(Clearwisdom.net)
1. Experience Sharing Conference
I began cultivating in November 1997. One and a half years later the persecution began. Like many other practitioners, I was at a loss, and at the time there was scant information on the Minghui website (Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net). I got some Dafa materials from elsewhere, but in the days after the persecution began, practitioners seldom dared to accept them, and certain families kept practitioners under lock and key. It was difficult to get in touch with fellow practitioners. We waited silently outside their doors and gave them Minghui materials when they came out of their homes.
This permitted us to have a more favorable environment. As time went on we contacted more practitioners, and more people ventured onto the Minghui website, but we still didn't work as a united whole. What needed to be done? We talked it over and decided we should hold a Fa conference. With Master's support and our efforts, we held the first Fa conference after July 20, 1999. More people than expected arrived. With concern for safety, some practitioners asked me, "Do we still hold the conference with so many people? What will you do if everyone knows that it was you who sent Dafa materials from the Minghui website?" I said, "Let's proceed. It took so much effort to hold this meeting. We must have it!" We held a cordial and well-organized conference and found our own shortcomings.
Several days later, the practitioner who had arranged the location for the conference told me, "That day, a police officer came by right after the conference started." When I heard that, I wondered why I never saw any police. She told me, "The police officer went to my neighbor's and fell asleep in a chair once he entered the room. My neighbor knew that Dafa was good and didn't want to wake him up. When the meeting was over, my neighbor awakened him." We all experienced how Master cares for and protects us.
2. Stepping Forward
We realized that it was Dafa disciples' responsibility to appeal to authorities for help and clarify the truth to them. There were many practitioners in our area who had gone to Beijing to clarify the truth and validate the Fa. But all of us, including me, were jailed. Some practitioners, duped by the officials, revealed some of our Fa conference details. The police interrogated me based on so-called evidence. They tried to make me confess to some charge regarding the "evidence." I knew they had learned something, but I knew the larger reason for my being there was to validate the Fa instead of validating their "confession." A tough police officer shouted at me, "I will sentence you to prison!" I was not afraid and told myself I would never betray fellow practitioners! I said to myself, "Master, I am not afraid of being sentenced. I did not study the Fa enough but I won't be sentenced." After this decisive thought, the police did not interrogate me further.
Many practitioners were then detained and not released until they wrote guarantee statements. I left the jail in an upright manner. Later I heard a police officer say, "We forgot about you at the time." Master's compassionate care and Dafa's invincible might empowered my righteous thoughts to assist Master in rectifying the Fa.
3. Validating the Fa, Clarifying the Truth, and Saving People
Before I obtained the Fa, my co-workers knew that I was conceited and competitive and somewhat influential. I caused the those in charge many headaches. I changed, however, after obtaining the Fa. On the night shift, many of my co-workers would find a place to sleep secretly. After the supervisor made the work assignments, she left, and the co-workers left, too. When the supervisor returned she found I was the only one there. I also seldom argued with others. The supervisor was impressed, and we became good friends. When I was "illegally detained," she talked with company leaders on her own initiative, saying, "She has become a good person since she began practicing Falun Gong. Falun Gong is good." Many of my colleagues went to talk with the leaders and told them I was a good person. Our general manager himself came to see me and said, "You really have a good reputation among your co-workers."
Later, when I left home to avoid the persecution and my daughter quit school due to the persecution, that same kind woman supervisor offered to help and made arrangements for my daughter to attend another school. She told me, "I've seen changes for the good in you since you started practicing Falun Gong. I believe that Falun Gong is good, and the propaganda on TV is bogus."
In 2000 I was illegally detained several times. I wrote a letter to try to persuade people to do good and mailed it to the local police leader and police officers. I copied the letter and sent it to company managers, workshop managers, and others. The letter was quickly passed around, and the general manager said to me secretly, "Your letter is very well written!" From then on, no matter how viciously the Communist regime persecuted Falun Gong, my workplace was still a place for me to study the Fa, do the exercises, and clarify the truth, as long as it did not affect my work. No one, including the general manager, reported me, persecuted me, or was against me. Even during my detention, they paid me as usual, and if they had benefits for employees, they paid them to me when I returned.
4. Forming a Whole Body
In 2000, practitioners in our city went to Beijing again and again to appeal on behalf of Falun Gong. We shared experiences with each other after we returned and searched inside. We often held large and small-scale Fa conferences and formed a strong force for Fa-rectification. But in the surrounding area, especially in the countryside, fellow practitioners dared not contact each other. There were also some determined practitioners who couldn't get truth-clarifying materials. Seeing this, a large number of practitioners in our city went to the nearby cities or counties to study the Fa and share experiences with the practitioners there. This helped them become part of the whole body and catch up with the process of Fa-rectification. I also joined them and went to six counties and took part in 27 Fa conferences. This taught me many lessons and also helped me improve.
Not having made proper lodging arrangements following the conclusion of an evening Fa conference, we had no place to stay. Unlike in a city, finding a place in the countryside at night is difficult. Eating the frozen buns we had bought in the morning we walked aimlessly through a wild field. We heard, "Come to my home." We looked back and discovered a female practitioner following us quietly. She looked at us simply and sincerely. I will never forget that night at her home. She was very poor, and the room was simple and crude. We communicated with some practitioners and learned that practitioners in this village were very diligent. They had no printed materials so they wrote them by hand. Once, with much effort, this female practitioner gave some money earned from selling maize to a fellow practitioner in the county to copy truth-clarifying materials for her. She waited for the materials in great anticipation, but alas, practitioners from other places took them and distributed them. Looking at her needy home and thinking over her great sense of responsibility to save people, we were deeply touched by the sincerity in her eyes. I invited her to my home and asked her to share her experiences with fellow practitioners in our city. When she left, local practitioners gave her some materials. Looking at the thick package of materials she cried and kept saying, "Thank you, thank you."
5. Validating the Fa in Prison
In June 2001, I was illegally arrested and held with two other practitioners in a detention center.
One day while I was detained, a guard sent a practitioner who was on a hunger strike to my cell to force-feed her. I stood up and stopped the evildoers using a loud voice, "No force-feeding!" Two practitioners and I formed a circle and protected that practitioner. There were 30 people in the cell and only four of us, including the practitioner on the hunger strike. There were 26 prisoners including some cell heads and several well-trained hatchet men. By all appearances, we were unequally matched, but our righteous thoughts and action frightened them. It took them a while to react. The cell heads shouted, "Go on! Drag them away!" We protected the fellow practitioner for dear life and continuously sent righteous thoughts, telling them the truth about Falun Dafa and asking them not to persecute practitioners.
The guard on duty walked toward us and said in loud voice, "What's going on? Stop it!" The hatchet men who had attempted to force-feed the practitioner stopped at once. We explained the situation to the guard who replied, "Stop it and go to sleep. Go find your team leader to solve the problem!"
I was called to the team leader's office, where I calmly told them about the goodness of Dafa. Those remaining in the cell took it for granted that I would be beaten black-and-blue. Instead, I returned to the cell cheerfully. They later told me in private, "We will never do such things to a Dafa disciple." The cell head had diarrhea and ached all over the next day. The hunger-striking practitioner held my hand and said, "I see the strength of our whole body."
A month later I was sent to a forced labor camp. The officials refused to accept me, telling me that I had heart disease. Then they released me. This was Master's compassionate care and protection. I should have learned a lesson and looked inside, but I regarded myself as a "hero" and went to visit a fellow practitioner right after I was released. I expounded to the practitioner on the details of my feat. On the way to my home, a police officer followed and arrested both of us. I had been released only an hour prior and was now arrested again. I had also implicated the other practitioner. They took Master's picture and some articles the practitioner had given to me.
I was awakened and at last knew that I needed to look inside. I cried and regretted what I had done. As I looked up at the heavens I called to Master, "Please give me another chance! I know that I was wrong. I know how harmful boasting and zealotry can be! The bottomless abyss is before me, and the evil wants to destroy me. Master, I want to go back home with you! Master, please give me another opportunity!" Gradually I calmed down, and righteous thoughts returned. At the police station I spoke loudly, "Let my fellow practitioner go!" No police officers dared to touch me, and they released the other practitioner. The police chief crumpled up Master's picture. I asked him to return it to me and clarified the facts to him. He said afterwards, "I was wrong." He put the picture through a copy machine, made it smooth, and returned it to me. I was acquitted and released. The two "ins and outs" made me take profound stock of myself.
Dafa is serious, and cultivation is serious. Any attachments in cultivation are dangerous. When one does well in cultivation, it is actually Master who facilitates it, using the power of the Fa. When we don't do well, it is our human attachments that hinder Master's Fa-rectification, and Master then has to undertake more for us. It is Dafa that turns a sinful human being into a god, and it is human attachments that drag us into the abyss. I wrote my experiences simply to help fellow practitioners wake up and learn from my lessons.
6. Looking Inside While Reciting the Fa
When I had conflicts with fellow practitioners I thought, "I did it for the whole body, for setting up a Dafa materials site, for doing this or that, and yet, fellow practitioners don't understand and don't cooperate with me. They should look inside, and they are preventing me from doing things well." Then I no longer went to group Fa study. My mind was filled with their bad words and behavior. I was displeased and uneasy. I knew that I was in a bad state and that I should look inside, but I couldn't find anything. I thought that I was right about everything.
I knew that something was wrong, but what should I do? Recite the Fa! It was initially very hard. I recited the Fa, but my mind was still full of what I perceived to be other people's mistakes. I sat in bed, stared at the wall, and recited the Fa word for word. I recited the Fa nonstop, and at last each word, each sentence, and each punctuation mark in the paragraph I recited was revealed right before my eyes. My heart filled with serenity. The tone of my voice was very pleasing, and everything around me was friendly. I didn't seem to even have the concept of looking inside in my mind, but it seemed that all my fellow practitioners were wonderful. I dissolved the conflicts and returned to the whole body.
My understanding of "looking inside" is this: Choose the right path and look inside from the standpoint of Fa-rectification. We should look inside, ensure that we do the three things well, and examine what motivates us. We should step out of the state of doing the three things well by ourselves, and should take part in the process as a whole body.
We should not show off, nor look inside with complaints and human attachments. We should look inside from the viewpoint of being responsible for people and always remember to be selfless and compassionate toward others. That is the real "looking inside." I think that cultivation is simple, but giving up one's ego is difficult.
Master grabbed us from hell, cleansed us with the Fa, and gave us selfless courage. I would like to repeat another Dafa disciple's words: "Fa-Rectification raises us up very high."
Heshi!
