(Minghui.org) Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
I began practicing Falun Dafa in 1997 and I am very thankful for Master’s compassionate care over the past nearly 30 years. I would like to tell you about some of my cultivation experiences.
I was spoiled—I was pampered by my parents and indulged by my brothers. So I was stubborn and selfish and I did not change after I got married.
My mother passed away in 1996. I was consumed by grief and I was in unbearable pain. Because of my intense longing for her, my health deteriorated, and I frequently went to the hospital for injections and IV drips. My family’s hereditary diseases and my husband’s betrayal made me lose all hope in life, and I felt that I would follow my mother in death.
At that time, I heard that some people in my workplace were practicing qigong. One of my former classmates could not eat watermelon or cold buns even in the summer. But after practicing for less than two months, she could eat anything. When I heard this, I thought, “Is there such a miraculous qigong?” So I asked her about it. She replied, “We’re showing the video of Master Li’s lecture in the company conference room tonight. Why don’t you come and watch?”
When I watched the video of Master’s lectures that evening, I felt a special connection to him. Master spoke with a Northeastern accent, and both my parents are also from Northeast China. As I sat there listening to Master’s lectures, I felt that the Fa was exceptionally good. After that, I went to the practice site every day at 3:40 a.m. to practice the exercises. Regardless of wind, rain, scorching heat, or freezing cold, I remained steadfast. Every evening, I went to the group study. After I studied the Fa and did the exercises for a while, I understood that Dafa is cultivation practice.
My body also underwent tremendous changes and I gained 20 pounds. Sometimes while I slept at night I felt like my body was floating. Other times I felt I was rising like a rocket. I also saw some wonderful scenes in other dimensions.
Through continuous Fa study, I came to understand many Fa principles, and my xinxing constantly improved, leading to a more harmonious family. Every day, I either studied the Fa or memorized it, completely immersing myself in Dafa. This laid a good foundation for assisting Master in rectifying the Fa later on.
On July 20, 1999, I heard from fellow practitioners that Falun Dafa might be illegally banned and many practitioners had gone to the provincial government to petition. We also went to there. Many practitioners gathered at the entrance of the provincial government, and everyone stood quietly on both sides of the road. Suddenly, many special police officers and buses arrived. The police drove the practitioners away and forced them onto the buses, but the practitioners linked arms and refused to get on.
It was then that I realized the entire road and the small garden in front of the provincial government building were filled with fellow practitioners; it seemed that practitioners from all over the province had arrived, one after another. We recited “On Dafa” in unison: it felt like our voices resounded to Heaven. The scene was truly inspiring, and I still remember it vividly. We were led to a large courtyard and taken back to our respective workplaces.
One day in November 1999, I visited a fellow practitioner’s home and saw our local Falun Dafa coordinator. He had just returned from Beijing and told us about his trip. I was moved to tears and decided to go.
Six of us practitioners set off for Beijing. On the train, the railway police searched my bag, and found my Falun Dafa books. An officer took us off the train and locked us in a room at the railway station. It was November so it was already very cold, and the room was drafty. We huddled together and as we shared our cultivation experiences we felt warm inside.
The local police came to take us home and they brought our family members. My father-in-law demanded I write a “guarantee” that I would never go to Beijing again. I refused and the officials later let me go home. It turned out my uncle knew a policeman, and he wrote the guarantee for me. Our local Falun Dafa coordinator was illegally sentenced to two years in a labor camp. Another practitioner was illegally detained for seven days.
In 2001, I decided to go to Beijing again to fulfill my wish of validating Dafa. Five practitioners joined me. We boarded the train to Beijing, and this trip went smoothly.
After going through an underground pedestrian passage leading to Tiananmen Square, we stood beneath the Huabiao (ornamental column). Two other practitioners stood about five meters diagonally opposite us. We were nervous. I said, “Let’s begin.” I exchanged glances with the practitioner next to me and nodded.
After taking out a small banner, we each held up one side and linked arms as we walked towards the crowds of tourists, shouting, “Falun Dafa is good!” “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good!” “Restore Master’s innocence!” “Restore Dafa’s innocence!”
As we were shouting, a tourist in the crowd yelled at us, “Run! The police will come and catch you!”
As we continued holding up our banners and shouting, a tall soldier stormed towards us and grabbed our banner. We ran into the crowd and three of us returned home safely.
In 2000, some practitioners made a large amount of truth-clarification materials for us to distribute.
Two practitioners and I carried several large bags of these materials to a residential area and distributed them to every household. We walked all night, distributing all of the materials along the way. That night, the sky was filled with an unusually large number of stars, which seemed very close to us.
Another time, I went to a rural area with a large bag of truth-clarification materials. Just as I reached the village entrance, a dozen dogs barked wildly at me. I sent forth righteous thoughts. Within minutes several dogs started whimpering, while the others scattered. I knew Master was protecting me, and I distributed the materials to every household without missing a single one.
I distributed informational materials about Falun Dafa in all the villages near my home. My mother-in-law probably heard something about it, because she said, “Someone in the nearby villages is distributing Falun Dafa materials.”
I replied, “Oh, really?” I could tell from her expression that she suspected it was me.
Many times, I walked alone on dark roads pasting truth-clarification stickers when there was no one else around. Back in 2000 and 2001, our local public facilities were still very underdeveloped; there weren’t even streetlights on the main roads. But I wasn’t afraid. With Master and Dafa here, practitioners have nothing to fear.
One day in late spring of 2002, my mother-in-law suddenly ran to my house and said, “You’d better hide quickly, someone is going to take you away! They are in my house now.” I quickly packed my clothes, took a Falun Dafa book, and went to a relative’s house in another city.
About a week later, two people who had stopped practicing came to my house and told my family, “We won’t hit or scold her (meaning me), we’ll just take her to a brainwashing center, and she’ll understand.” My husband and other family members believed them. My family took the police and the two people to the place where I was staying.
The officials forcibly took me a brainwashing center. At first, I went on a hunger strike in protest, but I felt very weak after two days. I knew this wouldn’t work. I had to find a way to escape.
In the brainwashing center, the guards held me in solitary confinement. They also played videos attacking Master and forced me to watch them. I turned it off, but they turned it back on. I went up to turn it off again, and they stopped me. They had someone stand next to the TV. I did not watch the TV. Instead I lay down on the bed and slept soundly. I knew that Master was protecting me.
Those two people from out of town, who had gone astray, came trying to “transform” me. I said, “You think you can convince me with your twisted logic and heresies? Stop with your nonsense.” Their words had no effect on me because I saw through their tricks.
When one tactic failed, the officials tried another. They brought my father, brother, in-laws, husband, and children to persuade me, all crying and sobbing. My mother-in-law even slapped me in public, but I remained unmoved. Later, my brother called me into a room and said, “The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is capable of anything. They might even kill you.”
I replied, “I will practice even if I die.” After saying this, I felt a warm current flow through my entire body.
The brainwashing center where we were illegally detained had a bathhouse. We went there to shower every day because of the heat, and we ate in a dining area connected to the bathhouse. When they took me to eat, I noticed that there was a door in the dining area that led directly to the bathhouse. Sometimes we ate there, and sometimes they brought food to our rooms.
One evening, we went to take a shower after dinner. Three policewomen usually took me there and they changed shifts every day. One of them, who probably wouldn’t be staying there that night, said, “I won’t shower today. I’ll wait for you at the entrance of the bathhouse.” Another policewoman finished showering and left, while the third was still showering. Suddenly, the policewoman who had left came back and changed her clothes.
I finished showering and went outside to the inner courtyard of the bathhouse. The policewoman who hadn’t showered was standing in the outer courtyard, probably thinking there was only one entrance. When I realized I was alone in the inner courtyard, a thought immediately flashed through my mind—run! I opened the door leading to the dining area and ran out of the main entrance. I ran towards a gate across the street from the dining area, because I felt I couldn’t run along the main road; they would definitely catch up with me. So I ran towards the courtyard on the other side.
I thought to myself that I shouldn’t run. If I ran in a hurry, the guards would definitely know from the pedestrians that I had run to the other side of street.
Then, a miraculous scene unfolded: I discovered that in one of my dimensions, I was running. but my physical body wasn’t running; I was walking—“Master is blessing me,” I thought.
I walked to a large flower bed in the opposite courtyard and squatted down. Before I even reached the main gate, I heard someone shouting from the direction of the bathhouse, “Oh no! She’s escaped!” Then I heard police sirens. I didn’t know how much time passed, but my legs were numb from squatting. Then, it was quiet outside; the people in the nearest buildings turned off their lights and went to sleep.
The moon was exceptionally bright that night, so I could see clearly as I walked.
The wall was very close to the flower bed. I saw a large mound near the wall, so I climbed up and looked over the wall. There was a lot of grass. I wasn’t sure if there was water or soil under the grass, so I threw down the bag containing my clothes. It didn’t sink, so I jumped down. The ground felt soft and I was perfectly fine.
Then I realized Master must be protecting me. How could there be such a large mound of earth next to such a high wall, which I was able to climb? I’m only 1.5 meters tall (about 4 feet, 11 inches), and I jumped down from that high wall without any injury. I am so grateful to Master for his protection.
Outside the wall were farmlands. I walked to the roadside, hailed a taxi, and arrived at a bus station in another province. When I was taken away, the police had searched me. I actually had 700 yuan on me. Master bestowed wisdom upon me, and I managed to hide the money so the police didn’t find it. The taxi fare cost me 200 yuan.
When I arrived at the bus station, I went to the restroom and quickly washed the mud off my legs. I discovered that both my feet were covered in tiny red mosquito bites. I went to the supermarket and bought a pair of socks to wear, otherwise people would wonder what had happened to me. So, to avoid being taken away again, I began my life of homelessness.
I returned home two years later. A local practitioner asked if I would be willing to take on the work of the local truth-clarification materials production. I readily agreed. I realized that this was Master’s arrangement—at that time, the local cultivation environment had been severely damaged, as all the materials production sites had been destroyed.
Three of us set up a materials production site. One practitioner was responsible for the technical aspects, including maintaining the computers and printing equipment, as well as downloading files; I was responsible for printing and binding; the third practitioner was responsible for distributing the materials. Under Master’s compassionate protection, we were safe for several years, continuously distributing truth-clarification materials to local practitioners, including booklets, flyers, stickers, amulets, and Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. Sometimes we also produced Dafa books and copies of Master’s other lectures.
We moved several times. The first production site was at the home of a practitioner’s relative. When someone from the community administration came to visit, he asked, “Why is the door to this room closed?” We immediately moved.
We rented an empty house from a friend and printed truth-clarification materials there. A few years later, one day we saw a police notice on the door, saying that if anyone was living there, we needed to register at the police station. Then a neighbor asked, “Do you live here? The police knocked on the door and said that if anyone is living here [in the rented house], you need to register.” We sensed danger and immediately moved the equipment to a fellow practitioner’s house, where we stayed peacefully for several years.
In 2011, I had to go work in another city. So I found a fellow practitioner and I gave her the equipment for making truth-clarification materials.
After I arriving in the new city, I got in touch with fellow practitioners there and I set up a small information distribution point to provide truth-clarification materials for practitioners in that area.
In August and September of 2015, I noticed that many practitioners submitted articles on Minghui.org and talked about their experiences of suing former CCP leader Jiang Zemin using their real names. They exposed how Jiang had brutally persecuted Dafa practitioners for so many years.
I went to a fellow practitioner and told her about it. She asked me, “What do you think?”
I replied, “This is definitely something we should do: file a formal complaint against Jiang Zemin and his regime for their crimes in persecuting Falun Dafa, as well as the persecution we’ve been subjected to.”
She thought for a moment and firmly said, “I agree. We will do it!”
We each wrote our complaints against Jiang, printed them, and mailed them. I kept tracking the delivery information, and felt relieved only when I saw that the complaints arrived in Beijing. Next, I filed a formal complaint on the website of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, reporting Jiang’s crimes regime using my real name, and I added my address and phone number.
Fellow practitioners from my hometown contacted me, asking me to help them print out their lawsuits against Jiang; there were more than a dozen copies. I typed their handwritten lawsuits into a document, printed them out, bound them separately, and delivered them.
Towards the end of the year, a community administration officer called me and asked, “Have you written a letter against Jiang Zemin?”
I said, “Yes, I have.”
The officers came to my house several times, and asked, “Do you still practice Falun Dafa?”
I replied, “Of course I do.” I took out a Falun Dafa book to show them, and said, “This book teaches people to be good, not do bad things, and we conduct ourselves according to Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. Why can’t we practice something so good?”
One officer said, “You can practice at home.” And that was the end of it.
In summer 2019, I distributed a lot of informational materials and posted truth-clarification stickers. One morning as I was getting ready for work, I received a phone call saying that a man’s car had bumped into mine in the parking garage and that I needed to come down and report it to the traffic police. When I went down to the parking garage, I was surrounded by eight or nine police officers. As I struggled, they handcuffed me.
They dragged me towards my house. Several police officers held me up, and demanded I open the door so they could search my home. I asked, “Do you have a search warrant?” They took out a blank warrant.
I said, “This is illegal; a blank warrant is not legal.” My door had a combination lock, and they wanted me to tell them the combination, but I refused. They had no choice but to take me to the police station.
When I got downstairs, I shouted, “Falun Dafa is good! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good! Falun Dafa has spread to more than 100 countries around the world” A lot of people gathered downstairs to see what was going on. Later, I learned that I had been reported by someone for distributing truth-clarification materials, and the police found me through facial recognition surveillance equipment.
When I arrived at the police station, I kept telling the police officers who guarded me about Falun Dafa. After a while, one of the officers took me to a room and began to interrogate me. He said, “Sit down.” I said, “I won’t.”
I was pacing back and forth in the room when he said, “How can I question you if you don’t sit down?”
I replied, “Take off my handcuffs and I’ll sit down.” So he called someone to remove my handcuffs.
He asked, “What’s your name?” I replied, “Since you don’t know my name, why did you bring me here?”
He asked me other questions, but I refused to answer them.
Later he asked, “How did you start practicing Falun Dafa?” As soon as I heard this question, I knew I could answer it, and this was a perfect opportunity to clarify the truth.
I began to explain how I started practicing Falun Dafa, the changes in my health before and after I practiced, how my character improved greatly through cultivation, how I became less petty and learned to be considerate of others, and how I became less attached to personal gain. I also talked about how Dafa practitioners cultivate according to Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and how Falun Dafa has spread throughout the world. He asked me to sign something, but I refused, and he didn’t force me.
It was past lunchtime by then. He made himself a bowl of instant noodles, and also made one for me. One of the policemen guarding me said, “We’ve never made instant noodles for any detainee before; No one never received that treatment.”
I replied, “This is because I’m an innocent, good person!”
In the afternoon, officials called my husband. He was very anxious and kept trying to pressure me to cooperate with the police.
The officials wanted to search my house and asked me for the password to my door. Since the lock had been recently replaced, and my husband was working out of town, I hadn’t had a chance to tell him yet. My husband told me, “A new lock costs almost 2,000 yuan. Just tell me the password quickly, and they can search the place, okay?”
I said, “I won’t. If I give them the house code, I am cooperating with their search. If they forcibly break the lock, that would be persecuting me. The two are different.”
The police thus hired a locksmith to pry open my door. I was later illegally detained in the last room of the police station, in what they called a “cage.” There were three other young people detained there as well. I told them about Falun Dafa and the persecution, and they all withdrew from the CCP organizations.
The local police station reported me to the Municipal Public Security Bureau and the Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC). Late that night, the police said they would detain me for 15 days. That evening, a policeman from the station wanted to take me to have my blood drawn and fingerprints taken.
I said, “I won’t do it.”
He said, “If you don’t cooperate, we have to force you.”
I said I would not cooperate even if they forced me. He thought for a moment and said, “Oh well, never mind.”
The next day, the police drove me to the detention center. On the way, I thought that anywhere could be a place to clarify the truth. The police at the detention center took me to a room that had about 20 people inside. Most of them were gamblers, fighters, thieves, prostitutes, and so on. After I quickly became familiar with them, I clarified the truth to each person one by one.
It’s easier to persuade young people to renounce their memberships in the CCP and its affiliated youth organizations; they do it almost immediately. The detention center releases people every day, and then new people come in. Those who left had already renounced the Party, and for those who come in, I explained the truth about Falun Dafa again. Most of them renounced the CCP organizations, except for two people. There were also illiterate people, so I would tell them what Falun Dafa is, that it’s about cultivating according to Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and about being a good person. I also taught detainees to recite “Falun Dafa is good. Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.”
Every day I told them about the benefits of Falun Dafa, how Falun Dafa has spread throughout the world, and some traditional Chinese stories.
They often commented, “How do you know everything? You are so knowledgeable and know so much. You must be a university professor, right?”
I say, “No, Master Li gave me wisdom.”
I was illegally detained for the longest time, and different people came in every day. In order not to mix up the list of people who withdrew from the CCP, I had to mentally review the list every day. In total, I persuaded more than 20 people to withdraw. In the end, several inmates wanted to call me “Boss.” But I said, “I am not a boss. You just need to remember ‘Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.’ We are grateful to Master for his compassionate salvation of all people.”
In the latter half of 2022, I returned to my hometown. For many years, my husband and I lived apart. After much consideration, I decided to go back home. The night we moved, my husband gave me a hard time as his attitude was completely different from before.
I was puzzled as to what was going on, but then I thought: oh well, since I am back now, I wouldn’t hold it against him too much.
During that time, I often fell, sometimes quite hard. But I was never hurt, and my clothes weren’t even torn. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. Later, I realized that it was Master enlightening me, telling me to be careful and not fall.
My elderly father fell seriously ill, and I was busy taking care of him. My husband used to listen to me and he did all the housework. But since I came back home, he was very cold towards me. He only did housework when I asked him to; otherwise, he just sat there looking at his phone. Sometimes when I was cooking, I was so busy and it took him ages to come over when I called him. He didn’t even wash the vegetables properly. When I checked them after he was done, they still had mud on them and I had to rewash them.
I eventually discovered that my husband was having an affair with one of my relatives. The relative’s husband worked in another city, and when she had family matters to attend to, she often asked my husband to help. That’s how they got together. I thought: No wonder my husband was so devoted to the other family and so cold to me.
On the sixth day of the New Year, we had dinner at my in-laws’ house and were returning home when we started arguing over some trivial matters. When we got home, my husband grabbed my shoulders, lifted me up like a chicken, and carried me to the mirror, saying, “Look at your face.”
All my pent-up frustrations welled up inside me. I picked up the phone and called my brother-in-law and my daughter (who was staying at her grandmother’s that day). I said, “Take him away. That’s it.” My husband went back to his parents’ house.
After I calmed down, I realized I had done something very wrong. I hadn’t treated my husband with kindness, and I hadn’t remembered that I was a cultivator. Instead, I was treating our problem as an ordinary person’s matter. I’d been cultivating for over 20 years, why did I behave so poorly?
In the past few years, while assisting Master in Fa-rectification, I relied on my righteous faith in Master and Dafa to get through it all, without truly cultivating my xinxing. I deeply examined what my fundamental attachments were. I realized that I had a strong resentment towards my husband, resenting him for what he did to me and for betraying the family. I resented him for not earning money and not fulfilling his responsibilities to the family, and so on. These are all attachments, which cultivators should cultivate away.
I studied and memorized the Fa extensively, while sending forth powerful righteous thoughts to eliminate my resentment and competitive thoughts. One night, my elderly father needed an ambulance to take him to the hospital. I called my husband to come and help, and together we took my father to the hospital. I said to him, “Please come back.”
After my husband came home, I started to pay attention to my words and actions, and tried to hold myself to the standards of Falun Dafa. Sometimes, some bad thoughts would cross my mind, and sometimes I couldn’t help but argue with him. Gradually, these bad thoughts decreased, and now the whole family environment has changed. Now my husband takes the initiative to do housework, and he even does all the cooking. Every time it’s time to send forth righteous thoughts, he reminds me, “It’s almost time. After you finish sending forth righteous thoughts, we’ll start eating.”
Before, when I told people about the persecution, my husband would always fly into a rage and scold me. Now it’s different; he doesn’t object anymore when I talk to people. Once, we ran into one of his classmates on the street. He greeted his classmate, and I went up to him to tell him about Falun Dafa. His classmate used to be a junior manager at his workplace and was a Party member. I easily persuaded him to withdraw from the Party. My husband waited for me, and when I told him I had persuaded his classmate to withdraw the CCP organizations, he replied, “You’ve helped save another person.”
Looking back on my 29 years of cultivation, it is compassionate and great Master who has constantly guided and protected me. I will certainly do the three things well and return to my original spiritual home with Master!
(Selected submission for the 23rd China Fa Conference on Minghui.org)