For a period of time, I had the feeling that my improvement in cultivation was very slow, even almost stagnant. Although I studied the Falun Gong teachings, sent forth righteous thoughts, and clarified the truth about Falun Dafa and the persecution daily, I did them in an ordinary person's way and didn't approach them as being sacred activities.
During this time, I met another practitioner who helped me a lot. I began to find, to my great surprise, that my xinxing [mind-heart nature, moral character] improved rapidly. I made lots of strides every day and shared them with my family members. They always urged me to share with them. All of my family was grateful for Teacher's arrangement.
During that time, I reminded myself every day, "I am a Dafa disciple during the Fa-rectification period." Whenever a thought arose, I always asked myself, "Is this thought based on the Fa?" Whenever I spoke, I always asked myself, "Did I mind my speech? Should I say this or not?" I began to distinguish between what was my real self and what was not, something I seldom did before.
What my fellow practitioner liked to say most was, "Cultivation is serious." I could feel that she found profound meaning in these words.
One day she studied the Fa for the whole day, stopping to send forth righteous thoughts at the beginning of each hour. At noon, she suddenly told me excitedly, "Do you know that we are Dafa disciples during the Fa-rectification period!" While speaking, she raised her right hand. I felt surprised and responded, "Of course I knew!" While I said to myself, "Is it possible that you did not know that before?" Within the next hour and a half, she repeated these words more than ten times, with her hand lifted to emphasize her words. As a result, whenever she lifted her hand, I would say with her: "We are Dafa disciples during the Fa-rectification period!" Then we laughed together joyously. I understood that she recognized the profound meaning of being a Dafa disciple during Fa-rectification.
I would like to tell the story of her clarifying the truth to the director of the Police Department in a forced labor camp:
My friend was detained in a forced labor camp illegally after she went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. There she did not cooperate with the evil demands and did very well. Since her cultivation was very solid, her energy field was quite pure and righteous, and the evil dared not touch her. In the face of this, the evil could not be evil. Later, another fellow practitioner was "transformed," and wrote some statements against Falun Dafa and was released. My friend was left alone. All alone, she did not have Dafa books, and could not access Teacher's new articles. As a result, she began to doubt herself, "How could it be possible that all the other fellow practitioners did something wrong and only I did right? As long as I write some statements, I will be released, and then I can resume validating Dafa. What can I accomplish by staying here? Since so many fellow practitioners were released this way, is it possible that the celestial phenomena have changed"? Obviously this idea is not based on the Fa, but she did not realize it clearly then. She began to falter, and decided to write some of the statements against Dafa. This was precisely what the police were after. They immediately brought her pen and paper, and asked her to write straight away. She thought about it at length, "Is this idea right or wrong? Cultivation is serious; I cannot make a mistake at any step." Hence she told the police, "I need to think it over carefully tonight until 9 a.m. tomorrow." In the early morning of the next day, before she began to write, the vice-director of the police department, together with a group of thugs, rushed in and beat her savagely. In the end, she became clearheaded. "I will definitely write something, but it won't be a repentance statement." She picked up the pen, spread open the paper, and wrote a letter accusing the vice-director of the police department of wrongdoing. Then she turned the letter in.
After learning that my friend had accused the vice-director of the police department, her family members became extremely worried. They had planned to get her released through some backdoor dealings, but now they thought their plan would not work. However, it turned out that she was released openly and aboveboard several days later.
Actually, the idea that writing a "Repentance Statement," then being released to validate the Fa is totally wrong. Writing repentance statements is validating the evil, and runs counter to Dafa. The idea of being released and then continuing to validate Dafa is actually a pretext to free oneself when in tribulation. If every Dafa disciple can be steadfast, that is the most powerful way to validate Dafa.