(Minghui.org) Greetings, Master and fellow practitioners:
My son was arrested for practicing Falun Dafa in 2017 and released in 2019. During this one-year-and-nine-months, our local practitioners and I cooperated as one body and improved together in our effort to rescue him. We took this opportunity to save sentient beings involved in his case.
I am 73 years old. I started practicing Falun Dafa in 1996. For more than two decades, I experienced many ordeals and nonstop tribulations. Without Master's protection and the strengthening of Dafa, it is difficult to imagine that I could have made it through those two decades.
My entire family practices Falun Dafa. Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started its persecution of Dafa, my family has always been targeted. My parents passed away after being harassed countless times and enduring endless intimidation. I was illegally expelled from my public office job and taken to a labor camp twice. My husband was monitored for years and was detained for 7 months. My son was sentenced to 11 years in prison for telling people about Falun Dafa. My daughter-in-law lived in fear and was alone with their child for years. Under pressure, she was forced to divorce my son. During the past 20 years, our family has been broken apart by the CCP. Yet regardless of how difficult the situation, I have not given up my faith.
Emerging from Catastrophe
My son had survived nine years of imprisonment and returned home suffering from severe physical injuries at the end of 2012. Before our lives could return to normal, double disasters fell upon our afflicted family.
My husband was under intense stress from the persecution and suddenly passed away in 2017, after five years of being paralyzed. While we were immersed in sorrow, seven plainclothes officers broke into my home five days after he died. Two of them took my son away without much explanation. It happened very suddenly. My mind went blank, my heart was pounding, and my hands were trembling. Then a thought came to mind: “You are a Dafa disciple. You can't fall down. You have to stand up!”
At this time, the remaining five police officers walked into my son’s room. Without thinking, I followed them. Then I awoke to the situation and asked, “What are you doing? Why are you arresting my son? Why don’t you show me the arrest warrant?”
One of them said, “We arrested your son because he wrote a letter to the leader of the central authorities.”
I asked, “Is writing a letter illegal?” Immediately, I started to clarify the truth to them about the persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners. The police did not turn the house upside down. They confiscated a desktop and a laptop computer, but they did not show me any arrest or search warrant, nor did they present a list of the items they confiscated, as required by law.
Later, I rushed to the county seat by bicycle. Local practitioners were waiting for me. After I explained the situation, we went to the police department and asked that my son be released. But the guards would not allow us to go in. With no other choice, I went to the home of the team leader of the Domestic Security Division. but no one opened the door for us. We left at 10:00 p.m.
At five o'clock the next morning, I went to his home again. He opened the door and let me in. I clarified the truth about Falun Dafa to him for nearly an hour. I emphasized the beauty of Falun Dafa, and that practicing Falun Dafa is a citizen's right. I also explained the current situation.
I told him that he had changed a lot, that many local practitioners had a good impression of him, and that he should not get involved in arresting my son. He replied, “If I don't arrest your son, I can't stay in this position.”
I said, “The persecution of Falun Dafa is a political movement. It will end sooner or later. What will you do then? Do you want the future, or do you want this position?”
He replied quite simply. “I want the future!” Then he continued, “I will try my best within my power.” When I left, he offered to have someone drive me home.
Then I shared with several coordinators about my visit with the team lead. They were happy to learn of the progress. Then we discussed how to rescue my son. We agreed that the rescue effort was a process of saving those in law enforcement. We wanted to change this bad thing into a good thing. We set up a small rescue group and decided not to publicize the involvement of the team lead (of the Domestic Security Team) in the arrest at this stage.
Lessons and Mistakes
After leaving the fellow practitioners, I went to the county detention center. I learned that the procuratorate had approved my son's arrest. The people at the detention center told me: “This is a very big case. The provincial government is getting involved in it. There is no wiggle room. Your son will be sentenced to a heavy term.”
A few days later, I learned that not only would my son get a heavy sentence, but also our family property would be forfeited. An insider in the police department told us that officers from the city who specialize in the internet were ordered to come to gather evidence.
All kinds of opinions came from fellow practitioners. Many believed that the team lead of the Domestic Security Division was playing tricks on us. They said his actions must be exposed, and if not done in a timely manner, it would be condoning his actions and allowing him to continue committing crimes. Most practitioners agreed that we should file claims against him, and if it succeeded, my son would be released.
At that time, there were also several experience sharing articles on the Minghui website about filing lawsuits. Some practitioners used the method of exposing law enforcement's participation in the persecution to help them to learn the truth about Falun Dafa and to prevent them from further persecuting practitioners. However, in reading the articles, I did not notice or pay attention to the practitioner's mindset while in the process of making the accusations. I did not seriously think about it, nor did I measure this based on the Fa. I quickly wrote a letter of complaint and handed it over to the county procuratorate.
A section chief of the procuratorate received me and read the complaint letter. He said: “If this is true, we need to investigate. Let's wait for the case to come over.” As soon as I saw it was possible, I reached out to the deputy director of the procuratorate, who was in charge of this. I explained to him about Falun Dafa. As soon as I mentioned filing a lawsuit, he started to avoid me.
After unsuccessfully trying to visit him several times, I went again to see the section chief. His attitude had also changed. I was angry at the time, and said, “If you don't accept the case, I will sue you too.” He was mad after hearing this, and said, “You do whatever you want! I don't care.”
The team lead of the Domestic Security Division learned that I was suing him. One day he met me and shouted: “Well, you sue me. You go ahead. We are enemies now. There is nothing to talk about anymore.”
Since then, I was not allowed to enter the police department or the procuratorate. It had created obstacles to clarifying the truth to them.
Feeling upset, I looked within myself and found many attachments, including selfishness. My selfish motive was hidden inside: “Getting my son released by suing others.” This did not fit the standard of a practitioner. Actually, this thinking was naive and stupid. My competitiveness, mixed with revenge, pushed people to the opposite side. I also found my impatience and an attachment to achieving the result I wanted. I developed a resentful feeling when I saw others misbehaving. Where was the compassion of a practitioner?
Actually, the articles I read on the Minghui website had repeatedly stressed that the accusation must be carried out with a pure mindset and a compassionate heart. Only then would it have a good effect. But compassion was not something that can be done easily. It is a manifestation of one's cultivation state. After that, I exchanged my understanding with fellow practitioners, and some of them agreed with me.
There was another lesson. When I first went to the procuratorate, I met a deputy director named Zhang in the guard room. I told him about Falun Dafa, and he accepted it. I asked him to help me pass on the pamphlets about Falun Dafa to the head of the procuratorate. He was happy to help me. Every time I went there, he greeted me and helped me deliver the Falun Dafa informational materials.
Later, he refused to talk to me after he delivered one set of materials. The original title of the article inside the pamphlet was: “The interpretation of the Supreme Court and Supreme Procuratorate is not the law.” But then we changed it to: “Carrying out the interpretation of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Procuratorate is illegal.”
I realized that the words Dafa practitioners choose are crucial and will directly affect the outcome of saving sentient beings. It must be taken seriously and carefully thought out. The interpretation of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Procuratorate is their bible. They may think about it if you said it is not the law, but they cannot accept that it is a crime to execute the interpretation. We were saying they were criminals. We needed to give them some time to change their thinking.
Saving People With Our Hearts
These lessons made me realize that the process of rescuing my son was not only a process of saving sentient beings but also a process of eliminating attachments and improving cultivation levels. When saving sentient beings, we must do so with our pure hearts, and cultivate patience and tolerance.
A fellow practitioner's process of saving a prosecutor impressed me very much. This practitioner knew the prosecutor and wanted to tell him about Falun Dafa. However, the prosecutor wouldn't answer her phone calls and ignored her text messages. The practitioner thought about giving up on him. But another thought was telling her that she must save him: The prosecutor's ignoring her calls and texts indicated that the CCP's lies about Falun Dafa had badly poisoned him. He would be destroyed along with the CCP if she did not help him understand the truth. So the practitioner wrote a long letter with a pure heart.
The letter first talked about how she was kind to her in-laws in the face of all kinds of injustices. She tolerated things that others could not bear at all. Her father-in-law cursed at her for no reason, yet she replied with a smile instead of cursing back.
Her husband died in a car accident, leaving her and their two young sons when she was in her 30s. Her in-laws believed that she would remarry and leave the home. No matter how well she behaved, the in-laws were afraid she would take their money.
For example: First, she and her husband built a home with five rooms in their hometown and moved to a county town later. They were offered 100,000 yuan for the house in their hometown, but they did not sell it. After her husband died, her father-in-law sold it for 80,000 yuan without telling her. The neighbors were indignant on her behalf. She said that he was her elder and let it be.
Here is another situation she included in her letter: Their apartment unit in town was bought by the couple when they were young. However, the father-in-law insisted on putting his name on the title of the unit, instead of the practitioner or her oldest son, after the husband passed away. The practitioner accepted it. She knew that they were afraid she would leave this home. She told them several times that she would not leave them. She would take care of them, and raise the children.
Her oldest son became a police officer after graduating from the police academy and was married. The second son was in college. Her in-laws then finally began to trust her, and no longer saw her as an outsider. Can you imagine what would have happened if she were not a cultivator who held herself to high standards?
The practitioner took her letter to the prosecutor's home when he was having a meal with his family. The practitioner said, “Brother, I wrote a letter to you. Please take a look at it.” The prosecutor did not pick it up. His wife was embarrassed, saying: “She is kind enough to bring it to our home, yet you still don't appreciate it. Sister, please give it to me. I will read it.” The prosecutor's wife took it. The practitioner thought she needed to give them time to understand Falun Dafa.
Then an opportunity finally came. A pretrial meeting was held by the County Court regarding a practitioner's case in 2018. The prosecutor saw the flaws. First, the defense lawyer pointed out that the way the investigator handled the case was illegal. That is, the practitioner was arrested first, then he was asked to sign the warrant much later. Second, the investigator obtained the evidence utilizing inducement, which was illegal. The prosecutor pointed out such major issues.
It was later learned that the prosecutor said he did not want to be a scapegoat for the CCP in the future. His wife once said to others, “Who knows what will happen in the future?” The fellow practitioner saw this opportunity and went to his home again. She helped them quit the CCP and its youth organizations. The prosecutor also changed his job. Her hard work paid off, and the prosecutor was finally saved.
Post Office Door Opens
The Chinese government is afraid of the people, as are the law enforcement agencies. Their doors are closed to the public. If you want to reach them, you have to mail letters to them.
In the past year, I mailed over 1,000 letters to them. At first, I sent the letters by registered mail to make sure they would be received. The post office then seemed afraid that it would cause them trouble, so they wanted to open the letters to check its content. They also required my ID and signature. It became a complicated procedure.
I had to tell them the truth. So I said the content of my letters was about my family's tragic experience. We are Falun Dafa practitioners and just want to become good people by following our practice. But, our family was destroyed because of the persecution. My son was sentenced to an 11-year prison term and almost died there. He returned home and wrote a letter to a leader in the central government to request his job back. He is facing trial again. We have been so wronged, and they were too unreasonable. They all expressed sympathy, saying: “Will they read your letters?” I said, “They will.”
One day, it rained. I was taking a dozen letters to the post office. Before entering the post office, I wanted to check whether I had a letter for the county party secretary. I was in a hurry to leave home and did not check it carefully. I took the letters out of my bag. Several letters fell to the ground and got wet.
After I entered the post office, I told the post office clerk (a young man) that I wanted to buy four large envelopes. The young man opened the drawer, took out the envelopes, and handed them to me. I tore open the wet envelopes and put the letters in the new envelopes.
When I was putting the second letter into the new envelope, I found something inside the envelope. There were a dozen stamps with a price of four yuan each. I hurriedly said: “Young man, there are a dozen stamps in the envelope. Let me give it back to you; otherwise, you would lose money!”
Several staff members heard this, and the person in charge was there too. They thanked me. I said, “No need to thank me. Any Falun Dafa practitioner would do the same.”
After that, whenever I went to the post office to mail letters, they no longer asked to check my ID. They greeted me with a smile and said, “Registered mail or first class? I will take care of them right away.” The post office door was open for me.
My Son's Case
When my son's case got to the court stage, there were lessons to be learned then, too. But, I knew how to handle everything. Regardless of my contacting the judges in person or via mail, I tried to use Dafa's standards to measure what I said.
I spoke courteously in a humble manner. Every word and every sentence in my letter was repeatedly weighed. A letter was edited several times with the following in mind: Can the other party accept this sentence? Am I really thinking of the other party? Will this letter provide the benefit of clarifying the truth about Falun Dafa to them? I tried to write letters that would have the same effect as talking to them in person.
When we did this well, the goodwill in the other party would arise. It could be seen in a small thing. Once, the judge in charge of my son's case called me to discuss things. He told me to wait for him at the door. After he came out, he took me to a corner and said: “This area is not monitored. We can talk here.” Then he continued, “I have read your letter, and I have met your son. You are good people. Don't worry. I will try my best within my authority.” I thanked and encouraged him. I wished him and his family a good future!
(To be continued)
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