(Minghui.org) I am retired from a large state-owned enterprise. Even though I have been practicing Falun Dafa for 28 years, I still remember the joy I felt when I first stepped into the cultivation practice.
The unprecedented persecution of Falun Dafa started on July 20, 1999, and has continued for more than 20 years. The cruelty of this persecution is unimaginable. Despite that, I did not give up my belief. I have been cultivating the same as the first day I started and have never wavered on the path of cultivation to this day.
I have put Dafa’s principles into practice by first becoming a kind person with high moral standards and then being a cultivator walking on a divine path.
I used to study combat in a military sports academy and trained in traditional southern martial arts for three years. I was brave and ruthless. Relying on the support of military instructors, I often participated in outside fights and did a lot of bad things.
A few friends advised me to attend Master Li Hongzhi’s (Falun Dafa’s founder) class at the beginning of 1994. One friend said that after practicing Dafa, his Celestial Eye opened and he could see Falun spinning. I was very curious, so I attended Master’s third class in Guangzhou.
Before the class began, I met up with Master Li at the entrance to the auditorium. Master was tall, handsome, calm, and compassionate. I stood next to Master in a daze, and there was a feeling that I had been waiting for that moment for a long time, that I had been searching for it one lifetime after another.
During the class, I could sense a big Falun above my head spinning like a high-speed fan, but I couldn’t touch it. Sometimes the Falun turned into two. They were spinning from my head to my toes, then rushing from my body to my arms, and spinning in the center of my palms. There was also a Falun about the size of a bowl spinning in my lower abdomen, and I felt very relaxed.
At the end of the class, my head was empty, and the world around me seemed to be empty. When I was young, I loved listening to my mother tell me fairy tales, and I often thought to myself, “Where does life come from? Mother will eventually leave this world one day. I cannot even keep the closest people around me. What am I waiting for here?” I would cry, but I never dared to tell the adults. I was not a sentimental person, but there was always this inexplicable sadness within me. That day I suddenly understood that what I was waiting for was Dafa and Master Li.
When I first started to practice Falun Dafa, most other practitioners called Master “Teacher.” But I always called him Master. I didn’t actually know why. I just wanted to practice cultivation with Master.
Since I have practiced Dafa, my health has been good. When I rode a bicycle, it felt like I was being pushed from behind, and I didn’t feel tired at all when I had to work the night shifts. I was full of energy every day. My heart was calm and I was no longer ruthless. I never bullied anyone again and no longer cared about personal gains.
Many of my coworkers saw the huge changes in me in such a short period of time, and they also began to practice Dafa.
I was on a train with my wife, and there were two young people occupying two entire rows of six seats. I politely asked one of them for a seat. He reluctantly gave up half a seat but cursed under his breath. I used to be very aggressive and competitive, and my anger started to boil up. Just as I was about to go after him, Master’s Fa came to my mind,
“As a practitioner, the first thing you should be able to do is to not fight back when you are beaten or sworn at—you must be tolerant. Otherwise, what kind of practitioner will you be?” (Lecture Nine, Zhuan Falun)
I thought, “I practice Falun Dafa now and I must consider forbearance. It’s not good to fight.” I held back and felt very relaxed when I got off the train. I learned that when taking a step back, indeed everything would open up.
Out of jealousy, Jiang Zemin, the former head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), used the entire country’s resources to launch the persecution of Falun Dafa on July 20, 1999. Countless families have been torn apart, and practitioners have been held in brainwashing centers, forced labor camps, and jails.
I was also badly persecuted. At work, because I was firm in my belief in Falun Dafa, I was transferred from a very easy position to a hard, dirty, and tiring one. The CCP secretary there said that I would be lucky to put up with it for three months. Then I would go to see him and admit my mistake. I remained in that department until I retired.
In the early days of the persecution, I went to Beijing to appeal for Dafa many times and was detained each time. The leaders where I worked were criticized by their superiors, and they had to accompany the police to Beijing to bring me back. I knew that the secretary was under a lot of pressure.
I was told to go to his office, and he forced me to resign. After I gave him my resignation letter, he discussed with me whether it would be okay to not mention Falun Dafa in the letter. I refused, because it did not conform to the facts. I loved my job, and my performance was recognized by all my coworkers. I had no bad habits, and my only reason to leave work was because of the CCP persecution. The leaders were under pressure, and I did not want to implicate them. The secretary had nothing to say, silently put my letter in the drawer, and never talked about my resignation again.
I went to Beijing in 2001 to appeal for Falun Dafa and handed in a letter about how great Dafa is. When I returned home, the police wanted to arrest me so I was forced to leave home. When I passed the market, I was ambushed by seven or eight plainclothes officers who jumped out and held me down, while screaming, “Thief!” Several security guards in the market rushed over. I said, “Do I look like a thief? I am a good person, but these bad people attacked me.” The security guards were going to arrest them. Those guys finally took out their police IDs and slandered me, saying that I gathered people in the market to disturb public order.
After a month of illegal detention, I was taken to a forced labor camp and released a year later. Because I did not “transform,” I was given an additional month in the labor camp. On the day I left, in order to threaten the other Dafa practitioners there, the guards put me in handcuffs, stripped off my clothes, and humiliated me on the field outside.
I was taken to a brainwashing center but no one told my family. We were ordered to make artificial Christmas trees every day. We refused to work, so they locked the door to keep us in the room. We went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution. I went on a hunger strike for more than 20 days and was taken to the Armed Police Hospital for an infusion. I lost a lot of weight and was very skinny, but I still talked to the people about the beauty of Dafa.
One day a nurse asked me, “Are you a lawyer? Or do you have an advanced degree? What you said made sense, and none of those officers could ever win in a conversation with you.” I told her that I was not a lawyer or an academic—I didn’t even graduate from junior high school. But I was telling the truth and they were telling lies. When I ended the hunger strike and was about to leave the hospital, the attending military doctor came across the hallway, ignored the guards from the brainwashing center, and shook my hand. The guards looked embarrassed.
Because fellow practitioners’ hearts were united in the brainwashing center, we were able to change the environment. Every day we did the Dafa exercises and read Dafa books, and my health recovered quickly. During the time when the persecution in China was most severe, this brainwashing center released all the practitioners unconditionally one after another. When I was released, people from my workplace and my family came to the brainwashing center to pick me up. I returned to work, got my full salary and bonus for that month, and even got the full quarterly bonus. I felt that Master was always watching out for me.
At work, I was always enthusiastic and hard-working. I’m a very good cook. On holidays, I would be in charge of the canteen. Cooking also reflects the quality of a person. I didn’t follow the routine of a restaurant chef. Instead, I based my cooking on the local style, while adjusting it based on the seasons. My coworkers always loved my food. Sometimes the leaders from higher branches came to visit on holidays, and the leaders where I worked would invite them to eat, telling them that I’d cooked the food. Everyone in the system knew that I was a Falun Dafa practitioner, and even when I met higher officials for the first time, some would tell me, “You’re a great cook.”
I like to drink tea. Tea time is usually when people gather around the fireplace and talk. In this way, I integrated good food, tea, and telling stories about Falun Dafa practitioners in one setting, and many people benefited from it.
I have always felt physically strong during my 28 years of cultivation. I look younger than my actual age, and I have never had the need to take any medication. When occasionally I didn’t feel well, I would make certain I did the exercises, read my Dafa books, and looked inward to see and correct anything that did not meet the standards of a Dafa practitioner. The discomfort would then go away quickly. Many amazing things have happened to me since I started cultivating.
At around 8 p.m. on a midsummer night in 2017, my nose suddenly started to bleed. I tried to stop it with a paper towel, but it continued to bleed heavily. The blood choked my throat, and I had to swallow mouthfuls of blood again and again. But I didn’t panic. I wanted to do the exercises, but the blood kept flowing. I wanted to study the Fa, but my mouth was full of blood. I had to ask my family to read Zhuan Falun to me. My wife (a fellow practitioner) kept wiping the blood from my nose. They were all very nervous. My child was reading the Fa out loud and kept reading the wrong words. I told them, “Don’t be nervous. I’m fine. We have Master, and Master is by our side. Play Master’s Nine Day Lecture in Guangzhou for me.” Seeing that I was calm, my family calmed down, too. The bleeding slowed down and completely stopped a little after midnight.
The next day, I got up and looked at the basin from the previous night. I was shocked to see how much blood was in it. I wanted to take a photo to show my coworkers and friends, but I didn’t because I was worried that it might be too disturbing for some people. I put my palms together to thank Master for helping me clean up my body. I did the exercises and studied the Fa as usual that day, and at night I worked my normal night shift.
I told my coworkers about this and they were all amazed that after bleeding so much, I still looked the same. With no treatment, I still could go to work as if nothing had happened. They thought it was a miracle.
I was working in the construction department in 2007. There were many private construction teams and I was in charge of safety. One night, we were moving a communication pipeline to cross the railway. We were in a 1.75-ton truck that was fully loaded with sand, cement, and bricks. There were two rows of seats in the cabin, and seeing it was already full, I said to the driver, “I’ll just walk to the site.”
But a guy in the front row squeezed over to make space and said, “Come on. We just need one more, and that’s you.” Those words gave me the chills, because they sounded so familiar. I then remembered something that happened in Europe: A man was going to take the elevator, but it was already full, so he decided to wait for the next one. Someone in the elevator said, “We just need one more, and that’s you.” He didn’t get in, however, and when the elevator doors closed, it suddenly fell to the bottom, killing everyone inside.
I was hesitating when the person inside said, “Come on. We’re in a hurry.” So I climbed into the cab and sat right next to the passenger side door. The truck slowly made its way to the construction site. We were supposed to go downhill and take a right at the intersection. Suddenly, I felt as if I was being thrown up into the air and saw the street lamps upside down. I shouted out the verses for sending forth righteous thoughts, “The Fa rectifies the cosmos, the Evil is completely eliminated!” I heard a loud noise followed by a scraping sound. It turned out that the truck had turned, flipped over, and fallen on its right side.
I was by the door so I was on the bottom, and two workers were on top of me. The driver was frightened. He was on the top, so he was fine, and his hands were firmly on the steering wheel. I couldn’t move. The driver heard my voice and told everyone to climb up and out.
When we got out, I saw that the truck had not been loaded correctly. The rear was much heavier than the front. We were in a busy urban area, and if the truck had raced into the intersection, the consequences could have been disastrous. But somehow the truck had turned around. The driver didn’t do it, because he couldn’t react that fast. I shouted to everyone, “Falun Dafa’s Master just saved all of us!” The workers had all heard me clarify the facts about Dafa before, and they all responded, “Yes!”
Police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, and a tow truck soon showed up. The five workers were taken to the hospital.
The truck’s engine was still running, and gasoline had leaked all over the place. No one dared to get close to it, but the engine had to be turned off. I thought to myself, “I’m a practitioner. I should be fine!” I climbed into the cab, turned off the engine, pulled out the key, and got the personal belongings out of the cab. I waited until the truck was towed away and then I walked back.
The next morning, I couldn’t get out of bed. The right side of my body was swollen and there were a lot of bruises. I found it hard to breathe. Ribs on my right side were pushing out, and my chest hurt when I moved. Since I’d had military training in the past, I knew I had broken ribs. I had to be helped out of bed.
I went back to work two days later. I was in a lot of pain after walking around the construction site, so I returned to the office. My coworkers all called me foolish. One of them said, “Why would you come back to work? One of the guys in the back seat had a fracture in his back and was operated on. He’ll get over six months off, fully paid. He’ll also get subsidized 8,000 yuan for extra expenses.”
The director suggested that I go to the hospital for a CT scan and report it for work-related injuries. Reporting a work-related injury benefits the employee, because the company cannot dismiss the employee for any reason. The employee can then ask to change to a different position at work. But it is not good for the company, because it will be subject to a safety assessment. I said, “I don’t need to do that. I just need to take some time off to do the Dafa exercises.”
The director looked at me unconvincingly and asked, “Are you sure that will work?” I said, “Yes” without hesitation.
During the time I was resting at home, the broken ribs and the right side of my body only hurt when I did the exercises. The bruises gradually disappeared, but my ribs were still protruding.
One morning, I was doing the first exercise. As I stretched out my hands, I heard a cracking sound in my rib cage. When I finished all five exercises and touched my right rib, it seemed that the bones had been reconnected. They no longer stuck out, and it didn’t hurt anymore. The next day, I canceled my paid leave and went back to work. My coworkers asked me how I’d recovered, so I told them, “By doing the Falun Dafa exercises.” The directors and leaders were all amazed! They all talked about how miraculous Dafa was.
In the fall of 2019, I dreamed of snakes twice in a row. In the first dream, I was wearing a light yellow vest with two holes in the front, and a snake’s head came out of the hole on the right. In the second dream, a snake was on the ground by the corner of a wall. I knew something was wrong in my cultivation, but I couldn’t find what it was, and I didn’t dig deeper.
It didn’t take long for my condition to deteriorate, and I began to have symptoms of a stroke. The first thing I thought was, “I am a true practitioner, and I have Master, so I should not be afraid.” I calmed down and looked inward. I found that I had a strong competitive mentality and was not forgiving. Even after over two decades of cultivation, my temper was still not good. I felt really ashamed and I admitted my mistake to Master.
Then I did the fifth exercise for an hour. My wife rushed home and fixed dinner. When it was ready, she and our child tried to help me sit at the table. But I was so weak, I couldn’t hold myself up and kept sliding down. When I picked up the rice bowl, it slipped from my hand. My eyes felt heavy, and my sight began to blur. They helped me to the bedroom, my left leg dragging behind. By the time they got me in bed, I had already passed out. During the whole time, my wife and child continued to recite aloud, “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.”
My wife played the audio recording of Master’s lectures for me. She then called several practitioners in other provinces to send forth righteous thoughts for me. She also contacted local practitioners for help. She remained calm the whole time. In her heart, she just kept asking Master for help. Several practitioners from hundreds or thousands of miles away sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the attacks on my body from other dimensions. One practitioner saw in her Celestial Eye a big snake with its mouth wide open. After collective efforts, they were able to destroy the snake.
Almost at the same time, practitioner Han came to my home. He came straight to my bed and said loudly, “You can’t be like this. Master wants you to save people. There are many sentient beings waiting for you to save them!” I heard it clearly. Slowly I regained consciousness, and it felt as if I had just awakened. My wife helped me to the living room, and then I fell asleep again. I woke up in the middle of the night and wanted to go to the bathroom, but I couldn’t move the left side of my body, so my wife had to help me to the bathroom
Since I couldn’t control the left side of my body, I kept sliding down. My wife said, “I can’t hold you up anymore. You have to stand up on your own!”
I thought, “Yes! I must stand up. I can’t lean on her like this.” My left foot immediately felt stronger, and I used my right hand to grab the door frame. I was then able to stay up.
The next day, a fellow practitioner came to do the exercises with me. I couldn’t stand steadily, so I had to lean against the wall. I could only move my left arm a little, and it felt very heavy and exhausting. I couldn’t speak clearly and couldn’t hold Zhuan Falun to read, so I lay down and listened to Master’s lecture recordings.
In the evening, practitioner Han sent me text messages to encourage me. I knew that I couldn’t admit to the persecution. I got up from the bed and said loudly, “I can walk by myself!” Then I continued to do the exercises. I still could not stand steadily, so my wife suggested that I stand by the closet and then she stood on the other side of me. That way I was able to do the third exercise.
The manager from my workplace came to visit me and asked, “Are you sure you will be okay without going to the hospital?
“Yes,” I answered. “And I don’t even need to take sick leave. I’ll be back at work after using up my regular vacation time.” I had practiced Dafa for so many years, and I had dealt with other discomforts in the past. I had overcome all of them by doing the exercises, so I had full confidence in Dafa, and I knew that I would be able to get through it.
Doubtful, the manager said, “Without going to the hospital or taking medicine, you will be able to recover just by practicing Falun Dafa? But you still can’t even lift your left hand.”
I immediately stood up, took a few steps, and said, “Look!” I raised both hands and stretched them out in front of my chest. With that one firm thought, all of a sudden, I was able to raise my hands. Everyone there, myself included, witnessed this incredible feat. Although I had passed the most dangerous phase of the tribulation and was able to walk, I still had not fully recovered, and my mind still felt dull. I couldn’t grasp things with my left hand, and my mouth was a bit crooked. I then spent more time studying the Fa and doing the exercises.
An elderly practitioner came to visit me, and I insisted on walking with him to the station when he left. My friends from my hometown came and asked me to go see the doctor. My wife said that my recovery was so fast from doing the exercises that I no longer needed to go to the hospital.
Since I had lost so much weight, most of my clothes didn’t fit, so I went to buy clothes with my wife. When I stood in front of the fitting mirror in the shopping mall, I looked so different from before—almost looking like someone in his 70s. I was sad and didn’t want to look at myself anymore. I wanted to go home, but my wife insisted that we buy the clothes first.
When I started to do housework again, I could only use my right hand. Since I had no feeling in my left hand, sometimes I would accidentally touch a hot pot and get burned. Gradually, I was able to go to the market to buy vegetables by myself, and many people knew that I recovered by practicing Dafa.
Before my vacation time was up, my manager called to ask when I would return to work and said he planned to transfer me to an easier position. My brother heard about that and was very angry that my manager would quiz me about returning to work when I was still recovering. My brother told me to stay home, but I knew the manager was under pressure, as I had always been regarded as a key figure to watch because I practice Falun Dafa. I told the manager that I would return in a couple of days. The manager was worried about my safety and wanted to arrange for a car to pick me up, but I refused and asked my wife to take me to work in a taxi. The taxi stopped at the intersection and I walked to the office.
On my first day back, many coworkers came to see me. They asked if I had really never gone to the hospital or taken medicine and had recovered just by practicing Dafa. The coworkers who were skeptical came to see me every day because they wanted to see if Falun Dafa was really that miraculous. In their words, every day I looked better than the day before. My left hand and foot were more and more flexible, and my mouth was soon no longer crooked.
My new position was mechanical maintenance. I didn’t know much about it, so I tried to learn as much as I could. I started with just tightening screws and I did not seek ease or comfort. Since I got off work earlier than before, I tried to do more of the housework.
My sense of taste gradually returned, and I cooked even better than before. During the pandemic in 2020, the city was in lockdown, and I was told not to take a vacation. My main job was to cook in the canteen. People were not allowed to eat together and had to use single-use chopsticks and wear masks. The whole city lived in fear of the virus. My coworkers all wanted to stay close to me and believed that Dafa practitioners have positive energy.
One of my coworkers previously never wanted to hear me talk about Dafa. He had insomnia and asked me what he could do. I told him, “If you recite, ‘Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good,’ you will fall asleep naturally and the virus will stay away from you.”
He later told many other coworkers that he indeed was able to fall asleep after reciting the phrases. He quit the CCP and its youth organizations.
Looking back on my 28 years of cultivation, I am infinitely grateful to Master! I still remember that, in November 1995, a few of us were going to Harbin City. When we were waiting at the Beijing Railway Station Square, Master suddenly appeared in front of us. I immediately dropped my luggage, put my hands together in front of my chest to greet Master, and said, “Master!” I cried and couldn’t say anything else. I just silently stood beside Master.
Master kindly said to us, “The north is very cold. Have you brought enough clothes?”
We all nodded and said, “Yes.” Master watched us enter the waiting room. After that, we went back several times to see Master and saw him still standing there. While on the train to Harbin, I burst into tears, and I couldn’t calm down for a long time.
Every time I think of this time with Master, I just feel so happy and fortunate. Master, I will continue to cultivate diligently!