Letting Go of the Fear of Death on My Journey of Cultivation

(Minghui.org) I have been practicing Falun Dafa for 28 years, and I’ve felt that Master Li has watched over every step of my cultivation. I’d like to share some of my experiences of letting go of the fear of death, including my understanding of sickness karma. I hope to serve as a testament to the greatness of Master and Dafa, as well as to inspire myself and my fellow practitioners to cherish this opportunity, let go of human notions, and save more people.

I Asked Myself If I Could Face a Tragic Death Calmly

After April 25, 1999, when practitioners gathered outside the State Council Office of Appeals in Beijing, our local practitioners had a meeting to share our experiences. At the time, there were already unknown authorities interfering with us when we gathered to do the Falun Dafa exercises in the morning, and everyone felt that the atmosphere was already very tense. During the meeting, one practitioner said that we should practice steadfastly. Even if our heads got cut off, we would still meditate.

I also talked about my personal understanding, saying, “This is indeed how the practice of Dafa should be. But I don’t think getting my head cut off is the hardest. If I saw several people who’d been decapitated because they refused to give up cultivation, what would happen when it was my turn to face that harsh reality Would I treat myself as a cultivator? That is really difficult.”

I remember once reading the story of Buddha Shakyamuni’s great disciple Maudgalyayana, who was then known as number one in psychic powers among all the Buddha’s disciples. But Maudgalyayana was stoned to death at the end. When I first read it, I was shocked. I asked myself, “If I was Maudgalyayana with the ability to see the future, and if I knew in advance that I would be stoned to death when I got somewhere, would I still go there calmly? Could I face my tragic death calmly?”

Actually, in 2000, I did have such an experience that gave me a real feeling of facing death. The police kidnapped me in a city hundreds of miles away from my hometown and escorted me back to a detention center in my hometown. I resisted their illegal interrogations and corporal punishment and refused to answer any questions they had about the trumped-up charges against me.

Two weeks later in the cell, I saw an English-Chinese dictionary on the floor, so I thought that I would just memorize a few words. But flipping through it casually, I landed on the word “crucifixion” and was shocked. That is a kind of criminal punishment that Jesus endured.

My head was buzzing, and the first thing I thought was, “Is it going to enlighten me that this time I will have a tragic death like Jesus?” (I now know that the idea was based on an incorrect understanding of the Fa.)

I was stunned. I had the feeling that death would soon come to me, as if I had been notified in advance. My heart began to churn, “Is now the time to throw away the flesh body?” I was not ready yet. I forced myself to calm down and face the harsh reality that might arise.

After calming down, I seriously considered, “Yes, on the path of cultivation, sooner or later I have to leave. If I’m about to lose my physical body, what am I going to do in the short time I have left?” I wanted to think about it. I told myself that I couldn’t cultivate without a physical body, and it was the most important thing to quickly take advantage of the fact that I still had a physical body, so I must cherish every moment and immediately remove all attachments. That was what I had in mind.

I started looking within to uncover what human notions I still had. What couldn’t I let go of? I found a pen, wrote down the people and things I couldn’t let go of one by one, and then asked myself if I could let them go one by one. Some people’s names really set me off. How could I let them go?

Master said,

“Cultivation is something you do right in the thick of tribulations. They’ll test whether you can sever your emotions and desires, and they’ll see if you can take them lightly.” (The Fourth Talk, Zhuan Falun)

At that time, I realized that Master’s word “sever” meant to “cut out,” and I felt that it was as difficult as cutting my own flesh. From an everyday person’s standpoint, emotion is good, even pleasant, but as a cultivator, it is like cutting out a tumor.

One example would be letting go of my feelings for my grandmother. My grandmother had expected my mother to take care of her, but my mother died young. When my mother was dying, she asked us to take care of my grandmother. But my uncle wanted to put my grandmother in a nursing home, where she didn’t want to go. So, I had her live with me. If I died, who would take care of her?

From an everyday person’s standpoint, my feeling was filial piety for my grandmother, which is a great thing. But for cultivators, when our cultivation is about to end, if we can’t let go of this, isn’t it just another attachment? Isn’t that love for my grandmother? What should I do? I must let it go, but how could I?

At that moment, I remembered Master. I thought that if I didn’t know how to solve something, I should beg Master for help. I calmed down a little and said to Master in my heart, “Please, Master, help me. I need to get rid of this attachment right away. Please, Master, help me, before I lose my body. Please, Master, help me to get rid of this attachment.” When this thought came forth, Master immediately sent a sentence into my head: “If a son isn’t good to his parents they’ll switch roles next time.” (The Sixth Talk, Zhuan Falun)

I was suddenly enlightened. If my grandmother had treated my uncle like this in her previous life, wouldn’t it follow that I would get the short end of the stick this time? Thinking of this, my heart suddenly calmed down.

Then I tried to see what else I hadn’t let go of and crossed them off one by one. I just sat there and felt like time had stopped. I don’t know how much time passed. Looking at the people’s names and things I wrote on the paper, they have all been resolved. I couldn’t think of anyone or anything I couldn’t let go of. I took a deep breath before I realized that I was covered in sweat. It felt like I had taken off a layer of skin, like I was a different person, completely relaxed. I silently said to Master, “Master, I feel that I am OK now. If I need to throw away my physical body now, I can do it without hesitation.”

When I let go of my attachments, I suddenly found that my righteous thoughts were stronger and stronger. I decided to use righteous thoughts to break out of detention. Just as the police started to interrogate me again, I said, “You are holding me here illegally, and you must and unconditionally release me. The fact that you are imprisoning an innocent person is an insult to me, a Dafa disciple. I have decided not to eat your food again from today on.” I went on a hunger strike.

On the third day, they took me to the hospital, saying they wanted to feed me, and handcuffed me to the bed. After a long time, no one paid any attention to me. After a while, someone suddenly undid the handcuffs, and the policeman who interrogated me came in and told me to go home.

The police took a plane to a city hundreds of miles away, kidnapped me on my business trip, and detained me. In the end, I was unconditionally released in 20 days, which showed that the evil was not in charge.

My experience also confirmed something Master wrote:

“Your body lies in prison—don’t be sorrowful, don’t be sadWith righteous thoughts and righteous actions, Fa is hereCalmly reflect on how many attachments you haveAs you get rid of human mentality, evil is naturally defeated”(“Don’t Be Sad,” Hong Yin II, Translation Version B)

Master Bore the Actual Pain of Torture

In the labor camp, the guards tortured me a lot in order to try to “transform” me. For example, they tied me up tightly and started to shock me with several electric batons at once. I kept shouting, “Falun Dafa is good! It’s illegal to hit people!” After shocking me for a while, they stopped, untied me, and then did it again. Every time they tortured me, I just kept shouting the same words while holding righteous thoughts. In the end, they could not force me to “transform.”

When I took a shower many days later, I saw that the rope used to tie me up had left two long welts on my shoulders, but I didn’t feel any pain at the time. I knew that Master had borne it for me.

Another time in a detention center, they deprived me of sleep for a long time, a torture they called “training eagles.” During that time, the guards locked me up alone in a library far from the cell. More than a dozen guards worked in three shifts to torture me.

The “training eagles” torture was supposedly invented by the Nazis, and it was horrible. It was the worst on the third and fourth days. My head was buzzing all the time, but after those two days it was fine. By the fifth and sixth days, I was in good spirits. The guard asked me, “Why are you getting more and more energetic?” I told them, “Master protects us. Do you know the consequences of persecuting Dafa practitioners?”

In prison, I was tortured many times until I was in shock. We are not ordinary people, and we can ask Master for protection in times of danger, but we must not forget that we must truly be a cultivator. In this regard, I did not disgrace Master. I never compromised with the evil, and every time I refused to “confess.”

Every time I recovered after being in shock, I clearly knew that it was the evil that wanted to take my life and that it was Master who saved me. I am still alive, and I still have a physical body, but Master gave me this physical body, so I have to cherish it and use it to do what Master wants us to do, namely, tell people about Falun Dafa so they can be saved.

Resist the Persecution and Create an Environment for Practice

On the seventh day, they knew they would not succeed. The head guard said to me, “You said you wouldn’t sign a guarantee statement to stop practicing. How can we report that to the authorities?” I said, “You still want to finish your task. Think about what your future will look like. Although I didn’t sign the statement, I read it, and it had your name on it. In the future, when the persecution of Falun Gong is over, should I bring you all to court one by one?” He was speechless.

He asked me, “Tell me what you need, and I’ll try to help.” I smiled. I was waiting for this. I said, “I need a copy of Zhuan Falun.” He found a copy and gave it to me, and from that point on I was able to study the Fa in the detention center.

Shouting is a way to tell people about Falun Dafa in any environment. I shout every day, “Falun Dafa is good! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good! Heaven is destroying the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)! Quit the Party to keep yourself safe! Read the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party! Visit the The Epoch Times website!”

One day as I was shouting, the detention center director and two guards verbally abused me and beat me. Of course, they could not stop me. I continued to shout, “The police are beating me! Director Xun hit me! It’s illegal to beat people!” He cursed a few more times and left. I continued to shout.

Not long after, the director came again and shouted at me, “You can just shout, ‘Dafa is good!’ Don’t shout anything else!” I ignored him and kept shouting. Finally, the head of the detainees asked me nicely to give the director a break. So, I stopped shouting, “The director beats people” and stuck to, “Falun Dafa is good! Heaven is destroying the CCP!” This was what happened when they used violence.

In a good environment, it’s much easier to save people. Most of the detainees in my cell learned the truth about Falun Dafa and quit the Party. For those who were difficult to talk to, I tried again and again. I talked to one prisoner more than ten times.

A few people started to practice Dafa. A felon named Xiao Yuan was on track to be given a suspended death sentence for the violent crimes he’d committed. He was wearing shackles and was the bully in the cell. I told him the meaning of life and that after I obtained the Fa, I found that I had lived in vain. He said that it was not easy to read Zhuan Falun in the detention center and asked me if I could find him a copy. I did, and I told him cultivation stories. He quickly read Zhuan Falun and then asked me if I could teach him how to do the exercises. I practiced in the cell every day, so I taught him as I did them.

Xiao Yuan changed a lot after obtaining the Fa. I remember one day he sat in a corner, quietly crying. When I asked him why he was crying, he said, “Have you noticed that today’s meal is different from what we usually get?” I said, “Today is reception day, and many people eat the delicious food that their families bring them.” He said, “Yes. In the past, all the prisoners had to show me the food they got. I went through it first and left what I didn’t like for them. After I studied Dafa, I realized that it was immoral to do that. Now, even if they offer me food, I don’t want it. Haven’t I improved?”

“Yes,” I said, “you have improved.” He went on, “Today I was eating boiled cabbage, watching them having fish and meat. I didn’t expect Dafa to change me to this degree.” I was touched. Dafa can really change people’s hearts. This is the greatness of Master, the greatness of Falun Dafa. When people really want to practice, that is, when their Buddha-nature comes out, it is very touching.

One day Xiao Yuan asked me, “You are leaving. What should I do if I don’t have a book? Can I have a copy?” I said, “I’ll try to get one for you.” I asked the police officer if he could help me buy me a few large notebooks, because I wanted to transcribe Zhuan Falun. They gave five or six extra-large notebooks and dozens of pens. Xiao Yuan and I transcribed Zhuan Falun together. I made one copy and he did another. Later, he was not satisfied because his copy had too many mistakes, so he respectfully transcribed it again.

Later, Xiao Yuan was transferred to the cell next door, where he persuaded all the inmates in that cell to quit the CCP, and then gave me the list of their names. Later, Xiao Yuan shouted like I did, “Falun Dafa is good!”

The Fa-rectification Period is nearing its end, and this opportunity is rare and fleeting. If we do not seize it, we will miss the chance forever. Comfort in the human world is not real; the beings in our worlds are our real wealth. May we work together to save people and fulfill our prehistoric vows!

Thank you, Master!