(Minghui.org) I have practiced Falun Dafa for 27 years and would like to share some of my cultivation stories. Thank you, Master, for your compassionate salvation!
I was born in a small village. My parents were atheists and profoundly indoctrinated by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) culture. My mother spoiled us terribly and didn’t make us to do any chores. But she did expect us to do well in school. She always forced on us what she thought was best, urging me to be the top in everything and to take care of my personal interests first whenever possible. My parents always argued and didn’t get along. I felt frustrated and tired from the time I was a child.
In 1992, I started to have trouble eating and sleeping. I just didn’t feel comfortable, and it didn’t matter if I was sitting or standing. I was nervous, fearful, depressed, and couldn’t think clearly. I was in constant agony. My life and studies almost came to an end. The doctors couldn’t find the cause of my symptoms, and all the medical interventions we tried proved ineffective.
I had always believed in the divine. When I felt helpless, I often joined my hands to pray, pleading to Heaven to protect me. One night in September 1992, I saw Master Li in a yellow kasaya accompanying me in my dream. My health improved a lot after I had this dream. I could eat again, and the food tasted good. I could sleep at night, too.
One night in May 1998, I felt a Falun spinning in my lower abdomen when I was studying the Fa. Master had planted a Falun for me. After that, I often felt that Master was doing guanding for me. I felt my cultivation level shoot up like a rocket and that I was breaking through to a new level every two or three days. My understanding of life and the universe underwent a fundamental change after studying the Fa for several months.
Detained for the First Time
The CCP officially started to persecuting Falun Dafa on July 20, 1999. My colleagues and friends tried to persuade me to stop practicing Falun Dafa, but my belief has never wavered. I wrote a letter to the State Council Petition Office to tell them how wonderful Falun Dafa was. I took my letter to Beijing. This was my first ever long distance trip alone.
I stayed in Beijing for two days and met many practitioners from all over China who had come to validate the Fa in Beijing. Some of them were in Beijing for a second time, some for their fifth or sixth time. They said that they wouldn’t go home if the injustices against Dafa were not resolved. Their unwavering determination to safeguard the Fa was truly admirable.
The police arrested us on our way to the State Council Petition Office sometime before July 20 and took us to a police station. I was later transferred to the police station in my area and detained for 37 days. My company wanted to fire me but the Staff and Workers’ Representative Congress wouldn’t approve it. They said that my work performance was good and I didn’t do anything bad in Beijing, so they couldn’t fire me. But the company imposed an unlawful two years of probation on me and only gave me a monthly living allowance of 180 yuan (USD$25).
I went to a nearby town with another practitioner to distribute truth-clarification materials. When we were nearly finished, someone reported us to the police. We were arrested and held in a detention center.
Master said,
“No matter what the situation, do not cooperate with the evil’s demands, orders, or what it instigates. If everyone can do that, circumstances will change.” (“Dafa Disciples’ Righteous Thoughts Are Powerful,” The Essentials of Diligent Progress II)
I was uncooperative during the interrogation in the detention center. The guard instigated other inmates to slap my face with plastic shoes. The noise startled the other inmates. It really hurt, but the pain quickly went away. I knew that Master had borne most of the pain for me. The next day, the police instigated eight inmates to pour cold water over me. Two of the inmates sat on my chest and didn’t let me move. I couldn’t breathe due to them constantly pouring cold water over me. I almost suffocated. I kept sending forth righteous thoughts and tried my best to break through. I shouted with my hands in the lotus position, “The Fa rectifies the cosmos; the evil is completely eliminated.” My loud voice shook the detention center. The inmates looked like they were stunned and stopped beating me.
The other practitioner and I didn’t cooperate with the police. We were transferred to another detention center three days later. The guards instigated inmates to torture me in turn that night. They hit my chest and head with their fists and squeezed my neck with their hands. They said if I didn’t cooperate, they would strangle me to death. I knew that I was a Falun Dafa practitioner and was protected by Master. I had no fear.
When I was in extreme pain, I thought that I was not in pain but that my karma and my notions were in pain. More than 20 inmates in that cell beat me in turn. They wrapped me in a quilt and hit me so that no one could hear me. I felt that I could no longer put up with it after I was tortured for four hours. I couldn’t see anything even with my eyes open. The sounds around me became distant, but I still had a little bit of consciousness and knew that I was a Falun Dafa practitioner. The guard told the inmates to put me on the bed. I passed the test with difficulty. If Master hadn’t borne it for me, I would not have been able to make it. Thank you, Master!
The next day, several inmates dragged me into the guard’s office. The guard tried to force me to kneel down. I told him that I would not kneel down because I was a Falun Dafa practitioner. When I looked him squarely in the eye, he hastily ordered me to face to the wall. Four inmates then slapped my face and kicked my legs while asking for my address, my name, and where I got the materials from. I shouted “Falun Dafa is good” and “Falun Dafa is a righteous Fa.” I recited poems from Hong Yin. I just disregarded them. They tortured me for over 30 minutes, but I didn’t cooperate with them.
Officers from the CCP’s Domestic Security Bureau interrogated me several days later. I didn’t cooperate with them. They burned me with cigarettes and stomped on my bare feet with their boots. One officer slapped my face repeatedly. I shouted, “Falun Dafa is good!” and “The Fa rectifies the cosmos, the evil is completely eliminated!” I held my hands in the big lotus position and pleaded for Master to strengthen me to quickly clear the evil factors that controlled them. My righteous thoughts suppressed them within half an hour. They were not so evil. I kept reciting poems from Hong Yin. They tortured me for more than an hour. I didn’t say anything, so they had to let me go back to the cell.
When I was passing the guard’s office and the cells, I shouted, “Falun Dafa is good, Falun Dafa is a righteous Fa,” as this was a good opportunity to let people know the truth about Falun Dafa. One guard kicked me in the back and I fell down. I shouted even louder “The Fa rectifies the cosmos! The evil is completed eliminated!” when I stood up. He punched me, and I fell down again. Then he kicked me all over with his boots. I was in great pain, but, as a Falun Dafa practitioner, I knew that I was there to validate the Fa, that I was a divine being, and that nothing would happen to me. The pain disappeared a short time later.
I went on a hunger strike to counter the persecution. Guards force-fed me on the seventh day of my hunger strike. Every time they took me into the corridor, I shouted, “Falun Dafa is good! Falun Dafa is a righteous Fa!” and recited poems from Hong Yin. I did it even if I only had several seconds. I kept my righteous thoughts during the force-feedings. I was not injured even when they rammed the tube into my throat.
I did the five exercises every morning in the detention center. I sent forth righteous thoughts and shouted “Falun Dafa is good” and clarified the truth to the inmates whenever I had time. The environment was gradually rectified. The inmates no longer beat me and sometimes provided me with opportunities. One day the head inmate asked me to recite the Fa to them. I said, “Yes, of course, but I will be loud.” He said, “No problem.”
I knew Master arranged this, so I started to recite “On Dafa” and poems from Hong Yin. As I recited, my voice got louder and louder. The inmates in the other cells could hear it. I shouted, “Falun Dafa is good!” At the same time, I sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil factors behind them that prevented them from being saved and let the words “Falun Dafa is good” penetrate into the microcosmic levels of their beings and awaken their righteous thoughts, which had been sealed for ages. My voice became louder and louder and stunned the whole detention center.
All of them seemed restrained. I shouted “Falun Dafa is good” for about an hour, hundreds of times. I had been on a hunger strike for several days by that time, but I still had the strength to shout. The guard on duty didn’t dare approach me. He called the director, the deputy director, and the political instructor of the detention center and three other guards. Even when they stood in front of me, I still sat in the lotus position with my eyes closed, shouting with all my might “Falun Dafa is good!” They didn’t lose their tempers, and one of them said, “You have shouted for such a long time. Please stop. You are affecting other people.” They asked if any of the inmates had mistreated me. One the inmates answered “No.” The six of them then left quietly, as if nothing had happened.
The inmates were very surprised by all this, as they thought I would be punished. The expected punishment vanished into thin air. I was very pure at the time and witnessed the power and sacredness of Falun Dafa.
One inmate came to see me after he visited the guard’s office one day. I had been on a hunger strike for three weeks by then. He said, “You will be sent to a forced labor camp. The office has received notification.” He mentioned several other inmates who would be sent there, too. The following day, the other inmates were sent to the forced labor camp. I realized that the old forces were persecuting me to see if my heart was moved. They wanted me to give up what I was doing that countered the persecution. I wasn’t deceived by this illusion. It might be that there was no notification. Even if there was, I could break through it with righteous thoughts as long as I believed in Master and the Fa, kept countering the persecution, and walked the path that Master had arranged for me. I continued my hunger strike.
The guard force-fed an elderly female practitioner next door on the 30th day of my hunger strike. Several guards pinned her down. I shouted, “You will be held responsible for force-feeding her. Everything you are doing is being recorded in history. You will receive retribution for persecuting Falun Dafa practitioners.” The guards felt like they were losing face in front of so many inmates. They said angrily that it had nothing to do with me and dragged me out of the cell. They instigated inmates to hit my face and mouth with their shoes until my face was swollen and bruised.
It might have been my thought of preventing the guards from persecuting a fellow practitioner despite the danger that I could face, because I was released earlier. My mother came to see me the next day. The guards thought that I was in serious condition after being on a hunger strike for more than a month. They accompanied my mother to various departments and completed the procedures for releasing me.
By that time I had been on hunger strike for 31 days and had been force-fed more than 20 times. My weight had dropped to just over 66 pounds from previously being over 110 pounds. Thanks to Master’s protection, I was released three days after my mother’s visit. The fellow practitioner who was arrested on the same day as me was released as well. The practitioner next door who was force-fed was released one day before us.
Detained for a Second Time
I was was injured to some extent by the torture. I could only consume food in liquid form after I got home. I discharged black substances. The guards might have put drugs in the liquids they force-fed me. It took me three months to recover.
The 610 Office ordered my coworkers to monitor me after I wrote about how I had been persecuted and the paper was published on the Minghui website. The police came to my office to arrest me two months later, saying that that the practitioner who had distributed the truth-clarification materials with me last time had been arrested again and our case had reached the Procuratorate. One of the officers said, “You will definitely be sentenced this time. But it won’t be long term. You must behave this time.” I said, “You don’t have the final say.” They were not happy and said, “If we don’t have the final say, the Procuratorate and the court will have the final say.”
I realized that the old forces were going to persecute me and I shouldn’t fall into their trap, that my heart shouldn’t be moved. I said, “I am a Falun Dafa practitioner. My cultivation path is arranged by Master. Master has the final say!” I said this also to the old force factors that controlled them. It was crucial to believe in Master and the Fa at this critical moment. The police didn’t say anything further.
I was arrested and admitted to a detention center that afternoon. The guards didn’t beat me and their attitudes were different this time. They respected me. One of the guards said, “A female reporter from VOA called the detention center after they learned how you were mistreated. She reminded us to treat Falun Gong practitioners kindly.” The guard said, “We will not treat you like we did before.”
A fellow practitioner submitted my article that outlined how I had been persecuted in detail to the Minghui website. It resonated with readers and was powerful.
I had a dream on the first night in the detention center. I remember it vividly. I saw a big mountain in front of me in my dream. I couldn’t see the top of the mountain. The mountain was almost vertical and there was no path to the top. I realized that the evil had made good preparations this time to sentence me. But I could break through it as long as I believed in Master and the Fa and acted with righteous thoughts. I sent forth righteous thoughts intensively. I felt that Master was strengthening me. My righteous thoughts were powerful and pure.
I went on a hunger strike. The guards started to force-feed me on the seventh day of my hunger strike. I tried to stop them and at the same time I recited Master’s Fa. They failed. A guard came to my cell on the ninth day and asked the inmates if I had eaten anything or drunk any water. They said that I hadn’t eaten or drunk anything. The guard was very surprised.
Thanks to Master’s strengthening and the power of Falun Dafa, I was released on the ninth day. I walked out of the detention center by myself, my mother waiting outside. The guards and inmates witnessed this moment.
Master can do everything for us as long as we do well and as long as our xinxing is up to par. Master looks after me and strengthens me on every step of my cultivation path. He has borne immense karma for me and purified me step by step. He has spent so much effort on me. Going forward, I will study the Fa well, cultivate myself well, and walk on the path that Master has arranged for me. I will validate the Fa, save more sentient beings, and be worthy of Master’s compassionate salvation!
These are my cultivation experiences and insights. Please kindly point out anything that is not in line with the Fa.
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Category: Cultivation Insights
