(Minghui.org) I am a young female practitioner. I started to practice Falun Dafa with my mother in 1999 when I was 14. Here I would like to report on some of my experiences in the past 21 years.
In late September 2000, my mother and I went to Tiananmen Square to validate the Fa. On October 1, both of us called out “Falun Dafa is good!” there and were taken back to our hometown by the police. Mother was held in a forced labor camp with a one-year term. Because I was a minor, the officials could not send me to a labor camp or prison. But, seeing that I was unwilling to give up practicing, they did not let me go home either. I was thus illegally detained for over 9 months. In the end police extorted 3,000 yuan from my family and let me go home.
In detention, I was determined in doing the exercises and telling others about Falun Dafa. Because I refused the guards' demands to stop, I was shocked many times with electric batons, force-fed through the nose, forced to wear shackles, handcuffed, and put in solitary confinement. With help from Master and faith in Dafa, I made it through the ordeal. Later on, I was arrested a few more times for distributing Falun Dafa materials or telling people about the suppression. In addition to being held at detention centers and brainwashing centers, I was also expelled from school twice.
While I was detained, my father, relatives, and the police chief attempted to force me to stop practicing. They used all kinds of tactics in deceiving, threatening, and torturing me. They said that as long as I signed a document claiming to stop practicing, I could go back home and attend school. But I believe in the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. How could I lie?
Master said,
“Isn’t any form of pressure a test to see whether your faith in the Buddha Fa is fundamentally strong? If you still are not fundamentally resolute in the Fa, everything else is out of question.” (“For Whom do You Practice Cultivation?,” Essentials for Further Advancement)
I know that Falun Dafa is righteous and there is nothing wrong with practicing Dafa. In the end, I let go of attachments to my future or sentimentality towards my family members. I was able to remain undisturbed and determined in cultivation.
I grew up in a wealthy family. As the only child, I could get anything I wanted and eat anything I desired. Even before the day of my arrest, I was still eating steak and chicken nuggets. Inside the detention center, however, I only had moldy corn flour soup and a few leaves of boiled vegetables. There was mud and grit at the bottom, and the food was not enough. Despite this and the torture, I kept my faith in Dafa. With help from Master, I was able to make it through those difficult days.
Later on I went to a university in the provincial capital. Soon after that, I was able to get in touch with a practitioner who lived very close to the campus. On the weekends, I went to her place to prepare 500 copies of materials on my own. On Monday, I would bring them back to school. Every day after school, I would ride a bike and distribute 70 or 80 copies. This way, I was able to distribute about 10,000 copies of materials in one year.
I also went to student dorms, giving out materials room by room. Sometimes, I worked with another practitioner delivering materials to patients in hospitals or telling people about the persecution in parks, asking them to quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). When repairing my bike or shoes, or shopping, I also took the opportunity to explain to people the real story Falun Dafa.
Materials Site in the Mountains
I got married in 2011 to a practitioner from another city. The wedding was simple and we stayed at my aunt’s place in Beijing for a few days. We considered that our honeymoon. Both of our families were financially stable, but we did not want to spend too much time, energy, or money on it. I did not have a wedding dress, nor did we take wedding pictures, but we were happy to be together.
After the wedding, my husband’s mother bought us an apartment in her city, about 130 square meters (or 1,400 square feet). My parents also had an apartment for us, about 200 square meters (or 2,150 square feet). We could live a decent life in either place, doing the three things, clarifying the truth, and saving people.
My husband’s workplace is in a mountainous area. The workload was light and he did not need to go there most of the time. Thinking of saving people in the remote regions, we discussed what to do. Instead of living in the apartments from our parents, we ended up renting an old house near the mountain. It was an old, dirty place, with dirt often falling from the wall. There were bugs and mice in the house. Most houses on the street had collapsed. Given all these reasons, hardly any strangers would go there. We knew this would be a good place to produce truth-clarification materials. We moved there with three printers, turning it into a material-producing site to save people in the nearby regions.
Working as a Team
Through coordinators in the city, we contacted practitioners in villages near our house. Most of them were in their 70s or 80s, and they have little interaction with other practitioners. We formed a small group, meeting three times a week at my place for Fa-study. At other times, we often drove together to nearby villages distributing materials. Sometimes we left at 11 p.m. and sometimes 3 a.m. We split into teams with two people per team, to leave material at each household. We then came back together.
In the past few years, we have covered the villages in that area several times over. Usually we distributed 500 copies per week and it has been tens of thousands of copies through the years.
One morning last year, we came back as usual in the morning after distributing materials. Opening the door, I found udumbara flowers on my door, 14 of them in total. We were very excited and other practitioners in our Fa-study group were also happy. We knew Master was encouraging us.
We helped each other in the group and everyone improved quickly. One practitioner, who was in her 80s, did not have much money. Her only income was her pension, about 100 yuan (or $15) per month. Her house was even worse than my rental place. One day when I visited her, she insisted on giving me 500 yuan to produce materials for saving people. I knew the money did not come easily and did not want to take it. But she said the money was not for me, it was to save people. When I did not take it, she got really angry. Seeing her pure heart, I knew I could not turn down the money anymore.
This practitioner only received two years of education when she was young. Nonetheless, she studied the Fa and did the exercises at home every day without exception. For the Chinese characters that she did not know, she would look up in a dictionary. After I gave her some notebooks and pens, she hand-copied Zhuan Falun four times, and every stroke was clear. She also hand-copied other lectures from Master.
This practitioner has also been diligent in other regards. She has been doing the second set of exercises for an hour since over a year ago. Because the village was locked down during the pandemic, she could not receive any materials. She ended up writing short articles on her own to clarify the truth to villagers. Each article had about 200 words and she hand-copied 200 copies of each for distribution. Although her writing skill was not perfect and the articles had some misspelled words, I do admire her sincere heart.
Three Vehicles
To help save people, we purchased a red vehicle powered by a motorcycle engine that does not require a license plate. We called him “Flying Red.” We often drove 300 kilometers (or 200 miles) back and forth to distribute materials in other counties. We worked together and gave out materials along the way. One year later, a practitioner needed a vehicle and I gave Flying Red to him.
We then bought a similar vehicle that also does not require a license plate. This one has four wheels like a car and we call her “Flying Yellow.”
With this vehicle, we always kept busy when we went out: putting up posters along the way, distributing materials, helping to transport materials. Sometimes I drove while my husband gave out pamphlets or VCDs to people, ranging from dozens of copies to hundreds of copies per trip.
During the long holiday in early October, we went out with other practitioners to put up one or two-yard long yellow banners on trees as well as posters near tourist sites. Around Chinese New Year, we went to the countryside and gave out Minghui calendars in the villages. We could distribute hundreds of copies face to face while asking them to quit the CCP at the same time.
Later on, we often went to different villages during the daytime. We dropped off pamphlets to households on both sides. With help from Master, we greatly improved our efficiency, putting the materials wherever we could.
Flying Yellow has worked with us for 8 years now. She has traveled more than 70,000 kilometers (or 47,000 miles) already without a problem. Because of the vehicle’s size, however, we could only use main streets, but not small alleys. So we bought a two-wheel, foldable electrical bike and called her “Flying Horse.” With its small size, Flying Horse could be folded and put in the back seat. Once we entered the village and parked the car, we would unfold Flying Horse. One person would drive, while the other one sat in the back distributing materials to households along the way.
Helping Other Practitioners
Over the past few years, we got to know many practitioners in those villages. Before that, they could not get materials due to their remote location.
To help these practitioners, we visited them regularly, providing truth-clarification materials as well as Minghui Weekly. Occasionally we helped them set up computers or simply gave them computers. This way, they could access Minghui and catch up with the Fa-rectification's momentum. For a while, I drove there with practitioners from my place. After traveling the winding mountain roads, we studied the Fa with them.
One village had two families of practitioners, but no one had come out distributing materials. I went there, took them out, and walked with them, handing out materials in communities.
One of the families has an adult son who is two years older than me and my husband. He is a practitioner but usually does not stay at home due to work. Late last year, he was available and we went with him to another remote village. Door after door, we gave away Minghui calendars and truth-clarification pamphlets. This brother had no fear, and he went to every household and talked with everyone we met. Our feet were worn out and we could barely walk, but we were very happy.
The Pandemic
Around the last Chinese New Year, my husband and I went to his parents’ place. That evening, we heard that visiting others would be prohibited, with villages being locked down within two days. Thinking that we could not be locked in at home like this, we returned to my parents’ place one day later. To avoid running out of paper, I contacted a paper wholesale vendor and placed a special order. After that we produced hundreds of copies of pamphlets every day. We also produced many cards, with QR codes and advice on how to ensure safety in the pandemic. We sealed them in plastic and distributed them every evening.
Due to the pandemic, many people avoided touching advertising materials on their doors. To overcome this hurdle, we designed a pamphlet cover to address that concern. It worked well and was well-received.
Probably because of our heart of saving people, my mother, my husband, and I could go out every day without a problem. Some communities were gated and one could not enter without an access card. But we could always find some accessible communities every day. Sometimes we went in from the underground garage, sometimes by following others, and sometimes we could enter after filling out a simple form. To avoid surveillance cameras in elevators, all of us climbed over 30 flights of stairs first and then came down distributing materials floor by floor. We would not go home until all of the materials were finished. We did this until the lockdown was lifted.
Working Together
Some practitioners were afraid because of the persecution and they dared not to hand out materials. They knew that not saving people was wrong, but they could not overcome the fear. There were also practitioners who could not go out as a result of sickness karma.
We tried to help these practitioners. For example, we asked them to help with some easier and safer work, such as folding and bagging materials, printing, or laminating cards. This allowed them to do the three things and also reduced our workload. They were also very happy to help out. Usually I provided them with materials and shared techniques with them. After they were done, I would pick up the finished products and hand them out.
As long as people are saved, we are willing to do anything, whether it is dirty or costly. This is because saving people is our mission.
With help from Master, I learned to maintain and repair some common printers. I also learned how to encrypt various kinds of computers. This made me qualified for doing technical support.
Computers and Printers
Through the years, I do not remember how many computers I have helped set up or how many printers I repaired. In the beginning, they were small Canon printers and later moved to business printers from HP. Master gave me lots of wisdom and I was often able to fix problems in a short time. It was clumsy to work with gloves, so I often ended up with both hands dirty with ink and it was hard to clean. But I do not care as long as printers work well.
To provide help with computers and printers, I have traveled to many places these years, both villages and urban areas, including some in other provinces. I basically helped wherever it was needed. Master also helped me and I could get the job done almost all the time.
We know that it is better to teach someone to fish, instead of just giving him the fish. When setting up computers or doing repair work, I also explained it to others so that they could learn. This way, they could solve problems when I was not around. Whenever possible, I also helped practitioners establish material production sites. There was lots of work involved, but whenever someone wants to learn, I am ready to help out. Plus, I showed other practitioners how to buy consumables independently and safety. This way, more practitioners could work on their own for the long term.
Installing Satellite Dishes
During my college years in the provincial city, very few practitioners knew how to install satellite dishes. Most practitioners around me were in their 70s or 80s already. To help other practitioners and learn some skills, I often worked with these grandpas, and sometimes with young practitioners from other cities, installing dishes.
In the winter days, there was heavy snow on the roof and our shoes were often buried in the snow. But I dared not to move and was afraid that doing so might damage the thermal protection layer on the roof. Furthermore, to get better signals and facilitate installation in the apartment complexes, the dishes purchased often came in parts and assembly was needed. Some screws were small, and wearing gloves was not possible. We also had to find something to stabilize the dish, followed by pulling the wire down inside the apartment.
Very often we had to stay outside on the roof for hours. My hands and feet were frozen and painful, and I couldn't straighten my fingers. Sometimes accessing the buildings from outside was difficult, and we had to climb up four or five stories using unstable ladders and then do the installation.
Summer had its own challenges. I was sweating all over and my face was sunburnt. At that time, I was just a college girl, but Master helped me finish the installation every time.
After graduation, I returned to my hometown and often helped other practitioners with satellite dishes. After getting married and moving to a new city, I found no practitioners who knew how to do this. I shared my skills with others and lots of satellite dishes were set up in the region.
It has been 21 years since I began to practice Falun Dafa. Because of a stable family income, I never went out to work so that I could have more time doing the three things. As long as it is to save people and validate the Fa, I would do anything that was needed. It is not for fame, money, comfort, or reward. It is all about saving people.
To help practitioners solve their problems, I sometimes could not eat well or sleep well. I carried computers or printers from one place to another. I may go to a city today, and tomorrow I may visit a village.
Fa-rectification is close to the end and cultivation means no omissions. I will do better in the remaining path and leave no regrets.