(Minghui.org) I began to practice Falun Dafa in 1994. I was fortunate enough to participate in Master’s last Fa lectures in Guangzhou City. I saw Master and a big Falun in the sky. Those scenes are forever engraved in my heart and helped to provide me with a solid cultivation foundation. I felt proud and happy to become Master’s disciple, and firmly walked on my cultivation path.
I went to Beijing to appeal for Dafa several times at the onset of the persecution. I was arrested each time, sometimes for a month and sometimes for two months. Under Master’s protection, I was able to safely make it back home every time. Without Master, there was no way I could have lived to this day. I witnessed Master’s greatness and Dafa’s power.
Our exercise site was inside a college campus. When it was first established, one morning, a coordinator said, “The school administration informed us that today will be our last time doing the exercises here. They claimed that it affects the campus environment.” The practitioners exclaimed that this was unreasonable. The school provided an indoor room for another qigong, but wouldn’t even let us use the outdoors? I also felt it was unreasonable, but was only one out of the five coordinators at the exercise site,
I was the only one who felt that we should ask the school to reconsider. The other four coordinators felt since we practiced “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance,” we should not bring trouble to the school’s leadership board. Out of these four coordinators, two held high positions in the school before retirement, and one was the school’s medical doctor who was close to his retirement. I thought, “Maybe I shouldn’t go ask either, as I’m only a factory worker. No one would listen to my request.”
We began to do the exercises after all the arguments. But, I could not calm down. My heart rate stayed up, my hands were shaking, and even my eyelids were twitching. I thought, “Our exercise site was just formed not long ago. Is it alright to have it stop just like this? Should we not even try to do something?
Falun Dafa (also called Falun Gong) is such a great Fa. It can purify one’s body and mind, and improve people’s moral levels. It is good for students and the school’s environment, but I also wondered whether doing so would impact Dafa negatively. So, in my mind I said to Master, “Master, previously when I went to talk to the school’s leaders, it was for my personal things. But, today it will be only for the purpose of keeping our exercise site. If Master agrees that I should do it, then please help me calm down.” As soon as I held that thought, my mind calmed down and I was no longer out of breath. My body felt as if it was in another dimension, and it was an amazing feeling. I said to Master, “Thank you Master for clearing up my confusion.” I felt much more confident.
When I got home, I called the security department’s director about this. He said, “It’s not that we don’t want to provide you a space. We just want to change the spot to somewhere else.” Then he suggested another spot for us and the problem was resolved. This incident gave a lot of encouragement to all the practitioners at our exercise site. Our belief in Master and the Fa grew stronger. As a result, after the persecution started, we were together in resisting the evil force, and most of us did well.
Three of us went to Beijing to appeal for Dafa in August 1999. The other two practitioners were Li and Bing. We were arrested at our rental room, taken back to our city, and detained in the local detention center. Because we refused to follow the detention center’s orders and continued to study the Fa and do the exercises, they transferred us to a nearby county detention center. There was no other practitioner detained there. The news that we were transferred there spread through the guards, and practitioners from that county went to Beijing to validate the Fa. They were arrested and taken back to the detention center. Soon there were 80 practitioners in the detention center.
One night, we heard some guards walking by our cell and into another cell. Then we heard the guards kicking the door, their curses, as well as the sound of them beating people. Li said we should recite Master’s Fa, which would support these practitioners, which we did. A guard came to our cell angrily and took away Li. Then, Bing suggested that we do the exercises to support Li, and I agreed. Since we had ankle shackles and could not sit down, we stood there to do the second exercise.
After a little while, the guard brought Li back. Bing immediately put down her hands. The guard saw that I was the one there doing the exercise, he rushed in and kicked me. He then tied my hands behind my back, and locked the handcuffs onto my shackles. This was a very brutal form of torture. I could not sit or stand and could only kneel on the ground. But I thought that I would only kneel in front of Master. Two practitioners put blankets on the ground for me to lie on my side, and then helped me flip to the other side once in a while.
I didn’t know how long this went on, and I felt more and more pain. The fellow practitioners had to stay up with me so that they could turn me, and I felt sorry for that.
Just then, I saw the director walking by. I requested to use the restroom, so he had someone remove the chain that locked the handcuffs onto the shackles. That way I was able to stand up and fellow practitioners could sleep. I stood there and looked outside the window, hoping that the dawn would arrive soon, but time passed by slowly.
After three hours, with my hands cuffed behind my back, my entire body was hurting badly. I wanted to walk around a bit, but the blisters caused by the shackles were bleeding and the pain was excruciating. I wondered why the time was passing so slowly. Then, suddenly, I saw four Chinese characters engraved on the wall: “No regrets in this life.” I immediately felt much more positive. I knew Master was beside me, and was encouraging me! I thought, “That’s right. How fortunate I am to be a Dafa practitioner! I truly have nothing to regret in this life. When one hears the Dao in the morning, one has no regret even if one dies that night.”
The next morning, Bing said to us, “You two have done so well and were not afraid. I did not do well. Today I’ll also do the exercises.” She started to do the sitting meditation. Then the same guard came, followed by the detention center’s political instructor. Bing didn’t move and continued to do the exercise. The guard threatened to handcuff her if she wouldn’t stop.
I said, “Go ahead. After you handcuff all of us and see us in pain, you will feel happy, right?” He froze for a bit, sighed, and left. Tears covered my face, and I felt that they were so pitiful. Maybe they did not want to persecute Dafa practitioners but were forced to do so because of their work. Because my hands were still locked behind my back, the two practitioners helped me wipe away my tears. But I could not stop crying and fellow practitioners asked me why. I told them, “It seemed that he didn’t really want to persecute Dafa practitioners. He is also being forced to do it. But he has committed so many crimes by doing it. How will he ever repay these? He doesn’t even know about it. What will happen to him and his family?”
They cried, too. We all cried quietly and no one could talk. We never cried when we were being tortured, but now we could not stop crying for those guards. We truly were worried for them. That morning, the guards had a meeting and in the afternoon, they took off all the torture instruments from Dafa practitioners. The compassion we felt from our Dafa cultivation helped us in the tribulations.
Master said,
“Compassion is an enormous energy, the energy of righteous gods. The more compassion that is present, the greater this energy becomes, and it can disintegrate anything that is bad.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2009 Washington DC International Fa Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. IX)
Years later, when I read this, I remembered all the things I experienced during that time. My belief in Master and the Fa grew even stronger.
Several days later, the guards again handcuffed our hands behind the back when he saw us doing the exercises. Before they left, one guard taunted us, “Have your Master unlock them for you. I’ll come back tomorrow morning. If they are unlocked I’ll release you.” He dared to say this because they handcuffed us very tightly. After he left, surprisingly even to us, the three handcuffs loosened up one by one. Dafa is so powerful. The next morning he came and was shocked. Even though he didn’t stay true to his words, he could see the power of Dafa.
Since that time, when we did the exercises again, the guards just pretended as if they didn’t see it. We found opportunities to clarify the facts about Dafa and recited Master’s Fa to them. Gradually their attitude changed. One guard even brought chicken legs to us, which we politely refused. When our families brought things for us, it was normally prohibited to bring us food, but the detention center instructor would hide the food inside clothes, and bring them to us.
I went to Beijing to appeal for Dafa in October 1999. After I was arrested, I did not give them my address or tell them where I came from. I was interrogated again and again, and each time I was tortured brutally to force me to say where I was from.
At first there were over 50 Dafa practitioners detained in that detention center. Gradually only five or six who did not give their address were left. One day I was again taken to the basement trial room. It was November and very cold. A guard came and asked what my address was, and I would not tell him. He lifted my right hand and pull it over my right shoulder and my left hand behind my back under my left shoulder, and handcuffed them together behind my back. It was extremely painful. He then pushed me to the wall, grabbed my hair and hit my head against the wall. I resisted. I was angry and thought that he was such a bad person. He then put a bottle between my arm and my back, and then turned the bottle. It hurt so much that I instantly sweated, and I screamed. He said, “If you don’t tell me your address, I’ll lock you like this for three hours and you will be disabled.”
The piercing pain was so severe that I felt every second was a struggle. Then, I suddenly realized that I was a Dafa disciple and Master would take care of me. Immediately, Master’s Fa was continually appearing in my mind.
Master said,
“You should always maintain a compassionate and calm heart. Then, when you run into a problem, you will be able to do well because it gives you some room as a buffer. You should always be benevolent and kind to others and consider others when doing anything. Whenever you encounter a problem, you should first consider whether others can put up with this matter or if it will hurt anyone. In doing so, there will not be any problems.” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)
I thought, “I’m experiencing a tribulation now. I should not have gotten angry because anger is of the demonic nature. Dafa disciples should maintain a compassionate mind at all times. There are no incidental things. Why was he torturing me? We don’t even know each other. It is very possible that in the past lives I had hurt him, so he came to me to collect this debt, while testing whether or not I’m firm in my belief to Dafa. I cannot get angry with him or hate him.” I remembered the stories of the past enlightened beings that Master told us, and also enlightened on some Dafa principles that I had never thought about before.
When he again came to me and talked to me, I suddenly found that I was no longer hurting. He said, “Will you tell me or not?” I said calmly but firmly, “No, I will not.” He said, “Let me take it off for you then.” He took off the handcuffs after only a little while. But my arms could not move anymore and he grabbed them and shook them all of a sudden. It was painful and I screamed again. Gradually I could move my arms, and he took me back to the cell. I was alone in there and I quietly looked outside the window, while thinking back on what just happened. It was Master who saved me from the extreme pain. It was Master who suffered the pain for me. With Master’s protection, I did not feel lonely at all. I truly felt that Master was right beside me.
As I’m writing this, Master’s Fa appeared in my head,
“It is thus all the harder to, while being subjected to ordeals imposed by the old forces, manage to walk the path correctly. And this is even more so for the Dafa disciples in mainland China. For them, amidst the tremendously harsh persecution, every single thought and idea is critical. Whether you’ve done well or not; whether or not you’ve been susceptible to being persecuted; whether or not you’ve handled things correctly and to what degree you have been persecuted—all of this is directly connected to how you have walked your path and how you have thought about things.” (“What is a Dafa Disciple,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. XI)
The sentient beings are all waiting for Dafa disciples to clarify the truth and save them. We cannot slack off. The time has reached the final moment, and as all kinds of disasters followed one after another, the sentient beings are truly in danger. We must try our best to save more people and fulfill our historical missions.
Thank you Master for protecting me through tribulation after tribulation. Thank you fellow practitioners for your selfless help.