(Minghui.org) I'm a 71-year-old practitioner who began practicing Falun Dafa about six months before the persecution began in 1999. As a result of the persecution, I was illegally detained several times in detention centers, a mental hospital and two forced labor camps between October 1999 and 2002.
I was held in Masanjia Forced Labor Camp for more than a year. About 1,500 Falun Dafa practitioners were held on the second floor of a building in the labor camp. Guards tried to "transform" practitioners by employing brutal means of torture, such as electric batons, depriving them of sleep and locking them up in solitary confinement.
Due to the torture, many practitioners were forced to sign a statement renouncing Falun Dafa. But some practitioners refused to be transformed. Those practitioners remained locked up in isolation.
I thought that I should recite Master’s teachings to my fellow practitioners and Master made an arrangement for me to do so. One day, many practitioners were being held in a separate room. I said to them, “Did you know that Master’s new teachings have been published?” Nearly a hundred practitioners turned their eyes to me.
I recited several of Master’s teachings, such as “Drive Out Interference”, “Rationality” and “Eliminate Your Last Attachment(s)” from Essentials for Further Advancement II.
Everyone was motionless as I recited the Fa to them. I could see tears running down many of the practitioners’ faces. I knew how they felt. They had longed to listen to or study the Fa.
When I finished reciting, the whole room remained silent. Everyone was deep in thought. With Master’s protection, the practitioners were able to listen to the Fa without being disturbed, even though there was an inmate monitor sitting on an upper bunk and a guard present. Neither of them acted as if they heard my voice at all.
About six months after I started cultivation practice, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched the persecution against Falun Dafa. Since then, practitioners have had no environment to practice and Master has been framed by deceitful propaganda. I was one of many practitioners who went to Beijing to appeal on behalf of Dafa's goodness.
Both my mother and son advised me not to go to Beijing. My son pleaded with me, “We have worked so hard for so many years to build our company, and we cannot do without you. Your mother is sick and needs to be looked after and my wife is expecting a child. Please don’t go to Beijing. We can donate 200,000 yuan to your fellow practitioners. They can go to Beijing.”
I thought: “There is nothing more important for me than going to Beijing to validate Dafa. I must go.” I answered, “Nobody can substitute me. I will be back in a few days.” Knowing how bad the situation in Beijing was at that time, my son said, “Are you sure that you can make it back safe and sound?”
I went to Beijing three times. On October 18, 1999, I was stopped and taken to a hostel in Beijing. Two days later, I was transferred to a detention center for 22 days. I was then sent to the Longshan Forced Labor Camp in Shenyang, Liaoning Province.
During that time I thought, “My going to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Dafa accords with the constitution, and it is my right as a Chinese citizen, as well as a human right to have freedom of belief.”
I discussed this with the practitioners detained in the labor camp. I wrote an indictment to the Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate, which we all signed. I asked a guard to post it, but she handed it over to her chief.
The next day I was beaten by a male guard. He slapped my face and kicked my legs which turned black with bruises. Then he tried to force me to write a self-criticism. Instead I wrote, “Falun Dafa is good.”
He grabbed it and tore it up and demanded that I write what he wanted. I then wrote about how good Falun Dafa is, how I had benefited from practicing Dafa, and how wrong it was for the Party to persecute practitioners and so on.
After I was released from the labor camp, in May 2000, a fellow practitioner found an advertisement in a newspaper for a play that included content slandering Dafa. It was no coincidence that she saw the ad. As Dafa practitioners, it is our duty to uphold the innocence of Dafa.
Five of us went to the theater. There was a large skull on a table on the stage and two banners with words written in black on both sides. The show was intended to deceive primary schools kids with lies about Dafa.
We found the theater manager and talked to him, “We are Falun Dafa practitioners and are good people who believe in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. We told him the truth about Dafa, 'The content of the show in your theater is all fabricated to slander Falun Dafa. Even worse, you are poisoning innocent children by running this play.' The purpose of our coming here is to stop this kind of harmful thing from being shown.”
He looked panicked. Though he was dealing with us politely, he was giving hints to his staff. A woman went out to make a phone call. We knew that she was reporting us to the police. We were not scared and continued to clarify the facts to him.
Soon, a group of police officers armed with sub-machine guns came in and surrounded us. We were taken to the police station, where we continued to talk to all the officers present about Falun Dafa and the persecution.
Even though we were illegally detained, the show ended up closing after a short run.
Twenty days after I was released from the detention center, I was again preparing to go to Beijing and hold up a banner in Tiananmen Square with a fellow practitioner. Unfortunately, our plan was leaked and a policeman deceived me into going to the police station. He interrogated me for several hours, wanting to know who had been to my house in the past two days. I only told him: “I haven’t done anything that breaks the law. It is my constitutional right to go wherever I want.”
On the morning of June 25, 2000, I was abducted by police and taken to a detention center. I was held there for twenty-two days. After that, I was transferred to a mental hospital for three months. My fellow practitioners managed to smuggle in Master’s new teachings. This gave me encouragement to persevere.
After three months in the mental hospital, I was taken to the Masanjia Women's Forced Labor Camp in Shenyang. I was incarcerated there until 2002.
Master said：
“For a Fa-rectification period Dafa disciple, personal liberation is not the goal of cultivation: when you came, saving sentient beings was your great aspiration, and that is the responsibility and mission history has bestowed upon you in Fa-rectification. Thus great numbers of beings are to be saved by you. Dafa disciples, don’t forsake the magnificent responsibility that has been bestowed upon you in Fa-rectification, and even less should you disappoint those beings, as you are now their only hope for entering the future. For this reason, all Dafa disciples, students both new and veteran, should get to work and begin comprehensively clarifying the truth. (“Let Go of Human Attachments and Save the World’s People” from The Essentials Of Diligent Progress Vol. III)
Since my retirement in 2011, I have arranged my time to meet this requirement. I study two lectures of Zhuan Falun in the morning, then I go out to clarify the facts to people and distribute fliers about the persecution.
My experience has shown me that before going out, I must eliminate all factors that could hinder me from saving people. While sending forth righteous thoughts, I ask Master to strengthen my resolve.
With Master's help, I am able to persuade 35 people to quit the CCP related organizations every day.
Master has left us this opportunity so that we can build up our mighty virtue. He helps us carry out our prehistoric vows. I hope that those fellow practitioners who haven’t come out to clarify the facts to people will step out to validate Dafa.
I started a conversation with a man I hadn’t met before, “Hello, sir, you look like a kind person, what do you do?”
He answered: “I worked for the city government. I just recently retired.”
“You seem like one who cultivates the Tao.” I replied, “I cultivate Buddhahood. The Buddha school believes in predestined relationships. It is because of a predestined relationship that we meet today. Though the CCP propagates atheism, people still have a heart for Buddha. Many government officials go to temples to pay their respect to Buddhas. They also burn incense when they are on holiday. This shows they believe that gods do exist.” He agreed.
I continued: “Since the CCP came to power, it has killed at least 80 million Chinese people in its endless string of political movements. On June 4, 1989, it massacred university students and innocent bystanders with tanks in Tiananmen Square.”
“In 1999, it started to persecute Falun Dafa. Dafa is based on Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Millions of practitioners have been illegally arrested and detained in forced labor camps and sentenced to prison. Practitioners even have had their vital organs forcibly removed and sold for profit.”
He nodded. I continued: “Doing good deeds will be rewarded with good, and doing evil will be met with evil. A catastrophe is approaching. Heaven will punish the wicked! Are you a Party member?”
He answered, “Yes.” I said, “You made an oath under that blood red flag, so you are an element of the Party. Please, declare that you will withdraw from the Party and its affiliated organizations. If you do, you can have a clear conscience and avoid harm. Let me help you quit the Party.” He agreed to quit using an alias.
Although I have practiced cultivation for 18 years, I am still far from what the Fa requires. I will continue studying the Fa more, listen to Master, remove my shortcomings and look within. I will do the three things well, and save more people so that I complete my prehistoric vow and go home with Master.