(Clearwisdom) Before the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the evil took advantage of my gaps because of my many attachments. I was arrested and taken to a forced labor camp. During the five months of imprisonment, I did not compromise with the authorities. I was eventually released because of illness. I looked inward and found that many of my thoughts while imprisoned weren't as righteous as I thought they were. They were human notions. When I was transferred to a detention center and then to a forced labor camp, I continued to send righteous thoughts and memorize the Fa. I reminded myself to let go of the attachment of fearing death and to be a true Fa rectification practitioner. I refused to acknowledge the old forces' arrangement. The deep-seated problem was that I wanted to avoid being persecuted. I was afraid of being "transformed," and I worried that I couldn't be a qualified practitioner. I treated the guards and police as the evil itself and had no compassion for them. I wasn't a life form made of Truth-Compassion-Forbearance. I didn't have the immense righteous thoughts Teacher talked about in "A Will That Ebbs Not":
Unbridled are the wicked,"
yet you keep your bearings
Purging evil as if but whisking dust away."
My lack of true righteous thoughts manifested in the following ways while at the camp.
1. Shouting "Falun Dafa Is Good," "Truth-Compassion-Forbearance Is Good"
In the detention center, I took every opportunity to recite Teacher's poems and shout "Falun Dafa is good! Falun Gong is wronged! Immediately release all Falun Gong practitioners without charges!" I thought if everyone would shout as one it would frighten the guards and eliminate the evil in other dimensions. I did not get any response during the twenty days I was there. I got upset and accused other practitioners of not being diligent.
This kind of thought surfaced several times. Once I was transferred from Beijing to a forced labor camp elsewhere. There were 16 practitioners in that car. When I got into the car, I heard a practitioner yelling, "Falun Dafa is good! Truth-Compassion-Forbearance is good!" I was very happy upon hearing that and started to recite poems from Hong Yin aloud. Another practitioner recited aloud phrases from Zhuan Falun. The rest of the practitioners were silent. I told a senior practitioner next time to join me in my efforts. She replied, "What's the use?" I got upset again.
Now that I think about it, behind my righteous surface was the attachment of showing off and lack of forgiveness and understanding for practitioners.
When I was incarcerated in the forced labor camp, I was isolated from practitioners. Once I ran into two senior practitioners when I went to the bathroom. They gave me a gesture showing their support for me. That gesture meant a lot at the time, especially when other practitioners seemed indifferent to my suffering. Now I wondered how come I valued their support so much and thought others were indifferent. I found I had the attachment of wanting others to approve of my actions.
I found that I had an enormous attachment when I yelled, "Falun Dafa is good and Truth-Compassion-Forbearance is good" to protest the persecution. The first time I was put in a detention center, I thought to myself, "I will validate the Fa wherever I go. I do not think of leaving this place." Behind all the righteous thoughts there was a very subtle wish, "If I act righteously, Teacher will help me leave this place and I won't be tortured."
When I found out that I was sentenced to forced labor I panicked. I didn't understand what I did wrong. I asked myself, "Why was I sentenced to forced labor? Will I be taken to Masanjia Forced Labor Camp? How evil is it in the camps? I will never renounce Falun Gong. The worst that can happen is that I die but I will still consummate," and so on. I decided to fight after I thought it through with my human notions. I remembered that Teacher said,
"... a student who told people the facts about Dafa and shouted 'Dafa is good' wherever she went. 'No matter where they take me, I'll ignore everything the vicious policemen say, and no matter how violently you beat me or how terribly you swear at me, I'll remain just as I am.' The labor camp was so scared that they sent her back in a hurry--'We don't want her.' It's because they figured, 'We won't be able to convert her, and on top of that she'll influence a large number of people.' (People laugh) And they won't be able to get a bonus either. (Applause) They had no way to handle it--where could the local police station put her? They had no way to handle it, so they sent her home." ("Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference")
I was convinced that if I yelled "Falun Dafa is good" and "Truth-Compassion-Forbearance is good," the forced labor camp would not keep me.
When I was at the dispatch center waiting to be transferred to another forced labor camp, I yelled those two phrases and continued after I arrived at the next camp. Because of heavy human notions, I spent a week suffering the worst torture I ever experienced. Several drug addicts took turns beating me. I was forced to squat down while wearing shoes too small for me. I was forbidden to go to the restroom and had to urinate in my pants. I couldn't sleep for several days. It was not until the second week that I let go of my human notions. My attitude became simply wanting to eliminate evil. The tortures I suffered became a lot less. The guards wanted to get rid of me.
I was in the labor camp for over a month. I started to know a little bit of everything, including what other practitioners thought. The guards no longer had hopes of "transforming" me and were reluctant to deal with me. That was the time I thought I could yell "Falun Dafa is good and 'Truth-Compassion-Forbearance is good" to remind other practitioners that we were not here to be tortured, we were here to save sentient beings. I told the drug-addict girl whom the guards sent to monitor me what I planned to do. I wanted to be prepared because once I did yell those two phrases, the guards would definitely yell at her. If she got punished because of me, then she would have a bad impression of Falun Dafa. But, as soon as I told her my plan, she told on me to the captain. The captain sent another person to monitor me. This made it harder for me to carry out my plan because I wanted to save these two people who monitored me and at the same time I wanted to make sure other practitioners could hear me call out the two phrases.
The interesting thing was, not long after the girl reported my plan to the captain, the camp released me.
2. Hunger Strike
I went on a hunger strike in April 2008 while in a detention center. First, I didn't plan to go on a hunger strike. I did it because a woman in my cell did. I believed it was a hint for me, so I started my first hunger strike. After I skipped three meals, the guards found six prisoners to force feed me. In the process, my heart shook and I had so much hatred for the guards and fear of the pain that I gave up the hunger strike. Now when I think about it, I know I did not have a good reason to do it. I followed an ordinary person blindly and not my righteous thoughts as a practitioner. When I acted like an ordinary person, of course no miracle would happen.
The second time I went on a hunger strike was when I was transferred away from Beijing. In the dispatch center, practitioners who refused to denounce Dafa were humiliated. We had to request everything we needed in writing, such as eating, sleeping, and going to the bathroom. We had to read it word for word to the guard for his/her approval. I went on a hunger strike to protest. In the four days of the hunger strike, I was force fed four times. Every time I was force fed, I got diarrhea. The guard would not let me use the bathroom unless I wrote a statement to renounce Falun Dafa. At that moment, I remembered what Teacher said in Zhuan Falun, "Because he is unaware of filth, he dares to eat human excrement and drink human urine." Isn't this the chance to eliminate my attachment of fearing filth? To eliminate the evil that was trying to get me to renounce Falun Dafa, I urinated in my pants after 30 hours of not going to the bathroom. I told the guards who laughed at me, "I have to write a request so I can eat, sleep, and urinate. This is not my shame. It's your shame, the shame of the forced labor system, the shame of this country. I wish one day people all over the world could see these applications and see what kind of shameful things exist here." After this, the guards no longer ordered me to write statements denouncing Falun Dafa. They let me use the bathrooms and soon I was transferred.
3. How to Face Guards and Collaborators
When I was at the dispatch center, the guards ordered drug addicts to hit and kick me. I became numb after a while and did not feel much pain no matter how they beat me. I looked at them as a group of animals. Now when I think back, I was still passively enduring the persecution. I couldn't stop the torture by sending righteous thoughts. I remembered Teacher said "Purging evil as if but whisking dust away" ("A Will That Ebbs Not") and I thought to myself "how come I couldn't purge the evils?" I could remember what Teacher said in Zhuan Falun, "For instance, when someone swears at you among everyday people, you do not say a word and feel very calm; or when someone throws a fist at you, you do not say a word and let it go with a smile." However, I couldn't take it easy in the midst of being persecuted. I couldn't smile. My heart was shaken by the evil. Even if I didn't feel hatred, I couldn't be compassionate. I detested the guards and prisoners. What I had in mind brought me more beatings. Now I know that I did not realize that I was a life above ordinary people and I did not understand the meaning of "just by having your heart unaffected you will be able to handle all situations." ("Eliminate Your Last Attachment(s)")
After I left the dispatch station and went to the next forced labor camp, I realized how I should have treated the guards. I should have treated them as not so good people. Though they were controlled by the evil, they are powerless in the face of a practitioner's righteous thoughts. They couldn't have shaken a practitioner a bit. These people sold their souls to demons. They have no future and live an empty life. They have numerous hidden illnesses and they pass on their karma to their offspring. These people are too weak to be worth fighting and hating, especially by a practitioner. When we truly treat ourselves as high level beings, we will truly want to save the weak beings and feel sorry when we can't.
Most collaborators were drug addicts and would do anything to get drugs. They don't really care what's right or wrong. However, after some time I realized that some still understood the basic concept of right versus wrong. They still hesitated when asked to hurt other people. Most of these drug addicts knew Falun Gong practitioners were innocent and were good people. They just couldn't resist the temptation of getting reduced sentences as a reward for torturing practitioners. Teacher said, "All of the beings in the Three Realms came for the Fa, were created for the Fa, and were forged for the Fa." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Washington DC Fa Conference") I believe these collaborators exist for practitioners. If we truly have the compassion that can move the universe, these collaborators would not persecute us and we could save them. This is probably what Teacher wants from practitioners during Fa rectification.
Final Thoughts
To stop the persecution is practitioners' undeniable responsibility. How to stop the persecution and with what kind of attitude is every practitioner's problem. Can we face the persecution with a smile in any circumstance? We don't get scared, we don't treat it as anything serious that could hurt us. We smile. When we face the guards and collaborators, we only think of how we can save them. We don't get angry or anxious, because we know they are doing something that could destroy them forever.
Don't all Buddha statues have smiles on their faces? We are beings walking on the path of godhood: shouldn't we learn how to smile in all circumstances?
