(Minghui.org) I started to practice Falun Dafa in 1996. My celestial eye is closed and I have not seen things that are special. But through the years, I have benefited tremendously from the practice, both physically and spiritually. In particular, I heard Master Li’s voice three times during the most difficult time of my life. That strengthened my righteous thoughts and gave me assurance.
Below are some of my related experiences.
Master Encouraged in Difficult Situations
After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to suppress Falun Gong in 1999, many practitioners were discriminated against and suffered financial losses, including me. My employer fired me because of my faith and withheld my salary and bonuses.
Because this violated my right to freedom of belief, a privilege granted by the Chinese Constitution, I decided to sue my employer. I did this twice, appealed twice, and the case was tried twice.
Every step was difficult. I had no background in this and knew little about the law, so the terms and procedures were foreign to me. Hiring a lawyer was nearly impossible. “There are orders from above that we are not allowed to accept cases related to Falun Dafa or forced demolition of property,” one of them said.
The most difficult time was before the second appeal. I wrote two open letters summarizing what Falun Dafa is and why the suppression was wrong. I included contact information for key officials at my workplace. Other practitioners helped me, and we distributed the letters throughout almost the entire city, especially to my employer and the residential area. Some were delivered door to door, while others were mailed. Practitioners in other countries found out about this on Minghui and they followed up with my employer about this.
Some officials, including those who were directly involved, were furious. Citing me for publicizing their contact information as an excuse, they threatened to sue me instead, detain me, or beat me up. My family members were also pressured.
“Why bother with her [referring to me] lawsuit? Just throw her in jail and that’s it!” commented one official.
Neighbors and former coworkers gave me strange looks or said that I was just beating my head against the wall.
My heart also sank during those days. It was so hard—as if I had reached the limit of my endurance. In those ten days before the intermediate court hearing, I lost 5 kilos (11 pounds) and had symptoms of flu. The situation did not improve until the day of the hearing. Thinking about how difficult it was, I cried as I was doing the exercises at home. “Master, why is it so hard?” I asked in my heart.
Suddenly, I heard a voice from above me on the left: “You know, you are saving people.”
The voice was clear and it awakened me. In the past, I knew that what I was doing was not reducing my own suffering but helping others to be clear on this issue and stop doing bad deeds. But I was not being completely selfless, nor was my heart pure enough. Master’s words assured me. Rather than feeling bad, I had joy in my heart. After all, this is part of cultivation practice and I just needed to follow Master’s words.
Despite all these challenges, I kept on studying the Falun Dafa principles and doing the exercises while thinking about how to do a good job of informing people and saving them. One of my open letters clarified the suppression and my situation, and the other one invited the public to attend the hearing. I tried to think of ways to talk about this and let people know how horrible the persecution really was. I interacted with many people, including the defendant, court officials, and anyone else involved. Whether in person or on the phone, I recorded the voices and wrote down what happened.
To call out the key persons at places where I’d worked, I prepared several announcements and posted them on bulletin boards to publicize their illegal actions. I also reported them to higher agencies and auditing departments. I also sent copies of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party and information on forced organ harvesting to related government officials. No matter what did, my mind was clear that I was doing it to raise awareness of the suppression and save people.
Judges Listen to the Facts
Because of the top-down persecution policy and intervention by the 610 Office, I did not win the case. My employer did not rehire me or compensate me fairly.
However, as a practitioner, I knew I had done what I was supposed to do. Plus, I improved my xinxing during this process. I felt I had more compassion, and the capacity of my heart grew. Here are some stories of how people became supportive after hearing the facts.
Witnesses
The judge asked me to find two witnesses when I appealed the first time. This was not easy, I thought. Who would support a Falun Dafa practitioner given the massive persecution?
When I actually went to do it, however, I found four witnesses! Two were willing to attend the hearing, while two of them would provide written statements.
My previous manager, Chen, was one of them. Many people were surprised to see an official from my workplace testifying in my favor.
My Husband
My husband and I both worked at the same place. Almost everyone thought my lawsuit would get him fired. He was nervous, too, worrying he might lose his job. But he had lived with me through these difficult years and knew me as a practitioner, and would not abandon me. When someone asked him if he would divorce me, he replied, “I would never do that. She has no job. If she loses her family, how would she survive?” He knows I am healthy and kind. Plus, I know how to bring up our child and take care the family, so divorce is not an option.
I also understand the stress he endures. After other practitioners and I distributed the open letters, our employer had a meeting, and almost everyone was looking at my husband. But several years passed, and he not only kept his job, he was also promoted a few times. His annual salary increased from 50,000 yuan to about 250,000 yuan. His coworkers and managers said good things about him. Not only that, my husband gave almost all the money to me to manage, and I was very careful with it. I later bought a large apartment.
I believe all these things are blessings from Falun Dafa. In fact, Master said that “...with one person practicing, the whole family benefits...” (“Teachings at the Conference in Australia”) In fact, of those 40 or more people who transitioned from the military back then with my husband, only three, including my husband and one who supports Falun Dafa and has quit the CCP organizations, still have jobs, while others have been laid off or remain unemployed.
Primary Court
Many judges learned the facts about Falun Dafa this way. Before the first hearing, the defendants thought it was funny for me to sue them. They thought that as soon as I mentioned Falun Dafa in court, I would be arrested. But it did not go that way.
When the primary court judge asked why I was fired, a defendant representative (an employee from the legal department) said I had gone to Beijing without requesting a leave of absence.
“My trip to Beijing only took one day,” I explained. “The employee code of conduct says one can be terminated after 15 days of absence.”
“So why did you fire her?” the judge asked the defendant.
Since the defendant could not find a reason, he suddenly pointed at me and said, “She practices Falun Dafa!” Apparently he thought this would definitely work.
But the judge did not budge, “What law says that a person should be fired for practicing Falun Dafa?”
The defendant said that there were no specific laws about that, so the judge said, “Then find the laws that do apply. At the same time, you need to work on restoring her salary.”
The defendant did not expect this outcome. After the hearing, the legal department director went to the 610 Office to get help. Together they forged additional documents for the lawsuit, including paperwork with my signature that I’d never signed.
Because the 610 Office intervened, the judge was not so courageous at the second hearing. Nonetheless, he said to me, “If this case was not related to Falun Dafa, it is absolutely wrong for them to mistreat you this way!” In the end he had to buckle under the totalitarian regime and make an unfair judgment against his conscience.
Intermediate Court
When I appealed to the intermediate court, the judge was also honest. After I read the lawsuit, he said, “Well said. Whether you practice Falun Dafa or not, it is an ideological issue, something unrelated to your work.” He then asked why had I waited so long before filing the lawsuit.
I explained that I had reached out to the workplace officials a long time ago. They kept asking me to wait and said they would discuss it in a meeting. “You can trust those remarks,” the judge said. “I will talk with your employer so that you can return to work and continue with your exercises.”
“Thank you, judge!” applauded one witness. The defendant had no choice but to lower his head.
The judge came to my workplace to do a mediation. The defendant sent people from three departments to ask me to write a statement giving up my belief in Falun Dafa. “Neither the court nor I asked you write this,” said the judge as he pointed to the defendant representatives. “They did.”
He then asked, “Why not just write it? You can then go back to work and do your practice again.”
I said, “Falun Gong practitioners follow the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. It is wrong for us to renounce those principles against our conscience. Anyone who forces us to do that will face consequences. In the past, people said that those who do bad deeds will end up in hell. Maybe that’s true.”
The defendant representatives just laughed at me.
The judge stood up and said, “We don’t know if hell exists or not. But if so, one has to do good deeds or will end up there. I like people who have principles.”
The room got quiet and the defendant representatives did not know what to say. One of them asked if a court could order me to renounce Falun Dafa. The judge said, “If she wants to practice Falun Dafa, it is her choice – we cannot change that.”
His final decision was “send back for retrial.” That was the only fair judgment in any of these trials.
Second Appeal
Noticing the situation was not ideal for them, my workplace officials offered reconciliation. They promised to rehire me and reinstate my salary as long as I withdrew the case. Once I did, however, they didn’t keep their promise.
I thus filed another lawsuit, asking them to fulfill the reconciliation agreement. At that time, I did not seem to have any advantages since the reconciliation agreement was oral and there were no written documents. Nonetheless, I saw it as an opportunity to expose the unfair treatment I had been subjected to for my belief.
I once again submitted the open letters and Falun Dafa materials to the court. The defendant was certain I would be arrested this time. “She [meaning me] has made a big mess,” the legal department director told my husband. “Don’t expect her to return home after the hearing.”
This time the director came in person as the defendant. In the courtroom, he specifically mentioned that I had publicized company employees’ contact information online and distributed Falun Dafa materials at work. But the judge did not even look at him and said, “Those materials have nothing to do with this case. There is no need to follow up on those.”
During a break, the judge whispered to me, “All of us have read the materials you submitted.” He later agreed to quit the CCP organizations.
Because I distributed open letters in advance and invited the public to this hearing, city officials and 610 Office agents also came, considering it a major case. There were many plainclothes officers near the courtroom.
Although the judge was an honest man who knew what was going on, he had to uphold the primary judgment due to intervention by the 610 Office. Nonetheless, he tried to help me and told me what to do next before issuing the official judgment.
Supreme Court Judge
I also appealed this case twice to the supreme court in the provincial capital. Once when I submitted additional materials, I included a letter about Falun Dafa and a micro SD card. On the card were the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, software to overcome the internet blockade, and additional information about Falun Dafa.
I later called the supreme court judge about the case. At first, he was a little unhappy about answering my call. He said that the case might not work out in my favor, plus he had to go to a meeting. I simply said that legal professionals should make decisions based on laws. Everyone knew I had not violated any laws.
When I asked about the letter, he said he had read it, but it was about some high officials who had been taken down, such as Zhou Yongkang and Bo Xilai. That information was unrelated to this case, he said. “It might not be directly related to this case, but it might help you understand the situation,” I said. I then talked about Falun Dafa and how popular it is around the world, why the CCP chose to suppress it, and the methods of torture it uses. I also told him that over 300 million people had quit the CCP organizations, including some local judges.
The judge agreed that what I said made sense and he was glad to hear it. But since he was still in the office, he had to wait until he retired to talk more about it. I recommended that he read and watch the information on the micro SD card, and he agreed.
“We have not met, but based on our conversation for the past ten minutes, I can tell your are a kind and honest person,” he said.
I thanked him, adding that I simply wanted him to know what was going on. In the end, we talked for about 30 minutes.
A Change of Attitude
Although no judge dared to make a judgment in my favor, by the end, many people had learned about Falun Dafa and the suppression.
Most people where I worked had a better understanding of Falun Dafa after these trials. They stopped providing documents to the court that might harm me. They no longer actively spread CCP propaganda or sent people to spy on practitioners. “Some officials don’t dare to talk with you any longer,” one person in the legal department said. “They are afraid you’ll record it and publicize it.”
In front of other people, one coworker had asked my husband to divorce me. After reading the open letters, he totally changed and praised me in public. “Those letters were well written, clear, and logical,” he said. “They [practitioners] are very talented. I don’t think we could write as well as that.”
“Yes, we didn’t know that the stuff about Falun Dafa was lies until we read the letters,” another person added. They not only said good things about me but also about Falun Dafa.
Master said,
“Aren't good and evil displaying themselves exactly for the world's people to see? Aren't those who can be saved being identified and set apart?”
“At critical junctures, the outcome is determined by how a person positions himself and how each person handles things. Do the person's actions originate from good or wicked thoughts? Gods are watching what each person thinks and are deciding whether that being is to be kept.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2008 New York Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. VIII)
Support from Other Practitioners
Lots of practitioners helped me during these lawsuits. My employer is a large state-owned enterprise. With headquarters in Beijing, it has many departments with subordinate companies. Practitioners helped reach out to many employees and community members.
A practitioner went to a nearby community to put up my open letter, but the security officer said that wasn’t allowed, and confiscated it. Chen, my former manager who testified for me in court, happened to be there and he chatted with the practitioner. He later told the security officer to return the letter and helped the practitioner put it up on a bulletin board.
One judge said he once saw practitioners distributing my open letter in front of the municipal building. “Some coworkers and I pretended to be passersby and each of us took a copy,” he said.
I was happy for these people and thankful for these practitioners. Later on, an official at work was reprimanded by his superiors, “What did you guys do? We’ve gotten letters from many countries complaining about how you handled that case.”
Master said,
“If you can manage to quietly complete what you notice is lacking, quietly do well what you should do, and quietly do something well when you find it to have been done less than ideally, then the multitude of gods will have tremendous admiration for you and exclaim that this person is simply extraordinary. Only doing things this way counts as what a Dafa disciple should do.” (“Be More Diligent,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. X)
I would like to thank all practitioners for their support. I am also grateful to Master for his compassion throughout all these years.
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