(Minghui.org) When Master Li’s article “Stay Out of Danger” was published in August 2023, a Falun Dafa practitioner said, “This article is talking about a certain individual.” My understanding is that Master is not likely to publish an article addressing an issue of just one or a handful of practitioners. It must have become an issue among practitioners at large.

I was deeply alarmed after reading the article a few times, as Master said, “Your Teacher doesn’t owe you anything!” and “Your Teacher owes you nothing.” (“Stay Out of Danger”)

Every true Dafa practitioner knows that Master has sacrificed so much to save us and sentient beings, but has never asked for anything in return. I decided to put pen to paper and write down my cultivation experiences. I hope this will serve as a testimony to how Master compassionately watches over and guides us every step of the way.

Suffered from Many Illnesses Before Taking Up Dafa Cultivation

My mother preferred boys over girls, thus she never liked me much, but my father loved me. When I was one, my father was classified as a “Rightist” by the Communist regime and persecuted. He was incarcerated and died in prison a couple of years later. Implicated by my father, my mother was exiled to the countryside. She took my brother with her but left me in the care of a 13-year-old nanny. Still a child herself, the nanny didn’t know how to take care of a small child without supervision. When I suffered a severe case of edema or fluid retention, she left me to die in the hospital.

It was one of our kind neighbors who got me from the hospital, took me to her home, and nursed me back to life. She wasn’t well-to-do and we often didn’t have enough to eat. I was small and skinny. Shortly before I turned four, the neighbor moved away and I was taken to my mother. Since day one when I lived under her roof, all of the house chores fell on my shoulders. I cleaned, cooked, and hand-washed the laundry. My fingers turned red and stiff scrubbing in the freezing water during winter. My mother constantly nitpicked and gave me a hard time. She beat and scolded me, taking her resentment toward my father out on me.

Being malnourished I was weak and sickly. I suffered from inflammation of the stomach lining, thyroid hormone underproduction, chronic fatigue syndrome, joint pain, as well as bone spurs on the neck, chest, and spine. After marrying and giving birth, I incurred more conditions such as postpartum fever, migraines, heart problems, and multiple tumors in the uterus, breasts, and lymph nodes. I didn’t have anything in my body that functioned properly. On top of that, I was highly allergic to antibiotics and would pass out from the smell of them. I couldn’t go to the hospital and had anxiety going anywhere by myself. I passed out on a bus one time. My son who was still a child at the time took me to a clinic and saved my life. Since that incident, I stopped taking public transportation by myself.

The many illnesses caused me so much pain and anguish, and I lost the will to live. I tried different types of qigong, hoping to improve my health, but it got worse instead. When I could no longer work, I was sent home on medical leave and was waiting to die.

Dafa Gave Me a New Lease on Life

My husband and my son took me out for a stroll to get some fresh air one day in May 1999. A group of people were doing some exercises, accompanied by beautiful soothing music. I asked a woman there, “Can someone like me learn this exercise?” She looked at me and my wheelchair and asked if I could stand for a little while. “How long do I need to stand for?” I asked. She said for about an hour. I was disheartened, and exclaimed, “I need to stand for a full hour?”

She smiled and told me not to worry, saying, “There are four sets of standing exercises. The shortest one is only nine minutes and the longest one is half an hour. But they do wonders for healing illness and keeping fit.” I asked her, how much it costs, as money was my biggest concern. I was on sick leave, not getting paid, and my husband had just been laid off. We lost our only source of income and struggled to make ends meet. The three of us pretty much lived on potatoes donated by friends and family. It was such a relief when she told me it was free to learn the exercises. She gave me the time they met in the mornings and evenings.

She taught me the third and fourth exercises right there and then. I was so weak that I trembled the whole time. Worried that I’d collapse, my husband kept telling me to take it easy. I reassured him, saying with excitement, “Don’t worry. I feel great!” After finishing the exercises, my entire body felt light. I had the best night’s sleep in decades that night.

The coordinator of the exercise site notified us a few days later that they had received the videotapes of Master teaching the Fa at a nine-day seminar in Guangzhou City, and encouraged everybody to watch them with the group. I decided to join. The location was 20 minutes away, but it took me more than an hour to walk there. Many people were already inside by the time I arrived. So I stood by the door and watched.

My health improved quickly as Master purified my body. Within three weeks all my illnesses were gone.

Reconnecting with Dafa

Less than two months after I joined the group exercise site, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched the nationwide persecution against Falun Dafa. Without other practitioners to study the Fa and do the exercises with I was on my own. Although I believed Master and Dafa are good, I had not fully realized that Dafa is a true cultivation way and Master is here to offer salvation. I only saw it as another qigong practice for healing and wellness. I thought, “The government banned the practice so maybe I should stop doing it.” I stopped practicing for almost a decade before reconnecting with Dafa in October 2008.

While traveling back to my hometown in Shandong Province, I saw from the windows of the moving train big messages on the walls of farmhouses that said “Falun Dafa is good.” A few days later, my cousin visited me and shared her story of regaining her health through practicing Falun Dafa. I was surprised, “Dafa is still around?”

She took me to see a newly released practitioner who had been imprisoned for her belief. I learned for the first time that Dafa has spread outside of China and is practiced around the world, and that practitioners have been clarifying the truth and sending righteous thoughts to help Master rectify the Fa. I became very emotional hearing all this and choked up. I was so happy, “Dafa is still around!” I picked up a rock and wrote the righteous thoughts formulas in the dirt again and again until I had memorized them.

I asked my cousin and the practitioner to help me get the Dafa books so I could take them home. But, they told me that might not be possible, as the police had been stopping and searching all middle-aged passengers at the train station and confiscated many Dafa books. Concerned about my safety, my cousin advised against it. I told her, “I have to take the books home.” With the books in my bag, I took a big detour through the surrounding provinces and eventually got home without having faced any issues. Master must have protected me because my heart was pure.

I eagerly looked for the practitioners I used to know, and after some searching, I finally got in touch with those in my area. To catch up with the progress of Fa-rectification I set up a materials production site and started making truth-clarification fliers and booklets. Motivated by my gratitude toward Master, I wanted everybody to know the truth about Falun Dafa—it is a righteous cultivation way of the Buddha school and is not at all what the CCP’s propaganda says. I busied myself making and distributing fliers and booklets but didn’t know the importance of studying the Fa and cultivating the heart. I studied one lecture of Zhuan Falun with the group each week, and spent the rest of my time printing and making fliers.

One of the print head nozzles was clogged, so I took the printer apart and cleaned everything thoroughly but still, it didn’t work. I didn’t see it as a reminder from Master that I needed to study the Fa. Master gave me more hints during the following months, yet I was oblivious to the truth. I didn’t look inward to examine myself as I didn’t know what true cultivation involves. And I had no clue that danger was approaching.

Validating the Fa in the Detention Center

Completely unaware of the loophole in my cultivation, I was arrested and held in a detention center. I thought, “Well, I am here anyways, might as well see what other practitioners do.” But, I was only allowed to interact with the two inmates assigned to monitor me, and was isolated from other practitioners. Desperate for some kind of direction, I asked for help, “What should I do, Master?”

I heard someone shouting one morning, “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” I thought, “Oh. This is what other practitioners do to validate the Fa. I can do the same.” I climbed onto the window sill, held on to the metal window frame, and shouted the same. The two inmates grabbed me and pulled me off as I continued to shout.

I was kept in solitary confinement for a week as a result, not allowed to wash myself or brush my teeth. I received a small bottle of water each day. I also slept on a concrete slab with a blanket as thin as cobwebs and was monitored around the clock. I saw an inmate slipping something in my food on the first day so I didn’t touch it. Then I thought, “I am a Dafa practitioner. How could I waste food? Whatever they put in there is not going to work on me.” I ate whatever they gave me and I was fine. Even the inmates were curious why it didn’t have any effect on me.

An inmate reported one day, “Another Dafa [practitioner] was admitted.” I thought it was funny they called practitioners “Dafa.” Then it dawned on me that my words and deeds don’t just represent myself but represent the Fa and all practitioners. I had to do well and not tarnish Dafa and Master’s reputation.

I decided to always shout “Falun Dafa is good,” when I stepped out of my cell. The guards jumped in to stop me and punished me using all kinds of means. They sprayed me with pepper spray and beat me with electric batons. My hands were raised behind me and cuffed to the upper bunk rails, leaving my big toe barely touching the ground. If I moved ever so slightly, an excruciating pain shot through my shoulder and back and the cuffs sunk deeper into my flesh. I was left like this for long periods.

To take my mind off the pain, I sang songs written by Dafa practitioners. I sang one after another, as long as I could remember them. The songs echoed in the cell and many inmates cried. One commented, “This is so sad. She sings so beautifully even when enduring so much pain. Dafa practitioners are good people facing unjust treatment. What has the world come to?” As I sang, I thought, “Master! I will adhere to your teachings and never compromise.”

After I shouted “Falun Dafa is good” one time, a guard put an electric baton on me but found that the battery was dead. He switched to another one but it was dead too. He pulled out a third one and that was also dead. He was furious but couldn’t do anything. He shouted, “It’s your lucky day today” and stormed out. Ever since then, nobody interfered when I shouted, “Falun Dafa is good.”

Helping a Guard Learn the Truth about Dafa

Seeing that beatings and torture weren’t going to change my heart, the guards switched gears and used a different tactic. My family received a phone call two months after my arrest and was told to visit me. On the way to the cell after the visitation, a guard said, “Your son is such a good kid. He is smart and very talented. Have you thought about his future? If you don’t renounce your belief in Falun Dafa, you may implicate him, including his career and marriage. Even if you don’t think about yourself, you should at least consider your boy. I haven’t suggested you renounce your belief and ‘transform’ since you got here, but for your family’s sake, you should think about it.”

I replied, “I will not plead guilty because I’m not guilty of any crime. Dafa practitioners are good people—what are we supposed to ‘transform’ to? My son may resent me now but one day he will be proud that his mother stayed resolute in her faith. If he wanted me to transform against my conscience just to save his job, then why would I want a son like that? If you were him, would you want that?” The guard shook her head. I told her how I took up Dafa cultivation and improved my character, and how Dafa has spread around the world. She listened without saying anything. Soon after our conversation, she put in a request and was transferred from the special division where Dafa practitioners were held.

Treating Inmates with Compassion

The majority of the inmates in the special division had gone through training on how to monitor and mistreat practitioners. To have their sentences reduced, they blindly followed orders and relentlessly beat and punished practitioners.

I was called to the office one time because I wouldn’t comply with the rules. I didn’t present myself as a “prisoner,” so I was made to stand outside the office. A group of inmates were cleaning the hallway so I shouted, “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” One inmate charged toward me and tackled me. I continued to shout as she grabbed my hands, twisting them, and dragged me upstairs, cursing the whole time.

When I went to bed that night, the back of my head felt sore when it touched the pillow. There was a bump the size of a goose egg. I thought it was strange, “Such a big bump. Why didn’t I feel any pain earlier? If the inmates monitoring me find out tomorrow, they’d probably take me to the clinic for injections.” My thoughts drifted as I fell asleep. The bump had reduced to the size of my thumb by the next morning.

When I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom a couple of days later, the inmate who beat and dragged me was supposed to monitor me, but I didn’t see her following me. I turned a corner and found her on top of the stairs, unconscious. I ran back and woke the guards to take her to the clinic. After she recovered, her attitude completely changed. She appreciated the fact that I didn’t hold any grudges against her. She told me, “You guys are the real good people.”

Protected by Master

A guard came in one day and said she was taking me to get my fingerprints done. I asked her why, to which she replied, “Without leaving your fingerprints, you’ll never be able to get out of here.” As we walked down the stairs, I heard a voice saying, “What would a Dafa practitioner need to leave their fingerprints for?”

I told the guard right away, “I’m a Dafa practitioner. I am not going to leave my fingerprints.” The guard let me go without saying anything. It was incredible how I was able to get away with it so easily. It must have been Master telling me exactly what to do.

I gradually matured as a cultivator. I became more and more clear-minded and figured out a lot of things that I could have never figured out before. I knew I would never be able to lie and renounce Dafa against my will. If I did, I wouldn’t even be worthy of being a human. Master purified my body, gave me a new lease on life, and went to great lengths to save me. I decided that no matter what they do to me, I would never betray Master. Falun Dafa is true cultivation and is not just for healing illnesses and keeping fit. My faith in Master and Dafa never faltered and I could feel Master’s protection every step of the way.

Changing Tactics

The second time I was imprisoned, things seemed different at first. The guards and inmates weren’t as hostile and the rules were less restrictive for practitioners. I was able to make purchases at the prison store without having to first get permission. I also labored in the workshop like other inmates since day one.

After a while, I realized it was just a different tactic. The guards disguised their true intentions and used a softer approach before resorting to brute force. Regardless of the approach, their ultimate goal was to get practitioners to renounce Dafa and “transform.” The unyielding ones were subjected to the worst torture. A guard told the inmates, “Use a gentle tone yet the most malicious language when speaking to them. Beat them if they dare to resist. You will not be held accountable.”

The guards used to rely heavily on corporeal punishment to coerce practitioners into renouncing their belief. Practitioners were made to sit on small stools for more than 12 hours a day, kept in solitary confinement, or beaten. Now the guards leaned more toward brainwashing, mental and emotional distress, and psychological warfare. The practitioners were to recite the prison rules in the mornings and go through military training in the afternoon under the baking sun. In the evenings, they were forced to watch CCP propaganda or news slandering Dafa.

A practitioner was beaten by the inmates in broad daylight for shouting “Falun Dafa is good,” and the guards acted like nothing was happening. I shouted “Falun Dafa is good” to get their attention and as a result, my visitation rights were taken away. To protest, I shouted “Falun Dafa is good” again and was beaten to the brink of death. When spraying me with pepper spray, the guards purposely sprayed the people around me. When other inmates’ eyes stung and their mouths and noses burned after inhaling the spicy fumes, they made disrespectful remarks and blamed Dafa practitioners. With these tactics, the guards drove a wedge between the inmates and practitioners.

Validating the Fa with Pure Intentions

Usually when practitioners shouted “Falun Dafa is good,” they were beaten or tortured. However, one time guards told the inmates to shout slogans supporting the CCP when a practitioner shouted the words. This practitioner wasn’t flustered, and said, “I’ll stop when they shout and when they stop I’ll shout. I don’t have an attachment to competitiveness.” Because she relinquished her attachment and didn’t let others’ actions move her, the interference stopped. The guards gave up on her by the next day—no matter where, when or how loud she shouted “Falun Dafa is good,” they left her alone.

Seeing how this played out, I reflected upon myself and learned that our motives are far more important than our actions when it comes to validating the Fa. Are we taking particular actions for others’ benefit? Are we trying to validate ourselves or the Fa? I adjusted my mentality and started shouting “Falun Dafa is good” with the intention to do good and to validate the Fa from the bottom of my heart.

Not Harboring Resentment

An inmate once bent my index finger so far back that it snapped with a loud crack of the bone and joint. I gritted my teeth and straightened it back. My entire finger was swollen the next day, but I didn’t resent her.

Fast forward two years, before my term ended, this inmate came to me. She said, “I wanted to tell you I am sorry. I don’t know what had gotten into me that day but I was taken over by a demonic force, and beat you and broke your finger. It was swollen like a steam bun the next day. Yet you greeted me warmly with a smile as if nothing had happened. Many Dafa practitioners had told me before that you all are good people. I didn’t believe them and thought they were just saying it. But that day I finally believed it. You proved to me you would not strike back when punched, nor curse when insulted. Dafa is truly incredible. Have you noticed? I have not laid a finger on another practitioner since that moment. Instead, I tell everybody not to bully or harm practitioners.”

Through this, I learned that “Falun Dafa is good” shouldn’t just be words that we say, but the standard we strive to measure up to. Just as Master said, 

“…Let each and every thingbe measured against the Fa.Only then, with that,is it actually cultivation.” (“Solid Cultivation,” Hong Yin)

It also proved to me again that Master is watching over us all the time. Things I had always thought to be coincidences were arranged purposefully by Master to help us improve.

Not Cooperating with the Evil

When I was newly admitted to prison, a guard told me that I had two months to study and memorize the prison rules for a test that every inmate had to pass. It didn’t seem right to me as I was not a criminal and did not break any law—I was there merely for practicing my faith.

When about 80 inmates, including myself, were rounded up for the test two months later, I tried to think quickly of what to do. A practitioner in front of me was called. She stood up and said, “I am a Falun Dafa practitioner. I don’t recite prison rules.” Without saying anything, the guard moved on to the next person. When she came up to me, I said with a smile, “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.”

“Another Dafa [practitioner],” she muttered and walked away.

Soon a new policy was implemented, requiring 20 percent of the inmates to be randomly selected at the end of each working day to be strip searched. I questioned the purpose of such an offensive practice, but the guards brushed me off and told me not to take it personally.

While washing the dishes that night, a practitioner walked by me and whispered, “Strip searching a practitioner is a crime against gods and Buddhas.”

It just happened that I was selected the very next day. In a dignified and upright manner, I told the guard, “I refuse to be strip searched.” When she asked why. I said, “Strip searching a Dafa practitioner is a crime against gods and Buddhas.” She sneered, saying that she didn’t believe in gods or Buddhas.

I continued, “Just because you don’t believe in higher beings, doesn’t mean they are not real. I refuse to go through with the search because I know how offensive a crime it is and I don’t want to put you in that situation. To strip search a practitioner will bring you serious consequences.” She told me to move aside. I was never asked to comply with the policy again.

Master said,

“When a tribulation arrives, if you, a disciple, can truly maintain an unshakable calm or be determined to meet different requirements at different levels, this should be sufficient for you to pass the test.” (“Expounding on the Fa,” Essentials For Further Advancement)

I believe that as long as a Dafa practitioner’s xinxing meets the requirement at the current level, many things can be resolved and miracles will happen. Master will be able to help when he/she places their complete faith in Master and the Fa.

Epilogue

Some practitioners have slacked off in recent years as the environment in certain regions of China became less hostile. Some see Fa study and truth clarification as work they have to complete and merely go through the motions. Some are pleased with themselves thinking at least they didn’t betray Master.

I was shocked when I first read Master’s article “Stay Out of Danger.” Master is doing all the work, yet some practitioners claimed the credit and grew complacent. They forget that it is Master who is saving sentient beings yet the virtue is given to us. How dare some practitioners be so greedy and claim such credit as their own? What a huge loophole. Every true practitioner should know how much Master has done for sentient beings. Master gave us a stick warning again and again and urged us not to slack off so we can return to our true home with Master. Only if we walk our narrow path in cultivation well can we be worthy of Master’s sacrifices and not let the beings in our own worlds down.

I want to encourage all to walk the last stretch of our cultivation journey well and not to let Master down. We must live up to Master’s compassion and salvation so we can complete our cultivation and go home with Master.

Thank you, Master.