Steadfastly Walking My Cultivation Path During Adversity

(Minghui.org) I started to practice Falun Dafa in 1996. My children were living abroad at the time, and my husband and I were living in a beautiful coastal city. I read Zhuan Falun and did the exercises every day. I greatly benefited from following Dafa’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance in my everyday life.

When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started persecuting Falun Dafa in 1999, I was illegally detained for not renouncing my faith. Upon my release, the police did not allow me to stay at my home, and I became homeless and destitute. However, I continued clarifying the truth and saving people despite the adversity I experienced. When I went to Tiananmen Square for the third time to display a banner that said “Falun Dafa is good” in 2001, I was arrested and illegally sentenced to one year of forced labor. The following explains how I clarified the truth with righteous thoughts and actions while being imprisoned.

“Please Do Not Waste Your Time Trying to Transform Me.”

The forced labor camp in which I was imprisoned was a very evil place. The prison guards told me that all Falun Dafa practitioners must be “transformed,” that is, give up their belief. They ordered former practitioners who had been transformed to brainwash me and force me to renounce Dafa. I felt extremely sad watching these former practitioners who let go of life and death to safeguard Dafa in the beginning but gave up the practice under brutal persecution.

I tried to wake them up, but my efforts weren’t strong enough. I told them calmly, “Please do not waste your time trying to transform me. The more you try, the more determined I’ll become. The reason I learned Falun Dafa is that it teaches people to be good and, finally, to reach enlightenment. I read many books about cultivation, but none of them could truly guide my practice. However, this great Buddha Fa allows me to cultivate to a high level. I will never give up Dafa!”

I also told them that they should never say Master Li’s name in front of me as this was an act of great disrespect to Him. After that, no one dared to mention Master’s name to me.

A lady from southern China, who was imprisoned for illegally posting advertisements in northeast China, was ordered by the guards to monitor me. She was a kind person who treated me well. She also accepted the facts when I talked to her about the persecution. She told me her daughter used to do bad things but turned herself around and now really wanted to have children.

I wrote her daughter a letter and told her how to be a good person, wife, and mother. She later became pregnant and was very grateful to me. The lady who monitored me said she wanted to learn Falun Dafa. She told me she became very excited when she thought about doing cultivation practice.

There was a time when the guards forced me to stand still for days. They sent a young girl to watch me closely and threatened that they would extend her term if she let me sit down. Her parents had divorced, and she had developed a lot of bad habits. Everyone in the prison was afraid of her. She treated the detained Dafa practitioners badly.

However, I cared for her with compassion and gave her the food my family sent me. She said I was a great person. I told her how to be a good person and that Falun Dafa practitioners are all good people who should be treated kindly. I also told her about heaven’s law that good is rewarded with good and evil deeds incur retribution. She agreed it was wrong for her to treat Dafa practitioners poorly and said she wanted to be a good person. She also said that if she had known me before, she would not have done the bad things that put her in a forced labor camp.

“I Admire Practitioners Who Refuse to Be Transformed the Most!”

The guard in charge of our group was righteous and took good care of everyone. It was very difficult to have access to certain items in the detention center. Sometimes people gave her money and asked her to buy groceries from the outside. She treated me well even though I refused to give up my belief. I used our encounters to talk about Falun Dafa and the persecution. Afterward, she often told those who had been transformed that she admired the practitioners who refused to be transformed the most.

While we were once doing a work shift, a guard asked our group to identify those who were not yet transformed. They pointed to another practitioner and me. The guard immediately told me, “Please come and stand by my side. Please don’t do the work and just watch others to do it. The Falun Dafa practitioners I admire the most are those who refuse to be transformed.”

After finishing my term at the forced labor camp, I was illegally sent to a brainwashing center because I refused to be transformed. I compassionately told the CCP agents that they should not try to brainwash me as it was really not good for them to persecute a person who was on a divine path.

The brainwashing sessions forced us to listen to the “transformed” inmates as they said bad things about Falun Dafa every day. The guards installed speakers in each cell to prevent us from speaking with each other.

When the guards checked my cell, I clarified the truth to them. I put the laundry detergent and shampoo my family sent me on the bathroom window for everyone to use. When the guard on the night shift was drinking, I sometimes gave her some of the good food my family sent me.

Safeguarding the Dignity of Dafa

I helped the people around me as much as I could, including buying things for them during the Chinese New Year. Gradually, my kindness touched them, and my compassion changed their understanding of Dafa. They said I was a good cultivator and opened up to me about their family affairs and things in their hearts. Some lay Buddhists even talked with me about whether the Dharma-ending age is now, as mentioned in the Buddhist scriptures.

A guard called me to another room and said, “You always say how great your Master is, but I did not see that His disciples have cultivated well.” I told her she should look at me as an upright Dafa disciple. She said she could talk with me about anything, but I would become defensive once she mentioned Falun Dafa. I told her that I was not being defensive, I was safeguarding the dignity of Dafa. In a solemn tone, I told her, “You force the people who cultivate the Buddha Fa to give up their belief, so you’ve committed boundless crimes without knowing it. And you even criticize the people you persecute. However, this persecution is based on heresy and false accusations.”

As the Chinese New Year was approaching, a group of police officers sent by the 610 Office talked to the practitioners one by one, claiming whoever refused to be transformed would be sent to a forced labor camp during the New Year. I told the police, “Falun Dafa is the great Buddha Fa that uses Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance as its fundamental guide. Dafa can improve morality and help people to be honest, kind, and tolerant of others. It is wrong for the government to suppress such a good cultivation practice.”

I told him to write down exactly what I said. He also asked whether he should write down “Falun Dafa is good,” and I said yes. Just then, a few officers entered the room. One of them said that if I continued to refuse to be transformed, I would be imprisoned at a forced labor camp for a year. The officer who had interrogated me looked at this person in the eye and said, “This older lady was sent here after being imprisoned at a labor camp for a year.” The other officer left without saying a word.

Some guards called me big sister, and some called me auntie. At that time, my body and face were covered in scabies. The doctor in the center advised me to get injections to get rid of the mites, but I refused to do so. I later developed a high fever, and my family members went to the 610 Office to request my release. The 610 Office personnel realized that I refused to be transformed even after a year of forced labor and four months of detention. They were also afraid that I would die of sepsis in the center and agreed to release me.

The head of the brainwashing center saw me off on the day I left, “Please consider how well everyone treated you.” I told him I felt their good intentions and thanked everyone. He also said, “I’m really worried that you’re leaving like this” (meaning I was not transformed). I told him, “Don’t worry, my four months here were not in vain.”

Not long after I was released, the brainwashing center was closed.