(Clearwisdom.net) The old forces established forced labor camps to destructively test Dafa practitioners. During the course of substantiating the labor camps, they have developed a whole set of vicious measures to torture people. The highly intensive labor and the various torture instruments exhibit the evil nature of the labor camps. There is a saying in China's detention centers that one "prefers being sentenced to five years of surveillance in a work unit to being sentenced to three years' 're-education' in a forced labor camp." This is an objective description of the conditions in forced labor camps. I would like to share with you my understanding of how the old forces use the forced labor camps to persecute practitioners.

Jiang's political scoundrels disregard the laws -- they never follow any laws in their persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Jiang's regime wanted to maintain, on one hand, a false image of kindhearted people. On the other hand, out of the brutal nature of the regime, what they have done actually destroys the laws. By sending Falun Gong practitioners to forced labor camps, the regime can bypass legal procedures. If it sentences a large number of practitioners to jails through legal procedures, the whole world would have been aware of its evil practices, which would put the regime in an unfavorable situation in the face of the media and people. Therefore, the regime takes another approach and sends practitioners to forced labor camps to avoid the condemnation from people with a sense of justice and to avoid many embarrassing situations. This way, the evil forces can hide the real number of the practitioners imprisoned in the forced labor camps and can also unscrupulously persecute practitioners to achieve the purpose of so-called testing Dafa practitioners.

The plan of the "610 Office" is to utilize an office known as the Committee of Re-education through Forced Labor to "examine and approve" the request to send Dafa practitioners to forced labor camps as a formality. Thus they send steadfast Dafa practitioners to these camps, while avoiding legal procedures. This compulsory strategy is implemented from the very top of the authorities to different levels of governmental system controlled by Jiang's political scoundrels. The orders from them are then carried out by the vast governmental system under their control, particularly the "610 Office" and the police. The extreme means of persecuting Falun Gong practitioners include arrest, detention, using forced labor for torture, imposing heavy fines, and punishing relatives and friends.

In the forced labor camps, police use the "stick and carrot" and the "threats and pretended mercy" methods in brainwashing practitioners. Each policeman plays a different role, just like in a play. The sequence in which each policeman appears to talk with a practitioner, the management of the conversation, and even the slight ripples in psychological changes in the practitioner, have all been carefully orchestrated in the play conducted by the old forces. If a practitioner has a small gap in cultivation, and is unaware of the xinxing reason, the old forces will grasp it and not let go. "When a cultivator's mind departs from the Fa, the evil will find its way in. Seen with the human eye, people and everything else in the human world are three-dimensional. But in reality, all matter in humankind's entire dimension--be it flowers, grass, trees, human beings, the air, etc.--everything is made up of particles of that size (molecules). And in this layer of particles, everything, including the human body, is connected. When a person himself doesn't have righteous thoughts, all the bad things in the cosmos, or in the Three Realms, will flow around continually in the human body, and even when they stay there the person doesn't realize it. That's how people are manipulated; in other words, they manipulate people when these particles are able to connect with each other." (Fa-Lecture at the Conference in Florida, U.S.A.)

If we cannot maintain righteous thoughts, the old forces soon know it. They will manage to enlarge our gaps, and manipulate the police to persecute us. However, if we are able to maintain righteous thoughts, the old forces can do nothing. If we cannot be steadfast in Fa, it will be dangerous.

For example, a Dafa practitioner was a manager and had excellent qualities in every respect. After she was sent to a labor camp, the police talked with her, learned about her background, and developed respect for her. The police even asked her to be in charge of the work place, and she maintained a good relationship with the police. After a while, however, when the police wanted to "transform" her, she, out of sentiment, was not able to refuse, and was "transformed." The fundamental reason was that she had not let go of a very fundamental attachment, and was not able to remain steadfast in the Fa. Superficial mercy is more difficult to cope with than brutality -- arsenic doesn't taste bitter, but it can poison a person just the same. The old forces use a "stick and carrot" method. If they fail to succeed with the carrot, they use the stick. "Its aim is to use coercive measures to change Dafa cultivators' hearts and have them give up their cultivation practice." ("Coercion Cannot Change People's Hearts", in Essentials for Further Advancement II) In a labor camp, a place arranged by the old forces to test Dafa practitioners, the persons who participate in the persecution, as well as the means they use to torture practitioners are all pre-arranged. The many brutal and bloody examples of torture clearly exhibit the persecutors' distorted mentality. The only justification for this otherwise senseless persecution is the "test" arranged by the old forces.

3. Using the passive acceptance of the old forces' arrangement

Practitioners who are detained all have attachments they have not let go of. Some can recognize their attachments, and some cannot yet recognize them. The old forces utilize these attachments to persecute practitioners. Practitioners who are able to resist the torture, as well as the "mercy" are really terrific. However, there are many practitioners who treat the drill, labor, and brainwashing directed at them in the forced labor camps with a passive attitude. On the one hand, they are steadfast in Dafa and resist the "transformation." On the other hand, they passively accept the arrangements of the old forces. Some practitioners, from the angle of personal cultivation, hold that if they can perform well even in a forced labor camp, they can perform well under any circumstances. The old forces use the forced labor camps to test Dafa practitioners. The old forces consider those who are "transformed" as not worthy of being a Dafa disciple, and believe they should be eliminated. For those who resist the "transformation" but passively accept the persecution in the labor camps, aren't they going along the "path of Fa-rectification" arranged by the old forces? The old forces acknowledge that you are a Dafa practitioner, and are able to steadfastly practice Dafa. However, their understanding is from the Fa of the old cosmos. If we allow this, don't we accept the arrangements of the old forces? Only Teacher and the Fa can determine whether or not someone is a Dafa practitioner. The interference of the old forces is a crime against the true Fa-rectification.

The righteous thoughts of a Dafa practitioner originate from the Fa. A practitioner's Buddha nature emerges when he assimilates to the Fa. The first test a Dafa practitioner will encounter after being detained in a forced labor camp is whether he can maintain righteous thoughts about Dafa. Teacher told us, "Why should you, a Dafa disciple, fear the evil ones when enduring persecution? The crux of the matter is that you have attachments. If not, do not endure passively, and face the evil people with righteous thoughts at all times. 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", Essentials for Further Advancement II) Are we always able to hold righteous thoughts and use our words and actions to validate the Fa?

The forced labor camps, and all other places used to detain Dafa practitioners, are not the places where practitioners should be. We should firmly deny all the persecution arranged by the old forces with the excuse of testing Dafa practitioners. "What's hard is that the old forces won't let you go that easily, they'll try to take advantage of your gaps, and when you're just a little bit off they'll seize the opportunity. So when your righteous thoughts are very strong they can't take advantage of you, and this is because in Fa-rectification Dafa doesn't acknowledge the old forces' arrangements, and I, as your Master, don't acknowledge them either. Of course, each one of our Dafa disciples says that we don't recognize the old forces' arrangements, but that's not something you just say--you have to follow the requirements of Dafa and the Fa-rectification. 'I absolutely will not acknowledge any of those things you arranged in the past, old forces. I don't even acknowledge you.' When your righteous thoughts are very strong you can purge it and you can reject their arrangements. (Applause) And that's because we absolutely cannot acknowledge them." (Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.)

It is not easy for a practitioner who is being persecuted to identify his attachments, and that is why he may passively tolerate being persecuted. What he experiences relates to the attachments he has not let go of. "As I've said, everything that happens today in the ordinary society is the result of Dafa disciples' thoughts. Even though the old forces do exist, if you don't have those thoughts they can't do anything. When your righteous thoughts are strong enough the old forces can't do a thing." (Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.) If we can hold strong righteous thoughts, we can totally deny the old forces as well as their arrangements. The point is that the old forces have carefully arranged all they planned to do in the minds of Dafa practitioners, but they arranged it according to the law of the old cosmos. As long as we have something in our mind that doesn't follow the Fa, the old forces will use it. We should eliminate it immediately, strengthen our main consciousness, not allow it to exist in our minds, and purify our every thought.

Dafa practitioners in the Fa rectification period should by no means passively tolerate the persecution and accept the arrangements of the old forces. The old forces have reached their last days. They madly vent personal spite toward Dafa practitioners without considering the consequences. However, when we hold strong righteous thoughts, they have no way to do what they want to do. Those practitioners who have gotten out of the labor camps with righteous thoughts are a testimony to totally negating the arrangements of the old forces. If all practitioners who are illegally detained, "re-educated," and sentenced can maintain strong righteous thoughts, and thoroughly eliminate the distorted thoughts the old forces have instilled in their minds, we will be better able to eliminate the old forces and their arrangements of persecuting Dafa and Dafa practitioners, and better able to validate the Fa and save sentient beings.

March 2, 2003