(Minghui.org) I started practicing Falun Dafa in 1998 and am now in my 50s. I would like to write down some of my cultivation experiences to report to Master and share with fellow practitioners.
In 2020, I was stalked and arrested.
Encouraged to Practice
I was incarcerated in a detention center during the COVID pandemic. I didn’t cooperate with the guards and refused to have my blood drawn or get vaccinated. In that harsh environment, I struggled to keep righteous thoughts in my heart. I took on the task of cleaning the indoor spaces every day so that I could move around and have opportunities to speak to people, which made it a little more convenient for me to clarify the truth. But this was a detention center after all, and I dared not practice.
One day after a nap, an inmate suddenly shouted, “Falun Dafa is good!” That surprised me, and I asked him quietly, “Why did you shout that?” He replied, “The Dafa practitioners who were detained here before asked me to remember this sentence. They said it could turn bad luck into good fortune in times of disaster.”
His words awakened my main consciousness, and I was energized! This was what I had wanted to shout but dared not. I knew that this was not a coincidence and that Master was encouraging me. I made up my mind to overcome my fear.
At noon the next day, I started to do the exercises while on duty. I heard an inmate who was not asleep mutter, “He is doing the exercises.” I felt a little afraid, and I worried that the guard would come to beat me. But I firmly believed that Master was by my side and the evil would not dare to touch me. While rejecting the fear, I continued for an hour, and no one came to harass me. I finally made a breakthrough.
With this first breakthrough, I gradually lengthened my practice time. I agreed to be on duty for them at night, sometimes for several nights in a row, so that I had three hours to practice every day. I strictly followed Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and maintained this practice environment until I was released from the detention center.
Because I conducted myself according to Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and regarded myself as a practitioner, the cell head eventually recognized that I was responsible. I practiced every day at noon during duty hours, so the head of the cell asked me to be responsible for waking everyone up after the midday nap every day.
For the first few days when it was time to wake them up, I simply called for everyone to get up. I then thought that I had to use this opportunity to validate Dafa. I thought about just shouting “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good” instead of “Get up,” but I was afraid that this would have a negative effect if some of the inmates could not accept the phrases. Master then inspired me to recall how I woke my son up when he was young.
The next time I had to wake them up, I shouted, “The big rooster is singing, ‘Little babes get up! Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good!’” None of the inmates had a problem with me calling them little babes, and no one objected to me shouting, “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good!” Those phrases then became the alarm that woke them up every day.
I got up one day and had just finished shouting the two phrases when I heard somebody shouting the same thing in the next cell! These phrases had left a deep impression in the hearts of the prisoners. The call with the two phrases continued until I left the detention center.
“You Were Brilliant Today!”
There was a gang member inmate in my cell who treated everyone badly. During the Chinese New Year, he wanted to make a fool out of me and told me to perform for everyone. I usually didn’t sing, but I couldn’t miss this opportunity to save people. The TV was broadcasting the lyrics “Brother, I miss you… ” I improvised some lyrics to the tune and sang with movements: “Dear wife, I miss you. Are you still waiting for my return? Mom and Dad, your son can’t visit you this New Year. Son, Dad can’t buy you anything good to eat. Heaven, let these men go! It is not they who disrupt social order, it is the evil Chinese Communist Party. The Party is the real criminal. Heaven, destroy the communist bandits. If there is no communist party, there will be a new China!”
After I finished, the inmates were stunned. They gradually regained their senses, and then there was a burst of warm applause, and everyone shouted, “Bravo!” An inmate handed me a bottle of coke and said, “This is your reward!” In that setting, a bottle of coke was very precious. I knew that Master was encouraging me.
The gang member inmate who had provoked me was also surprised and said, “You were outstanding today!” Why did everyone applaud me? I knew that I had said what they had wanted to say but didn’t dare to say. These prisoners knew very well what the CCP was like. In today’s society, because of the CCP, many people in the cell had been treated unfairly.
The gang member inmate was later jealous that I had stolen the limelight and wanted to report me for making anti-CCP remarks. Almost all the prisoners in the cell had understood the truth, and I had helped them quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations, so they recognized that Falun Dafa was good and that I had good character. Several prisoners went over and stopped him from reporting me.
In fact, these men were all social deviants and were not afraid of making trouble. They had been locked up in there for a long time, so normally they wanted to see a fight. But this time they were different, my righteous thoughts had touched them, so they chose to protect me.
When newcomers came to the cell, the head of the cell would arrange for them to sit next to me for a few days and then transfer them elsewhere after I had helped them quit the CCP. If someone didn’t quit, the cell head would help me by saying a few words. It seemed that they were all were awakening. In the battle against evil, Dafa disciples play the leading role!
When I was first admitted to prison, three prisoner heads took turns intimidating me and trying to force me to write the guarantee statements to renounce Falun Gong. I refused to comply, so they forced me to sit on a small stool about eight inches high. I had to curl my legs up to sit on it. I was forced to sit there from 5:30 in the morning to 10 o’clock at night. As time passed, my feet swelled and oozed pus, and in some places they festered and scabbed.
One day a guard took me to a small dark room and asked me, “What’s wrong with your feet?” I said, “They are swollen.” He snarled “I’ll cure you.” He stepped on my scabbed ankle, twisting it back and forth. My entire ankle was suddenly covered in blood, but I didn’t feel any pain. I knew that Master had borne it for his disciple.
A guard ordered me to write words cursing Master and to curse Master, but I ignored him, so he flicked my nose for about 10 minutes, until it was red and swollen. But with Master’s protection, I didn’t feel much pain. A prisoner said admiringly, “You are truly a hero!” I knew that Master was encouraging me.
Haoran (alias) was only about 30 years old and was in prison for murder. He had been incarcerated in another city and assigned to watch practitioners, so he had been involved in “transforming” and persecuting them. After he came into contact with more of them, however, he started to sense just how kind Dafa disciples were. They told him about Dafa, and he understood Dafa and the meaning of human life. Haoran started practicing Falun Dafa.
The guards were frightened when they found out he was practicing, and they tried many tricks but failed to “transform” Haoran. They had no choice but to transfer Haoran to the prison I was in, because it had dedicated resources for persecuting practitoners. The guards in the prison had learned many vicious tricks and techniques from persecuting Dafa disciples over the years, but Haoran still refused to give in.
The guards tortured Haoran badly. Two months later, after extreme physical torture and mental torment, he couldn’t bear it anymore and wrote a guarantee statement against his will. I talked with him, and he said that he could recite Hong Yin, Hong Yin II, and Lunyu from having heard fellow practitioners recite them, but he could not recite all the contents of Zhuan Falun. Taking advantage of the weekend activities, I recited the content titles for him twice, and he memorized them. The next day, Haoran asked me, “Did you miss a section?” (He had memorized the total number of titles and subtitles before.) I realized that I had missed the section on “Jealousy,” which showed that he was being really attentive. He also said to me, “Master’s teachings have really been shown to me!”
Since Haoran had obtained the Fa in prison and had never had the opportunity to read Master’s writings, he seized every opportunity to learn the teachings. We were all given a book that the prison officials used used to try to “transform” us. It was a very thick book that contained Master’s teachings along with distorted explanations below. Haoran asked me, “Is that really Master’s Fa quoted in the book?” I told him, “Those are all Master’s words, but don’t look at their distorted interpretations. He nodded and said, “Got it.”
He read all of Master’s original words in the book that night. For the next two weeks, he would no longer write anything criticizing Master. The guards reported this to the captain, who shouted frantically, “You didn’t believe it before, why are you doing this now? Wait and see how I’m going to punish you.” He took Haoran to another team to torture him, but the violence of the CCP can never change people’s hearts!
I had slacked off in my practice at home because of my comfortable surroundings. Through these tribulations, I became stronger and had more righteous thoughts in the face of adversity.
I went to the morning market with fellow practitioners to clarify the truth, and as a woman crossed the street her phone slipped from her backpack and fell on the ground. I went over to tell her that her phone had fallen out, and she thanked me repeatedly. I should have clarified the truth to her, but I hesitated. She walked away. I turned around and tried to chase after her, but she was gone. I regretted missing the opportunity to save her.
Just as I was feeling dejected, a fellow practitioner was clarifying the truth to a woman who was not very supportive of Dafa. I plucked up the courage to say, “I also practice Falun Gong.” I told her that I had just helped someone get her phone back, and added, “If I didn’t practice Falun Gong, I might have kept it for myself. Falun Gong practitioners are all good people.”
I told her about how the CCP staged the Tiananmen self-immolation incident to frame Falun Gong and how Falun Dafa has spread all over the world. I told her about the physical and mental changes I went through after practicing Dafa. “If everyone learned Dafa, society would become better and better,” I said. She was moved by my sincerity and agreed to quit the CCP organizations.
She told me that she was a lay Buddhist and knew that there would be a catastrophe in the end times. She then said something that surprised me: “You will save me in the future!” I told her, “As long as you sincerely recite ‘Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good,’ Master Li will save you.”
We went out to clarify the truth and saw a few elderly people sitting around. I spoke to one of the men who was about 70 years old. He was a lonely old man from the countryside. We talked about how hard people’s lives are under the CCP’s rule. I told him about Dafa and that it could save him. He was very moved and agreed to quit the Party.
I told him to sincerely recite “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good,” and he could avoid adversity and keep himself safe. My words touched him all of a sudden, and he started to cry, saying, “I can’t remember them. Wait a minute, I am going to to get a pen and paper, and you can help me write them down.” When he came back with a paper and pen, he was still sobbing. I wrote the phrases on the paper and handed it to him.
I truly saw the emotion and joy of a life that had been saved. I truly realized that all lives are waiting for Dafa!