(Minghui.org) Greetings, Master! Greetings, Fellow Practitioners!
I started practicing Falun Dafa in 1996. I was 50 at that time and ran a grocery store with my husband.
When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started persecuting Falun Dafa, I realized that practitioners should safeguard the Fa. Police came to my home, asking me to turn over Dafa books. I happened to have a dozen printouts of the story, “I Stand Up!” (the story of how a village woman, who had been paralyzed for 16 years due to a malpractice-caused spine injury, stood up after practicing Falun Dafa. It had been published in the China Economic Times newspaper in July 1998). I brought them to the police station, asking each policeman to read a copy.
Some people from the regional government came to our town a few days later. The local police station's Political Instructor accompanied them to my store. They asked me to slander Dafa on TV. Without hesitation, I told them, “I have gotten a lot of benefits by practicing Falun Dafa. Dafa is good. How can you tell to say it is bad? I practice Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. I need to be truthful.”
The Political Instructor's face reddened, “Shut up! I will arrest you wherever I see you practicing it.” I smiled at him. Realizing that I wouldn't collaborate, the regional government staff left.
A policeman asked me later if I still practiced Falun Dafa. I said, “Do you want me to tell you the truth ?”
He said, “Of course.”
I told him, “The truth is, I still practice.” He left, speechless.
Police pressured my elder son who worked at the local county government offices, “All other practitioners except you mom stated they will not practice Falun Dafa. Tell her to just say that – she can still do it at home, but this way she will not implicate you and your siblings anymore.”
My son came home the next day. I stopped him after a few words, “Cultivation is a good thing. If something is good, I will do it even if others don't do it; if something is bad, I will not do it even if others do it.”
I pointed at a decrepit house in front of us, “When a house gets decayed it needs repair; when a person becomes bad he needs cultivation. People run into disasters because they become bad. I practice to be a good person by following the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. You all benefit. The older generation's virtue can be passed to the younger generation. If you support me to cultivate, you will be blessed.”
“OK,” my son said, “I will stay out of this.”
I tell people the real story of Falun Dafa and the CCP's persecution in my store every day. An old man came in one day, “I pass by your store every day and always hear you talk about Dafa. I know your Fa is good. As the old saying goes, 'One righteous mind can subdue one hundred evils.' Since you talk about it every day and haven’t got into trouble, I know Falun Dafa is good!” I knew Master was encouraging me through his mouth.
The day before Master's birthday, I went to another city to pick up materials for informing people about the persecution of Falun Dafa. Police came to my store three times. They also went to the local bus stop to wait for me. But when I got off the bus and walked by them, they didn't see me. I left the materials at home and went to the store.
Police found me at the store, “Did you go to celebrate the birthday of your Master?”
“Oh, you still remember my Master's birthday?” I replied, “Thank you!”
I went back home to prepare packages of materials to deliver to local stores that evening. I planned to distribute them after I sent righteous thoughts at midnight.
Soon after 10 p.m., some local police came to my home. “Some county police officers came. They wanted to ransack your home. We told them to wait in the police station and we'd do it for them. We don’t want to create trouble. Please give us something to take back to them.” “I don't have anything,” I told them.
My husband said, “Please tend to your official duties. Let me talk to her.” Their leader said, “OK, we’ll go to another practitioner’s home and come back later.”
When they returned, my husband gave them a useless video tape. They left, thinking that they had frightened me enough.
I went out as planned, after sending righteous thoughts at midnight. I left packages at half the stores in our town and went to the remaining stores the next day.
One evening in 2008, seven police officers from the county’s domestic security team, police department, “610 Office,” and the local police station came to ransack several practitioners’ homes. They arrested three other practitioners and me, taking us to the police station.
I didn’t ride in the police car with them, but instead, walked to the police station. On the way, I kept reciting Master’s poem, “Besiege and Annihilate” in Hong Yin Vol. II:
Heaven and earth turned upside down,how wicked the wolves in human skinOutrageous lies howl like ill wind,trying to deceive the worldAs Dafa disciples clarify the truthThe Fa power of their righteous thoughtspounds the demons’ dens
When I arrived there, I erected my right palm to send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil. A policeman asked me if I was doing Dafa exercises. I ignored him.
They started to interrogate me. I followed Master’s teaching, kept telling them the truth about Falun Dafa and did not cooperate with them. After more than an hour, the domestic security officer stepped in. The station’s Deputy Manager said, “She has only three words, ‘I don’t know.’”
I asked to go home. They said they would get us a car soon. Then they put us in a car and took us to the local detention center. The detention center asked us to pay 100 Yuan as a fee. I refused and told them that we were deceived before we were taken there.
I did the exercises whenever the guards let us go outside. I told people about Falun Dafa whenever being taken back to the detention cell.
A couple of days later, a female guard called me into her office. She said that she knew my son in the county government. She asked for his number so that she could tell him how to go to the domestic security team to request my release. “I know you Falun Dafa practitioners are good people. The police heard that you did exercises outside and talked to people about Dafa. They want to charge you with a crime. Do you feel anything wrong in your body? Tell me. I can tell the domestic security team that you are sick. You are overweight – maybe you have high blood pressure?”
I knew that she wanted to help. So I gave her my son’s number. The next day, police from the domestic security team came to the detention center, asking me to go with them for health check. “I can go with you,” I said, “But I don’t want to take any medicine. I want to go home to do the Dafa exercises – that will take care of my health.”
My son and daughter-in-law were waiting outside the detention center. We went to a hospital. After taking my blood pressure, a doctor said, “She needs to stay in the hospital. Her blood pressure is too high and that can cause a stroke anytime.”
The doctor and police asked my daughter-in-law to buy medicine for me. I threw the medicine in a trash can. “I had no problem at home when I did the exercises every day.”
My daughter-in-law echoed, “My mom used to ask us to get her medicine before. But since she practiced Falun Dafa, she stopped taking medicine. And she has been fine.” The police said, “Take your mom home.”
I didn’t think about myself after I was arrested. All I thought about was fellow practitioners: Practitioners in the detention center needed our help. Practitioners in our local group needed to access the Minghui website to get materials about Falun Dafa. I was the contact person so my arrest would isolate them… Probably Master saw my thought for others and helped me to go home.
I looked within at home. I found that I had too much self-satisfaction as I thought I had done well. I was lax in studying the Fa. I didn’t remind other practitioners when I saw their understanding was not based on the Fa. I also had attachments to selfishness and jealousy. After calming down and concentrating on Fa study, I was able to improve myself.
Many people in surrounding villages know I practice Falun Dafa. Some even come to my store to ask me to help post online their announcements of withdrawing from the CCP and its affiliated organizations. They trust me.
I also give people the DVDs of Shen Yun Performing Arts. One middle-aged man came to my store after watching the DVD and said, “Shen Yun’s lyrics are so touching. I feel uncomfortable for taking such a good DVD for free.”
A mid-level Party representative who lives in a neighboring county withdrew from the CCP. He came to my store every year to pick up truth materials and several copies of the latest Shen Yun DVD. He got them for his relatives and friends. “This performance is really good. Your Master can train such an excellent group of performers – he is not an ordinary person.”