(Minghui.org) I was born in northern China. I graduated from university and had been admitted to graduate school. I was happy for a short time. But I was always perplexed by how people pursued fame and personal interest in the secular world. I started thinking about why I came to this world and the meaning of life.
My mother's good friend gave her a book Zhuan Falun in 1998. Due to her poor eyesight, my mother asked my father to read the book to her in the evenings. They spent a week reading it and then put it aside. I saw the book and finished reading it in one afternoon. I found all the answers to my questions about life. I understood that the real meaning of life is to return to one's true self by following the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
I was weak and ill since I was young. In the winter, I always had a cough and fevers. I also had rhinitis, which is inflammation of the nasal membranes. After I read Zhuan Falun, I went through several days of severe coughing. I woke up after midnight coughing, and had a hard time trying to breathe. I learned from the book that hardship is a good thing, so I didn't take medicine. After coughing for four or five days, I felt that my nasal cavity and throat had been refreshed. My cough and rhinitis were all gone. I understood that Master Li cleansed my body after I read the book. I have not needed medicine since.
My mother told me that some people practiced the Falun Gong exercises on a playground near our building each morning. She asked me to join them. I was late to the exercise site the next morning, but I felt refreshed in the serenity after I spoke with a practitioner. The following day, I went there early in the morning and learned the five sets of exercises. I felt a strong energy under my nose. I noticed that the practice had a powerful energy.
After completing graduate schoo, I went to Beijing and became a college teacher. There were three instructors in my section. We had a heavy teaching workload, and one of us needed to go to a branch college in a suburban county to teach one morning a week. No one wanted to do it. I thought that Dafa teaches me to be a good person and to be considerate of others, so I accepted the assignment. I took the shuttle bus at 7 am and taught the whole morning at the branch college.
I worked hard and took my personal interest lightly. The following year, the college allocated apartments. I was allowed to buy an apartment at a low price, but I decided to not take the apartment. Instead, I proposed to let the other teachers have it. My colleagues thought it was incredible that a young woman without housing would not take the apartment.
Letting Go of Self and Validating Dafa
Jiang Zemin, former head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), initiated the persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999. Fellow practitioners and I thought we needed to explain what the practice is to the government. We went to the appeals office, but police arrested us and told my college security personnel to escort me back.
I had no doubt about my belief or what choice I would make in this harsh environment. But I did not know what to do. Besides appealing to the government, I thought there should be other ways to validate Dafa. I started writing about the grace of Dafa, my personal cultivation experiences, and the persecution. An article I wrote was reprinted and distributed to people around the world.
Because appealing for Falun Gong was not permitted, practitioners went to Tiananmen Square to voice their concerns.
At the beginning of 2000, I went to Tiananmen Square to validate Dafa. I hesitated. I was not sure what to do. I did not have banners or flyers. A photographer who made money by taking photos for tourists saw me. He asked if he could take photos for me. I agreed and made a few hand gestures of the third set of exercises. He stared at me blankly and suddenly called out to the police. I was pushed into a police vehicle.
Police detained me in a large metal cage at the Tiananmen Police Substation. Many practitioners were detained there. I was calm in my heart and had no fear. I enlightened that speaking up for Dafa and validating Dafa were actually done for ourselves. I was released pretty quickly.
I was cooking at home when a fellow practitioner called me in mid-June 2000. She asked me to go to Tiananmen Square with her to practice the exercises. I had not been planning to go, but as a particle of Dafa, I felt I had the responsibility to validate Dafa. I agreed.
I changed into clean clothes and pinned a Falun badge on the front of my blouse. We went to the square by bus. We sat down on Tiananmen Square and started doing the sitting medication. As soon as we finished the hand gestures, police rushed over and pulled us into a vehicle. We were detained at the Tiananmen Police Substation.
I met a female practitioner from Hainan who flew to Beijing to validate Dafa on Tiananmen Square. Banners on the ground read, “Falun Dafa is good” and “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” Police interrogated me in a separate room. I would not give them my name or my work unit so I would not implicate my family or colleagues. But the police officer knew my name. I later learned that when my husband could not find me, he guessed that I had gone to Tiananmen Square. He called an officer that he knew who was on duty at Tiananmen. We were released right away.
After that arrest, I went to Tiananmen Square again and walked around a police vehicle. I thought, “I need to validate Dafa. But I won't be taken by police. We are good people following Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.”
I went to the square several more times. I did all of the exercises there except the fourth one before returning home safely.
Jiang Zemin's political faction staged the self-immolation hoax on Tiananmen Square in 2001 to defame Falun Gong. The campaign against Falun Gong reached a new level. Every person was made to express their attitude toward Falun Gong and to condemn the practice. Seeing Dafa defamed and kindhearted people misled, fellow practitioners and I enlightened that we needed to clarify the truth urgently.
We distributed flyers and hung banners in residential buildings. We downloaded articles about Falun Gong and placed them in different folders in floppy disks, such as “the wide spread of Dafa,” “Our voice,” “Who is to blame,” etc. We distributed the disks. Several practitioners worked together to download, print, and hang the disk. Some practitioners also mailed articles about how Jiang Zemin had harmed China into Zhongnanhai, the headquarters compound of the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council.
Later, the Beijing Education Committee organized brainwashing sessions. I was taken to Daxing Legal Education Center and other brainwashing centers, where I suffered brutal persecution. They blasted propaganda against Falun Gong physically abused me. I was sent to a forced labor camp for refusing to give up my belief. I was tortured for showing sympathy to newly incarcerated practitioners and for resisting “transformation.” The camp guards pressured and intimidated my husband to persuade me to renounce my practice. He divorced me under the pressure.
Under this tremendous pressure, I gave up and did not practice for two years. My memory was poor after being released. I could not even memorize a telephone number. I thought I could not practice Falun Gong again.
With the encouragement of fellow practitioners, I wrote a solemn statement to renounce my previous statement that was written under pressure. That night, I had a vivid dream. I saw two dragons irrigating a bleak land. Soon, grasses started growing on that land. I wept when I awoke. I knew that the land was my cosmos that had been destroyed by old forces, but Master Li did not give up me.
My memory returned to normal after I resumed practicing. I married again. My husband was a Dafa practitioner, too.
The Power of Sending Righteous Thoughts
I experienced the power of sending righteous thoughts. There was an elementary school near my home. It was also one of the CCP's training schools. The school conducted the flag-raising ceremony on Mondays and holidays. I often had a headache on Sunday evenings. My husband was often sleepy when he arrived home. Sometimes, we argued over trivial issues. We looked inward and corrected our shortcomings. We realized that the CCP's evil factors in other dimensions also played a role. So we added a thought when we sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the interference in other dimensions.
The sound system at the school broke down, so there was no anthem during the flag raising ceremony. The flag fell frequently. The flag was also raised in our community on May 1 and October 1, so we sent forth righteous thoughts. The flag was frequently furled and hung there.
The school's loudspeaker recently broadcast the anthem during a flag raising ceremony and also played the song of the Young Pioneers. Students sang the songs twice. I looked inward and found that I had a fighting mentality. I corrected myself and sent righteous thoughts with a pure heart. The loudspeaker has not broadcast the anthem since then.
Clarifying the Truth, Saving Sentient Beings, and Fulfilling Our Prehistoric Vows
Many of my undergraduate students were curious or surprised to discover that I practice Falun Gong. Some expressed sympathy and wanted to learn more about my plight after hearing that I had been incarcerated in a labor camp.
One of my students did business in other locales. I explained Falun Gong and the persecution to her and her family and advised her whole family to quit the CCP and its youth organizations. I went to her home and brought them a Shen Yun DVD and a Dafa music CD. I reminded her to watch the DVD. She told me a few days later that her husband liked the Shen Yun performance and that he appreciated the efforts I had made to help their family.
The brother of a fellow practitioner at my workplace was a CCP member. He did not agree to quit the Party, regardless of what his brother told him. He met me once and said he was looking for a job. He was frustrated. He said, “It's so strange. Why do all the Party members in my class not find jobs?”
“It's no wonder,” I said. “Many people join the Party not for a belief in communism, but for jobs, promotions and getting rich. Over 80 million Chinese people have been killed since the CCP took power. It persecutes Falun Gong practitioners and even kills them to harvest their organs. Heaven will disintegrate it. Only after quitting the Party, the Communist Youth League, and the Young Pioneers can one have a safe future. Following Heaven's will, one will have a smooth life and a bright future. Going against Heaven's will, one will face a lot of obstacles. It's important to make the right choice. Let me give you a pseudonym to quit the CCP.” He agreed without hesitation.
When advising someone to withdraw from the Party, things went smoothly sometimes but did not work out at other times. I found that studying the Fa well would result in a good effect in truth-clarification. Otherwise, the effect would be poor. Cooperation among practitioners is important, too. The student and friends described above had practitioners in their families or workplaces. These practitioners had already contributed a lot in truth-clarification, which laid a foundation for my effort to advise them to withdraw. I appreciate Master Li's intricate arrangements. When practitioners cooperate well, the effect of validating Dafa will be good.
We have set up a study group at my home. Though I sometimes have a mentality of fear or even relax too much sometimes, I would not change my journey to return to my true self. I will treasure the current opportunities to study the Fa well, do the three things, and save more sentient beings.
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