(Clearwisdom.net)
While I was illegally detained, my sister was afraid to tell my father, who was already very weak, about my illegal detention, so she told him that I had already gone back to work. Since I also did not want him to be concerned, I went directly back to work without going by my aunt's home to see my mother. I did not realize that this was to be my final goodbye to her.
Because a large group of Dafa practitioner went to Beijing to appeal for and validate Dafa before the Spring Festival 2001, the local police station escalated their persecution and damaged several truth clarification material sites. As a result, the materials became very scarce. Many illegally detained practitioners did not have access to Master's articles or Clearwisdom articles for several months. Some practitioners were released after a period of time. I learned that many of them were released because they had written the so-called "guarantee statements." I knew that one of the reasons this happened was their being unable to study the Fa for a long time. In order to help the practitioners in prison be able to study Dafa, I began to secretly bring Master's articles to the prison when I visited them, succeeding again and again in handing Master's articles to practitioners in the prison. I developed the mentality of zealotry after succeeding several times. When I came to deliver Master's article the next time, I was illegally detained because a prisoner from the same cell as a practitioner reported me.
That afternoon the police took me to where I lived to ransack my home. My neighbors knew that I was a good person, and no one told the police exactly where my home was. After not being able to find it during an entire afternoon, the police forced the person on duty at my husband's work unit to call his supervisor and ask them to come show the way. The person on duty did not want to help and said that he had forgotten the phone number. In the end, the police got my address by misleading a neighbor who was not aware of their intentions, and then they illegally ransacked my home.
In the prison, I studied the Fa, practiced the exercises, and shared experiences with fellow practitioners. Practitioners on the outside kept sending Master's articles to us, including a pocket-sized Zhuan Falun. Everybody knew that this was most precious, eagerly passing it around so that everyone else could see and copy it. New articles came regularly, and the prison became a special place for us to spread and do Fa-rectification. The criminal prisoners from the same cell all knew that Falun Dafa is good, Dafa practitioners are good, and that we were being persecuted unjustly. Therefore, they respected us very much and never used any filthy terms in front of us. They even helped us protect the Dafa books and articles. Some of them even studied the Fa and practiced the exercises with us.
I firmly refused to cooperate with any requirements of the evil in the prison, refusing to sign anything, to write any "guarantee statement," or to recite the prison rules. Because of this, the police beat me about the head and face, and handcuffed me for nine days and nine nights. After that, I began to lose weight gradually. I felt no desire to eat, my hands and feet became numb, and my stomach started to bulge painfully. I reported my physical condition to the prison authorities many times, but instead of listening, they continued to persecute me. As time passed, my health slowly deteriorated. My heart was painful, and my joints ached so much I couldn't sleep. I became very skinny, and my weight declined to only half of what it was previously. I even had difficulty walking. Up till then, I still thought that this must be the manifestation of Master's pushing the karma of my previous lives to the surface. It must be the karma elimination, and I would endure it.
Once when I was sharing experiences with fellow practitioners, I suddenly realized that I was passively enduring and waiting. Being satisfied with the relatively relaxed environment in the prison, being able to learn the Fa, to practice the exercises, and to send forth the righteous thoughts, I had completely forgotten my mission of assisting Master in Fa-rectification and save sentient beings. Master has said,
"A Dafa disciple completely opposes everything arranged by the evil old forces" ("Dafa is Indestructible," Essentials for Further Advancement II)
"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)
I realized that the prison was not the place for Dafa practitioners to stay. Nor was it the cultivation environment arranged by Master. This was the evil place where the evil forces persecuted Dafa and Dafa practitioners and destroyed sentient beings. Although I did not cooperate with the evil in handling many matters, at many other times I simply endured passively, without opposing completely all the arrangements made by the old forces. I could not stay there any longer. I needed to leave that demon's den and join in the current of Fa-rectification since there were countless sentient beings waiting for us to save them.
I remember clearly a dream I once had. I dreamt that I was sent to a demon's den with a fellow practitioner. In that gloomy and clammy pit there was a big, long counter on which were scattered body parts that had been arbitrarily cut apart. Then the head of the evil stabbed the practitioner beside me with a sharp knife, and changed her heart into a demon's heart. She would be released so that she could go out to lure other practitioners into damaging Dafa. I realized that I was the next target. I looked at the tightly-closed metal door, feeling very anxious, "Teacher! I am not afraid of death. But I absolutely don't want to do anything harmful to Dafa. Only Teacher can help me! Only Dafa can help me!" I was awakened by my own shouting.
I recalled the dream and could not calm down for quite a while. Was it just a coincidence? The other practitioner in my dream had been so-called "transformed" in the forced labor camp and was assisting the evil to deceive other practitioners. Those fellow practitioners did very well in safeguarding Dafa before. They behaved nobly whether they were validating Dafa at Tiananmen Square or being kept in detention centers. How come they were "transformed" within such a short time in the forced labor camp? How could they write several vicious letters to us in an attempt to shake our righteous thoughts and belief?
Teacher said in Teaching the Fa at the Great Lakes Fa Conference in North
America:
"Yet this matter has also been arranged by those old beings. They divided these beings who have come to this world into those who would obtain the Fa and those who would cause tribulations for Dafa."
Teacher also said in Suffocate the Evil:
"China's Labor Re-education Camps are dark dens of evil forces. Most of the disciplinary guards there are reincarnated minor ghosts from hell. As for the people who have been "reformed," it was arranged in history that they would persecute the Fa this way. No matter how well they acted when arrested or beaten, all of that was setting the stage for their leaping out today to persecute the Fa and confuse students."
Teacher told us in Dafa is Indestructible:
"Master wants to save all sentient beings. But the evil forces are truly committing sins against Dafa by using all sentient beings, with the ultimate purpose of destroying them."
After re-reading these words, I became more determined to break out of the demon's den, unwilling to passively bear tribulations or wait as before. Since I was in the cage, I could make use of this special environment and do something for Fa-rectification. Without ready-made Clearwisdom articles, I wrote my own. The truth of Dafa constantly emerged in my mind, and I wrote very smoothly. From the spread of Dafa and the physical change of Dafa practitioners to why the evils persecute Dafa so frenziedly, from the events of April 25 to what really happened on July 29th, I exposed the lies one by one. In spite of physical suffering, I wrote many letters to clarify the truth to my friends and relatives outside the labor camp.
On October 16, 2002, a court verdict was issued, and I was sentenced to one and a half years of forced labor re-education. I wrote an application to appeal the verdict. However, the police sent me to a forced labor camp three days later, saying, "Apply for reconsideration at the labor camp." At the time, I had made up my mind that I would definitely not go to the forced labor camp. On the way, I kept sending forth righteous thoughts, eliminating all the arrangements made by the evil. Upon arrival at the forced labor camp, I was given a medical examination. They discovered that I had lots of illnesses, including high blood pressure, heart problems, etc. Consequently, the forced labor camp refused to accept me even though my police escort tried every possible way to persuade them. So I was returned to the detention center. My health took a turn for the worse, and I was in very serious condition. Afraid that I might die there, the detention center pushed the National Security Bureau to release me without waiting for the approval of the provincial authorities. The National Security Bureau asked my husband to write the so-called "statement of guarantee" before releasing me. Aware of my determination in cultivation practice, my husband didn't cooperate with them. Eventually the National Security Bureau set me free with a verdict of "not guilty." I walked out of the demon's den nobly.
I learned after my release that my mother had passed away at the end of June 2001. Although my husband requested permission to allow me to see the remains of my mother for the last time, the National Security Bureau not only refused this request, but also held back all the letters that my husband and my relatives had written to me, so I never got the news of my mother's death at all. After my mother passed away, several municipal and provincial television stations went to my hometown for a news report. They asked my sixth aunt to "denounce" Dafa on a TV program, encouraging her to tell the audience that my mother died of not taking medicine after practicing Falun Gong. My sixth aunt knew well the truth of my mother's death and told them that she was not well-educated and didn't know what to say. The reporters insisted, "We have already written it for you. We only need you to read it." My aunt found out that what they had written were totally fabricated stories, so she said, "Read this? Aren't they lies? To what extent will it damage my reputation? I won't do this! By the way, even though I don't practice Falun Gong, I know that Falun Gong practitioners are good people, very kind-hearted. I won't abuse them at all!" Since they couldn't do anything with my aunt, they went to bother my sister, who tried to hide from them. So they found my brother-in-law and threatened him that if my sister didn't show up, her work and "future" would be ruined. Therefore, my sister had to come out. She talked objectively about the facts--how my mother practiced before and how she passed away. Contrary to what they had expected, she didn't say a word harmful to Dafa.
After I returned home, my health did not improve; on the contrary, it became even worse. I couldn't understand it since many fellow practitioners recovered from serious illnesses soon after they were released. Why didn't I? I recalled that I suddenly felt painfully uncomfortable and could hardly breathe while I was reading the Fa in the detention center. I almost lost my voice. This surprised me and made me wonder whether I was still at the stage of getting rid of sickness karma. I didn't consider it further. The day after I came home, I felt the same way as I was clarifying the truth of the persecution to my neighbor. I suddenly realized that this could not be correct since I was doing the most righteous thing. Wasn't it the interference from the evil? They were attempting to stop me from clarifying the truth and saving sentient being by persecuting my physical body!
I realized that my mother's death was also due to the persecution. As soon as I understood that, on October 25, I became critically ill. I had a horrible cough and vomited up a great deal of blood. I started to feel breathless and cold, feeling that life was seeping out of my body. Just as I was obviously feeling the coming of death, my husband said anxiously, "Your mother died this way. You are dying. You want to go on the same path as your mother?" With these words, I suddenly woke up. My mother died because she couldn't understand from the perspective of the Fa and passively endured the persecution of her physical body with a human's mentality. Her death caused some misunderstandings of Dafa. This was the worst part of the old forces' arrangements, that they would negatively influence Dafa and block more people from knowing the truth and obtaining the Fa. How could I go on the same path she did? Absolutely not. I asked Teacher to help me. I kept saying in my mind, "Respected Teacher! I am your genuine disciple. I don't know how the old forces arranged everything for me before this life incarnation of mine, and I don't care! The only thing I know is to follow Teacher on the Fa-rectification cultivation path. I want to be a qualified Fa-rectification Dafa disciple and will never follow the arrangements of the old forces!!"
My husband sent me to the hospital. I was very clear in my mind, though without any strength. During the emergency treatment, I used all the strength I had to tell the doctor, "Doctor, I am a Falun Gong practitioner. You see the results of five months of torture and illegal detention." After three days of emergency treatment, I was out of danger. I began to explain the truth of Dafa to clerks and patients in the hospital as soon as I could speak. Ten days later, I left the hospital. The doctors kept telling me I would have to take medicine all my life, "Your life will be in danger if you stop the medicine." Actually, I had stopped taking the medicine when I was in the hospital. Within a month, I had recovered completely without taking any medicine. My husband was still worried about my health and kept urging me to have a medical examination. I thought a medical examination would be fine since it could show him the power of Dafa. After many examinations, the doctors said, "You are in good condition, better than an ordinary person. You don't need to take the medicine any longer." From then on, my husband was completely convinced. My neighbors also saw the change in me and became respectful of Dafa. They said that Falun Dafa is really miraculous.
I read some articles on Clearwisdom regarding similar experiences after I came out of the hospital. The evil is trying hard to find loopholes and excuses to persecute Dafa practitioners, especially by attacking their physical bodies through various means. Teacher said in Fa-Rectification and Cultivation:
"In the face of the groundless harming, in the face of the persecution of Dafa, and in the face of the injustice forced upon us, we cannot handle things or categorically accept things as before in personal cultivation, because Dafa disciples are now in the Fa-rectification period. If a problem isn't caused by our own attachments or mistakes, then it must be that the evil is interfering or doing bad things."
Teacher's article touched me deeply. I found my own shortcomings: Although I chose what I wanted and didn't acknowledge their arrangements at the crucial moment, I didn't completely deny them from the very beginning of the persecution due to my inadequate understanding of Fa principles. I should not allow the evil to persecute Dafa or Dafa disciples at all. Teacher said in Fa-Lecture at the Conference in Florida, U.S.A. that,
"How could [we let] the Fa of the cosmos and Dafa disciples be persecuted by those evil beings?"
Teacher also said in Eliminate Your Last Attachment(s) that,
"...inability to let go of attachments amidst tribulations, inability to deal with things using righteous thoughts amidst painful trials, and so on, are the main reasons behind evil's escalation of the persecution, and are the true fundamental excuses that the evil has used to damage the Fa."
Because of my inadequate understanding of the Fa and my own karma, I left loopholes for the evils to take advantage of, and they were able to persecute me at will.
Fa-rectification disciples' lives exist for saving sentient beings. How can we allow ourselves be persecuted by those evils beings?! In fact, the dream I had concerning "changing hearts" gave me a warning long ago. I didn't understand at the time and regarded it simply as an ordinary test, without going beyond the limit of individual cultivation practice. I didn't treat it from the perspective of the Fa. Without Teacher's compassionate help, I might have been unable to pass it. I cannot express my infinite gratitude to our Teacher. With all that I have, I cannot return the mighty virtue of our Teacher. The only thing I can do is to make more efforts and cultivate more diligently and not to be unworthy of Teacher's compassion and salvation. My brand new life is given by Teacher, created by the Fa, and renewed in Fa-rectification. My life's meaning lies in helping Teacher in Fa-rectification and offering salvation to all sentient beings until the coming of Fa-rectification to the human world.
For part 1, please see
http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/4/19/34682.html
