(Clearwisdom.net)
After I returned to Ireland, I told many human rights organizations and the media about the physical persecution that I suffered in Beijing Forced Labor Camp. However, I haven't talked about the most vicious part of the entire persecution, the mental persecution. With the encouragement of my fellow practitioners, I would like to tell you about it today in order to let people know how malicious the persecution is and to help myself step out of the shadow of the persecution in order to get a new start.
I was subjected various kinds of tortures and brainwashing "classes" in the past two years at the forced labor camp. Just before I was released, the authorities promised the international community that they would release me when the term ended and they wouldn't "give me a hard time." However, they brutally tortured me before my release.
They transferred me to an old house and separated me from everybody else before January 1 2002. Two weeks before my term ended, they didn't allow me to sleep for two days. The next night, they "kindly" let me watch TV. Then all of a sudden, a policeman came in and pushed me into an office. When I entered the office, I saw a wooden bed with strips of cloth torn from quilt covers in it. Five policemen were there, including the head of the Management Division, his assistant the head of the Education Division, and two police officers from a specially trained squad. I immediately knew that they were going to give me electric shocks. They first threatened me and tried to "reform" me, which I steadfastly refused. In order not to make my body jump because of the electric shocks, they bound me to the wooden bed. They tied my feet, legs, torso and arms to the bed. They also used a strip of cloth across my mouth to tie my head to the bed. After that, they again threatened me and tried to "reform" me. I again refused. So they took out a bunch of electric batons and distributed them to the officers.
The electric batons are about twenty inches long. Besides two electrodes at the end of them, they also had spiral wires covering them. Those wires can give electric shocks to a much wider area for a longer period of time. They used at least six of those electric batons to give me electric shocks all over my body.
My entire body started to twitch and jump fiercely. From time to time, they would stop and tried to force me to sign some statements. A policeman from the specially trained squad was very experienced in using the electric batons. He held an electric baton in each of his hands and rolled the batons against my chest, using the wires to shock me. My entire upper body went numb and twitched. I was short of breath and felt my throat dry up. I gripped the strip and breathed with difficulty. After a while, one of my legs started to twitch.
When I was imprisoned in the forced labor camp, brutal tortures were the main "methods" that they used to deal with me. It was not the first time that they tortured me. However, it was especially fierce this time. After being given electric shocks for over half an hour, a thought came to my mind, "That's it. I don't want to bear it any more. I can disclose their crimes after I get out." Because of this thought, I failed to keep righteous thoughts and gave in to the evil on the surface. It not only had a negative influence for Dafa, but also left a huge stain on my personal cultivation path. Many fellow practitioners asked me what pained me the most in the forced labor camp. This is it. My belief in Falun Dafa has never changed. I was forced to write all those things that are bad for the Fa in the forced labor camp. Here I want to solemnly declare that all those things are null and void. What I have experienced is the truest evidence of what the evil political gang has done even under the international community's scrutiny. They tortured, brainwashed and deprived the practitioners of their basic human rights. The wounds from the physical tortures can heal as time passes by, yet the mental pain from the brutal persecution could haunt a person for his entire life.
From the perspective of cultivation, now I can see that I had two thoughts in my mind at that time. One was that I absolutely believed Falun Dafa is righteous regardless of whether I'm good enough myself. This thought is surely righteous. It is from my part that has obtained the Fa. The other thought was that I recognized that I was not good enough. Actually, it was not a thought from my true self. The thought of "if I am unable to bear it, it means I haven't reached the standards of the new cosmos" actually acknowledged that I was not good enough. Besides, when I had this thought in my mind, I was thinking about myself instead of clearheadedly understanding the situation from the Fa. In fact, I shouldn't have thought only about whether I was good enough. I should have thought the possible negative effects of my acts on the Fa. I didn't clearheadedly think about the negative results of my signing those statements and accepting the "reformation." At that critical moment, I should have realized that I had only two choices. One was to resolutely safeguard the Fa and assimilate my true life to the Fa even if the evil would kill me. The other was to live a pitiful life by keeping the flesh body, following the evil, causing negative influence to the Fa, and losing my position in the Fa. However, my thought karma interfered with and weakened my rationality. I didn't let go of life and death at that moment.
After personally experiencing the evil's persecution, I have a deeper understanding of the seriousness of cultivation and on the essence of the evil persecution. During personal cultivation, whether we pass or fail a test, we should still move forward along the cultivation path. However, during this destructive test, everything is serious. If we are unable to cultivate ourselves based on the Fa, or if we are unable to understand the Fa from the Fa, every test could totally destroy us. Only when we can truly understand the magnificence and the immense power of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance," can we willingly and completely assimilate to the Fa. Only until then can the power of the Fa be manifested and validated by the practitioners in the human world.
When I thought about my experience, the evil's physical persecution was only a minor part. The most difficult thing for me to do was to uncover the interference of my thought karma. When I was first sent to the forced labor camp, those malicious police officers said, "Every practitioner will be reformed." Once I remembered this, it stayed in my heart and was recognized. I didn't see through it using unwavering faith and righteous thoughts in the Fa. So being "reformed" would become a matter of time. This is a lesson for me. I did not use righteous thoughts to defeat the evil's psychological attack.
I was sent to the forced labor camp earlier than many fellow practitioners were. I witnessed the start and development of various "enlightenments" along an evil path. The foundation that I laid during my personal cultivation and my wisdom as a human being helped me to distinguish how those "enlightenments" don't accord with the Fa. Thus they didn't make me confused. In other regards, I think I also behaved righteously and didn't leave the evil any chance to undermine the Fa. However, I didn't maintain a compassionate heart toward those practitioners who had attachments and who were taken advantage of by the evil. I didn't understand the righteous notion that all Falun Dafa practitioners are one body. I now realize that I unwittingly helped to foster the evil. I tried my best to protect fellow practitioners and restrain the evil based on my understandings of the Fa at that time. However, I didn't have a good understanding of how to completely deny the old forces' arrangements and how to eliminate the evil using righteous thoughts. Thus, I didn't do much in this regard. When the evil finished persecuting all the other practitioners, they turned to me and I was unable to break through their further persecution. Meanwhile, just because I thought I had the ability to distinguish the evil "enlightenment" from the righteous enlightenment, I didn't watch out for my thought karma and attachments that hadn't been removed. When I was faced with the evil persecution, sometimes I was not confident in myself and felt I could not bear it any more. Actually, all these thoughts were not from my true self as a Falun Dafa practitioner, but from my thought karma that had been strengthened in that evil environment. My human attachments were used against me. Because I didn't study the Fa enough, I wasn't able to realize it in time and determinedly eliminate the evil. Instead, I unintentionally recognized it. After I was released, I studied the Fa and came to realize that in fact, each incident is a trial of strength against the malicious policemen. The most important thing for us to do is to keep unwavering faith and righteous thoughts in the Fa and to fight against the thought karma and the evil interference. We should view the old forces' arrangements as an opportunity to strengthen our unwavering faith and righteous thoughts in the Fa.
Also because I didn't study the Fa enough, I didn't fully understand the Fa that Teacher explained to us about completely denying the old forces' arrangements and not leaving the old forces any excuses to persecute us. In other words, when Teacher pointed out to us that our fundamental attachment and fear were the excuses for the old forces to persecute us, I mistakenly thought that the old forces' persecution was justified and I should accept it. Also, before I read Teacher's article "Beyond the Limits of Forbearance," when ten policemen ganged up to beat me, I totally recognized and passively bore the persecution since I didn't know anything about denying the persecution based on the Fa-rectification. When they tortured other practitioners who were sent in later, based on my intuition, I felt we should not just bear it. So I reported these policemen's deeds to their superiors in the forced labor camp. I found out that they were afraid of the outside world knowing that they beat me since according to the law, they had to take responsibility for that. They were afraid of their bad deeds being disclosed. They didn't have compassion in their hearts, but they dared not to do bad things in front of the world. They were afraid of taking responsibility for their evil actions, so they were restrained to some degree. After I read Teacher's article "Beyond the Limits of Forbearance," I clearheadedly came to realize that we should not accept the persecution. Teacher said, "If the evil has already reached the point where it is unsavable and unkeepable, then various measures at different levels can be used to stop it and eradicate it." (From "Beyond the Limits of Forbearance") As I understood it, we should spread the word about the persecution that we suffered to expose the evil. We also need to use the laws and the regulations in the forced labor camp to restrain the evil. Last October, they used several electric batons to shock a practitioner. After I heard of it, I thought that I should report it. I asked an assistant to a head of a division to put my report down in writing. Once it was put down in writing, they would have to investigate it, but he refused to do so. So in front of him, I wrote a letter to the directors of the forced labor camp and a relevant agency. They were very afraid. However, they intercepted the letter. There were reports about me on the Internet and people around the world showed their concern for me. They knew this. So they were afraid that I would disclose the vicious deeds done to the other practitioners and tried to separate me from other practitioners as much as possible. I could tell that they didn't have compassionate thoughts at all. Thus they had become unsavable. I knew reporting on them to their superiors wouldn't fundamentally solve the problem since the persecution was carried out from the highest level to the lowest level. I thought that if their bosses dared to brazenly back up the persecution in front of the world, we would expose them also. Later I heard that practitioners had begun to send forth righteous thoughts, but I didn't have a good understanding of the concept. Thus, I didn't pay special attention to it. I didn't know that I should send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil elements behind those police officers. So I actually dealt with the evil in a human way, instead of treating the situation as a true practitioner during Fa-rectification.
The goal of the evil is to stain practitioners with wrongdoings. They would use our own mistakes to shatter our belief in the Fa and righteous thoughts to further persecute the Fa. These deeds clearly show that they are evil. When the Fa is being persecuted in the human world, we have stepped forward without any hesitation to safeguard the Fa. When faced with the evil, we haven't had any thoughts of protecting anything of our own. However, some of us didn't fully understand the situation from the perspective of the Fa and held on to human notions. With these notions in mind, at critical moments, we have caused interference and losses to our Fa-rectification cultivation. We need to follow what Teacher has told us. That is, we need to study the Fa with a peaceful mind. Only through this way can we keep one hundred percent rationality and determination. We should break through the old evil forces' arrangements with our diamond-like unwavering faith in the Fa. We should try our utmost to make up for the losses that we caused. As Teacher said, "And in this persecution, the world's people will see more clearly everything the evil has done; Dafa disciples will become more rational and more clearheaded, and, with determination and maturation in cultivation, move towards magnificent Consummation." (From "Coercion Cannot Change People's Hearts")
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