(Clearwisdom.net) September 14, 1994, was the best day of my life. It was the day I began to practice Falun Gong. This practice has helped me to get rid of illnesses and to understand the true meaning of life.

During the past 11 years of persecution, I have been repeatedly arrested and sent to the detention center, forced labor camp, and jail. I also lost my job as a deputy chief of a government agency and became disabled as a result of the persecution. Despite that, I firmly believe in Falun Gong. I will never give it up!

I was an assistant at our local practice site and held a managerial position at work, so when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to persecute Falun Gong, the municipal party committee and public security bureau chiefs regarded me as one of their main targets. They utilized all sorts of methods to tempt and threaten me so that I would give up the practice, but they failed.

One day an investigation team came to visit our department at work. The team leader was a retired high-ranking officer, and he wanted to talk to me. He said, "You graduated with a science degree and a liberal arts diploma, have attended many sessions at the Party's schools, and are a candidate for a deputy level position. You seem to be an intelligent and organized person. How did you switch from being an atheist to someone who believes in the divine? You must have a good reason, so please tell me."

So, I shared with him the wonderful and miraculous experiences that I have experienced while practicing Falun Gong, as described below.

Witnessing Miraculous Healing Benefits from Practicing Falun Gong

Prior to practicing Falun Gong, I was an atheist. After I started practicing, I understood many questions about life that I previously could not answer. For a period of time, I cried and hated myself for allowing myself to have been deceived by the CCP. The CCP claimed that there were no gods, and I had believed that. My mother was a Buddhist and at one point I had even wanted to get rid of the Buddha statue she worshipped.

Before I learned the practice, I had aplastic anemia and had contracted hepatitis B after a blood transfusion. I also developed tachycardia and sometimes my heart would stop beating for a brief moment. The doctors said there was no cure for this.

At work, I was promoted to be deputy chief based on my merits. I had a lot of responsibilities, and my colleagues regarded me as someone who was capable and accomplished and had a bright future. However, I was very worried about my future because of my poor health. My wife and parents were also ill at the time, which made me feel even more that my situation was hopeless.

In September 1994, I met a peer who used qigong to heal other people's illnesses, which prompted me to want to learn qigong so that I could heal my wife's and relatives' illnesses. Coincidentally, a colleague gave me a brochure that introduced Falun Gong, and that is how I learned about and began to practice Falun Gong.

After attending the group exercises for two weeks, my wife noticed that I stopped taking medication. I was shocked that I was feeling well and thought that this practice was really incredible. In less than a month, all of my illnesses were gone. Consequently, my wife, my parents, and my sister's family also began to practice Falun Gong. My wife's uterine tumor; my mother's pulmonary heart disease, rheumatism, headaches, and abdominal pain; my father's atherosclerosis and gout; and my sister's family member's hepatitis B all disappeared.

I told the investigator: "If these things had happened to other people, I probably would not have believed it. If it only had happened to me, then I would probably think that the doctors had misdiagnosed my illnesses. But these things did not just happen to me, but to so many of my family members."

Because of my own experience, I saw hope in Falun Gong and wholeheartedly devoted my time away from work to the practice. In my role of assisting new practitioners in learning Falun Gong, I was also able to witness many miraculous things that happened to others.

There was a professor whom we called Auntie Wang. In 1992, she had thyroid cancer that had spread to the lymph nodes. She had an operation to remove the tumor at Beijing Xiehe Hospital, but in June 1993, another lump the size of an egg grew on the right side of her neck, preventing her from speaking. When she visited Beijing Xiehe Hospital again, the doctors determined that the tumor was pressing on the nerves in her throat. They wanted to cut open her chest and clean out the lymph nodes, but Auntie Wang decided against it. After she learned Falun Gong and attended Teacher's class in Guangzhou, her tumor disappeared. There were many more cases like Auntie Wang's at our practice site.

One morning, another practitioner and I taught more than a dozen new practitioners the exercises. When we taught the third exercise, I saw a lady in her 60s doing the exercise with her eyes closed. Her right arm did not properly extend, but came down as soon as it reached the level of her face. I tried to help her and pulled her right arm upward, but she screamed and said, "My right elbow is not good anymore. I have been using my left arm to do things for so many years. Does that mean that I won't be able to learn the exercises?" I quickly apologized to her and said, "You can still learn the exercises, just do it according to your ability. As long as you know the correct way to do the exercises, then it is fine." After that, we continued to teach the exercises. When she did this exercise the second time, she suddenly yelled, "Who straightened my right elbow?" She was now able to do the third exercise the proper way. Everyone at the practice site witnessed this miraculous occurrence and was very touched.

Another elderly lady had been blind in one eye for more than 40 years. The doctors said that her eye had already atrophied. The vision in her other eye was rapidly worsening. However, she regained vision in both of her eyes after practicing Falun Gong.

Falun Dafa Teaches People to Be Selfless and Good

In today's world, people have become very profit-driven. Before I started to practice Falun Gong, I thought that I was better than others. After learning Falun Gong, however, I realized that my moral values were also sliding downward with the rest of society. As I began to conduct myself according to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance taught in Falun Gong and put others before my own interests, I noticed that my view on life changed and I was happy to help others. Sometimes when I received a managerial bonus, I would share some or all of it with my staff because they had also made a contribution to the success of our department. When the company built housing for managers of each department, I gave the new housing to someone who was in need, even though the roof of my old house was leaking.

In my hometown, those who learned Falun Gong continuously made efforts to raise their moral values in different ways. A cousin of mine was an infamous gambler in the village, and his wife wanted to divorce him. After they began to practice Falun Gong, however, my cousin quit gambling and his family relationships became harmonious. He even returned the extra piece of land he took during the reform era.

Around the winter of 1997, there was a big snowstorm and the roads were blocked. The government truck attempting to deliver grain got stuck. The village secretary spoke through a megaphone, "CCP members and Youth League members come out and clear the snow!" But no one came out to help. Later a group of Falun Gong practitioners, including a teenager and a 70-year-old man, got together and cleared two kilometers of snow. The village secretary then announced through the megaphone, "Thanks to our Falun Gong practitioners. When I have money in the future, I will build a practice site for them."

When the persecution began in 1999, the Falun Gong practice site coordinator from my cousin's village was taken to a detention center. The villagers wrote a petition letter to request his release.

There was a young man named Ren at our practice site. He had committed many bad deeds. He was stealing even the day before he learned Falun Gong. After he learned the practice, however, he bought new items and gave them to people that he stole from. When he returned each item, he attached a letter, saying, "I was an ignorant person. Now that I practice Falun Gong, I want to be a good person. I'm returning the item I stole from you. Please forgive me." There are numerous cases like this.

Once me met a 70-year-old woman when we visited a village to spread information about Falun Gong. We encouraged her to learn the practice, but she refused and said, "I've been smoking since I was a young girl. I've heard that Falun Gong does not allow one to smoke. I'd rather starve and not drink a drop of water than not smoke." She agreed to watch the video of Teacher's lectures, however. As she watched, she kept saying that the lectures were very good, but after a while she wanted to smoke again. When she tried to smoke, however, she had to spit everything out that she had inhaled. She then said, "This is incredible! Why am I unable to smoke now?" Since then, she has quit smoking.

Why are there so many practitioners who have continued to practice despite 11 years of brutal persecution? Why couldn't the CCP stop them from practicing? There are many reasons, but much of it is because each practitioner has personally benefited from practicing Falun Gong in some way. I wish that my fellow Chinese people could understand the truth and realize that Falun Gong's principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance are good, while the CCP's lies and violence are evil. A liar does not like to be deceived. An evildoer wants to be treated with kindness. An intolerant person hopes that others can tolerate him. Falun Gong practitioners hope that by understanding good versus evil, people will be able to choose for themselves a bright future.