(Minghui.org) In the first half of 1994, four people in the school where I worked passed away within a single month. One died after heavy drinking the previous night. One died after getting up, and another passed away due to a chronic illness. Another died of causes I do not remember.
While feeling sorry for my colleagues who died, I was also lost. How could someone come to work yesterday, and leave us forever today? Such uncertainty in life! No one has any idea how long he lives, and what for, and what is the meaning of his life. I was often buried in thoughts like these, with plenty of questions, and no answers.
In October of 1994, a colleague of mine introduced me to Falun Dafa, also called Falun Gong. She brought me all recordings of Master’s Fa lectures. It took me two days to finish listening to the 16 cassette tapes. I was in shock! I found what I had been looking for, why I live, and the meaning of life.
I was of poor health since childhood. My mother told me that I was a premature baby when I was born in 1963. The big famine that resulted from the bad policies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had just ended.
Before I was born, my mother was quite ill, and had a high fever. She had not had enough nutritious food. I was delivered ahead of schedule. I was lucky to be alive. My health had been fragile since I was born. My parents worried about me all the time. After growing up, I suffered from severe neurasthenia, rhinitis, low blood sugar, and arthritis. All my elbows, knees, and finger joints ached.
Two days after listening to Master’s Fa lectures, my body felt light. I had recovered from all my illnesses at the age of 31. What a wonderful feeling. Whenever I had time, I would read Zhuan Falun, in which Master taught us how to be a good person by following the Dafa principles of “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.”
I was a teacher in a secondary technical school. Prior to cultivating in Falun Dafa, I was simply fooling around when it came to teaching. I almost never drafted course outlines, made no preparations, and brought to the classroom only the textbook. Courses were taught to a large class, which lasted 90 minutes. I spent just 30 minutes to finish covering the content, and left the remaining time for students to study by themselves. I dismissed the class half an hour before the 90 minutes were over.
Students who were enrolled in our school, as claimed by the vice president of the school, did not care about studying and had no life goals. They were quite young, and their parents did not want them to enter society. They figured that by them attending our school they would be supervised. Students would not take the college enrollment exams, and teachers had no pressure of rating college enrollment. Thus, very few teachers were devoted to their job.
After starting cultivation in Dafa, I followed Master’s teachings – we should always be a good person regardless of whether we are in society, at home, or in the workplace. I started to arrive on time and did not leave early. I prepared for the classes and drafted course outlines. Also I added some additional content outside of the textbook to improve students’ knowledge. Students gave excellent feedback with regard to my teaching.
Not long after I started studying Dafa, I was offered the head teacher position. If it were before I started to cultivate, I would not have accepted this position. It was quite demanding to be a head teacher. Students in a secondary technical school were hard to manage. Their minds were not on study.
After taking on the position of head teacher, I first thought about my responsibilities, time, and energy needed to be worthy of the trust of students, their parents, and the school.
I lived close to the school. I came in early, paid attention to the overall situation in the class, and any specific developments of individual students. I treated them as friends. I assigned a student of good personal character to be leaders in the class. In the morning, I arrived at the classroom or student dorms before school shuttles were running to see if there were any issues I could resolve. In the afternoon, I stayed after the shuttles were gone. I met with students, and stayed with them during evening self-study sessions.
After some time, the students changed. They were willing to study and stopped fighting. Many stopped making up excuses for being absent. They were willing to share their thoughts with me. During the morning or evening self-study sessions I did not have to be there. Still there was not a single student who would chat or be absent. Everybody simply studied quietly. This never happened in the entire school.
For some time, I noticed that a female student who just came to my class was acting differently than others. Sometimes she did not return to the school at night. Sometimes she was missing classes. When I talked to her, she did not talk in complete sentences. I realized that she might have mental problems. I contacted her parents. Her mother came immediately to the school. She looked worried, and told me that two years ago, her husband yelled and cursed at their daughter. Their daughter was hurt and kept crying, until falling asleep. When she woke up the following morning, she acted abnormally. They took her to various doctors, tried all kinds of medicine and treatments, or even tried those with supernormal abilities, but none helped. They worried all the time. They decided to send her to school, and hoped that teachers would be able to take care of her. It apparently did not help.
I told her about Falun Dafa, and gave her a copy of Zhuan Falun, and cassette tapes of Master’s Fa lectures. I told her that as long as she read the book and listened to the Fa lecture cassette tapes seriously, her daughter’s situation would improve.
After a few days, she came to school. After she had returned home, she read the book and listened to Master’s Fa lectures daily. She told me about her addiction to cigarettes. She used to smoke 10 packs of cigarettes a day, plus self-rolled cigarettes. A couple of days after she listened to Master’s Fa lectures, she no longer felt like smoking. She recovered from her many illnesses, and her daughter behaved normally.
She also told me that one night her husband was having a hard time breathing. He appeared to pass away at any moment, and was telling her to prepare for his death. She placed the book on his chest, and told him that only this book could save his life. Her husband was soon able to breathe again, and everything was alright. Her entire family was grateful to Dafa, and Master.
As a head teacher, students and their parents often would bring me gifts, which I did not accept. One parent came with her car loaded with gifts for me. I told the parent that I am a Falun Dafa practitioner. Master has told me to be a good person, and be kind to others. I could not take any gifts. Nonetheless, I would take care of the kids.
The CCP launched a nationwide campaign to persecute Falun Dafa on July 20, 1999. Lies spread all across the country. Documents were issued to all organizations, and everyone had to publicly state his or her attitude toward Falun Dafa.
My husband worked in the same school, and he also practiced Falun Dafa. Officials and colleagues all knew that my husband and I were good people. Not a single colleague discriminated against us, which reduced the pressure we faced.
One afternoon, a meeting was going to be held with all teachers and staff present in the conference room. It was said that documents were to be read. My instincts told me that it had to be something slandering Dafa. I did not want to go, and said, “It has to be the same as on television. All lies and slanders. I’m not going to listen to it.” My colleagues said, “Well, you may as well go.” I thought about it, and figured I could attend to see what lies they were spreading.
When the president announced the start of the meeting, he did not say much. It was the vice president who read the document in a monotonous tone. The document slandered Dafa and Master. It did not quote Master’s words. Instead, it added and removed words, made up things, and claimed that it was from Dafa. It changed the meaning of what Master said. If one had not read Master’s Fa, one would be misled and fooled.
Since I studied the Fa every day, I was familiar with what Master taught. When the vice president read some twisted statement, I would interrupt him loudly, and correct him: “No,” And I would state that Master did not say that. Instead he said it like this, and recited Master’s words. Everyone would laugh at the falsehood conveyed in the document. After a series of interchanges, the vice president was embarrassed with his face turning red, and stopped reading the document.
The CCP would implicate leaders in organizations where there were Falun Dafa practitioners, or if any practitioners had been to Beijing to file an appeal. Leaders in these organizations could face demotion or otherwise be reprimanded. Performance measures of the organization would be impacted as well.
I was arrested in October 1999 in Beijing for appealing for the right to practice Falun Dafa. I was taken to the detention center in my hometown. The secretary of the city CCP committee under pressure from higher-ups gave orders that all practitioners who went to Beijing had to be fired. The president and colleagues in my school did not blame me. Instead they expressed their worry. The president and the office director came to the detention center to visit me. When they saw my haggard looking, they were in tears.
I refused to write the guarantee statements as ordered by the police. Thus, I was detained for nearly half a year. I was released after I went on a hunger strike for five days. Colleagues came to visit me, and the president held my hand and said, “If you two people were bad people in our school, there would not be a single good person!” Colleagues in our teaching office took me and my daughter for a sightseeing trip, to say farewell, as I was dismissed from the school.
After May 2005, my husband and I stayed away from home to avoid persecution. However, a staff member who we did not know made sure that my husband’s salary was collected each month, and delivered to my younger sister. My sister would then forward the salary to us.
A warrant was later put out on me. Officers from the police and state security departments went to our school for an investigation to frame us while looking for leads to arrest me. Everyone, from the president to teachers all put in favorable words for me. They said I was kind, excellent in teaching, and of many talents. When officers from the city police department called the president to expel my husband, he said, “Don’t you have a conscience? They have two kids. You already forced us to expel one. Now you want to expel one more. You’re not leaving any room for someone to stay alive!”
Then, I was arrested again, and sentenced to prison in 2007. Some colleagues came to visit me in prison, which was located 250 miles away from the school. They put money into my account. They cried upon seeing me. I was moved and also broke out in tears. When I returned at the end of the prison term, the president and other colleagues set up a banquet to celebrate my gaining my freedom. When my daughter got married, many of these colleagues also came to express their congratulations. Almost all my colleagues were sympathetic and caring about me and my husband, and expressed their support for Falun Dafa. All of them were blessed.
Since ours was a small technical school, some adults were also enrolled in continuing education. Nearly all such schools in our city had been closed. Our school not only survived, but it was also combined with a college and a couple of other well-known schools in the city into a national level school. The administrative level was elevated from deputy division to full division. The cap on teachers was previously set at the associate professor. It was lifted to full professorship. Our president has been promoted to deputy dean. Other staff members were promoted accordingly.
One night a few months after I obtained the Fa, my mother was watching television. I noticed that she was sitting in the lotus position. She was slightly overweight, with thick legs, and we did not expect that she was able to sit in the lotus position. My six-year-old daughter and I started reading the Fa. A little while later, we heard my mother saying, “Wow, how come I feel like my arms are gone?” I encouraged her, “That is great. Continue on!” A while later, she said, “Wow, I feel like my legs are gone as well!” I urged her to go on, and told her that she might feel her head and body were gone. By the time my daughter and I went to sleep, she was still sitting in the lotus position.
The next morning, after I returned from the practice site, my mother was excited to tell me that the night before she indeed felt that her head and body were gone, and felt most comfortable. After she took her legs out of the lotus position, her eyes no longer hurt, after feeling the pain for over 30 years. When she looked into the mirror, the thin coating that had covered her eyeballs had disappeared. Her eyes looked crystal clear.
My father suffered from shoulder pain. By the time I obtained the Fa, he had infusions every day. One night, I asked my father to read a few sections in the book Zhuan Falun. The next day, he told me that when he was dozing off, he saw a golden wheel flying toward him. The wheel kept turning around the back of his hand, until it entered the skin. After that the shoulder no longer hurt.
My sister was absentminded and not very careful when doing things. One day, she plugged in the electric water boiler, and went to her mother-in-law’s home. It was not until the afternoon of the next day, she realized that the water boiler was still plugged in. She was so scared. Out of distress, a thought occurred to her, “It will all turn out to be OK, as my sister practices Falun Dafa!” When she got home that evening, she saw that there was a tiny bit of water left in the boiler, and the electricity was off. Since this is a boiler without an auto cutoff capability, she figured it must be broken. But when she plugged it back in, it was functioning as before.
One day my younger brother was riding his motorcycle, with a friend of his sitting behind him. A small car came sideways at them. He had to step on the break. And they were thrown to the ground. His motorcycle spun out of control and slid on the ground for quite some distance. When my brother got up, he found that he was not injured. His friend, although seated behind my brother, had fractured two ribs. The motorcycle was not damaged.
Using their real names, my brother, sister, daughter, and niece filed lawsuits against Jiang Zemin (the former CCP leader) for the persecution of Falun Gong and the violation of China’s constitution. Their lawsuits were published on the Minghui website. They also helped Dafa practitioners clarify the facts about Dafa. They were also quite effective in helping people quit the CCP and its youth organizations.
During the Chinese New Year’s Day or when celebrating Master’s birthday, they send their greetings to Master through NTD television and the Minghui website. They believe that they have been protected by Master Li, the founder of Falun Dafa.
Living through the times when Dafa is being spread far and wide, as well as amid the chaotic human affairs, with Master and Dafa in our hearts, we feel incomparably blessed!