A 53-Year Veteran Party Member Says Personal Experience Consolidates His Firm Belief In Falun Dafa

I am a 70-year-old Falun Dafa practitioner. I have been a Party member for 53 years, and I am also a veteran cadre, having retired with honor in 1991. Being in the party for so long, I have witnessed all kinds of social movements and turbulences since the foundation of the People's Republic. It is hard for me to have faith in anything. In 1998, my wife and two daughters started practicing Falun Dafa. They suggested I join them, but I told them I was a complete materialist, and I didn't believe in what they were practicing. Seeing their changes, however, I was touched. For years, my wife had poor health including high blood pressure, neurasthenia, and insomnia. She made great improvements after practicing Falun Dafa. She used to have a distended abdomen that was hard when palpitated. She suffered from constipation. After practicing Falun Dafa, her abdomen became flat and soft. In the past, she would get a headache if she had been watching TV for 20 minutes. But now, she can watch the videotapes of Mr. Li Hongzhi's lectures for four or five hours without feeling tired. She didn't know many Chinese characters either, but she soon could read the whole book of Zhuan Falun, and now she can read some newspapers. Her eyes no longer have pain. I couldn't help wondering what brought all these changes. My daughter asked me to read Zhuan Falun. Flipping over several pages, I was reluctant to believe what it said. Can it be like that? My daughter told me to read the whole book twice thoroughly before making any comments. When I read it through, I realized that Falun Dafa is a cultivation system that teaches people to be good. Practitioners must eliminate the desires for fame and personal gain, clear the mind of fighting and jealousy, consider other people first, and treat people kindly. By doing these and constantly upgrading their xinxing (mind nature), practitioners will achieve good health and reach a higher realm. One month after I started practicing Falun Gong and watching the videotape of the Teacher's lecture, I experienced purification of my body. One afternoon I suddenly felt ill which lasted for an hour. Then I started to vomit. I had a fever, dizziness, a headache, and chest discomfort; I did not have an appetite for dinner. I knew that the Teacher was clearing my body, so I went to watch the videotapes of the Teacher's lecture in Changchun. While I was watching the videotapes, I started to feel better and better. I felt very comfortable at the end. I was fine by the time I got home. I have not been sick ever since. I used to bicker with my wife over nothing. Since practicing Falun Dafa, we tolerate and compromise with each other. Our family became harmonious. I also feel younger; though I am 70, many people take me for 50. There were times when I did the meditation at night, I felt like I was sitting on a yellow rectangular table. I felt that my limbs did not exist and whole body was very comfortable. My legs were slightly painful, but the pain was far away from me. I wanted to move but I couldn't. It was just like what was described in Zhuan Falun. My belief in Dafa was further consolidated. Through practicing Falun Dafa, I came to realize that Zhuan Falun was a book from heaven. As long as one is truly practicing in accordance with Dafa, Teacher will adjust practitioners' bodies, eliminate karma and illnesses, and restore bodies to a disease-free state. Yet Jiang Zemin and his gang slander the Teacher and Dafa, forbid people to follow Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance and to practice Falun Gong to gain better health. Tens of thousands of people have gone to Beijing to appeal and clarify the truth about Falun Gong, but they have been beaten up, arrested, detained, and sent to labor camps, prisons, and mental institutions. So far, nearly 200 Falun Dafa practitioners have died due to the persecution. What Jiang Zemin's group has done is against the will of the people and is bound to bring disaster. On July 20, 1999, my daughter went to Beijing to appeal and was held illegally in the police station for more than 10 days. Under the repeated threats and pressure from police, against my will, I wrote a promise not to practice Falun Dafa. I have done a great bad thing that betrayed the Teacher and Dafa. However in the following 20 months, the police never stopped harassing me. They often made telephone calls and came over to my home, usually more than twice every month. After studying the Fa and the Teacher's new articles and talking to fellow practitioners, I gained a clear mind about the situation. To comply with the requirements of the evil is actually tolerating it and giving it recognition. I know I didn't do well under the persecution. It is Dafa that has created and constructed our lives. Without Dafa there will be nothing. I shouldn't have hidden at home practicing Dafa secretly, when the evil is persecuting Dafa. I have done more than a wrong deed. My selfishness is so ugly and buried so deep, yet I have been holding on to it for such a long time. Why didn't I realize that a being who has attained the Fa but is not able to come out to validate Fa is actually smearing Fa. I see clearly the value of our humble lives lies in assimilating and validating Dafa. I see clearly that when confronting the evil persecution, the "selfish mind" of a Dafa practitioner is a shame. I see clearly how fellow practitioners participated in Fa-rectification one after another. I have no reason to stick to a selfish mindset and worry about personal gains and losses. I have to go out to validate the Fa, to expose the evil, and to let people know the truth. So I started to do what a particle in Dafa ought to do, like helping spread Dafa materials, writing a "Solemn Statement," and writing articles about my experience in practicing Dafa. During the Chinese Lunar New Year, the police came over to my place four times within a short period of one month. Each time, I told them how good Falun Dafa really is and how practitioners like me benefited from it. They often said, "We have no choice. It is an order from higher up. Let's try to understand each other." After the lunar New Year, the policeman came to me again and pressed me to write a promise giving up the practice. I said, "I can't. I have committed no crime. Why should I write it?" Seeing that I insisted on not writing it, he left. The last time they came to my home, before they said anything, I asked, "You come here so often, but I didn't commit any crime. Are you acting according to the state law? You are actually violating human rights and harassing the neighborhood. Aren't you just forcing me to appeal in Beijing? I am going tomorrow, for your harassment and violation of the law." They said eagerly, "We didn't mean it. Maybe we didn't do our job properly. We won't come again." Indeed they have never showed up sine then. Now I see that Dafa practitioners shouldn't comply with the evil forces. "No matter what the situation, do not cooperate with the evil's demands, orders, or what it instigates. If everyone does this, the environment won't be this way." (Dafa Disciples' Righteous Thoughts are Powerful) At the same time, we should actively eliminate the evil by telling people our experiences in practicing Dafa. Tell them or write to them about how we benefit from practicing and how we are persecuted for demanding a right to be good people. We can rely on the wisdom we are bestowed with by Dafa to clarify the truth, expose the evil, and support fellow practitioners. We can help clear the evil thoughts provoked in people's minds and leave no place for the evil to dwell. Written on April 30, 2001 by Dafa practitioner on Mainland China.