(Minghui.org) I am an elderly practitioner who began practicing Falun Gong in February 1998 with my husband. Master cleansed my body when I started to do the exercises, and I felt a Falun spinning rapidly around several parts of my body. Soon after we began practicing, fellow practitioners encouraged us to set up a Fa study and practice site near our home. My husband and I became the coordinators. We would take a cassette player to the front of the theater in the morning to play the exercise music, and people would come to join us every day. Initially there were around 30 people, but that soon grew to 130 people. Then the persecution started.
Resisting the persecution
In July 1999, my husband and I became the focus of the persecution in our area. Officers from the county police department, domestic security division, 610 Office, criminal police and street officials came to us. One after another, they tried to force us to hand in our Dafa books and other materials, and also tried to get us to renounce our belief.
The head of our local street committee and the party secretary came to my house one day in January 2001. The self-immolation on Tiananmen Square had been staged less than a week before, and the county authorities wanted to have a conference on “exposing and denouncing Falun Gong.” They wanted us to cooperate and give a speech. I did not reply, and just clarified the facts to them. They came to our home each day for three days, and each time I clarified the facts to them. Finally, the party secretary said, “We are not transforming you, you are transforming us.”
On the day of the conference, police came out in force and practitioners were taken to the county conference hall. More than 40 practitioners were there. The conference was chaired by the head of the local Politics and Law Committee. They organized more than 40 other people from different units, such as the police, 610 Office and religious groups, to be there as well. The atmosphere was tense and truly terrifying. During the conference they slandered and attacked Dafa. As I listened, I became very anxious and thought, “This will not do, I must say something.” At that moment, the head of the local 610 Office came up to me and said, “You can also say a few words.” I said, “I must speak the truth.”
As one person had just finished talking, I quickly stood up and said: “Let me say something. First, the Tiananmen Square self-immolation is false because Falun Dafa practitioners would not commit suicide. Second, we are not against society or the Party. Our Master only taught us to follow Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance to be good people.” At this moment, the head of the Politics and Law Committee banged on the table, pointed to the newspaper and yelled, “It's clearly written here that you oppose the Party!” I said, “Why do you want to force us to oppose the Party?” People in the room then started to laugh, and the head wouldn't allow me to say anything else.
On January 19, 2001 more than 20 people broke into my house. They were led by the head of the county police department and the deputy head. The head of the local 610 Office, local police and other local party organizations were also there. They rummaged through all our belongings and confiscated many Dafa books and materials. My husband and I were then arrested and taken to the police department. We were interrogated all night. When they could not obtain the information they wanted, they took us to the county detention center. While I was there I did the exercises, memorized the Fa and clarified the facts to the guards. I refused to write a guarantee statement to renounce my belief, refused to follow the detention center regulations and did not cooperate with the guards.
I was held in the detention center for more than eight months, and was threatened to be put on trial and sentenced to three years. Master saw that I was steadfast in my belief as I did not succumb to the guards' evil threats. I was soon released.
On the afternoon of May 13, 2002, I was arrested again, because someone reported me to the authorities for handing out truth clarification materials. Actually, I realized the true reason I was arrested was because I had developed the mentality of showing off, an attachment to zealotry and I was complacent. My attachments had left loopholes in my cultivation. While imprisoned, I maintained righteous thoughts and after more than 80 days, with Master's protection I was released again and returned home.
Placing importance on sending forth righteous thoughts
My neighbor's daughter is a practitioner and she works in another place. When she came back in the summer of 2006, she brought many truth clarification materials with her and gave some of them to me. The other portion was distributed on our street that night. The next morning, my son came over and said, “Many truth clarification materials appeared on our street and someone reported it to the 610 Office. The county police want to set up a task force on our street to investigate this matter. Please pay attention to your safety.”
We quickly notified our neighbor's daughter and asked her to quickly leave. At the same time, we packed up the Dafa books and materials in our home and started to send forth righteous thoughts, “Completely eliminate all of the old forces, dark minions, rotten demons and evil factors in other dimensions that attempt to persecute Dafa practitioners. Completely disintegrate the old force elements controlling the CCP's task force and at the same time request Master to protect practitioners and strengthen our righteous thoughts.” We sent righteous thoughts until noon, ate something simple and then continued to send forth righteous thoughts.
In this way, we sent forth righteous thoughts hourly for two days. When we thought that there was no movement of police, we went outside to ask around and find out if the task force had left. We heard that the task force stayed there for two days, but had made little progress. Instead, they put the whistle-blower on trial, demanding to know if he saw who distributed the materials. The whistle-blower said he did not see it himself. The task force people said that he was lying and insisted on taking him to the police department. He was only released after he asked someone to intercede.
This incident showed the power of righteous thoughts and elevated our belief in Dafa. Since then, my husband and I placed a lot of importance on sending forth righteous thoughts. Master said:
“In order to lessen the persecution of Dafa and Dafa disciples, I have asked disciples to send forth righteous thoughts to clear away the damage these beings deliberately do to the Fa-rectification, thereby lessening what Dafa disciples should not endure during the persecution and, at the same time, saving all sentient beings and consummating Dafa disciples’ paradises.” (“The Effect of Righteous Thoughts” in Essentials for Further Advancement II)
I believe that sending forth righteous thoughts is a skill Master taught us to protect ourselves, and our supernatural abilities and divine powers are used to defend the universe's truth. I put my heart into doing this well. I persist and make sure I do not skip the global four times to send forth righteous thoughts and also fully participate in our local activities of sending forth righteous thoughts. I actively cooperate in sending righteous thoughts to rescue practitioners and before clarifying the facts. When I make truth clarification materials, my heart must be pure and so I send righteous thoughts to clear my dimensional field. When my husband goes out to deliver truth clarification materials, I stay at home and send righteous thoughts for his safe return. When we encounter adverse situations, I know I must increase my efforts at sending righteous thoughts. It is really like Master said:
“As a person sits there, without moving his hands or feet, he is able to do what others cannot do even with their hands and feet, and he can see the actual truth of each dimension in the universe. This person can see the truth of the universe and things that an everyday person cannot.” (Zhuan Falun)
Saving people with predestined relationships
No matter in what environment or to any person, when I clarify the facts, I always tell them that I am a Dafa practitioner. I believe that when talking to people face-to-face, I can target my points clearly using different methods for different people. I clarify the facts to everyone I have contact with. For instance, I always clarify the facts to the Party heads or officials every time they look for us to persecute us. After listening to me, three former party heads withdrew from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations. An old party head was in his seventies, and had been deeply poisoned by the party's lies and propaganda. My husband and I each spoke to him about Falun Gong and the persecution, and had to explain the facts to him three times before he quit. He told us, “It's because I saw that you practitioners are so different from other people in society, so I believe what you said is true. Please help me to quit the CCP.”
In January 2009, after discussing with a local practitioner who produces truth clarification materials, he quickly bought a laptop and printer for me. The practitioner guided me step-by-step and showed me how to produce my own materials. When I work on them, I try my best to meet practitioners' needs. Sometimes, when practitioners want to go to rural areas to distribute truth clarification materials, I rush overnight to produce them. Although I was tired, my heart felt very happy and at ease. I believe that it is my honor to be able to make a contribution on our cultivation path of helping Master to rectify the Fa.
The seriousness of looking within
For many years I've stubbornly hung on to a characteristic of competitiveness, in that I cannot lose out to someone else, I must be the best.
For example, when I was in junior school, we had to walk several miles from the village to get to school. There were a dozen students from our village and we would set off when the sky was still dark in the morning and only returned home after sunset when the sky had turned dark again. A few acres of crops separated the villages and there is also an elevated space with a small footpath on top of it. To save time, we would take the small footpath instead of walking along the main road. Corn was grown on the sides of the elevated area, as the farmers wanted to grow more crops.
The crops grew tall and wide, causing the footpath to become very narrow, leaving only a gap between the corn leaves. As the corn leaves were covered with morning dew, no one wanted to take the lead and walk in front. I, a skinny and small girl, volunteered to take the lead and as I dashed through the corn leaves my clothes got soaked, but the dew was now gone so the others behind me did not get wet. When I walked out of the cornfield, I was wet, cold and felt very uncomfortable. As there were no clothes to change into at the school, I had to wear my clothes till they became dry. This would happen almost every day, but as I was praised by the other students, it made me feel that I was the best.
Due to my strong personality, I suffered a lot in my life and formed many attachments. After I began cultivating, these attachments separated me from fellow practitioners when we worked together on Dafa projects and it seriously interfered with my helping to validate the Fa. I treated doing things as cultivation and all the while was unconsciously validating myself. For example, when I helped a few people to quit the CCP or did some Fa-validating tasks, as soon as I had the opportunity, I would tell other practitioners what I had done. One practitioner and I agreed to do Fa-validating work but later, the practitioner purposely avoided me and did not continue with the task. My resentment then surfaced. It is really like what Master said:
“It is because jealousy is displayed very strongly in China. It is so strong that it has become natural and one does not even feel it.” (Zhuan Falun)
I did not eliminate my jealousy completely, even after cultivating for more than ten years, and I still thought that my cultivation state was not bad.
In 2009, these attachments surfaced in my daily life. It manifested as intermittent discomfort in my stomach, but I paid no attention to it. At the time, I was not thinking in terms of cultivation and thought that this suffering was nothing. When winter came, my stomach started to feel quite painful and sometimes the pain was intense. It started to hurt every night, and my sleep was not restful. My husband accompanied me everyday and would send forth righteous thoughts for me for a long time at night, causing him not to be able to rest either. The two of us would stay up all night and sleep for three to four hours during the day. There was no delay in the Fa-validating work, but I became so thin and emaciated. My husband also lost a lot of weight.
In the process of such painful torment, I had to look within. Although it seemed that I was able to let go of my attachments today, it would resurface again tomorrow and I couldn't eliminate it totally. However, my righteous thoughts of believing in Master and the Fa were never swayed. When I felt tired, I would recite Master's poem to increase my willpower:
“Lionhearted is He by nature—
A trait that shan’t be worn down” (“The Fa Rectifies All” in Hong Yin Vol. II)
Later, when I was in pain during the night, I would persist in listening to Master's lecture recording while laying on the floor. I studied the Fa during the day and when I couldn't hold the book, I would place the book on the bed and kneel down and twist and turn in pain, but my eyes would not leave the book. I also persisted in doing the exercises every day and sometimes it was so painful that I would cry. My husband saw that I was suffering too much and sent forth righteous thoughts silently for me. Practitioners also helped by sending forth righteous thoughts for me.
My children came to visit me many times and tried to persuade me to go to the hospital for treatment. I said: “I am a practitioner, my Master is taking care of me. There will definitely be nothing wrong.” They saw that I was steadfast in my belief, but they could not understand me.
One night in February 2010, when my stomach had been in pain continuously for more than two months, I suddenly felt the pain get more intense. I was tossing and turning, getting out of bed, then getting back in bed. I was in torment like this until the early hours. Then I could not move anymore and felt that it was the end of my life. My husband saw that I could no longer go on and called my son over to quickly take me to the hospital. After an examination, it was diagnosed to be gastric perforation. I needed an immediate operation. However, the doctors could not guarantee that the operation would be a success and wanted my children to sign a waiver before I could be taken into the operating room.
As I lay on the operating table I said to Master, “I didn't do well and I've let the old forces exploit my gaps. It has caused a bad impact on Dafa but I refuse to acknowledge this persecution. I'm not afraid of death, but I cannot leave because I haven't fulfilled my mission. Please strengthen me, Master. I must persist to the end.” I firmly sent out that thought. I firmly told the old force elements: “My Master is rectifying the Fa in the universe. Whoever persecutes me is interfering with my Master's wishes, and is therefore committing the largest sin in the universe and will be destroyed.” I placed my life in Master's hands. The operation lasted for forty minutes and was very successful. I know that Master snatched me back from the old forces.
The doctors put me on drip for a week and it felt very uncomfortable. There was tightness in my chest and I vomited greenish liquid. I realized that Master was giving me a hint. I asked the nurse to pull out the drip needle as it is not needed. As I insisted that the drip be taken out, the head doctor of the section came and told me that the needle cannot be pulled out now because they believed I was in a dangerous situation. I said, “There is definitely nothing wrong with me. Only the infusion is making me feel uncomfortable. Let's pull it out and give it a try.” The doctor saw that I was very persistent and agree to give it a try. After the needle was taken out, I leaned up on the bed and did the exercises. I persisted with this everyday. The doctors must have thought it was unbelievable to see an elderly woman of my age keep getting better with each passing day.
I used this opportunity to clarify the facts to the doctors. I told them that before I obtained the Fa, my whole body was ill, and I had to rely on medication and other people to help me in my daily life. After I began practicing Falun Gong, my body has been very healthy. This time, it was because I did not do well in my cultivation that this happened.
I told people, “Falun Gong is not like what was reported in the media. Those are lies the CCP made up to deceive people.” After a few days, I said to my son, “Let's go home.” That day, I walked down from the fourth floor of the hospital and went home. I enlightened that the fundamental basis for a cultivator is to persist in believing in Master and the Fa.
Because of my attachment to reputation and self-interest, I was being controlled by the old forces in this human world to hurt others and myself, causing me to commit a lot of sin and trying to prevent me from being able to enlighten on higher and deeper meanings of the Fa. These attachments already formed my personality, because I treated them as myself. I only enlightened to this after suffering so much. Clinging to attachments is really very dangerous. After I've realized this, the resentment that I held towards practitioners vanished at once and I felt very sorry.
In the summer of 2012, a local practitioner told me that her husband's health was not good and she wanted him to accept Dafa in his heart. However, she couldn't convince him and hoped that I would be able to help. I complained about this practitioner after working with her a few times on Dafa projects. Then I remembered what Master said:
“The only thing you have a role in is saving people, and you have nothing to do with using human means and human principles to punish or pronounce judgment on people.” (“Teaching the Fa in the City of Chicago”)
Thus, I did not think about anything and found time to go to see this practitioner and her husband. I went with a peaceful mindset. The whole process turned from being tension in the beginning to being harmonious at the end. The practitioner's husband accepted Dafa and agreed to quit the CCP.
Treating cultivation seriously
I greatly cherish this sacred predestined opportunity in this lifetime. Fa-rectification cultivation is already at the end of the end and the old force elements are very few. However, those that remain are still trying to persecute us and they'll make use of our attachments that we haven't eliminated to do so. They'll make us have symptoms of sickness karma, make us slack off, read fewer pages of the Fa today, send one less righteous thought tomorrow and delay the task of saving people the day after. The old forces will try to pull us down when we are attached to this secular world.
When we are truly able to believe in Master and the Fa, then the old forces can't do anything. I know that I am still far away from the standard of the Fa and recently I found these attachments that I should have let go of long ago, but they were still hiding inside. I dug out these substances completely and have gotten rid of them fundamentally. I will walk the final path of my journey well and save more sentient beings.
This is my understanding at my current level. If there is anything inappropriate, kindly point it out.
