(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings, Revered Teacher!
Greetings, Fellow practitioners!
My name is Li Xiangchun. My English name is Charles Lee. After suffering three years of illegal incarceration and persecution by the wicked Chinese Communist Party (CCP), I returned to the U.S. only last month. My three years' experience feels like a dream. It elapsed in the blink of an eye. However, many things happened during those three years and their impact is quite profound. As the saying goes, "Saying thank you is far from enough when one has received immense grace." My gratitude to our Teacher for offering salvation to us is beyond human language. However, I still want to say "Thank You" to Teacher who was concerned for me and strengthened me, and to my fellow practitioners who made great efforts trying to rescue me. Thank you, Teacher! Thank you, fellow practitioners!
On October 4, 2002, on the airplane to China, I enlightened to the understanding that my conduct was the conduct of a Dafa disciple validating Dafa. Although the evil was extremely rampant and the persecution was escalating, we Dafa disciples who had obtained the Fa and traveled the path of personal cultivation should devote ourselves to validating Dafa and saving sentient beings.
Why did I choose to clarify the truth by means of inserting video programs on cable TV in China? It was because I believed it was the best way available to me to save the largest number of sentient beings with the best effect, given the situation at that time and considering my capabilities. It was also a method that would shock the evil most. When the evil head was on his state visit to the U.S. and other disciples were eliminating the evil supporting it by constantly sending forth righteous thoughts, I chose to broadcast a truth-clarification video in his birthplace, which I thought would be the best timing and best place. So I did. I simply thought it was something I should do. As Dafa disciples, when we realize the best method to uphold Dafa from our understanding of Dafa, it is just a natural thing to do. I had such a simple thought. Of course, there had been numerous tribulations and interferences when it came to the details during the whole process. I will not spend much time talking about how difficult it was to prepare the required equipment in a short time, because many of us Dafa disciples have experienced a lot of difficulties when validating Dafa. Of course, Teacher taught us in Zhuan Falun,
"Actually, I think it depends on the person as to whether it is difficult or not." "To a genuine practitioner, I would say that it is very easy and not something too high to reach."
What I'd like to share here is, after I failed to insert the video programs into the cable network, how I further validated Dafa when encountering the illegal arrest and incarceration.
I obtained Dafa in July 1997. Within two to three months after I obtained the Dafa, I realized that the Fa I was learning can help a practitioner to cultivate to an extremely high level, so high that it is beyond imagination. Although I didn't have a very thorough understanding of Dafa, I came to such a conclusion: the principles taught in Dafa are harmonized to such an extent, the realm described in Dafa is so lofty, I couldn't have found any other thing more valuable than Dafa in my whole life. No matter whether I could succeed in cultivation or not, I would not regret simply devoting my whole life to Dafa cultivation.
Ever since the CCP started to persecute Dafa, I despised the evil very much. It was not due to a lack of compassion; rather, it was the disdain I had toward the stupidity of the evil beings that had deviated from the characteristics of the universe "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance" and were committing all kinds of evil and outrages with a self-contented feeling. After I realized this, I definitely no longer feared them, not to mention giving in to the evil. In "Toward Consummation," Teacher said,
"Some truly see the Fa-principles of Dafa; while many other students have found with their human notions various yearnings and wishes in Dafa, and, compelled by these human attachments, they have come to practice cultivation in Dafa."
If we truly understand Dafa on the basis of Fa, and truly improve ourselves with the guidance of Fa principles, there is no way such a practitioner would be "reformed." In addition, I have experienced Teacher's protection and strengthening throughout the entire period of the past three years. It was not that I saw this with my celestial eye or with supernormal capabilities. I understood this from the principles when analyzing the cause and effect in all kinds of issues.
After I was arrested, I realized that although my attempt to clarify the truth by using TV programs had failed, I could validate Dafa and save sentient beings by taking advantage of the fact that I had been arrested. It was exactly as Teacher said in later lectures:
"We are making use of this persecution while we defy it." ("Teaching the Fa on Easter, 2004, at the New York Fa Conference")
The court trial against me itself was illegal. But I will not address this issue here. After the evil tried me on March 21, 2003, I filed an appeal, in order to deny everything the old forced imposed on me, and at the same time, to give all beings who had been exploited by the evil to persecute Dafa disciples another chance, because everyone who read through my appeal statement would know the truth about Falun Gong.
Moreover, I thought that considering my status as a U.S. citizen, the approach the CCP could take to best serve its own interest and secure its power was to reject my appeal and keep the original judgment and that I would only be expelled from the country earlier than what was stated in the original judgment. In doing so, they would have saved face and yet it was still an act persecuting me. At that time, I looked at this issue from the perspective of an everyday person. I underestimated the evil nature of the CCP. As a matter of fact, the evil always chooses a path which is most devastating to itself, but they still think they are doing a smart thing. They believed that through numerous persecution methods, they would be able to break my will and force me to give up cultivation and accept their illegal judgment. They believed that by doing so they would land a heavy blow to Falun Gong, threaten overseas Falun Gong practitioners, as well as showi their strength in front of the U.S. government, as if saying: "I am not afraid of you."
They thought they could handle my case as a normal criminal case so they could justify putting me in prison. They tried to avoid using "practicing Falun Gong" as a charge against me while persecuting me as an overseas Falun Gong practitioner, because otherwise the U.S. government would protest and the CCP might have also invited other troubles. What's more, my elderly parents who lived in China were also in poor health. They took all these as factors to their advantage. So they continued to persecute me.
The CCP thought that all the tactics they had accumulated throughout history in battling against Chinese people would be successful. Besides, they thought my parents' situation was in their favor. They made meticulous arrangements. Because I am a U.S. citizen, they could not put me in the same prison with other Falun Gong practitioners inside China. They therefore put me in Nanjing Prison where criminals who are foreign citizens or criminals from Hong Kong, Taiwan or Macao are held. However, in Nanjing Prison, I was not incarcerated in the same cell as other foreign citizens. Instead, they specifically set up a "persecution team" and put me in the same cell with people who were very base and were fully exploited by evil in other dimensions. In addition, they transferred three experienced persecutors from other regions to Nanjing Prison who were dedicated to the "reformation project" against me. They also replaced the CCP instructor in the prison division I was in with a very vicious and muscular police officer. All this meticulous planning and the following persecution methods characterized by "Falsehood-Viciousness-Combativeness" could not in the least shake the righteous faith and righteous mind of a cultivator forged by Dafa with righteous enlightenment. On the contrary, my righteous faith was only strengthened in the face of the persecution. All the persecution methods they took against me were instead used by me, and fellow practitioners who made efforts to rescue me, to clarify the truth. Because the U.S. Consulate kept in touch with me, I kept exposing the truth about the persecution using this information channel.
Because of the existence of such a channel, the evil tried to use the most furtive and most vicious methods to torture me. I still have difficulty describing the tortures I suffered using human language. Besides the physical torture I suffered which has been publicized in earlier reports, what tortured me most was the incessant mental persecution and pressure.
For example, I was always monitored by several criminal inmates. They followed me and sandwiched me wherever I went and monitored me and rushed me to go through things, whatever I did. Even when I was asleep, someone was standing beside my bed. In addition, the cell in which I was detained and the forcible brainwashing room were both equipped with monitors. This omnipresent pressure set the basic tone of the persecution. It is very difficult for those who have not experienced such an environment to envision and understand the pressure I went through. To give another example, when I started a hunger strike to protest the illegal detention, they force-fed me in the name of "humanity"; however, they left the thick and hard feeding tube in my nostril for a straight 30-40 hours. In tying me to the bed, I was completely immobilized. The food they tried to forcibly feed into my stomach was actually extremely scant.
Even when I was suffering such torture, the police would still yell at me, verbally abuse me and torture me physically for an extended time. When my mother was seriously ill, they tried to coerce me into writing a certain statement for a temporary leave to visit family so that they could make use of such content to spread rumors against me and against Dafa. Later, they used vicious language in front of my mother to hurt her feelings. Her health started to deteriorate. Ironically, they misrepresented the facts to the U.S. consul so that the consul thought I was receiving a special favor from them.
From beginning to end, they enforced a variety of brainwashing tactics specifically plotted to persecute me. They verbally abused me with hooligans' language and took turns to attack me verbally to humiliate me; however, they claimed to the consul that they treated every prisoner the same way and it was the so-called "three-subject study" stipulated by the prison rules. They instigated others to perjure themselves so as to defame me as having beaten others. Prisoners are often sent to the "strictly-disciplined division." They were "educated" with electric batons. Oftentimes, they were beaten to the point that they could not control their bodily functions and screamed for their parents. When the beating is finished, they have to say, "Thank you, officer, for educating and disciplining me." I have suffered numerous tortures. Solitary confinement, being subjected to freezing temperatures in winter; being bitten by mosquitoes in summer. I resisted all kinds of tortures strongly. I had never been sent to the "strictly-disciplined division," though. However, in many aspects, the tortures I suffered were even crueler than those inside the "strictly-disciplined division." I was subjected to forced standing or sitting for long periods of time as physical punishment. I was forbidden any reading materials and I was not allowed to have any entertainment. When the perpetrators thought the position of my hands and legs were not up to their requirement, they would beat me and kick me. The CCP's law stipulates that the punishment of solitary confinement cannot be longer than 14 days, but I was tortured there many days in a row. The longest time I endured solitary confinement was 48 days.
However, under Teacher's care and protection, with the support of fellow practitioners and those who uphold justice all over the world, with the resistance of my own righteous mind and righteous conduct, all the torture methods ended in failure. Not only that, but because fellow practitioners kept working to rescue me and voicing their support, many people who had been deceived came to know the truth and many predestined people obtained Dafa and started to cultivate. After a long hunger strike protest, the evildoers had to submit all the documents I wrote to the U.S. consul. With continuous resistance and having their evil conduct exposed, the police had to quickly bring each of their persecution attempts to an end. Every time, I could feel the greatness after righteousness subdued the evil. The evil was scared. The wicked police who were specifically arranged to persecute me initially didn't even dare to tell me their names. When I left, they didn't dare to reveal their phone numbers to me. This is the result of the mighty power of Dafa.
I was able to get through the tribulation mainly because I kept doing the three things which Teacher has emphasized again and again that we must do well. Although the evildoers had forcibly taken away the book Zhuan Falun at the airport and despite the fact that I only remembered the first few pages of Lecture One, I was able to gradually recall the whole book and wrote down the content. I believe 800f what I recalled was correct. The evildoers later took away part of my notes, and forbade me to read the remaining part. I nonetheless continued to study the Fa during my incarceration.
When they tried to brainwash me, I would recite the Fa and send forth righteous thought. Moreover, I kept clarifying the truth to them. One of the criminal inmates who took part in persecuting me said to me, "You don't behave like a Falun Gong practitioner, because your mind and logic is very clear." I replied, "Your previous impression of Falun Gong is completely wrong." My conduct helped many people inside the prison come to realize what Falun Gong really is and what Falun Gong cultivators are like. Many of them admire Dafa disciples who refuse to yield to the wicked CCP. Of course, when using the U.S. consul as another channel to clarify the truth, it was truth-clarification on an even broader scale.
When looking back at my experience over the past three years, I also had many shortcomings and gaps; most of them I probably have not realized yet. Some practitioners and some everyday people asked me, "How come you served a full three-year term?" Certainly, I could have found numerous objective reasons. For example, the wicked CCP is cunning, cruel and shameless; or, my case was different from those of other overseas Falun Gong practitioners; or, there were gaps in the practitioners who worked to rescue me as a whole, especially in the sense that initially some of the things were not done in a harmonized way and we didn't do well enough to clarify the truth to the U.S. government. However, the fundamental reason lies in me myself. Maybe I have unknowingly partially acknowledged the old force's arrangement. In the "Fa-Lecture at the Conference in Florida, U.S.A.", Teacher said,
"In the future you'll see that everything was very carefully arranged. But it's not me who arranged this, it's the old forces who did."
After I was arrested, I thought about the situation calmly. Based on the nature of the evil, what would happen? What would they do to me? How should I counteract? How should things be done to generate greater impact and save more sentient beings as well as helping myself to be released earlier, etc., etc.? These thinking processes were probably the process the evil used to enforce their arrangements in my mind and have me acknowledge these arrangements. Because I grew up in China, a country which has been controlled by the wicked CCP for years, I knew a lot about the nature and characteristics of the CCP. At the same time, I may have been contaminated by many of its notions and ways of thinking. My three years' experience tells me that I anticipated many situations and I have handled them well. However, I was imprisoned in China for three years. The key issue in cultivation is to enlighten to Fa principles. We must enlighten on the basis of the Fa. Only when we enlighten on the basis of the Fa can we tell what is the old force's arrangement, can we completely deny its arrangement and disintegrate the evil persecution.
The above was a retrospect of my experience over the past three years and some of my understandings. If there is anything inappropriate or incorrect in my sharing, I sincerely hope fellow practitioners would point it out to me and help me.
Thank you, Teacher!
Thank you, everyone!
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