(Clearwisdom.net) Whenever I read articles from Minghui Weekly about how practitioners are tortured to death or near death, I feel very heavy and worried about those who are still detained. I also had an experience of being illegally arrested and detained, but I broke through the persecution after nine days. When I look back, I realize that whenever a practitioner has an ordinary person's thought, it gives the evil forces an excuse to persecute him. If a practitioner's thoughts are always on the Fa and his cultivated side maintains a clear and strong state, the things happening around him will move in a good direction. I would like to share my experience so that we can improve together in our understanding of the Fa.
In January 2004, one of our fellow practitioners was monitored by the police, so I rented a new house. I moved into the new house on the 14th. In the morning, I received a call from a Dafa project coordinator. The coordinator kept asking for my address. Though I knew it was not right to expose my address on the phone, I still gave it to him. I was worried that if I refused, he might have felt hurt. In the afternoon, a practitioner phoned me and spoke my name directly on the phone. Because the phone was monitored, my identity was fully exposed. Less than 20 minutes later, the police came and arrested me. (The police broke into my home and did not provide any legal document or warrant.)
In the police car, the police tried to force me to answer their questions. I told them that I did not know the information that they wanted to find out. A policeman spoke very nastily and tried to anger me. I knew his intention, but I failed to maintain my xinxing (my attachment of fighting) and I talked back. The policeman was so angry that he grabbed a bottle of water and hit me on the head. I suddenly became clear-headed and Teacher's words appeared in my mind: "Just by having your heart unaffected you will be able to handle all situations." ("Eliminate Your Last Attachment(s)").
The policeman said in a soft voice, "I hit you. Do you hate me?" I said slowly, "You are too cruel." He said, "When I beat other practitioners, they all thanked me for giving them de (virtue). How come you say that I am cruel?" I said, "We practitioners are not only kindhearted but also upright. You have positioned yourself by what you just did to me." He asked, "What position?" I told him, "Good is rewarded with good, evil meets retribution."
Later they took me to a hotel in a mountainous area. I was handcuffed. Two persons at my sides dragged me up the stairs by the handcuffs. They covered my head with my coat while they beat and kicked me. When we were at the third or fourth floor, they threw me to the floor and took the coat off my head.
In great pain, I slowly stood up. Looking at them directly and calmly, I silently recited the verse for the Fa-rectification.
They used different ways trying to force me to give them information about our truth clarification materials production site and other practitioners. Some of them pretended to be very nice, some were fierce, some tried to make me think that they were friends of my acquaintances, some tried to trick me using their evil enlightenment. Some threatened that if I did not cooperate with them, I would be sentenced to six or ten years in prison. Some said that I would be killed if I gave them false information. I clearly knew the purpose behind all their efforts, so I refused all their demands. Teacher said in Zhuan Falun,
"When her family saw that she was insane and always ran out of the house, they would lock her up in the house. Once her family members left the house, she would unlock the door just by pointing her fingers at the lock. Then she would run off. Later, they would restrain her with iron chains. When everyone left home, she would shake off the chains with ease."
[...]
"It is known that in history there have indeed been documented insane monks or insane Taoists, such as the insane monk who drove Qin Hui out of a temple with a broom, and other stories about insane Taoists. There are many such classic stories."
I felt the handcuffs open and slide off my hands. The police found out and put the handcuffs on me again, then they continued the interrogation. "What do you know?" they asked me. I said, "I only know that Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good."
On the second day, a policeman who was well known for beating practitioners came in. He shouted, "Tell me!" I said, "I know nothing." He slapped my head. I temporarily lost my eyesight and fainted. When I regained consciousness, I slowly raised my head. My eyes met his and I looked into his eyes with righteous thoughts in my mind. He glared at me at the same time. He swung his fist in front of my face four times. Every time, his fist nearly touched my eyelashes. I kept on looking at his eyes. Slowly he lowered his arm. He began yelling and cursing and complaining about how tired he was.
Teacher said in the article, "Stop the Evil Acts with Righteous Thoughts":
"When you are persecuted in any way you can use righteous thoughts to turn the tables on the bad people and stop the persecution. And this includes those who assault the students with punches and kicks"
I understand that when facing the evil, if we look at the evil with righteous thoughts and eliminate the evil with the great compassion that an enlightened being should have, the evil will be timid and afraid, and it will definitely be eliminated.
I said to Teacher in my heart, "Teacher, please don't worry about me. I will follow the "Fa" to handle this. I will not get any practitioner into trouble, so more practitioners can safely continue their efforts to validate Dafa and save sentient beings. At the same time, Teacher, please strengthen my righteousness. I must break through the persecution."
When the perpetrators saw that they could not get anything from me, they had to send me to a local detention center. On the way back they told me, "Your house is rented by so-and-so (name omitted for security concern). It is you who asked him to write a solemn declaration. It was also you who proposed to intercept cable TV [to broadcast information about the persecution of Falun Gong], and you who wrote the letter about your being homeless." I was surprised and denied all of his claims. At the same time, I understood that if a practitioner is arrested, it is not solely due to that practitioner's own problem or the loopholes in his cultivation, it is also directly related to the local practitioners' state as a whole body.
Stepping into the gate of the detention center, they asked me to sign the detention document stating the reason for my detention as "destruction of social order." I refused to sign. While walking in I shouted, "Falun Dafa is good! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good!" There was another practitioner in the cell. We encouraged and helped each other. We shared our understanding about how to cultivate while in illegal detention, how to break through the persecution with righteous thoughts and fulfill our promise to save sentient beings.
Because I had the determined and righteous will to break through the detention, Teacher helped me. Soon, I had symptoms of a stomachache and I vomited whatever I ate, but I was not afraid. I felt that Teacher was right beside me.
I told the practitioner in my cell, "No matter what situation I might experience, don't be afraid. I won't have any danger or illness. This is the way Teacher is helping me. It is another type of hunger strike. I can carry this out, it is my choice." The practitioner encouraged me and reminded that me no matter what my decision was, I should memorize Teacher's words from "Righteous Thoughts and Righteous Actions:"
A Great Enlightened Being does not fear hardship
Having forged an adamantine will
And with no attachment to living or dying
He walks his path of Fa-rectification openly and nobly
On the third night, I had no energy and my body was twisted and full of pain. Yet I had no fear and kept on sending forth righteous thoughts. I recited Lunyu, and explained the truth of Falun Gong to the inmates. The other practitioner in the cell also sent forth righteous thoughts to help me break through the detention. The police feared that I would die at any moment and sent me to a hospital.
On the sixth day, it was getting close to the Chinese New Year. An official from the city government visited the detention center. The police said that I was a Falun Gong practitioner. The official said, "She is on a hunger strike." The police said, "She is not. She vomits whatever she eats." (I vomited so severely that there was blood and bitter bile.) In the afternoon, they sent me to a hospital for an examination. The doctor said, "She has inflammation of the gallbladder, which might further spread to the liver. Therefore, she needs to be hospitalized and given surgery." However, I was not hospitalized due to a shortage of hospital staff, and I was sent back to the detention center. The police told my cellmates that there was a dead roundworm in my gallbladder and that I needed surgery.
On the seventh day, since I had not taken any food, I became too weak to say anything. I thought that this was not the correct situation and that I must keep my flesh body alive. Thinking this (I was actually confused by illusions, and my human notions emerged), I slowly ate an apple that somebody had given me. At the same time, I chatted with inmates in the cell about the truth of Falun Gong. When the policeman heard that I had started to eat, he relaxed and went home for the holiday.
A practitioner talked with me and said that I had an attachment to this body. She gave me examples: When I heard that I would be sent to the hospital, I was happy because I thought it was a chance to escape. Because of the attachment, I did not have an opportunity to escape either time that I was sent to the hospital. I thought about what she said and found that I did have a fear of losing this human body. This is an ordinary person's thought instead of a practitioner's thought. If our hearts and minds are full of the Fa, and if we put down every human attachment, do not recognize the old forces' arrangement, deny the arrangement thoroughly, and firmly believe in Teacher and Fa, then there is nothing we cannot conquer.
When my xinxing improved, my environment changed for the better and the perpetrators began to discuss my case. An inmate told me that it would be almost impossible for me to be released on bail for medical treatment.
On the eighth day, the person on duty feared that my life would be in danger at any moment. So, I was put on intravenous infusions in the early morning. I firmly believed in Teacher and Fa, and my righteous thoughts were unmovable. Through the years of my cultivation in Falun Dafa, I have seen Falun rotating in front of my eyes. Especially during this time, many Falun were rotating in front me. I understood that this was a type of encouragement.
On the ninth day, the person on duty gave me an injection. Around 9 a.m., the head of the city 610 Office came to deliver the document to release me on bail for medical treatment. With firm and righteous belief in Teacher and the Fa, through nine days of resisting the evil forces, along with the support from practitioners outside of the detention center, I openly walked out from the detention center and back into the big current of Fa-rectification. I would not be alive today without Teacher's great compassion or if I had not had strong righteous thoughts, or if other practitioners both inside and outside of the detention center had not cooperated together. Instead, I would have been already dead according to the old forces' arrangement, as a practitioner had seen in his dream.
It is exactly as Teacher said in the poem "Master-Disciple Grace"
Violent evil has raged for four years
With a steady helm, bearings are not lost
Fa disciples experience evil's trials
Heavy pressure does not change their will
Master and disciples have no use for sentimentality
Buddha's grace transforms heaven and earth
Disciples' righteous thoughts are strong
Master has the power to turn back the tide
(Hong Yin II, provisional translation)