(Minghui.org) In my more than 20 years of cultivation I went from wondering to hesitating to firmly believing as I gradually matured. I have endured many tribulations caused by my human notions and attachments, and I’ve also experienced the wonderful feeling of believing in Master Li and the Fa.
From Master’s teachings we know that the police are also victims of the persecution, and we should try to clarify the fact about Dafa to them. But in practice it is indeed very hard to completely not be affected by the emotions of “people persecuting people,” which makes it difficult to treat the police with compassion.
Stopping Harassment by Dealing with the Situation Calmly
I operate a business and had to go to the provincial capital to purchase goods in April 2019. That evening in my hotel room, I got a call on my cellphone from an unfamiliar number. When I answered, someone asked me without greeting, “Are you there? Open the door.”
I guessed that it might be a policeman. I asked him politely, “May I please know who you are? It is late. What do you need?” He answered, “Open the door first. I need to talk to you. I have met your wife. She knows me.”
It was clear that my suspicion was correct since he refused to reveal his identity. I remembered that my wife, who is also a Dafa practitioner, told me that when I wasn’t home the month before, someone from the residential committee twice brought strangers to our home, and they also refused to say who they were. So I asked, “Who are you? It's late. If you want to buy something or need customer support, please come when we open tomorrow.”
He raised his voice to say, “Let me tell you then. I am officer Wang from the police station. This conversation is being recorded. The station director and 10 of us are outside your door. Open up. We just need to talk to you.”
So it was the police trying to harass us at night when no one could see them! I calmly responded, “Oh, it’s officer Wang. Hello! Unfortunately I’m not home right now. I’m in the provincial capital on business. Why did you come so late at night? I’m not a bad person. You should be going after the bad guys.”
“You really aren't home? What about your wife?” he asked. I said, “Why would I lie to you? As you know I have practiced Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance for many years. My wife is home.”
When he then asked me to have my wife open the door for a “quick meeting,” I said firmly, “No I can’t do that. It is late and my wife is home alone. Do you think it is appropriate for 10 of you to talk to her now? She is a good person and has not violated any laws. What do you need to talk to her about? You should either be home resting or going after the criminals.”
He still wouldn’t give up and kept trying to get my wife to open the door. In the end I said firmly, “Officer Wang, I am a family man, and I believe you also have a family. If I let you talk to my wife this late, would you think I was a good person? You all have worked hard all day. Please go home and rest. I’ll be back tomorrow evening and we can talk about it then.” He finally gave in and said, “Okay, when you get back tomorrow, I’ll come. Or you can call me and I’ll wait for you in my office.”
We spoke for over four minutes. I didn’t want my wife to get overly worried so I just told her to send forth righteous thoughts and not open the door no matter who was outside. I then sent forth righteous thoughts for an hour and called her again. She said that she also sent forth righteous thoughts for over half an hour and just fell asleep. Perhaps because over the past 20 years this has happened so many times, she didn’t get too concerned.
When I got home, we briefly shared about whether I should let Wang know that I had returned. We agreed that we had more important things to do and should not put ourselves in the position of being persecuted.
I then found out that several local practitioners had also been harassed at home that night. After they left my home, they went to ransack another practitioner’s home and took dozens of Dafa informational brochures.
Meeting in the Police Station
Five days later Wang called me at around 6 p.m. He asked me if I could come talk to him in his office. I didn’t hesitate and agreed to go.
I said to my wife, “I’m going to the police station to clarify the facts. You can help me by sending forth righteous thoughts.” Worried, she said, “Aren’t we told to not obey evil orders? When the police told practitioner Zhang to come, she didn’t go.” I said, “That was her understanding. They want to learn the facts about the persecution from us, so how can I not go? It will be fine. Just send forth righteous thoughts and ask Master to help me to eliminate the evil factors in other dimensions.” I took my phone, put it in recording mode, and walked to the police station while sending forth righteous thoughts.
In Wang’s office, he politely gave me a cup of tea and offered me cigarettes. But then he started spouting the Party’s “policies” as if he were reciting a book. As he did, I continued to send forth righteous thoughts and reminded myself to be rational and polite.
I discovered that he knew nothing about Dafa or the persecution. His mind was filled with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s lies and propaganda. I adjusted my train of thought and realized that I had to start with the basics. I decided to use my personal experiences.
For example, when he said that Falun Dafa sold books just to make money, I told him that, I had bought the book Zhuan Falun for three prices: 8 yuan (manufacturer's price), 10 yuan (wholesale price), and 12 yuan (bookstore price). At first when other practitioners saw that my financial situation wasn’t great, they even gave me books for free.
He claimed that Dafa practitioners not only refused to go to hospitals, but stopped their relatives from going when they were ill, telling them just to practice Dafa. I said, “I don’t know if you personally knew someone like that or just heard rumors. True, I got healthy from cultivating Dafa, but it wasn't easy. I went through many tribulations to get here. But it was different for my mother—she couldn't endure such tribulations. When she got really ill several years ago, I didn’t try to force her to practice Dafa. Instead, I took her to several hospitals.”
He then said, “If you think that Falun Dafa is good, then just do it at home. Why do you have to go outside and do all those illegal things?” I said, “You are in law enforcement and you know China’s laws better than I do. I have never seen a law that explicitly says that Falun Dafa illegal. In fact, on March 1, 2011, Order No. 50 of the State Administration of Press and Publication explicitly lifted two notices that banned the printing and publication of Falun Dafa publications.”
At first he wouldn’t admit that I was simply stating facts, so I suggested, “You have a cell phone. Search Baidu to find out.” Whenever I laid out some facts, he would switch topics. But then I would just talk about whatever he brought up at a very basic level.
After about 20 minutes, he said, “I'm busy and have many other things to do. It was nice to chat with you today. If I have some time another day, can we talk more?” I said, “Of course. As long as we both have time. You know I also have parents and kids to take care of and must make a living.” But just as I was getting up to leave, he asked me another question. So I sat down again and continued to clarify the facts to him.
More Questions
We talked about the April 25 peaceful appeal and the Tiananmen Square self-immolation. I could tell that he listened carefully. When we talked about the little girl Si Ying singing a song for the CCTV reporter when she was interviewed, I asked him if he thought someone who'd had throat surgery four days prior could sing. He said, “No way. That’s impossible.”
When I asked him why he thought the government did that, instead of answering, he asked me what I thought the reason was. I knew that he knew, but I didn’t want to stir him up, so I said, “At that time, so many people didn’t know the facts behind it and had misunderstandings about Falun Dafa as a result.” Just like before, he didn’t let me talk more and switched to another topic.
We talked for another 20 minutes or so and he again said, “I’m really busy. When I have time I’ll call you to chat again.” So I got up and was going to leave when he asked, “When did your wife start to practice Falun Dafa?” So I told him, “My wife saw that my health greatly improved after practicing Dafa and that I was a much better person, so she started as well. I don’t remember the exact date.”
I thought that it was probably his main consciousness that really wanted to hear the facts about Dafa, so he again and again asked me questions so I would stay and tell him more. This time, I talked to him about organ harvesting from living practitioners. He opened his drawer and took out a copy of Zhuan Falun and an MP3 player and said, “I got these from some of your people. There are a dozen booklets in the room next door.” I knew he got them when they ransacked the fellow practitioners' homes several days before.
I said, “Since you've got it, you should take some time to really take a good look at it. It is not easy to get this book. I read the book to be able to do things better in accordance with Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. I then try to live accordingly.”
We talked for another 10 minutes and he said a third time, “I’m really busy and we will talk again when we have time. I've got something to do now, and you can go.” I got up and we said goodbye. I got home and my wife was still sending forth righteous thoughts. It was exactly an hour from the time I left.
The Recording on My Phone
I took out my phone to listen to my conversation with officer Wang. But the sound was poor and I couldn’t really hear it. At the time I didn’t wonder why and didn’t really think about it until I started writing this.
Master said,
“Nothing you encounter is simple, accidental, or an ordinary thing. It must have to do with your cultivation and your improvement. Because you are a cultivator, your life path has been changed, and you have been given a new cultivation path; nothing on your path happens by chance. But it will definitely appear to be by chance, because only in this delusion and in a state where you are the same as ordinary people can you show whether you are cultivating, whether you cultivate well, and whether you are able to pass test after test. That is cultivation, and that is righteous enlightenment!” (Teaching the Fa in the City of Los Angeles)
I compared myself with Master’s Fa and looked inside with a calm mind. The reason I made the recording was to have evidence in case he did something bad to me. But he didn’t do anything bad to me and instead was eager to hear the facts. So my phone didn’t record anything, just my human notions.
At first, I thought of instructor Wang as someone who was going to persecute me. In my subconscious I had the negative thought that the reason he asked me to come to his office was probably to persecute me. On the other hand, if the person who called me over wasn’t a police officer, but a former classmate, a co-worker, a friend, or a neighbor, would I record our conversation? If this had happened before the persecution started over 20 years ago, would I have recorded it? On the surface I was just trying to collect evidence, but in reality it revealed my human notion of being worried that I would be persecuted.
I’m truly thankful for Master’s compassionate help to resolve a possible tribulation due to my human notions. The Minghui Fahui also helped me improve my understandings based on the Fa.
Final Remarks
Master told us, “The policemen, too, are beings who await salvation. ‘If they come, then I’ll give them the truth’.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2013 Greater New York Fa Conference”)
Our relationship with the police should really just be that we are trying to save them. As Dafa practitioners we are extremely fortunate. We should put down all of our human notions and attachments and face each and every police officer we encounter with an open heart and clarify the facts to them whenever we can so that they can be saved.
