(Clearwisdom.net)
I. Fa Study
In early 1996, I received a copy of Falun Gong. After reading this book, I thought that Falun Gong was very good and that I really wanted to understand it more deeply. I then bought Zhuan Falun, which is the main teaching of Falun Gong, and every morning I would go to the practice site to do the exercises, and in my spare time I would read Zhuan Falun. Master emphasized that we should spend more of our time in studying the Fa and I realized this must be important, as Master had emphasized this point.
My understanding of Falun Dafa developed, and I spent my spare time studying the Fa. Every day, except when I was working or doing housework, and after I had finished the exercises in the morning, I would spend the rest of the day studying. As I truly began to calm down while studying, I felt that I was not reading the book with my eyes but instead with my heart. I felt great.
Soon I bought a copy of Essentials for Further Advancement. After reading the book I realized Master's short articles were guiding us on how to cultivate. I then memorized the short articles until I could recite the entire book. I felt it was important to recite the Fa, because Master's words would then always be with me during my cultivation. Sometimes when I had some spare time at work, I would recite one of the short articles and this increased my Fa study time.
Later, when Master talked about Changchun practitioners' memorizing the Fa, I thought to myself that I should also memorize Zhuan Falun. At first, I had some difficulty in memorizing it. Some of the sentences were not easy to remember, so I decided to memorize one paragraph at a time. I would start the second paragraph after I was fluent with the first paragraph. One paragraph after another, I would finish each section. Then I would start all over from the beginning section until I was fluent with it. Then I would use the same method to memorize the second section. After I finished memorizing seven sections of the first lecture, I would start all over again and memorize the first lecture till I was fluent with it. It took me a month to memorize the first lecture. I followed the same procedure to memorize the second lecture, the third lecture, etc. After memorizing the first lecture, it seemed that the rest of the lectures were much easier to memorize. It took me six months to memorize all of Zhuan Falun. After that, when I studied the Fa, I would recite the book. Reciting the Fa during that time laid a very solid foundation for my future cultivation. I was very firm in my cultivation, especially after the CCP launched the persecution of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999. I was able to step forward to help Master's Fa rectification, and I have walked the path Master arranged for me.
II. Validating Dafa
Before the persecution began on July 20, 1999, we had several practice sites and Fa study groups in our region. Every morning we would meet for group practice. At night, we would meet for group Fa study. During the holidays, we would organize practitioners to promote Falun Dafa in the nearby villages. Then, Jiang Zemin started the suppression of Falun Gong across the whole of China. On July 21, fellow practitioners and I went to Beijing to validate Dafa. Our local police brought us back and tried to force us to give up our practice.
However, its just like what Master said,
“...once a person learns the truth and the real meaning of life, he will not regret giving up his life for it.” (“Some Thoughts of Mine” from Essentials for Further Advancement II)
How could I give up my cultivation practice when it had given me so much? When I would not give up Falun Dafa, I was dismissed from my job and they withheld my salary.
During that time, every day on TV I had to face the relentless propaganda, slander and lies about Master and Dafa. At first it was so overwhelming that I just did not know what to. I knew that I must defend Dafa, so I went to Beijing again to clarify the facts. On Tiananmen Square, I was arrested. Because I would not tell them my name or my home address, they took me to a detention center in Beijing. At that time I only had one thought: “I will not allow them to damage Dafa!” Every time they interrogated me, I would tell them how beautiful Dafa was and how wrong it was to persecute Dafa. I began a hunger strike to protest the evil persecution. I had strong righteous thoughts, and 13 days later I was able to leave that detention center in Beijing.
After returning home, local officials put me in a detention center because I would not stop practicing Falun Gong. They then sent me to the forced labor camp. When my term at the labor camp expired, I was sent to forced brainwashing centers. Because they could not “transform” me, I was detained again in the detention center for over a year. During that year they failed to make me give up the practice, so they sent me to the forced labor camp again.
During those times of persecution, no matter how difficult the conditions were, I kept on memorizing the Fa. I viewed the Fa as my Master and I could feel that Master was by my side all the time. Facing evil persecution, encountering hardships, or while resisting the evil persecution, I was able to stay true to Dafa with our Master's blessings and benevolent protection.
Here are some of the ways I was persecuted. I was sent to the forced brainwashing center so they could attempt to “transform” me. Each person in the class was given a little stool to sit on. Except for washing ourselves and having meals, they would force us to sit on that little stool, keeping both feet and legs together all day. With both hands placed flat on our knees, we would be forced to listen to or watch videos that slandered Master and Dafa. They also forced practitioners to read articles slandering Master and Dafa. If we did not read the articles, we were beaten, shocked with electric batons, and otherwise tortured. One morning they ordered me to read an article that slandered Master. As I would not read it, they beat me severely and forced me to squat for a long time. When I was in this position, I recited “Beyond the Limits of Forbearance,” in which Master said,
“Forbearance (ren) is not cowardice, much less is it resigning oneself to adversity. ”
“Forbearance is absolutely not the limitless giving of free rein, which allows those evil beings who no longer have any human nature or righteous thoughts to do evil without limit.”
("Beyond the Limits of Forbearance" from Essentials for Further Advancement II)
It was clear in my heart that I should not allow the evil to persecute Dafa practitioners at will and I should not be submissive while I was here. I demanded to talk to the captain. During our talk I told him that I had not committed any crime by practicing Dafa. It was illegal for them to send me to this forced labor camp. In every practitioners' eyes, Dafa is more important than their physical lives on this earth. Practitioners would rather die than read those articles that slandered Master and Dafa. Having such a righteous and firm heart frightened and removed the evil factors behind the prison officers. They did not persecute me further and they did not ask Dafa practitioners to read those articles slandering Master or Dafa. I knew on the surface it seemed that the evil was afraid of making things worse or causing themselves more trouble. But the truth was, because a Dafa practitioners' mindset was in line with the requirements of Dafa, these changes were able to occur. In other dimensions, it was Dafa's power that removed the evil beings.
When I was in a brainwashing center, I did the exercises. They then dragged me to an empty room and handcuffed me to a heater. I reinforced the thought that I should not acknowledge any evil persecution. I then cried out, “Falun Dafa is good!” I used all my strength to keep calling out those words from morning till night, until the bell rang for bed. People began to go to sleep, but I still kept crying out, “Falun Dafa is good!” Outside it was very quiet. I only stopped when I realized I should not keep others from sleeping.
The next morning when the bell rang to get up, once again I began to shout, “Falun Dafa is good!” Two police instructors came to my room and said, “Stop shouting! Stop shouting! Yesterday you shouted the whole day. We all know that. Even people on the street know that.” As they talked, they took off my handcuffs and told me to go back to my room to wash up and then have breakfast. Back in my room there were two people who had been sent to “transform” me. They were fellow practitioners who were arranged by my work unit. When they saw me coming back, they were very happy. They told me, “Yesterday we were very frightened. You were not afraid. Instead, you kept shouting those words. You shouted so loudly for the whole day yesterday. You did not even eat anything. We thought you must have hurt your vocal chords when you stopped at night.” At that moment I realized that although I had shouted the whole day, I did not have a sore throat and I could still talk normally. I immediately understood that Master had been strengthening me all that time.
Master said,
"Cultivation depends on one’s own efforts, while the transformation of gong is done by one’s master." (Zhuan Falun)
I felt very grateful to our Master from the bottom of my heart. Thank you, Master!
One time, many officials from other forced labor camps came to the labor camp where I was detained to study and improve their methods of persecuting Dafa practitioners. When they were visiting practitioners' rooms, one official asked me several questions. I followed Dafa's requirements and answered his questions by explaining the facts about Dafa and this illegal persecution.
The staff members felt that I was making them lose face. That night while I was sleeping, they dragged me outside to the big vegetable garden to torture me. On the way to the garden, I asked Master to save me. I told myself that I was Master's disciple and I would not allow any evil to persecute me. There were seven to eight people out there in the dark. I could clearly see some of their faces and recognized that these officials were known for being very cruel in torturing practitioners.
As I stood still, they surrounded me. Some of them were carrying electric batons, and some of them were carrying handcuffs. They howled and moved towards me.
Suddenly I heard a voice talking to me in my ear,
"If anyone can harm you, he or she would be able to harm me. Put simply, that person would be able to harm this universe." (Zhuan Falun)
Master's Fa strengthened me, and I thought, “Yes that’s right. Who can affect our Master?” Once I had such a righteous thought, I became extremely calm. I said in a surprisingly quiet voice, “I have a few things that I want say to you.” My calmness took them aback. They stopped howling. They said, “Go ahead.” I first told them that Falun Dafa was not an evil cult and that Chinese citizens have the right to freedom of belief. Practicing Falun Dafa was not committing a crime. I told them about the beauty of Falun Dafa. I told them persecuting Falun Dafa was illegal and it was committing a crime against the Chinese people.
I firmly believed that it was right for me to speak this way to them. Finally I asked them, “Will any of you dare to make public what you plan to do tonight?” After I said all that, it turned quiet. Then the head police officer shouted, “Let's go back! Let's go back!” I noticed that there were only four people left in front of me. I did not know when everyone else had left. On the way back to my room, tears of joy expressed how excited I was at that moment. Dear Master! Our great and compassionate Master! It was you who helped me to pass this hardship. Every time I encountered hardships, Master helped me to pass the test. I made up my mind to try my best and do even better to walk the path that Master arranged for me.
At night in the forced labor camp I wrote out some of Master's short articles that I had memorized. Soon opportunities opened up and I delivered them to fellow practitioners. After they knew the truth of Falun Gong, some people who were originally arranged to monitor and “transform” us helped us to deliver the short articles.
Shortly, among our practitioners there was an upsurge of memorizing the Fa and studying the Fa. Later, almost every practitioner there was delivering Master's short articles and memorizing those articles. The whole body of practitioners in the forced labor camp improved greatly. By the end of that year, the staff members at the forced labor camp gave us a test to find out if we had been “transformed.” Though they had expected a good success rate in “transforming” Falun Gong practitioners, all the practitioners (except those individuals who had deviated from their practice) answered the test by following Dafa's requirements of doing the three things well. Even some practitioners who at first failed the test and helped the forced labor camp officials to “transform” practitioners also passed the test this time. Over 100 practitioners formed one body, and this big reversal shocked the evil.
This indicated the complete failure of their effort to “transform” Falun Dafa practitioners. After this many practitioners understood that, in fact, it was Master who saw that we studied the Fa well during that time and then arranged for us a new opportunity to return to our cultivation environments.
After leaving the forced labor camp, I wholeheartedly devoted myself to clarifying the facts about Dafa. Using my persecution experience at the forced labor camp, I told everyone the facts. I wrote letters and flyers describing the persecution and sent them to the pertinent offices. I visited the officers and talked with them face-to-face. From the district party secretary, district director, secretary of the politics and law committee, to the police station, residential street office, and staff members from the subdivision, many of them finally learned the truth about Falun Gong. One office began processing my retirement papers (even though at that time I had not reached retirement age), and this solved the problem of living day to day. Without any financial worries, this ensured that I was able to focus wholeheartedly on truth-clarification.
Over the past ten years of cultivating in Dafa, especially during the ten years of the evil persecution, I have encountered many hardships. I have made it to the present with our benevolent Master's guidance and compassionate protection. If there was no guidance from Master, I would not have been able to cultivate at all. Master has already paved our way home, and he also protects and cares for us all the time. I will continue to do the three things well according to Master's requirements. I will walk well on the path of cultivation. I will not let our Master or let sentient beings down.
