A group of local practitioners in a region of Hubei Province held a Falun Dafa Cultivation Experience Sharing Conference on April 16, 2000. After a rain, the day was sunny and bright. Over ninety practitioners got the news and participated in the conference. The conference lasted for 4 hours and concluded peacefully and solemnly.

At the conference, practitioners talked about their own understanding and experience in the current cultivation environment and exchanged ideas on such issues as treating the Fa as the teacher, studying the Fa and cultivating xinxing, and promoting and protecting the Fa. Some participants had gone to Beijing to voice their complaints several times. One practitioner was asked by the police to sign a guarantee promising not to go to Beijing to appeal and to stop practicing Falun Gong. She believed that she should not promise or guarantee anything to an ordinary person who did not understand Falun Dafa. Instead, she asked the police officer if he could guarantee that illnesses and death would not return to her if she stopped practicing. She tried to convince the police officers of the benefits of Falun Dafa by telling them about the fundamental physical and mental changes she had experienced since practicing Falun Dafa. Some practitioners kept practicing and promoting the Fa in prison and their determination was undeterred even in the face of wearing shackles that were used on death-penalty inmates. After learning that Dafa is truly good, some prisoners in the jail indicated that they would practice Dafa themselves and be good people.

At the beginning, some practitioners raised doubts about going to appeal in Beijing, and thought that the action "did not comply with the state of ordinary people." After the experience sharing, they realized that they had the attachment of fear and that the misunderstandings, misinterpretations and attacks on Falun Dafa from some everyday people in the society went far beyond the line that we should "conform with." They also agreed that if practitioners allowed the vicious attacks to continue, they were indeed assisting the ordinary people to do bad deeds, and they were not showing the "compassion" that cultivation practitioners should have. They finally joined the practitioners on the road to Beijing to prove to the public that Falun Dafa is righteous. There was one practitioner who, at the beginning, could not think through many things, but eventually she was able to put aside fame, personal interests and sentimentality by standing out fearlessly. She had indeed made an important step and walked out of the human confines. Her state of cultivation has continually become better since then. Some practitioners mentioned that after petitioning the government, the situation at home had reversed and family members had come to gain a better understanding of Dafa. They also eliminated many attachments of human sentimentality and planned to continue to appeal to the government. There were still other practitioners who never went out to appeal for certain reasons, but they were able to continue their cultivation at home and did their best to promote and prove Dafa, and expose the falsity of the media's reports to the people around them.

The leaders at some practitioners' work units would frequently be called on by the police to inform on the 'spirit' of the practitioners whenever something about Falun Dafa took place. Practitioners would ask the leaders and the police officers: "what would you do as a citizen if there were people failing to distinguish right from wrong, fabricating "facts", violating the Constitution and deceiving people?" "They claimed that people practicing Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance were 'poisoned'. If things are perceived that way, what about those who take drugs and indulge in alcohol,prostitution, gambling, etc? Are they, then, feeding on nutrition?" The leaders and police officers were unable to answer their question, but merely said that they couldn't do anything about the top leaderships' intentions.O practitioner said that she used to have coronary heart disease and she had received several critical-notices from the hospital about her situation. After practicing Dafa, she was completely cured without using any medicine. During the 6 years she has practiced Falun Dafa, she has never spent a penny on medical care. This was a fact known by many people. Whenever she was asked by her superiors, or the police, why she went to Beijing to appeal and continued to practice Dafa, she would cite her experience to convince them that: Falun Dafa saved her life and why she should stand up for Dafa and tell them the truth. Since Dafa is so great, how could she give up the practice? The police would then be speechless .

According to conservative statistics, even under the extremely difficult circumstance and the high pressure from many channels, over 90% of the practitioners in this region are continuing their practice, and their faith is becoming even more unswerving.

(The article was supplied by practitioners from Mainland China on April 22, 2000.)

(Translated on May 6, 2000)