May 13th is our great, venerable and most benevolent teacher's birthday. Along with the broad masses of fellow practitioners, we used all kinds of forms to commemorate Teacher Li's birthday. This day is also the anniversary of the introduction of Falun Dafa to the public. We did not have access to the Internet, so only afterwards did we learn that May 13th was also World Falun Dafa Day.
At 8:00am on May 13th, over 100 practitioners spontaneously went to the city's Cultural Center Plaza to perform the exercises collectively. We finished the moving exercises twice without a break. At 10:00AM, eight police vehicles arrived. We were first rounded up in the lobby of the Cultural Center, then taken away to local police stations. What followed was brutal interrogation and torture.
A young female practitioner was hoisted into the air with her hands cuffed behind her back. The police also grabbed her by the hair and banged her head against the wall, trying to make her divulge the "behind-the-scene organizer" of this gathering. She was brutalized for more than two hours, during which time she steadfastly repeated, "Nobody asked me to go. I went because my heart guided me to go there." This practitioner later told us that during the course of police brutality, she recited over and over "True Nature Revealed" by Teacher Li,
"Firmly cultivate Dafa with the heart unmoved,
The improvement of one's level is fundamental,
In the face of trials, one's true nature is revealed,
Complete cultivation, becoming a Buddha, Tao or God."
It was Teacher Li's words that gave her tremendous power. She said she deeply understood the real implications behind the teacher's remark that "Cultivation practice is most serious." While she did not feel much pain, but a wave of agitation in her heart almost overwhelmed her. Suddenly, she was illuminated by teacher's words; "Cultivation practice is to cultivate your heart." She thought, "When struggling to pass a test on the path of cultivation, I should keep Dafa in my heart and forge ahead with my accomplished, or divine part. It is ill advised to try resisting with my human part, because this will be a loophole that can be taken advantage of by demons." When the police removed her handcuffs, her arms, remained in the same position as when cuffed, unable to move down. She told herself, "It should not matter because I am a practitioner." She walked one step forward, one arm dropped. Then, another step, and the other arm came down. She truly enlightened to teacher's words "What would you be afraid of when you are with the teacher and Dafa?" As long as one strives forward fearlessly, there will be no barrier that can not be passed.
The police did not stop here and wanted to insert sharp-pointed bamboo sticks into her fingernails. Since these sticks were not available, they used drawing pins and pushed them under her fingernails. Seeing that she remained unmoved, the police removed the pins and ordered her to do it to herself. She answered, "We are cultivators. We don't do such things." This triggered an avalanche of verbal abuse from the police. Even a degenerate would be embarrassed by the policemen's obscenities. The practitioner kept the teacher's instructions in her mind, and maintained her xinxing without hatred or the feeling of being wronged. As a last resort, the police asked some of her colleagues to try to persuade her. Her colleagues were shocked at the torture she had received and with tears, they asked her, "Can you bear it?" She tried to comfort them; "I am a practitioner. It should not matter to me. They may treat us badly, but we do not treat others badly. This is our teacher's instructions." Wiping away their tears, her colleagues left.
The younger brother of this practitioner was similarly tortured. For two hours, he was hung in the air with hands cuffed diagonally in back. He was grabbed by the hair while being hung and swung into an iron fence. He collapsed and was unconscious after the cuffs were open. When he regained consciousness, he was again cuffed to the fence with his hands behind his back for eleven days. The first two days, he was not allowed to eat. The remaining days, his mother, in her late fifties, traveled 3 miles back and forth to deliver his food. Free access to the restroom was denied. Instead, he was only permitted to use it once every eight hours according to the police order. His elder brother, who was working out of town, came for a visit upon hearing the news. He told his mother, "Don't let my brother see me in this condition. We are cultivators, and we suffer for the sake of Dafa and the justice of our teacher. Please tell him to concentrate on his work for the good of our country." What a good practitioner!
A female practitioner Z in her fifties was also pressed for the name of the organizer of the collective exercise. She replied, "As disciples, how can we forget the birthday of our teacher? Don't you know May 13th is our teacher's birthday?" The police were speechless but exploded in anger. They brought in her husband to interrogate her. Her husband started with extreme verbal abuse, then, brutalized her physically without any constraint. Grabbing her hair, he held her head against the table, and punched her face. When his fist started to hurt, he kicked and stomped on her. Later the practitioner said that if it were not for the teacher and Dafa, she wouldn't have survived the impact of one kick to her back given her prior condition. During the beating, her husband asked her, "Are you going to tell, now?" Her answer was, "No." Her husband went insane and with a forceful jerk, broke the thumb of her left hand. The practitioner endured the pain and reset the broken thumb herself. Her husband then picked up a three-inch-wide iron bar and aimed it right at her neck. The practitioner later said, at that moment the voice of Teacher Li was heard in her ears,
"Dafa should be with you all time,
And keep Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance in your heart.
An Arhat in the human world,
Your are feared by both deities and demons."
Thus, she held firmly to her beliefs and refused to give in to their demands. The police were frightened and they stepped in and took the iron bar away.
Another female practitioner was cuffed to an iron fence with her hands behind her for six consecutive days and nights. Over a dozen family members, old and young were called in to coax her into changing her mind. Her heart remained unchanged despite how much her loved ones pleaded with her. She said to visiting practitioners, "Two hours here in our human world is equivalent to one year in another dimension. Haven't we practiced for a few decades in another dimension during the days we were persecuted by the Public Security officials?" She also said the police didn't know that at 4:00AM every morning, the handcuffs would open by themselves. They would only resume the locked position after she had finished the five sets of exercise. She shed tears at this, "It was our esteemed teacher who was helping me."
There was another practitioner who was subjected to various handcuff positionsvertical, horizontal, hands parallel to the ground, etc. The shackles she was forced to wear, weighing over 20 kilograms, were intended for convicts with death sentences. When she was asked for information, she said, "The Cultural Center is a public place accessible to everyone. We didn't trouble anybody, which article of the law did we violate?" The police replied, "This is the order from the Communist Party Central Committee. You are not allowed to do the exercises. If you persist in not cooperating, we will do as they do in other areas and pry your mouth open and force-feed you with hot pepper water. Let's see if you can hold on. Our supervisory department has told us no measure is too-excessive as long as you are still alive."
There were many practitioners being tortured. At this time three of them have not yet been released. They were coerced into doing chores for the police, like doing laundry, etc. Two practitioners were sent to a labor camp due to the incident. One of them was happy. He said, he had memorized the article The Knowing Heart', and most of Towards Consummation'. I'll pass on the new articles by our teacher to the dozens of practitioners in the labor camp. They are looking forward to it eagerly!
In our city, there is a female practitioner Q who did the sitting exercise on the rostrum of Tiananmen last October. She was escorted back and later sentenced to six years in prison. At her trial on December 5th, she defended Dafa with dignity and honor, "Six years?" She said, "I'd say one year would be too long". Y is a faculty member at the city's medical college. He was sentenced to two years in a labor camp for "re-education" without any reason. Prior to that, his work unit had to keep a watch on him as required by the Bureau of Public Security who tried to prevent him from travelling to Beijing to appeal. The work unit was shorthanded and had taken the duty as a nuisance. Therefore, they sent him to the Bureau of Public Security with a suggestion to "re-educate" him through labor, which would save the work unit the effort to monitor him.
To transform us, a branch of the Public Security Bureau held a symposium for family members and relatives of Falun Dafa practitioners. They had hoped it would be helpful in transforming us. However, during the symposium, the participants all conceded that we practitioners really had become better people after practicing Falun Dafa. They said that they asked the practitioners relatives and family members to quit only because they were intimidated by the crackdown of the government. As a result, the symposium was concluded quickly.
At this year's United Nations Human Rights Commission, the Chinese government spokesperson took pains to convince others that China is a democratic country ruled by laws. According to the spokesperson, the citizens of China are allowed to practice and enjoy the freedom of belief. In an effort to convince people further, claims were made that the government detained no one due to the practice of Falun Dafa. While we were being beaten, the Public Security officials inadvertently revealed that the Public Security system had reported to its superior that the registered detention of Falun Gong practitioners totaled about 34 million. The official news said 98% of the practitioners had quit. We of course know that we, the genuine practitioners never quit, not even for one day. In addition, the news stated that the government had shown great care and sympathy towards us. We are wondering what the "care" entails. Does it mean expulsion, detention, torture and punishment of family members? The Public Security officials also told us they had rules following the government's policy. A practitioner travelling to Beijing for the purpose of appealing will be fined thirty thousand Yuan (which is about two times the annual income of an averaged urban family in China). A practitioner doing exercise in a local area will be fined between two to ten thousand Yuan. Is this the "care" the government has been boasting of? Where are the laws? And where are our human rights?
Our teacher teaches us to start with being a good person, and to eventually cultivate ourselves to attain the righteous enlightenment of selflessness and altruism. We discipline our every word and action in accordance with the requirements for practitioners. What guilt do we have?
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