(Clearwisdom.net) I was fortunate enough to attend Master's lectures twice. I was very young then, but I felt that the principles Master taught were very good and I was especially receptive to Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. I remember at that time, after work, I didn't mind having no time for supper, traveling a long distance by bus and rushing to attend the class. After attending classes for only a few days, I walked very fast and felt as light as a gust of wind.
My environment was relatively good and all my family members practiced Falun Dafa. After meeting my husband, he was also very receptive to Falun Dafa. But at the time, both of us had relatively strong human attachments and still wanted a comfortable life, and we didn't keep cultivating all the time. This situation lasted until 1996 when my husband and I made up our minds to truly start cultivating. We also started participating in local group study and practice. There were a lot of young practitioners then and most of them were very steadfast in Dafa after the persecution started.
1. When the Persecution Began
In the later part of 1998, messages from different media had already made me and other practitioners feel pressured. A strange "fellow practitioner" came to our practice site. He came once in a while, but never had the book Zhuan Falun. His eyes were not kind when he looked at people. Though I didn't know how the situation would change in the future, I was very clear in my heart that I've obtained such precious Dafa, and no tribulation could make me give up Dafa. Although I was mentally prepared, when the huge arrests on July 20 really began, I still felt shocked. The pressure was immense. I thought in my heart that this government was really unreasonable since it was suppressing such a great Dafa. I didn't know what to do, so I called a fellow practitioner who I deemed to have cultivated very well. He was very calm and spoke only one sentence on the phone, "This is already the seventh phone call asking me what should be done." A problem I had at that time was that I was following people instead of Dafa. At key moments, I didn't remember to let Dafa to guide me in rational thinking.
On the next day, many practitioners and I went to city hall square and the appeals office, where groups of military police with sticks, batons and video cameras, as well as plainclothes secret agents were waiting for us. Practitioners gathered together, then were broken up. Some practitioners came back after being forcibly taken to a very far-away place. This situation went on and on. Some practitioners were slandered as "thieves" and forcibly taken away by police from the Public Security Bureau. The government didn't listen to us. My heart was very heavy and puzzled. How would I walk my path in the future?
A few days later I came back to my workplace and resumed work. Thinking that I had "disappeared," my workplace had already become very anxious. Then police from the Public Security Bureau found me to "investigate things." Leadership from my workplace came to talk with me in turn and pressured me to make a statement and turn in my Falun Dafa books. At the time, there were many firm practitioners around me. In those difficult times, faced with the suppression using the entire state's apparatus, false government propaganda all over the place and pressure from all directions, we encouraged each other and persevered in our faith in Master and Dafa. We never gave in. Later, some practitioners went to Beijing and walked into Tiananmen Square. Some practitioners went ahead to print materials and clarify the truth and they encouraged other practitioners to step forward.
During that period, I was under a great deal of pressure. During the most difficult times, two of my family members were unlawfully locked up and two other family members were unable to take care of their daily lives by themselves. My child was very young. I worked during the daytime and at night, and I had to get up six or seven times to collect urine for my elderly family members and my child. It often happened that I was awakened after I had just fallen asleep. Though it was very hard and tiring, I had Dafa in my heart, so my heart was enriched and I was in good spirits. My skin was very delicate and pink-white in those times. All my colleagues knew that I practiced Falun Dafa, so every day, I reminded myself to demonstrate that Falun Dafa is good and Falun Dafa is a righteous Fa with my own speech and behavior. So in everything I did, I strictly disciplined myself according to Dafa, and my work performance was very good too. After many years, when I went back to visit my colleagues, many colleagues in my workplace had very high praise for me. They told me, "You are very upright," "You are the person we admired the most."
2. The Days of Being Homeless
After over a year, because my understanding of the principles of the Fa was not clear and my righteous thoughts were not strong enough, I had to leave my hometown and live a homeless life for several years. I made a living by working for others.
At that time, many practitioners I was familiar with were unlawfully sent to forced labor camps or sentenced to prison. I lived alone out of town, and I was barely in touch with other practitioners. Away from the familiar environment, faced with expensive living costs and rent, and with no special skills, it was difficult to survive. One year, around the New Year time, I had to live in a company's office and I slept on a conference table. I had no place to take a bath and no place to make food. What I often ate was cold bread with cucumber. It was a rule then that no one was allowed to live in an office at night, but people in the property department cared about me and gave me a place to stay. The hardship was nothing. For me, a person who had lived a comfortable life and was used to the environment of group Fa study and cultivation, loneliness was the most difficult barrier to overcome. At that time, I seldom studied the Fa solidly with a calm mind. I was often interfered with and manipulated by different kinds of notions and bad thoughts acquired during my lifetime. But Master never gave up on me, this disappointing disciple. Several times in my dreams, Master encouraged me and helped me to understand.
For a period of time, I had only one copy of Zhuan Falun that I brought with me and a copy of Hong Yin that I had transcribed by hand. I didn't have any other materials or news. But by chance, I met a practitioner whom I knew before. From that practitioner, I learned how to visit the Minghui website. After getting home, I started downloading articles from Minghui and making truth-clarifying materials. In the beginning, I distributed truth-clarifying materials by mail. On weekends, I planned a route to minimize the bus ride while making sure to drop materials into more mail boxes belonging to different branch post offices. Before leaving, I filled up a used mineral-water bottle with boiled water, walked for the majority of the day, went back to where I lived and had some food. I could make twenty to thirty mailings per day.
I learned to make VCDs afterwards. I distributed VCDs everywhere, the baskets on bicycles, hallways in buildings, and streets. During daytime and evening, I put DVDs wherever I went. Sometimes, a guard or policeman was walking ahead and I left VCDs behind them. I also took advantage of lunch breaks to display VCDs for colleagues and help them understand the facts about Falun Dafa.
During those years, I also met some of my college classmates. I had good relationships with my classmates when I was in college. The classmates were very surprised to learn that I practiced Falun Gong. After getting in touch with me, they all gained positive understandings of Dafa. At that time, the head of our class said to the other classmates, "Look, whose face is the most radiant among us? Isn't it her!" I also called them and helped them quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
3. Resisting Persecution and Disintegrating the Evil
After a few years, I returned to my long-lost home. My husband was then facing a court trial. After the persecution began in 1999, I spent more time away from my husband than together with him. My husband experienced cruel persecution many times and he always persevered in Dafa. Deeply knowing the evil nature of the cruel persecution that my husband might have to face, I knew in my heart that I must stop the persecution.
When this thought came to my mind, Master had already arranged many opportunities for me. I shared understandings with other practitioners, and their righteous thoughts and clear understanding of the Fa principles helped me a lot. At the same time, through studying the Fa, I realized that an important reason for my keenness to rescue my husband was from emotion, and I saw my gap.
(1) The Power of Compassion and Forbearance
After I married my husband, my income was the majority of the financial support for my family. Every year, we also gave the family of my parents-in-law several thousand yuan to help them. But my mother-in-law and brother-in-law were always dissatisfied with me. My mother-in-law directly told me that "city people are cheap." I couldn't get over this at that time and during the years when I was homeless, I didn't contact them.
After I came back home, we started to associate with each other, and I called my brother-in-law and told him I hoped my mother-in-law could go with me to demand the release of my husband. But my brother-in-law didn't say anything. After I urged them again and again, my mother-in-law finally came. I picked up my mother-in-law at a bus station. It appeared that she didn't care much about rescuing her son. While looking at scenes through the bus window, she told me that she came here to have some leisure time for a couple of days, then she would go home. She also brought along a letter written by my brother-in-law. The letter was criticisms of me and my family. I felt a bit upset at that time, and I wondered how she could have a mood to observe scenery when her son was facing such a huge tribulation? But I was firm in rescuing my husband and I knew there was nothing that could stop me. From their angle, I thought that my husband and I had not been able to help them for several years, yet they had paid a high price to support my husband's study and they put a lot of hope in him. My mother-in-law and brother-in-law are kind people and also reasonable. When I thought about this, the hatred disappeared and compassion rose in my heart. My family also conducted themselves well with respect to this matter. On the one hand, they tried their best to take care of my mother-in-law for everyday life, and on the other side, they also clarified the truth to my mother-in-law. In the end, my mother-in-law's misunderstanding disappeared and she decided to ask for the release of my husband with me.
(2) Disintegrating the Evil with Righteous Thoughts and Actions
During the whole process, Master was taking care of us at every moment and I also often experienced Dafa's supernormal power. At that time, a CCP court had already secretly issued a sentence without letting the family or lawyer know. My husband appealed to the middle court himself. Communist party courts all have guards at the entrances of their offices. With no appointment, people are not allowed to enter and can only call from the entrance. But people responsible for the case refused to meet with us at all. Clarifying the truth to them face to face seemed impossible.
I saw a picture of the director of the middle court and I knew I must meet him. In the early morning of the next day, I went to court, and from a distance I saw him walking down the stairs. I ran to him and called to him, "Director!" He stopped and looked at me with surprise. I told him that I wanted to appeal for my husband. But as soon as he heard that this was a case about Falun Gong, he immediately made an excuse and said that he would let the head of the criminal court talk to me. After that, a person who claimed he was the head of the court spoke with me briefly, then left (later I learned that he was the deputy director in charge of the criminal court). I later stopped him many times and yelled, "My husband is innocent! Release him!" Every time, he ran away quickly. During that period, I wrote appeal letters to directors of the middle court and criminal court and exposed how responsible departments had committed crimes and cruelly persecuted my husband in past years. When I met them in court, I saw the sympathy and admiration in the eyes of the two other deputy directors.
At the door of the court, there were always many people taking care of their business or presenting themselves in the court. During that period, my mother-in-law and I went to the court every day. I took this opportunity to clarify the truth. Sometimes many people came to listen. A few of them even offered advice to help me. One older woman always concerned herself with how my things were going whenever she saw me, and offered advice to help me to appeal. A professor from a university of politics and law said the I gave a good speech which was well organized and clearly thought out. In fact, I was originally reserved and shy, and I had seldom spoken in front of many people, nor had I studied the law. During that period, some court security guards and court staff also smiled at us.
My mother-in-law studied the Fa with us before the persecution began on July 20, 1999. Her celestial eye saw a Falun and a big beautiful eye then. She cannot read, and after the persecution, she returned to her hometown and nearly abandoned cultivation. Once around noon-time, when the court staff had all left for lunch, my mother-in-law was resting beside me with her eyes closed. She suddenly told me that she saw many people walking around naked. Under the rule of the CCP, morality has degenerated and people abuse power for personal gains. Numerous beings who work for the court are in very great danger!
During that period, I always took advantage of every chance to clarify the truth. On the bus when I gave my seat to other people, I used the chance to talk about the persecution that my husband was suffering. All of the passengers on the bus were shocked upon hearing about this. I clearly knew that the more people who understood the truth, the more the evil would be disintegrated.
Every time I went to the court, I felt the pressure from the evil in other dimensions. Any time my thoughts were even slightly not right, the evil tried its best to interfere with me. I even had a thought to rely on my mother-in-law. I thought that she was old, so bad people wouldn't do anything to her. Without her, this thing would be difficult to do. The evil then interfered with her, making her leg ache and she couldn't walk. My mother-in-law clamored to go back home. After I realized it, I corrected my thoughts and let go of the attachment of complaining. I was thinking that if my mother-in-law went back home, I would get my child from school and I would keep appealing together with my child until his father was released. When I told my mother-in-law of this, she looked at her grandchild and said, "I won't leave now. Let the child continue to go to school."
We kept appealing for one month, yet the court did not respond. I decided to go out with my mother-in-law to display a banner appealing for justice for my husband. My mother-in-law came from the countryside and was illiterate, and she had never gone anywhere far from home. Now when I recall it, it was not easy for her to do what she did to that extent. When my mother-in-law unfolded a banner at the entrance of the court, she attracted many looks from people who walked by and passengers in vehicles. My mother-in-law told me later that she kept seeing very beautiful light in front of her eyes. Many fellow practitioners came to send forth righteous thoughts for us. On that day, many people around the court heard the truth of Falun Dafa. Strengthened with fellow practitioners' righteous thoughts, my mother-in-law and I safely returned home that same day.
Later, because the authorities forcibly stopped us, and because my righteous thoughts and willpower weren't strong enough, we didn't persevere in rescuing my husband. That was my very deep regret. At that time, my mother-in-law was scared and really wanted to go back to her home. I had to face the pressure, and at the same time, I needed to help my mother-in-law to strengthen her confidence. Over time, both my body and mind felt tired and I started to have a thought of not wanting to continue the rescue effort. I thought that if my mother-in-law really wanted to return home, then I should just let her go. After returning home, my mother-in-law called me and told me that her leg hurt as soon as she got on the bus. I knew that I did wrong. If my righteous thoughts had been stronger, and my willpower firmer, the evil would have been disintegrated more, and perhaps my husband would have been rescued.
This experience helped me realize the power of righteous thoughts in person. If family members of every detained practitioner all stepped forward to demand the release of practitioners with dignity, those practitioners who are unlawfully imprisoned would have returned home long ago.
During that period, many local practitioner who got the message about my husband's situation kept sending forth righteous thoughts for us. That had strongly supported us. Practitioners overseas also called the court. Local practitioners distributed a lot of truth-clarifying fliers as well to expose the evil. Some of the fliers were even put into the door of the detention center. With collaboration of practitioners as a whole body, we disintegrated a lot of the evil. For a period following that, there was basically no persecution in our local area.
In this process, many examples of my fellow practitioners' righteous thoughts and righteous actions reinforced my confidence. As other practitioners walked a path of validating Dafa depending on their own righteous faith in Dafa, I had some examples to reference.
During that time, my mother-in-law and I lived in harmony. The barrier between us had disappeared. On the bus leaving the court and going towards my home, my mother-in-law liked to talk with me about things that happened at home with her strong accent. All passengers on the bus could hear her. I listened attentively each time, with sincere kindness and care for her in my heart. Only by having compassion and immense tolerance, can one save more beings and disintegrate more evil.
On the following New Year, I went to my husband's hometown with my child. I gained their understanding and support with my sincerity. Many of my relatives quit the CCP. I now get along very well with my husband's family. My brother-in-law always calls me during holidays or festivals and my mother-in-law always wants to call me too. I often bring money to my mother-in-law as well, to fulfill the filial duty for my husband.
One more point I would like to mention is that my personal experience made me realize the significance of collaborating as a whole body. The persecution in our local area has been severe, especially before and after the Olympics. Many practitioners were arrested. Some practitioners were crippled or died due to the persecution. In many places, the whole body has not been formed. If more practitioners can realize the importance of collaborating as a whole body, everyone can think lightly of himself and actively cooperate, coordinate, and harmonize, and there will then be no space where the evil can live.
4. Breaking the Old Forces' Arrangements and Walking Well the Path of Fa Rectification
Over the years, my family has experienced many tribulations. In the beginning, we passively forbore the tribulations. We thought that we had to forbear the tribulations if we were to cultivate. I didn't realize, however, that this was the old forces' arrangements. Because of heavy burdens, the elderly people in my family didn't have much time to study the Fa and were worn out every day. The situation changed for the better after I came back home. Whenever there was a chance, my family studied the Fa together and shared their understandings. Previously, I always had the final word at home. My family also let me have my way. Now I've changed a lot and I no longer argue, even if I am wronged. I can face different opinions with a peaceful heart. My child could read through Zhuan Falun when he was only five. He started reading many books when he was six, in his first year of primary school. He could recite history and characters in different dynasties from beginning to end. He likes to read "Minghui Weekly" and PureInsight Weekly a lot. Recently, I gave him a pamphlet to read, about looking inside. After reading it, he said, "I often lose my temper. It is demon nature and I must correct it."
This is the first time I have written an experience sharing article for a Fa conference. Originally I thought what I did was far less than enough and there wasn't much to write. But after reading practitioners' articles in the Minghui Weekly, I realized that writing my cultivation experience also validates Dafa, so I decided to write this article.
