(Clearwisdom.net)
My name is Ruan Yingjie and I am a fifty-year-old woman. I was the director of an auto parts refining office at the Chuanqi Auto Company in Chongqing City. Since I was a child, I had serious rheumatic arthritis and I almost became paralyzed by the time I was ten years old. I became bed ridden for nine months. When I was twenty years old, I was diagnosed with rheumatic heart disease, and all my joints were sore, as well as my head. My fingers were distorted and my legs hurt so much that I was unable to walk. I could not go to sleep due to the pain in my right arm; it brought me to tears. I had to take medicine three times per day. My life was dependant on medication. I was very prone to catching a cold and so afraid of the cold that I would not even touch cold water. In the fall, I would wear a winter coat, thick pants and a hat. I looked for cures everywhere, but my illnesses did not get better. I had a hard time keeping up with work, so I had to retire at the age of forty-five.
In March of 1997 I was on the brink of death, but luckily I found Falun Dafa. After watching Teacher's lecture video and reading the book Zhuan Falun, I understood that the purpose of my life was to return to my true self. Teacher taught us to emphasize improving our morality and doing good deeds and also taught us to look inside ourselves when we face a conflict of interests. I understood the reason that I was having illnesses was because I was unable to let go of my attachments to personal interests, and failed to maintain a calm mind when facing conflicts.
Teacher said in Zhuan Falun, "If they want to get healed, get rid of adversity, or eliminate their karma, then they've got to cultivate and return to their original, true selves. That's how all the different cultivation ways see it."
I understood this great principle and promised myself that I would follow Truth, Compassion and Forbearance and consider other people's interest first. I practice the exercises and study the Fa everyday. Now my illnesses have disappeared and I can drink cold water; I can even take cold showers in the middle of winter. Everyone has told me that I look more youthful, and I always say: "This is the power of Dafa and my teacher has given me a healthier physical body and purified my soul."
An amazing thing happened to me on June 30, 1997. I had gone to bed at around 9:30 p.m. I suddenly felt that someone was grasping at my heart. I wanted to get up to call for my husband and daughter, but as soon as I got up, I fell back down. I suddenly thought about asking Teacher for help, but I could not utter a sound. So I said in my heart: "Please help me Master Li." Every time I said this, my heart felt better and better and soon my heart became normal and the pain disappeared. I immediately got up to tell my husband and daughter: "Moments ago, I almost died of a heart attack and was on the brink of death. I called Teacher's name and he saved my life. It was Teacher who gave me a second life." I made up my mind at that moment that from then on I would always practice no matter what kind of difficulties and pressures there were.
In July 1999, Jiang's regime started to fabricate false information to distort the facts and began a brutal persecution of Dafa and practitioners.
In October 1999, I went to Beijing to appeal and on my way the police stopped me and asked me if I practiced Falun Gong. I told them that I did, so they arrested me and sent me back to my hometown where I was detained for a month. After being released, I continued to practice.
On May 13, 2000, I went outside to share experiences with other practitioners, and we also did Falun Gong exercises together for a while. Immediately after that, the residential policeman came to my home to interrogate me and I clarified the truth about Falun Gong to him. He asked me if I still wanted to continue to practice and I replied: "Yes I will keep practicing it." I was then arrested and sentenced to one year in a labor camp.
In the labor camp, I was still determined to practice Dafa, so the police ordered the criminals to scold and beat me. They didn't allow me to do exercises and handcuffed me even while I was sleeping in bed. I started a hunger strike to protest this and the police force-fed me and made me watch brainwashing videos. At the end of the one-year labor camp sentence, I was still determined to practice, so the labor camp detained me for another 5 months. They finally released me in October 2001.
After I came home, Li Hong, the director from my local police station, broke into my home several times and stole my Dafa books and exercise tapes.
On the night of November 20, 2001, the local police, Shi Pengfei and others, dragged me from my bed into a police car and detained me at the local detention center for one month. They then placed me in a brainwashing class and hired three people to try to force me to renounce Falun Dafa. In an effort to save my life, my daughter forged my writing and wrote a guarantee that I would no longer practice. On July 29, 2002, I was released. Once before, in November 1999, I was forced by a director of a detention center to write a letter to guarantee that I would not practice again. I know my actions have not met the standard of Dafa, and I have written a solemn statement acknowledging my past mistakes, but I would like to repeat that the so called guarantee letter that I wrote in November of 1999 and the one written by my daughter are all invalid. Dafa saved my life and it was Dafa that gave me a second life. I am determined to practice Falun Dafa.