Indestructible Righteous Willpower Cultivated from Falun Dafa

(Minghui.org) Given the ongoing persecution the author's family, relatives, friends, and officials tried to have this practitioner give up her faith in Falun Dafa. However, she kept her belief in Dafa and resisted the pressure through the past 20 years.

Difficult Childhood

I was born in 1955 into a poor family in the countryside. I was the third of four children. The policies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) caused a great famine in 1959, and many died from starvation throughout China. My village had only a dozen households, yet 37 people died of starvation within two years. Three of them were my father, my older brother, and my younger sister, who was only a few months old. I was four years old at the time, and my father was still holding me before he died. For my mother, sister, and I, surviving became even more difficult.

When I was seven years old, my aunt persuaded my mother to marry again. My stepfather was a teacher. His wife passed away a few years earlier, leaving him with two daughters. Both were older than I was and attended elementary school. My sister also went to school after we moved into his home. I really envied them because I also wanted to go to school, but my stepfather refused given our financial situation. When I was 10 years old, I brought two stools and went to school by myself. I sat in the class in the morning, but the stools were gone in the afternoon. My stepfather took them home. I argued with him, but he said, “Your three sisters were already studying, and we really can’t afford it for you to go to school as well. Also, what’s the use of girls studying anyway?” I muttered to myself, “Aren’t your two daughters and my sister all girls?” I was sad and really resented him.

My mother said, “My child, don’t resent him. If it wasn’t for your stepfather, you would have starved to death! Back then, you were so hungry and weak that when you were held, your head always fell onto our shoulders.” Later, I heard from my sisters that I was the most hungry one at home, and they all thought I wouldn’t survive.

Struggling for Fame and Gain

When I was 15 years old, I was introduced to a state-owned enterprise by my uncle on my stepfather’s side. At age 20, I was transferred to another workplace, and it was arranged for me to become a driver. Since I had no education, I had to ask others to teach me the materials for the driver’s license test. Relying on my perseverance and hard work, I ended up memorizing all the traffic rules, and mechanical knowledge. I finally got a driver’s license.

I worked very hard doing transportation work. At first, I was assigned to drive an imported gasoline vehicle. The route I drove was almost 60 miles one way, and sometimes I made two round trips a day, and sometimes four. Later on, I drove a domestic Dongfeng truck, while also towing a trailer.

I often went out at 2:00 a.m. and returned home at 10:00 p.m. I often drove alone to a neighboring province to pick up goods. When I got to a narrow road and couldn’t turn around, I had to unload the trailer, turn the truck around first, then hand-pull the trailer, and hook it back up. I was a girl in my 20s. If I couldn’t lift the trailer by myself, I would look for a local farmer and ask him to help me. Sometimes a tire went bad. I had to change it myself and I didn’t mind getting all dirty. When I was delivering grain, it sometimes rained suddenly, and I had to climb onto the truck to cover the grain with a heavy-weight rain cloth. Often, I was soaked after covering the grain.

I didn’t know what suffering or being tired meant. I was happy all day. The female colleagues who were learning to drive with me quit because they couldn’t bear the hardship. The male colleagues all said that I overshadowed them and told me to take it easy. But, I just worked as hard as I could for fame and gain. I was recognized as a model worker every year at work and was frequently awarded the distinction of the provincial model worker.

After driving like this for five years, while earning the glory, it took a heavy toll on my health. After I got married in 1980, I was diagnosed with various diseases: breast fibroids, hyperthyroidism, hepatitis B, bronchitis, pneumonia, heart disease, low blood platelet count, and so on.

When I felt severe pain in my head, I had to wrap my head tightly in a towel or press the right side of the head to relieve the pain. There was a large lump in my stomach the size of a fist, which could be felt from outside of my belly. My heart sometimes pumped wildly and very loudly. When my stomach hurt, I had to lie on the bed facing down, with the pillow and blanket rolled under my stomach to relieve the pain. The doctor said it was called cold stomach. The rheumatism was so severe that I had to wear gloves when washing clothes, even on a hot summer day. The low blood platelet count caused many large blue/purple splotches on my skin. The hepatitis B made me very skinny and weak. At only 30 years old, my health was very poor. I was supposed to be having the best years of my life, but I had to leave the job that I loved,, and find easier work.

I had several breast surgeries starting in 1982. The first surgery removed a tumor on my left breast. It was the size of an egg yolk. Soon there was another tumor on the right side. I had a total of four surgeries within three years. The constant and excruciating pain throughout my body was just unbearable.

My mother privately asked fortune-tellers about my fate. They said if I were viewed as a tree, it would be completely covered with spider webs. They said I needed someone to come clean things up. I didn’t believe in such things, so I visited all the major hospitals in the provincial capital. But the doctors all said my condition was too complicated to be cured. For 9 years, I was hospitalized each year, and each year my workplace spent $5,000 to $6,000 for my medical expenses. My weight dropped to less than 90 lbs. Every day I gritted my teeth when I left for work. The housework was done by my husband. My husband told me to try running as an exercise to improve my physical condition. I tried it and I sweated a lot every day, but my condition did not improve.

Falun Dafa Gave Me a New Life

One day in 1997, a colleague said to me, “You get exhausted from running every day, and it doesn’t seem to help. You should do a set of exercises with me; it is much better than running.” I didn’t believe her, as I thought she was being too mysterious. Then one day when there was time to rest at work, she said to me again, “Now we have some time. Let me teach you the exercises.” This time I thought I would give it a try. When she taught me the first exercise, I felt a physical comfort that I hadn’t felt for a long time. That is when I entered the door of Dafa cultivation. The next day I threw away all the medicine for which I paid thousands of yuan. I was well-known at work for my illnesses. Many people witnessed my return to good health after I practiced Falun Dafa, and more than 30 people began to practice Dafa within 6 months.

Since I was illiterate, I couldn’t read the book Zhuan Falun when I attended the group Fa study. I let the others read, and I listened attentively. When I got home, I began to study the characters, and my husband taught me the ones I didn’t know. Dafa opened my wisdom; after some time, I was able to read all of Master’s books, I memorized Zhuan Falun twice, memorized Essentials for Further Advancement, and Hong Yin. When I first started studying the Fa, I felt the principles that Master taught in Zhuan Falun were so good.

Staying Firm to My Faith Despite Intense Pressure to Stop Practicing

Falun Dafa brought me back to life. Then, in 1999, this great practice was banned and suppressed by the CCP’s leader Jiang Zemin. Because my husband had a specific type of job, after the CCP began to persecute Falun Dafa, he was under a lot of pressure to force me to stop practicing. Thus, he firmly forbade me from practicing Dafa. I did not listen to him and insisted on practicing.

Practitioners and I went to Beijing to appeal and seek justice for Dafa and Dafa’s Master in 1999. A few days later, we were brought back by the local police and detained for 15 days. In September, we again went to Beijing to appeal. This time we were illegally detained for 72 days.

During the time I was detained, hundreds of people, including the leaders and coworkers from both of our workplaces came to see me in the detention center. They tried to persuade me to give up cultivation. Some said, “You just need to write a promise to not practice Dafa anymore, and you can continue to practice at home all you want, and no one will care about it.” No matter what they said and what special policy they promised me, I was not at all tempted.

My husband once brought my child, my in-law, and my in-law’s child to try to persuade me. They all knelt in front of me and begged me to write a promise to quit practicing Dafa. I said, “I didn’t ask you to kneel, and I will not write it.” My in-law who worked for Domestic Security in another city said, “You just need to turn in one book. I have a lot of them, and I will bring some to you, as many as you want.” I firmly refused.

After I got home, my husband watched me and wouldn’t allow me to go out. Since he couldn’t convince me, he often beat me. For example, one day he took out a threaded steel rebar that was two feet long and ¾ inch in diameter and hit my calf bone. It was very painful, and as I backed up a step, he hit my other calf bone. He said fiercely as he hit me again and again, “I just want to break your legs, and see if you can still go out.” Both of my calves were bleeding, and my sweatpants were soaked with blood and stuck to my skin. He got very scared and said my legs were broken, and immediately called my sister and brother-in-law to take me to the hospital.

My mother-in-law also became frightened and shouted, “She is being killed! My son is going to jail! What should I do?” My sister and brother-in-law rushed to my house and urged me to go to the hospital, but I said I was fine and did not need to go to the hospital. My husband said, “You were hit so hard and your bones definitely broke. You would be a monster if they didn’t!” He insisted on taking me to the hospital. At that time, in order to prove the supernormal power of Dafa and Master’s compassion, I agreed to go to the hospital with them. When I went up to the second floor to get an x-ray, I didn’t let them help me and walked up the stairs by myself. The doctor also thought my bones must be broken after hearing how I was hit. Upon seeing the x-ray results, the doctor was shocked, “Falun Dafa is amazing! The bones are not broken after being hit by a ¾ inch steel rebar!”

In 2002, I went by myself to the city’s Office of Letters and Calls and handed them a letter I wrote. It was to clarify the truth to them. I included two quotes of the Fa, which I indicated were written by Master Li. The director and the deputy director both read it and said it was well written. They asked if these quotes really were written by Master. I answered, “Of course. I would never distort Master’s Fa.” Then they asked if I wrote the rest of the letter. They couldn’t believe I could write something like that since I didn’t go to school. I told them it was the power of Dafa. In the end, they said they could not do anything related to the persecution of Dafa, since the matter was specifically managed by the 610 Office.

I took the letter to the 610 Office. They didn’t want to read it, so I verbally clarified the truth to them. They were very scared and asked me to keep my voice down. They said, “If you think it’s good, just practice it at home and don’t run around.” I said, “We do things openly and righteously. We don’t try to hide.” I demanded that they release more than 30 practitioners who were illegally detained in the city’s detention center. They said, “How would that be possible? We are still arresting more.” I used my personal experience to continue to clarify the truth, and they all listened quietly. After I was done, they asked me to go home. I said, “I won’t leave until you release the Falun Dafa practitioners.” They then secretly called my husband. After over an hour, my husband arrived, and he was furious. He slapped me in my face twice, then grabbed my collar and said, “You made me look so bad!” As he pulled me out, I turned around and said to the 610 Office staff, “I’ll come back.” We were on the eighth floor. My husband was afraid to be seen by others, so we didn’t take the elevator. He held my collar the whole way and didn’t let go until we were far away from the building.

That same day, the acting mayor went to the 610 Office, and they told him about me. The acting mayor said, “Where is she now?” They said they let me go because of my husband’s position. The mayor immediately roared, “Is he under me, or am I under him? Go and arrest his wife tonight!” I was taken to the police station that night, and the next day they asked me, “Will you still practice or not? If not, we will let you go home. If you do, we will take you to the detention center.” I was then taken to the city detention center. Five months later, they gave me one year in the forced labor camp. However, I failed the physical exam and was taken back to the detention center where I was held until the sentence was completed.

After I returned home, my husband asked me to run with him because he didn’t want me to do the Dafa exercises. I later said that I didn’t want to run. He said, “You’re not allowed to do the Dafa exercises if you don’t run.” I just ignored it. One night I was practicing the second exercise next to the bed in my room, and he suddenly came in. He hit the bottom of my back very hard and I was pushed to the other side of the bed. If it wasn’t for Master’s protection, my back would have been broken.

One day he returned home after he ran only half of his normal route, and he saw me meditating. He pulled me off the bed, and I fell to the ground, but my legs were still crossed and I still maintained the lotus position. He got very angry. He took out a wooden hanger from the closet and continuously hit my back very hard. The hanger broke into three pieces. He took another one and hit me. It also broke into several pieces. He got tired and stopped, but I hadn’t felt any pain. He asked me, “Are you still going to practice?” I said, “Yes.” He viciously said, “If you keep doing it, I will beat you to death! No one will be held accountable for killing Falun Dafa practitioners.” I said, “If this is true, show me the documents that say so.” But he didn’t have such documents. I said, “I will go see the mayors and ask if there is such a document.” So I really went to a deputy mayor’s home. I told her I was brutally beaten by my husband for my faith and asked if there were any documents that said anyone who kills Falun Dafa practitioners will not be held accountable. One of her drivers there said, “There must be. Otherwise, why do you hear that in prisons they always beat Falun Dafa practitioners?” The deputy mayor said to me in a low voice, “No. How can there be such a document?” Of course, there is no such written document. They are afraid of being punished in the future, so all their policies for persecuting Dafa disciples have only been communicated orally.

As my husband frequently beat me, I thought I should no longer bear it passively. I didn’t want him to keep committing crimes against Dafa and wanted to use wisdom to stop him. One day I told him mercifully but solemnly, “A cultivator will not commit suicide. If I die, it will definitely be caused by your beating me. So I have written a letter and left it with my friends. If something happens to me, you won’t be able to get away with it.” My husband was shocked and never beat me again.

The city’s Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC) and 610 Office continued to put pressure on my husband. They suspended him from work and told him to write a self-criticizing report at home. They told him to return to work only after he successfully forced me to give up cultivation. He tried all kinds of ways but was unsuccessful.

I said to him, “You know about all my illnesses. I was unable to do anything at home, and I was hospitalized every year for nine consecutive years, costing five or six thousand dollars in medical expenses every year. If I didn’t practice Falun Dafa, my life would have been long over.” My husband said, “When you couldn’t do the housework before, I was doing all of it, right? I’d rather be doing all the housework than you keep practicing cultivation.” I firmly said that I will never give up. In the end, he threatened me with divorce. He asked me, “Choose one: family or cultivation. Which one do you want?” I replied, “I want both. I can’t let others say that I broke up my family due to my practicing cultivation unless it’s because you cheated on me and want to divorce. If that’s the case, then you can write that down and I will sign it.” (At that time, I heard some rumors about my husband having an affair, but I still wanted to save him.) I knew he cared a lot about his reputation and would not write that.

My husband got a lot of people to come to our home to try to persuade me. They included leaders and colleagues from both of our workplaces, as well as our friends and relatives. They also included people from the city’s PLAC, the 610 Office, and police stations. One leader from my husband’s workplace asked me to consider my husband’s career and the future of my children. I said, “Everyone has their own destiny, and their fortunes will not get away from them. Besides, the whole family will actually benefit from my cultivation.”

The people from the 610 Office said, “If you don’t listen to us, then you will lose your retirement benefits.” I said, “I have worked very hard since I was a child. How can you not let me have my retirement benefits? Back then, the leaders of my workplace said that if everyone worked as hard as Dafa practitioners did, then our workplace would always be great.” My words left them speechless. A former colleague of my husband was a manager, and she came to talk to me. But, I was not moved by what she said, and I just kept clarifying the truth to her. In the end, she said, “I have done ideological work with people for more than 30 years, and there has never been a time when I couldn’t convince someone. You are the first one. Instead, I am getting convinced by you. This means that what you are saying indeed makes sense.”

My non-practitioner friends said I have become unsentimental since practicing Dafa. I said, “It’s not that I don’t care about relationships. First of all, I am very grateful for your concerns. But there is an old saying that you should pay back with a stream of water when someone gives you a drop of water. I can never repay what Master has done for me, and Master doesn’t want a penny from me. How can I stay silent and not appeal for Dafa?”

The secretary of the PLAC heard that I was very firm, and he wanted my husband to divorce me, but he told my husband that he would talk to me first. I first stated my position when we met. He said, “Why are you so obsessed with Falun Dafa that you don’t even want your family?” I said, “I have never said that I didn’t want my family. At home, I take care of the elders according to traditional moral values. My mother-in-law has been ill for years, and I have always taken good care of her. Everyone knows it. For the past eight years, there have been 40 sitters come and go, because no one could establish a good relationship with her. Yet she always wanted me to stay close to her and take care of her. I’m able to do it because I practice Falun Dafa. In the past, I had illnesses that doctors at all the major hospitals in the provincial capital could not do anything about. I was tortured by these illnesses for over a dozen years. If I hadn’t practiced Falun Dafa, I would have died. You all are telling me to not practice Dafa. Isn’t that trying to kill me?” I told him a lot about Dafa and the persecution. He later said to my husband, “All of what she said sounded reasonable. What else can you do? Just leave her alone!”

My husband had to hand in his self-criticizing ideological report that was required by the leaders at his workplace. But it was hard for him to write it because I did not give up Dafa cultivation. So he ended up writing about the real situation and explained that I indeed had incurable illnesses that were cured by practicing Dafa. So I was determined not to give up my practice. He said, “I have used all means but could not change her mind. I beat her, cursed at her, and threatened her with divorce, but she was not afraid. I have no choice but to leave her alone.” The leaders of his workplace read it and said, “Isn’t this helping her promote Falun Dafa? Forget about it.” They finally let him return to work.

Reasoning With Wisdom

I have gone through ups and downs on my cultivation path during the over 20 years of persecution by the wicked CCP. However, no tribulation could move my will to cultivate Dafa. When I was illegally detained in the detention center, officials from the city’s PLAC, 610 Office, and the police departments often came to talk to me. They said that the more I practiced, the more foolish and obsessed I became, as I was not even afraid of death anymore. I replied, “Because I now know the true meaning and purpose of life, I don’t mind giving up my life for it.” When they tried to force me to give up my faith, I said, “I will not give up. My heart belongs to Falun Dafa. My body belongs to Falun Dafa. Even every cell in my body belongs to Falun Dafa.” They were shocked and said, “Fine. You don’t need to say anymore. If every cell in your body belongs to Falun Dafa, then how can we convince you?” From then on, they stopped trying to convince me to give up my belief. Even now, when the director of a police department sees me, he still apologizes to me and asks me not to resent him for what he did in the past.

Relying on my firm and upright belief in Master and Dafa, I was unmoved when faced with intense pressure and persecution. I broke through the tribulations step by step.

Master said:

“Indestructible righteous faith in the cosmos’s Truth forms benevolent Dafa disciples’ rock-solid, Diamond-Like Bodies, it frightens all evil, and the light of Truth it emanates makes the unrighteous elements in all beings’ thoughts disintegrate. However strong the righteous thoughts are, that’s how great the power is.” (“Also in a Few Words,” Essentials for Further Advancement II)

“Dafa disciples are magnificent, because what you are cultivating is the ultimate Great Fa of the cosmos, because you have validated Dafa with righteous thoughts, and because you have not fallen during the massive tribulation. Dafa disciples’ doing Fa-rectification has no precedent in history. In the magnificent, grand feats of validating the Fa with rationality, clarifying the truth with wisdom, and spreading the Fa and saving people with mercy, each Dafa disciple’s path to Consummation is being perfected.” (“The Disciples’ Magnificence” Essentials for Further Advancement II)

Thank you, Master for your compassion and protection along the way!