(Minghui.org) We live in a rural area. When the persecution of Falun Dafa began in July 1999, we lost the practice site where we would study the Fa and do the exercises together. At that time, we did not have a deep understanding of the Fa. However, with faith in Dafa and Teacher we survived the most evil period of time.
On April 25, 2001, eight practitioners from our village went to Beijing to appeal for the end to persecution. They were subsequently illegally arrested and tortured. They were detained, force-fed, shocked with electronic batons, and fined. Their homes were also ransacked. Whenever it was the so-called sensitive dates (such as July 20 when the persecution started in 1999), they were closely watched by the authorities. People from the 610 Office and local police station constantly harassed them.
Since 2000, Teacher has published many articles to guide us in cultivation. Usually, we only had one copy of an article for the whole village, and we manually copied from one another. Although the persecution was severe, practitioners distributed materials about Falun Dafa, displayed banners and wrote truth-clarification messages on walls. With Teacher’s protection, no one fell behind in their cultivation. We are grateful for Teacher's mercy. We would like to share our experiences during the past 10 years.
When the persecution was most severe, in the first few years, what we found painful was that we could not do much. We had to hide our Dafa books. However, most of us did not waver in our faith in Teacher and the Fa. We continued to do the exercises at home and memorize the Fa as much as we could. When we studied the Fa, we could eliminate distracting thoughts and maintain our righteous thoughts.
When we wanted to discuss our understandings, we would go to a couple’s home. They both are practitioners and their children are not against it. Their home became a gathering place for us. The more we discussed and shared understandings, the more steadfast we became. In the first half of 2002, every evening about 10 practitioners would do the exercises together. Gradually, we also took out our copies of Zhuan Falun, which we had hidden, and studied the Fa together. That was how our study group came into being. At times, we had more than a dozen practitioners. We studied one lecture a day. After we finished the nine lectures, we studied Hong Yin and other teachings. Then we did the exercises, rain or shine.
In 2003, as we studied the Fa more regularly, our understandings also improved. We started doing some truth-clarification work. We distributed truth-clarification materials on every street, not missing one household. Toward the end of 2004, when the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party was published, we started to distribute them on a large scale. We used bright yellow paper with red print to write our messages. We posted them everywhere. To alleviate the burden on practitioners from other sites, one of us bought a laptop, and with a printer from another practitioner from the city, we finally formed our own production site. One day, two female practitioners went to a mountain village to distribute materials. When they got there it was 11 p.m. They could see that the pamphlets were shining. It was Teacher encouraging disciples to save the world’s people.
In 2005, our study group moved to another practitioner's home, which was larger. For safety, we did not tell our family members or any other people. In the summer, many people spent time outside on the street to cool off, playing cards or chatting until really late. This presented a problem for practitioners going to group study. They tried to avoid people as much as they could [for safety]. As more and more people got to understand the truth about Falun Dafa, the environment became better. Then gradually practitioners became not as vigilant about security. After study, they would remain in small groups and chat on the street.
In the summer of 2006, we were having group study in a practitioner's home. There was just one table with an alarm clock and a few cups on it. Mattresses were laid out on the floor for people to sit on to study the Fa. We did not clean up even after the session. There was no sense of safety among us. Actually, it was a manifestation of laziness. One day, four police officers came and searched around in the courtyard. When they got into the west room, they found mattresses on the floor. They opened the big box and found Dafa books and a dozen of our truth-clarification materials. The police said to the practitioner who owned the home: “Falun Dafa gatherings take place here. You are responsible.” The practitioner was fearful at first, but then he calmed down and thought to himself: “Wait a minute. Dafa practitioners should be in control of this situation.” With righteous thoughts, he started to clarify the facts about Dafa to the police and told the officers: “We read the book [Zhuan Falun] and live by the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. What is wrong with this? If you don't believe it, why don't you read the book and see what is 'anti-society' about it? Nothing. The government made a mistake in persecuting Falun Dafa.” One police officer replied: “If the government said that you can't practice, you just can't. Gathering is not allowed.” The practitioner went on to say: “We can purify our mind and heart reading the book and improve our health doing the exercises. What is wrong with that?” The practitioner had righteous thoughts and was very convincing. The police couldn't even get in a word in. One of the police officers then said: “You are so convincing. We won't arrest you today. Wait for the notice from the police. You have to come if we summon you. We will confiscate these books and flyers.” Then the police left.
After the police left, the practitioner asked all others to send forth righteous thoughts intensively. In the evening, the practitioners in the group looked inward to see what went wrong. They found many human mentalities, such as laziness, seeking comfort, lack of sense of security, etc. We kept on sending forth righteous thoughts every hour to disintegrate the evil persecuting Falun Dafa. At the same time, we studied the Fa well. After this test, many practitioners eliminated their fears. In the end, the police did not come again.
Although this incident did not cause many losses, we looked inward and agreed that our group was too big to be safe, so we divided into three smaller groups, with 5-6 people each. We met once every 10 days and shared experiences as needed. Later on, we changed to meeting once every month.
We used currency notes with truth-clarification messages on them on a large scale. At first, we wrote the messages by hand, but later we used stencils, and most recently, we used a printer to do the job. No one in our market refused them.
Every year when we celebrate the Chinese New Year, people buy audacious couplets and rural-style paintings to post on their walls. Practitioners decided to write truth-clarification messages on red paper and post them everywhere they could on the Chinese New Year's Eve. On Chinese New Year's Day, when people visited each other, they would see them around. These postings were kept intact for a long time.
It has now been 10 years since the start of our study group in 2002. Rain or shine, we persisted. Every night we studied one chapter of Zhuan Falun and we shared experiences at the end of each month.
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