(Minghui.org) I was put in the local detention center in the spring of 2014 because I refused to renounce Falun Dafa. In the following two years, I carried myself in accordance with the principles of Dafa’s teachings: Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. My cellmates saw and felt the goodness in me. Their hearts lit up with hope, despite the dire situation they were in.
The first day I arrived Cell 209 in the detention center, I saw the guards getting three of my cellmates ready to go to prison. Knowing that I wouldn’t see them again, I clarified the facts of Falun Dafa to them. One of them yelled at me and threatened to report me. She was so loud that everyone in the cell looked at me with a baffled expression. I realized that most of them did not know much about Dafa and I had a lot to do.
Before I was taken to the detention center, a guard had warned the head of the cell to prevent other detainees from talking to me. I decided to let my actions speak for themselves. When people get to know me, they will naturally understand what Dafa is all about.
The detention center served two meals a day, and each meal included nothing but bread made of feed corn and a bucket of clear soup. Because of the very little vegetable in the soup, most detainees tried to get early in the line to scoop up as much vegetable as possible. I always stood at the end of the line and just ate whatever was left.
Over 20 detainees in the cell shared one bathroom, which was cleaned once in the mornings. By the evening, the bathroom became filthy. I decided to clean the bathroom every time I went in to use it. After a while, the detainees said, “The bathroom becomes clean after the Falun Gong practitioner uses it.”
I tried my best to treat everyone around me with kindness. A month later, a detainee said, “People who came here would pretend to be nice for a few days, at most a week. But the Falun Gong sister is truly kind.” They slowly accepted me and started to listen to me.
A suspected drug dealer, Fang, was placed next to me when she was admitted. As she began a rehabilitation program, she suffered tremendous discomfort and often fainted next to me. Our bed was just a piece of wood on top of the cold concrete floor. I always put my clothes on her each time she fell asleep.
Fang turned to food to replace her desire for drugs, and I shared my snacks with her. She grew close to me. I told her the Dafa’s teaching about quitting smoking and alcohol: “Smoking does not do the human body any good.” and “It harms your body and is a desire as well.” (Lecture Seven, Zhuan Falun)
I told Fang that if she could sincerely recite “Falun Dafa is good; Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good,” her pain and symptoms would lessen. She listened to me and recited the nine words every day. She successfully quit the addiction and her health improved. The guard made her the head of the cell later.
She paid me respect and called me auntie, while she called others my age sister. She said, “In this dire environment I have someone who takes care of me like my mother. She put covers on me when I slept, and worried about me being cold or hungry. She’d save her food for me, and the most important thing is, she helped me understand the facts of Falun Dafa, and I was able to quit the drug addiction.”
After she became the head of the cell, she asked every cellmate to recite the nine words. The atmosphere in the cell improved, because Falun Dafa changed everyone.
Shuang was a 25-year-old young woman with an intellectual disability, who accidentally killed her husband. She was obese, filthy and unkempt. She wore ragged clothes and smelled bad. No one wanted to be placed next to her, and hence the guard put her next to me. Not only did she have bad personal hygiene, she also had a terrible temper. She picked fights with almost everyone in the cell, including an elderly woman.
A guard told me, “Everyone said that you are a good person, and I know that you are truly a good person. Please help me deal with Shuang.”
I guided Shuang with the Dafa’s principles. I told her stories of practitioners being tolerant, explaining to her how to treat others with kindness, and how to interact with others. She was scared that she’d get the death penalty because she killed someone. I told her that she’d be blessed if she sincerely believed that Falun Dafa is good. However I also told her that she must face the consequences of what she did, and be brave even when facing prison time.
She wanted me to recite Dafa’s teaching for her. When I told her that she might not understand what I said, she was sure that she would. I recited the Fa from “20th Anniversary Fa Teaching” and Hong Yin III. She listened quietly, and nothing else could catch her interest. I asked her how she felt when listening to the Fa, she said, “Very comfortable and the pain went away. I felt calm and did not want to pick fights with anyone.” I then said to her, “From now on, I will teach you to memorize the Fa. When you have the Fa memorized, you can recite it wherever you go, even prison.”
Gradually, she could recite “Tempering One’s Heart and Will,” “Being a Human,” and “Enlightened Being” from Hong Yin, as well as some poems from Hong Yin III. For an intellectually disabled person to fluently recite so many poems, I witnessed Falun Dafa’s extraordinary power.
As Shuang started to memorize the Fa, so did other cellmates. Many of them were eager to memorize “Tempering One’s Heart and Will” and “Being a Human” from Hong Yin, and “Through the Gut” and “Lacking all Restraint” from Hong Yin III. Many of them wanted me to write down the poems on a piece of paper so that they could memorize it while they worked.
Shuang’s parents-in-law and villagers signed a statement to forgive her, and the court only sentenced her to 15 years in prison. She regretted what she did, and felt sorry for her elderly in-laws and young child.
The day Shuang was transferred to the provincial prison, I took out a bag of instant noodles and make her a simple meal to say farewell. She hugged me and cried, calling me “mother.”
A skinny woman, Yu, was transferred to my cell one night. She took an 8 million yuan bribery at work and was charged with fraud. She was getting life in prison, and lost all hope to live. The cellmates made fun of her, “You don’t need to get retirement insurance, because you will spend the remaining years of your life in prison.”
Yu soon suffered depression. She could not sleep, eat, or talk to others. The guard placed her next to me most of the time. I explained to her the teachings about loss and gain, how jealousy hurts people, and how good was rewarded and evil punished. I encouraged her to cherish life, as there was always hope.
After knowing the facts of Falun Dafa, Yu started to memorize the poems in Hong Yin III. She was able to fall asleep, and gained some weight. She started to converse with others, and was no longer depressed.
Yu cherished the time with me. She often sat quietly next to me when I sent righteous thoughts, or listened to me when I recited the Fa. She said, “If I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life in prison, I’d practice Falun Dafa, and walk the same path as you do.”
Yu wrote her son a letter and told him, “I met an auntie here. She treated me with kindness and helped me through the hardest time. She does not have children of her own, and you will treat her the way you do me in the future. The auntie will soon be released, and you must come to pick her up with a car, and wait for her in front of the detention center.”
The morning I was scheduled to be released, before I left the cell, I heard the sound of firecrackers. Yu told me, “My son is here to pick you up. He set off the firecrackers to celebrate.” When I left the detention center, a young man came toward me. He drove a white car to pick me up.
After I was sentenced to two years, the guards in the detention center were getting ready to take me to prison. But they failed in all three attempts. The first time the car broke down, and the second time snow blocked the streets. A few days later the guard took a phone call after he had a detainee put shackles on me. I didn’t know what he was told. But after he hung up the call, he ordered the detainee to take off the shackles and take me back to Cell 209.
The entire cell cheered after my cellmates saw me return there. They surrounded me and shouted “Falun Dafa is good!” The next day a guard saw me and said, “We don’t want to keep you here, but God does.”
The two years I was in the detention center, through clarifying the truth, most people there understood the facts, and quit the Chinese Communist Party and its affiliated organizations. People who stayed there longer got to know more about Dafa. Some of them said that they’d definitely find a practitioner to learn Falun Dafa after they were released. I believed that Falun Dafa had taken root in their hearts.
In the two years, Master protected and encouraged me every moment. On this sacred day, World Falun Dafa Day, I’d like to extend my deepest gratitude to Master for His kind salvation.