(Clearwisdom.net) Although I knew nothing about Falun Gong, I had doubts about the true reason for the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) severe persecution of Falun Gong. There were always a few questionable points on my mind:
In this materialistic era, when everything is money-oriented, why are so many people practicing Falun Gong? What are their thoughts?
It is said that among the Falun Gong practitioners, many are professors, scholars, scientists, cadres and army officials. What are their thoughts?
After Falun Gong was labeled as a [Jiang Zemin's slanderous term deleted], the Chinese government severely suppressed and persecuted Falun Gong. Why is it that Falun Gong practitioners, when facing the danger of being arrested, still firmly hold on to their belief?
Some of my acquaintances practice Falun Gong. I know they are good people and have never been involved in anything illegal. Once I tried to persuade them to stop practicing Falun Gong by saying, "Since you are not allowed to practice, just give it up." They could not be made to waver at all. I could not understand why at the time.
When I came abroad, I wanted to experience Falun Gong personally. Therefore, I practiced the exercises together with practitioners and studied the Fa with them.
Through studying the Fa I understood that Falun Gong teaches Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Falun Dafa directly targets human attachments. One must first cultivate one's xinxing and truly behave according to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Doing the exercises is secondary to xinxing cultivation. Falun Dafa requires practitioners to eliminate all attachments, to fame, personal gain and sentimentality, that an everyday person pursues. Falun Dafa requires one to be a good person who bears no ill will against anybody. Is there anything wrong with this? Of course not! This could only benefit the country.
Through practicing the five sets of exercises, I felt very good. The exercises are easy to learn, they allow me to easily obtain energy and they easily remove illnesses. (I have practiced many other Qigong but never felt the beneficial effects so strongly.) In a very short period, several of my illnesses were gone (severe night sweats, constipation, insomnia and dizziness). I do not need to take medicine any more. Earlier, when I was in China, I had to take three or four kinds of medicine every day. Normally, it would cost 100 to 200 yuan to treat a cold. Not long ago in China, I spent 1,000 yuan simply for an examination of my lightheadedness. I would like to ask, "Do those workers who have lost their jobs have money to have their illnesses treated? How much money would be saved in medical expenditures if people all over the country were able to practice Falun Gong!"
Falun Dafa encourages practitioners to put being good people first, and better health naturally follows from that. Can this be wrong and illegal? Of course not! From my own experience, I believe that Falun Gong is a good practice. Falun Dafa is good!
However, there were still a couple questions that bothered me:
Falun Gong claims it does not participate in politics. Then why do the practitioners go to Chinese Embassies in other countries to appeal?
Is it not good enough for Dafa Practitioners to do the exercises only? Why do they go to clarify the truth everywhere?
I directly asked the practitioners these questions. They answered, "All that we ask for is an environment in which we can freely and legally practice Falun Gong and study the Fa. We do not seek anything more. We care little about fame and personal gain. We are not interested in political power or participating in politics. However, Jiang's group and the Communist Party send practitioners to prison, where they are tortured in an effort to make them give up their belief. We want to clarify the truth to all the people around the world and rescue our fellow practitioners who are still inhumanly persecuted in detention, and to help them regain freedom. Our sit-ins in front of the Chinese embassies is a most peaceful form of protest against the persecution and a way to clarify the truth to people, to restore our good reputation and to rescue our fellow practitioners."
I thought, "That's right. These people are barehanded. They do not seek fame and personal gain, and they care even less about power. Why is it that the CCP gets so nervous about Falun Gong? What do they fear? The Chinese authorities do not hesitate to spend large sums of people's hard-earned money and mobilize large numbers of police and the army to wantonly persecute Dafa practitioners. What are they afraid of after all?
I watched the truth-clarifying VCD about the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in Chinese prisons. The prison authorities used all sorts of methods to torture practitioners. They treated human life as if it were worthless. They even sexually abused female practitioners. No evil was left undone. My eyes were full of tears. I asked constantly, "Why?" I could not accept that they put female practitioners into male jail cells, yet that was exactly what happened in China.
I was distressed. I feel that those ordinary people in China who have been deceived by the lies and slander of the CCP are so pitiful!
These days, I can see for myself that Falun Gong practitioners outside of China voluntarily use their own money to get the truth out. They print truth-clarifying materials at their own expense to rescue their fellow practitioners in China. They show no fear for danger and do not take offence from the scorn of those Chinese people who have been poisoned by the Chinese government. They go out of their way to patiently clarify the truth to people. I am really moved by their selflessness.
On the Internet, I read that Dafa practitioners, at the peril of their life, went to Beijing at their own expense. They simply wanted to tell the Chinese leaders that Falun Gong practitioners have not done anything illegal and that all they want is to practice Falun Gong legally. However, they were arrested, sent to the labor camps and sentenced. The most intolerable thing was that they sent practitioners to mental hospitals for abuse and injection with unknown drugs, and drove normal, healthy people to have mental breakdowns. These are the crimes committed by the police and judiciary departments under the leadership of the CCP!
According to statistics, more than 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners have died as a result of persecution. In addition, countless people's whereabouts are unknown because they have left their homes to avoid further persecution. These days, in order to prevent people in China from knowing the truth, the Chinese authorities have strictly blocked off the Internet. If anyone visits or tries to visit those blocked sites, they will be arrested. The Chinese authorities do not care how much money they spend on this persecution. (There are so many laid-off workers, so many needy farmers and so many children from poor families, who were forced to drop out of school and who are longing to return to their classrooms. Why not spend the money for the benefit of these people?) The Chinese authorities use the most advanced Internet technologies, and yet what they do is not for the benefit of the people but for the deprivation of the Chinese people's right to know the truth. It was reported that the Chinese government is planning to finish a project called "Golden Shield" by 2008. This will put in place a net of monitoring systems on all the main streets of all the big cities in China. Overseas, such systems are used to monitor traffic, yet in China it will be used to monitor people. They spend their citizens' hard earned money to cruelly harm the people. Shouldn't this kind of Party fall out of power? When all the people in China know the truth, the evildoers will come to their end!
I was lucky to have the chance to come overseas, which provided me with the opportunity to come in contact with Falun Gong practitioners and learn the truth about Falun Gong. The most fortunate thing is that after I finally experienced Falun Gong, I too, have become a practitioner.