. What could human beings possibly do to gods? If there were no outside factors, would humans dare to do anything to gods? How human society unfolds is nothing but the outcome of high-level beings controlling things."
We are Falun Dafa disciples who follow Teacher to rectify the universe. We must do the three things well and spread the truth to save sentient beings.
One evening when I was distributing truth-clarification materials and the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party inside buildings, two policemen appeared in front of me. They had already passed me, but I became nervous, which was a human notion. They turned back and followed me. They asked if I belonged to Falun Gong and I told them that Falun Gong practitioners were all good people. Then I was taken to the police station. On the next day, many people came to talk to me. They asked me where the printed materials came from. I replied that it didn't matter but that whoever saw them would be blessed. One of them said that I was very stubborn. After a while, three men pushed me into a police car. They took me to the Public Security Office and I kept sending forth righteous thoughts along the way. At the Public Security Office, they took pictures of my remaining truth-clarification materials and decided to send me to a detention center. I kept sending forth righteous thoughts and asking Teacher for help. As soon as we arrived at the detention center, a guard came out and said they didn't accept Falun Gong practitioners. This was actually Teacher helping me, but I didn't enlighten to it at the time. They talked about it for a while and in the end, the detention center decided to take me.
In the detention center, the guard said that I could find a lawyer to defend me. I thought Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance are the principles which created the boundless universe, and every layer of lives within. Factors of the old forces are manipulating the scum of society to persecute Falun Dafa. We didn't commit any crime but are only following Teacher to rectify the Fa. We are cultivating benevolence to save sentient beings.
As I was thinking about this point, I wrote four letters to the city's Public Security Office, the local police station, and the administration, the director and all members of the detention center. Unfortunately, I was not able to hand the letters out. In the evening, when I was practicing the exercises, a guard stopped me, beat me and took away the letters. After two days, I wrote the same letters again. I passed them on to the other inmates to let them know the truth and then handed them to the warden. I sent forth righteous thoughts, persuaded people to withdraw from the CCP, and asked Teacher to help me. I said to Teacher, "I can't save more sentient beings here—I have to go out."
After one month, a guard ordered me and other practitioners to pack our belongings and wanted to take us somewhere else. Just then, three or four cars arrived, each with two policemen. Everyone was quiet and we kept sending forth righteous thoughts. One of them asked me, "Do you hate us?" I said, "A cultivator doesn't hold hatred against anyone." He said, "You still practice Falun Gong?" I replied, "Falun Gong is good. We have to go home." They asked us to get in the cars first.
We didn't know where we were going. After a long trip, the cars stopped in front of a forced labor camp. We kept sending forth righteous thoughts and asked for Teacher's help. The police then gave us a physical exam. A prison doctor said to us as soon as we walked into the room, "You must not have any health problems in order to work here; otherwise you will have to go home." I said silently to myself, "Teacher please let me have high blood pressure. I have to go home." Soon, the prison doctor looked at me and the blood pressure meter with a strange expression. He then asked me to leave the exam room and go to the labor camp gate. We continued sending forth righteous thoughts with determination. At the labor camp gate, a man read out loud from a sheet of paper: "Their blood pressure is too high. We can't keep them." On our way back, the police officers said to each other, "They should practice Falun Gong for this."
Through this incident I enlightened that we have to keep a stable mind when clarifying the truth. Studying the Fa well is the most basic requirement. We have to cultivate well in our every word, thought and behavior or our loopholes will be exploited. Never ignore the importance of sending forth righteous thoughts. Believe in Teacher and the Fa; Do the "three things" well; Don't disappoint Teacher's merciful mission; fulfill our great destinies. I want to thank every fellow practitioner who helps us by continuing to send forth righteous thoughts.
If there is anything inappropriate, please compassionately correct me.
