(Minghui.org) I would like to share some of my cultivation experiences, especially those related to letting go of the attachment to life and fear of death. Master Li (the founder of Falun Dafa) has protected me at every step of the way and endured tremendously for me. I want to thank Master Li and Falun Dafa for everything.
Not long after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to suppress Falun Dafa in July 1999, we heard some practitioners had lost their lives from being mistreated by police officers and prison guards. Two family members who are practitioners and I decided to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Dafa. By avoiding officials who were intercepting petitioners, we got to the appeal center in Beijing. I handed in a complaint titled “Innocent People Were Beaten to Death” and a registration form, but no one spoke to us. Several officials, however, took us to a detention center.
Once there, I was given a notice of Administrative Detention, and two guards started to interrogate me. The guards had probably spoken with practitioners before, so their attitude toward me was not that bad. When I said Falun Dafa taught us to be good people and considerate of others, one guard asked if I would give some examples. I told them how my elder brother, who is also a practitioner, handled a serious accident. After being hit by a car while riding his bike, he was bleeding, and his clothes were torn. When the driver asked if my brother needed to go to the hospital, he said he didn’t. He even turned down money the driver offered him to replace his clothing and to repair his bike.
“This is what Zhuan Falun, a book of the main teachings of Falun Dafa, teaches us to do. Don’t you agree my brother is a good person?” I asked.
“It’s not an issue of being a good person or not. Your brother was very silly, and he should have taken the driver’s money,” replied the guard.
I explained to him that one might think this way as a bystander. But for the driver, if the victim did not extort money from him, what would he think of the victim? The guard thought for a while and said, “Yes, he is a good person then.”
“Master Li told us to always be considerate of others. That is why we handle things this way,” I continued.
We talked about many things, and they also asked about my job. After I told them my profession, one guard asked, “You have a decent job. Aren’t you afraid you may lose it?”
“That’s okay. I can find another one,” I replied.
“What if the government [CCP] does not let you look for a job as long as you practice Falun Dafa?” he asked.
“I will go through the trash and sell recyclables,” I replied.
“What if you are not even allowed to do that?” he continued.
“Then I will eat the food that is thrown away in garbage cans,” I answered.
Hearing this, the guard blurted out, “I really respect Falun Dafa practitioners.” He then turned sideways, and I noticed his eyes were wet.
Despite the Administrative Detention notice, I was released a week later. I knew that the guards who had learned some facts about Dafa had made a good decision. As I walked out of the detention center, I thanked Master Li for protecting me.
Since appealing to the government agencies did not lead to anything positive, I went to Tiananmen Square in 2000 and unfurled a banner that said, “Falun Dafa Is Good.” In a short time, police officers picked me up and took me to the Tiananmen Police Station. Like many other practitioners, I did not tell them my name or address. If I did, the police in town my would pick me up for further persecution.
The police mistreated us to make us give them our names. They slapped us in the face, handcuffed our hands behind our backs, and whipped us with a belt. By evening, practitioners who gave their names were transported elsewhere in batches, while those who did not give their names were kept in metal cages. I asked to meet with a police officer and was taken to a room with a lone policeman. I closed the door and asked him, “I think you officers must be tired of beating us up. How about we calm down and talk to each other?”
“Sure, why don’t you tell me why you won’t give us your name,” he replied. So, I briefly explained how Falun Dafa teaches one to be a better person and described what happened when I visited the appeal center.
Then I said, “It was okay for you to beat me because I would be fine anyway. But how about that grandma? She is older than my parents. If your mother saw you beating a woman like that, what would she think?”
He did not say anything, but I knew his conscience had been piqued. When I asked if we were good people, he said we were. I then asked if he could report our situation to higher officials, he became emotional and replied, “How do you know we haven’t done that? After filing such a report, we would be punished; any subsequent report came with an additional punishment; a third report with a third punishment; and so on. Who dares to report anymore?”
“Protecting the innocent is a police officer’s duty, and I know you have done your best. I heard some officers took practitioners to remote suburbs and released them. Have you heard about this?” I asked.
He did not respond. He was probably considering what I had suggested.
When it was almost midnight, an officer undid my handcuffs and said I could go home. Later, I heard that all the other practitioners who refused to tell their names were released after me. I knew it was due to the kindness of that officer I talked to.
I returned home at night and went to work as usual the next day. Looking back, I could not imagine that, without Master’s protection, I would have been able to leave the Tiananmen Police Station in just a few hours.
The mentality of taking chances does not work in cultivation practice. We had a group discussion after the peaceful appeal on April 25, 1999. Although the persecution had not yet officially started, a stranger came to our group practice site that morning to stop us from doing the exercises. That unsettled all of us. During the discussion, we also talked about something Master Li said:
“Didn’t you hear me say that when a person succeeded in cultivating Arhatship, he stumbled because he developed fear in his heart? Every human attachment must be removed, no matter what it is. Some disciples said: “What’s there to fear? My body would still sit there even with my head cut off.” When you compare them it’s clear at a glance how well they cultivate.” (“Huge Exposure,” Essentials for Further Advancement)
Later in 2000 I was put in a local detention center. Despite interrogation and torture, I refused to yield to their demands, nor did I answer questions from officials who attempted to twist my words and frame me. Two weeks passed, and the guards stopped interrogating me. One day, I was bored and opened an English-Chinese dictionary, thinking I could at least learn some words to pass the time. The first word I saw shocked me.
The word was “crucifixion,” which means killing a person by affixing them to a cross and letting them die. Did this mean I would die miserably that way? At that time, I did not realize my thoughts were not in line with Dafa’s teachings. My mind was blank, as if death could come to me without warning. “Is that how I will lose this physical body?” I wondered. But I was not ready to die.
After calming down, I thought, “Well, as a practitioner, my cultivation will end someday sooner or later. If time is so limited, what should I do?” I needed to cultivate myself well, eliminate all attachments, and validate Dafa, so I grabbed a pen and wrote down the attachments I could not let go of. I knew it would be difficult, but I had to eliminate them. As I worked hard to remove them one after another, I felt my righteous thoughts grow stronger and stronger. And I knew what to do to leave that place.
Several officers came to interrogate me. “It is totally illegal for you to detain me here. You must release me unconditionally,” I said calmly. “It is insulting to me since I am innocent. So, I will start a hunger strike now.” I stopped eating. Guards took me to a hospital on the third day, threatening to force-feed me. They handcuffed and chained me to a bed and left me alone for a long time. Then, someone came to remove the cuffs and chains. An officer who previously interrogated me said, “You can go home now.”
Just as Master said:
“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)
To force me to give up my belief, guards in the forced labor camp tortured me in all kinds of ways. While one of them was tying me up tightly with a rope, others shocked me with electric batons. I kept saying, “Falun Dafa is good” and “It is illegal to torture people,” but they did not stop. To increase the pain, they loosened the rope for a while and then tied me up again. I just kept my righteous thoughts and called out the same words. So they failed to make me give in.
When I was taking a shower many days later, I saw that the rope had cut into the flesh through my jersey and left two deep, long scars on my shoulder. But I did not feel any pain at the time. I knew Master had endured it for me.
The guards deprived me of sleep for a long time. I heard that the Nazis invented this method of torture. But I did not feel that bad right away. The worst came on the third or fourth day when my head started buzzing all the time. But then things got better. By days five and six, I was energized. When one guard asked why, I replied, “It is because Master Li is protecting us practitioners. Do you know the consequence of persecuting people protected by the divine?”
Because of the severe torture, I went into shock several times. Whenever I regained consciousness, I always remembered Master Li’s words:
“If you are a true cultivator, our Falun will safeguard you. I am rooted in the universe. If anyone could harm you, he or she would be able to harm me. Put simply, that person would be able to harm this universe.” (“Lecture One,” Zhuan Falun)
We are not ordinary people, and we can ask Master for help when in danger. But we should also know there is a precondition. That is, one needs to be “a true cultivator.” I did not let Master down in this regard. I never yielded to the officials, and I never confessed to any wrongdoing.
Every time I regained consciousness from shock, I clearly knew that the vicious elements wanted to take my life and Master helped me repay the karmic debts. Right now, I still have a physical body. Master may have paid the karmic debts of life for me several times. So, I really cherish my physical body and will do well in cultivating myself while helping to save people.
On the seventh day of sleep deprivation, the guards knew they had failed to break me. The head guard said to me, “If you continue with zero confession and refuse to sign the paperwork, how can we finish our job?”
“What you said is true. Although I did not sign the paperwork, I did memorize the names of the guards listed on the document,” I replied. “After the suppression is over, shall I take you to court one by one?”
Not knowing how to answer, the guard paused and asked, “Tell me what you need, and I will see what I can do.”
I smiled because I was waiting to hear him say this. I replied, “I need a copy of Zhuan Falun.”
To my surprise, he found me a copy of the book right away, and I was able to study the Dafa teachings after that.
I will give an example of the power of calling out to validate Dafa. Every day, when detainees were let out of the cell for a break, I would call out things like, “Falun Dafa is good” and “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” One day, when I was saying these words, the camp director arrived with two guards. He swore at me and beat me. This had no impact on me, and I continued calling out and adding new sentences, “The director is beating people!” and “Beating people is illegal!”
After a while, the director came back and shouted at me, “Just call out ‘Falun Dafa is good’ and nothing else. Okay?!” I ignored him and continued saying the same things as before. After a while, the head inmate came over and repeated what the director had said. I did him a favor and stopped saying “The director is beating people,” and “Beating people is illegal.” Looking back, I found it a little funny. It is hard to imagine that the director of a detention center would ask a detainee to say, “Falun Dafa is good,” but this really happened.
Such a relaxed environment made it easy for us practitioners to tell inmates the facts about Dafa and ask them to quit their memberships in CCP organizations. Many inmates saw no future, so they were willing to listen to what I said. But some people were stubborn and I had to repeatedly tell them about the goodness of Falun Dafa and debunk the propaganda the CCP had spread.
Some even began practicing Dafa. For example, Yang was a violent felon. He would likely receive the death penalty if he didn’t get a reprieve. His feet were chained all the time. He was the second in command among the inmates. I chatted with him about Falun Dafa and how the practice helped me understand life. He found it curious that I could read Zhuan Falun in the cell and asked if he could read it. I gave him the book and told him stories about cultivating. He read the book and wanted to learn the exercises, so I showed him how to do them.
After doing the exercises every day, Yang changed a lot. Once at mealtime, I noticed he stayed in a corner and was in tears. I was surprised that a violent felon would behave like that, so, after the meal, I asked him in private what was wrong. He said today was a family visiting day, and many family members brought good food for the inmates. In the past, other inmates would give some of the food to Yang first and only dared to eat what was left over. He said, “After practicing Falun Dafa, I knew I was wrong and stopped doing that. Now, other inmates no longer give me the best food. I could not imagine I would ever do this. Have I improved?” I nodded, and my eyes were wet, too—Falun Dafa is indeed powerful.
Worrying that he wouldn’t have the Dafa book to read after I was released, Yang hand-copied Zhuan Falun twice. He was later moved to another cell and started telling other inmates about Dafa and asking them to quit the CCP organizations. When I called out, “Falun Dafa is good” at break time, he said it with me. I was very happy for him.