(Clearwisdom.net) One of the frequent discussions among Dafa disciples recently has been about how to end the persecution. Many good points have been made. Here I would like to share a few of my shallow understandings and invite fellow practitioners to kindly point out anything inappropriate.
The persecution should not have happened in the first place, but it did, because of the old forces' arrangements. Dafa disciples have suffered the most brutal and vicious atrocities for eight years and gradually matured through the process. It has not been an easy thing to do and is a marvelous accomplishment. Then again, if everyone had a clear understanding of the Fa from the beginning of the persecution, if we had believed in Master, had faith in the Fa, maintained righteous thoughts and actions, put aside personal attachments and fear, refused to cooperate with the evil in all circumstances and left no loopholes for the evil to take advantage of, things would have been different. We would have achieved what Master said,
"If a person is completely in the Fa no one can touch him." ("Teaching the Fa in San Francisco, 2005")
If all of us maintained strong righteous thoughts, would the evil dare to touch any of us? Wouldn't the persecution have ended accordingly?
I would like to talk a little about the path I have taken during the eight years of persecution.
I learned Falun Dafa and began practicing in 1997, and my physical health improved greatly after that. I would like to emphasize how I passed my tribulations during the evil persecution. For the past eight years, in the face of persecution, I never had the attachment of fear, because there is nothing wrong with cultivating according to the principle of "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance." I knew the Fa is good and was determined to cultivate to the end and never look back.
Cultivation changed my view of the world. I was previously a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After obtaining the Fa, I never again believed the string of lies from Communism. The persecution of Falun Gong started on July 20, 1999. When the evil intensified, some practitioners said, "If Falun Gong and the CCP come into conflict, I will give up cultivation."
I told them firmly, "Falun Gong and the CCP will definitely come into conflict, because the CCP believes in atheism while Falun Gong is a cultivation of Buddhahood and the Dao. How could there be no conflicts?" As the persecution escalated, practitioners who held firmly to their beliefs kept on cultivating. Many were arrested. Some were sent to brainwashing centers and others detained.
I was also arrested and sent to a detention center. Followers of the evil threatened and harassed me. They dismissed me from my job, stopped my pension and tried to force me to write a guarantee statement promising to give up the practice. I refused to accept their coercion. They saw that I was firm and steady, so they extended my sentence at the detention center. After more than a month of detention, the secretary of the Committee for Disciplinary Inspection interrogated me in person. Nevertheless, I still refused to write the guarantee statement. They kept telling me, "Falun Gong people oppose the government. You practice the exercises when it is forbidden. What are you trying to achieve?"
I answered them with the following: "First, Falun Gong is not interested in political power. Second, as for any purpose, it is what our Master said in the Fa-rectification formula, 'The Fa rectifies the Cosmos; the Evil is completely eliminated.' Third, we have been taught that after cultivating in Dafa, a practitioner's body is replaced with high energy matter, therefore he will not acquire any illness, nor is he restrained by the principle of 'birth, old age, disease and death.' A Dafa practitioner reaches Consummation through cultivation and returns to his own heavenly kingdom where no suffering exists. This is the ultimate goal of cultivation."
After learning the truth of Dafa, the secretary sent me home. He later changed jobs.
In the winter of 2002, my wife and I were forced to attend a brainwashing session arranged by the police station in our district, on the occasion of the sixteenth National Party Congress. During our stay there, I clarified the truth face to face to the 610 Office officials, the staff at the center facility, and the specialists and professors who gave the lectures. I exposed the evil with my wisdom, kind heart and compassion. One time at the brainwashing center, we were forced to read a book compiled by the evil CCP's Chinese Academy of Sciences, titled "Promote Science and Oppose Superstition." They asked practitioners to make remarks afterwards. They thought no practitioners knew much about science and none could speak up. If indeed no one spoke, that would be acquiescence in their plot. Therefore, I, a seventy-year-old man, stood up.
I first contradicted their lecture by saying, "You only mentioned the benefits of science and ignored the downsides of it. Of course, the CCP is known to report only what is good while concealing what is unpleasant. My point is, that science today has brought serious problems to mankind. In fact it has become the major element that restrains our future development. It has caused human morality to slide down at a tremendous pace and we will only invite our own destruction if it continues like this." The policemen and staff at the session gave positive comments about my words. A policeman poured water for me to drink during my speech and asked me to keep going. The Fa gave me wisdom and courage and I did what I should to validate the Fa at the discussion.
At the brainwashing center, newspapers were delivered to me that covered the sixteenth National Party Congress then being held. I wondered why they paid so much attention to me. There must be some motivation behind this. It turned out that they wanted to use me as an example to "transform" other practitioners. Therefore, it was not out of my expectation when they finally came to me one day and asked if I had any opinions regarding the Congress. I knew they wanted me to give good comments on the Congress so that I could tell other practitioners.
I told them instead, "The sixteenth National Party Congress is very unsuccessful." Then I went on to speak about the major loopholes regarding the Congress. Their plot of using the Congress to "transform" and brainwash Dafa practitioners failed.
Through practitioners' efforts in exposing the evil and clarifying the truth, the brainwashing center could not continue, but they did not want to release us. It had been nearly two months since the center started. How could we allow it to prevent us from assisting Master with Fa-rectification and saving sentient beings? Fellow practitioners decided to launch hunger strikes to demand our release. By doing this we learned that there was a policy, that if a practitioner wanted to go home, he had to write the so-called "five statements." No one could be released without the statements, and whoever wrote them would be sent home.
Under the circumstances, I told the person in charge of the brainwashing center that I would like to meet with the director of the 610 Office. When he came, I asked, "Will you release me if I write the guarantee statements?"
He said, "If you write them I will send you home."
I said, "But what I will write is different from the others. I will write the following:
1. I guarantee the statement 'The Fa rectifies the Cosmos; the Evil is completely eliminated.' will be fulfilled.
2. Falun Gong and the principle of 'Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance' will spread to the whole world.
3. The future of mankind will be wonderful.
These are my guarantee statements."
The director became furious. He pounded the table angrily and said, "I've talked to more than one thousand Falun Gong practitioners and none was like you. Write what you wish." Then he left.
When the director of the brainwashing center asked me later if I wrote the guarantee statements, I told him yes and I could write another copy for him if he liked. He said, "Forget it. These guarantee statements are of no value to us." The next day, the brainwashing center began to release practitioners unconditionally. For two days, one after another, fellow practitioners' work units sent people over to take them home, with the exception of my workplace. There were some very evil people in my workplace who did not want us back. They thought of our return as equivalent to letting the tiger back to its mountain. However, the district police gave them orders and they had to send people over to pick us up.
The district police knew it had been difficult with them and so warned another practitioner and I, "The people from your workplace might want to speak to you. Don't tell them anything. Just say you have improved a great deal here."
Of course, I was called to speak to the director of the 610 Office at our workplace when he came in at noon on the third day. The director of the brainwashing center was there as well. I told the 610 official, "You sent us to this class. I improved a lot this time. Ask the director if you don't believe me."
The director said, "So and so from your workplace did very well here. Now I have also obtained the Fa. I have already read the book Zhuan Falun eight times."
After the conversation, the police led us downstairs. The Party secretary at the police station, the director and deputy director of the station, the director of the brainwashing center and all of the staff were waiting for us. They stood in two rows and all shook hands and bid farewell to us. Before we got into the car, they said, "From now on, please do not force us to accept the viewpoints of Falun Gong and we will not force our perspectives upon you as well. Let us stay in our own water. You go back and practice your exercises well."
In the car, the manager of the hotel where the brainwashing center was held asked us, "Are you coming back later?" We told him, "Never. This is the first and last session that will ever be held." And so, the brainwashing center set up by the district police was dismantled.
