(Minghui.org) I am a 73-year-old male Falun Dafa practitioner who started to practice Falun Dafa on the first day of the first lunar month in 1997. I would like to share my experiences to testify to Master’s greatness and the extraordinary power of Dafa.
Making It Through the Summer of 1999
Illness Karma Strikes
In the early summer of 1999, I was suddenly struck with four severe health issues—a stroke, femoral head necrosis, a herniated lumbar disc, and lower back muscle strain. I was confined to bed, unable to care for myself. The news spread quickly in our area and stoked speculation: “Falun Gong cures illnesses and improves health, so why did this happen to him?”
My condition was keenly discussed among practitioners, further exacerbated by my status as a Dafa coordinator. Furthermore, we’d had an influx of new practitioners who had been practicing for a few months to about a year. One of them said to me in front of everyone, “If you get better, I’ll continue practicing. If not, I’ll give it up.”
My mother rushed back to our hometown. I was in such bad shape that she could barely recognize me as I lay in bed. With tears streaming down her face, she left to go cry outside. A neighbor happened to come over and asked her, “How is your son?” My mother replied, “He’s not doing well.” My whole family was in despair.
Despite it all, my heart remained calm. I did not fear death, because I knew Falun Dafa would solve all my problems.
The Persecution Begins
While I was enduring this ordeal, Jiang Zemin launched the persecution of Falun Gong and its practitioners on July 20, 1999.
Because I worked in the town government, Falun Gong practitioners from surrounding villages would come to me to collect materials and exchange experiences. I was identified as a “key figure” by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Furthermore, the CCP saw my bedridden condition as a weakness. People came to see me in droves, from newspaper reporters and radio and television station personnel, to the police and government officials. Some questioned me, some slandered me, and some took photos and made audio and video recordings of me. Yet nobody could shake my resolve to cultivate Falun Dafa. Because I felt no fear, they all left empty-handed.
Seeing Master’s Smile in Autumn
Autumn soon arrived, bringing new miracles. I dozed off while reading and dreamed of a fruit tree. Three apples hung from the tree. The first apple, as big as a rice bowl, glistened in the sunlight. However, it was still green and unripe. The second and third apples were smaller, with one about to turn red and another already red. I believed that these three apples represented my wife, son, and me—our family of three. I found this incredibly encouraging.
One afternoon, I was resting by the window when I saw myself as a Taoist priest, wearing a black robe, holding a whisk in my right hand and my head as high as the ceiling. A fly was perching on the window frame, and I gently brushed near it with the tip of my whisk. The fly fluttered its wings and then remained still. At that moment, I thought, “I might as well kill it.” With a sharp, decisive “smack” I swatted the fly with my whisk. I woke up and looked up, only to see a fly struggle twice before dying.
One morning, after my coworkers had left to conduct their business, I mustered my courage and laboriously made my way to our main office. I held onto walls and furniture for support, repeatedly reciting the Fa as I inched forward.
“If you want to be able to return to the origin, the bitterest suffering is also most precious. There are many hardships when trying to cultivate back to one’s origin by enlightening to things amidst the delusion, but this enables one to return quickly.” (Lecture Three, Zhuan Falun)
I then saw myself in the yard outside the window, weeding with a hoe. When I turned around, I saw Master standing in my dormitory room, watching me weed. I threw down the hoe, ran into the room, and knelt before Master. I experienced this while I was still wide awake.
One afternoon, as I opened a copy of Essentials for Further Advancement, I saw Master’s portrait in the book, gazing at me with a kind and smiling expression. Tears instantly welled up in my eyes, and, suddenly, my body felt incredibly light. Without taking a single injection or pill, my ailments had all vanished! I had made it through the stressful and horrifying summer of 1999.
A Perilous Journey Through the SARS Outbreak
I was illegally imprisoned in the summer of 2003. The SARS outbreak then broke out and created unbearable tension in the prison due to overcrowding. The prison was put under complete lockdown with police officers forbidden to return home and logistics staff barred from leaving. Even contract work was halted. Obsessively, the staff took and recorder our temperatures multiple times a day.
When the SARS first broke out, I came down with a fever that worsened by the day. I thought little of it and faced my situation calmly. Every night, the fever made me delirious whenever I closed my eyes, and I would say strange things in my sleep, so the warden would wake me up and ask what was wrong. I would come to my senses and reply, “Ah, I was dreaming.” After this happened a few times, both of us got used to it and he left me alone.
The atmosphere in the prison was terrifying—as though the end of the world was near. One day, someone shouted, “Everyone, come on out! Let’s have a meeting in the corridor!” Everyone came out and waited in the corridor. A while later, a policeman came, mumbled a few words, then turned and left. The general message was, “The world is ending. What’s the point of having a meeting?” The crowd dispersed.
Despite the countless daily temperature checks, not a single person handed me a thermometer and no one around me spoke up. It was as though I did not exist. That was how I safely came through this ordeal. In that setting, people were sensitive to anyone who had a fever. Anyone who did might be thrown into the furnace!
At the time, I was not very concerned, but looking back now gives me the chills. Without Master’s protection, the consequences could have been disastrous.
Legs Cured in the Summer of 2004
In the summer of 2004, I developed terrible sores on both legs. A small white, itchy blister appeared in one spot. It began to ulcerate after I scratched it open, becoming deeper and increasingly painful, as though my thighs were being stabbed with a long awl! I endured excruciating pain while cleaning the pus and blood from the holes.
Over time, more and more holes appeared on my legs, until both legs were covered in a dense network of holes, like a sieve. Copious amounts of pus and blood soaked through my long underwear. I would wash my soiled underwear and hang it up to dry, but before it fully dried, the pair I was wearing would be soaked. Since two pairs of long under wear were not enough, I borrowed another pair from a fellow practitioner. I rotated through these three pairs, though they were barely enough.
My condition worsened in the summer, as though countless steel needles had pierced deep into my legs. Losing all that blood, I became noticeably thinner. One morning, I got up and was about to put on my shoes when I was struck with a bout of dizziness and almost fell over. Just then, a young practitioner sleeping on the upper bunk got up and walked past me. A fleeting thought crossed my mind: “Nobody cares enough to pour me a bowl of water, let alone offer any warmth.” Thankfully, my clear-headedness soon returned. This was the perfect opportunity to shed my attachment to human feelings. I regained my footing in an instant!
A practitioner saw my swollen feet and exclaimed in surprise, “Get the guards to send you to the hospital!” My heart remained unmoved. On another occasion, while cleaning the pus and blood from my legs, someone saw me and glared, “Whether you get treated or not is none of my business, but you’d better not infect us.” His remarks caused a stir, and the atmosphere in my cell grew tense.
Master taught us to be considerate of others in all situations, and I was determined to comply with this teaching. The next day, I went to the prison hospital. The doctor saw that my legs which were wrapped in sheets and hesitated. He suggested I go consult the director, who was a dermatology expert.
I went to the director’s office, where I was told to remove my clothes to be examined. When I removed the sheet from my left leg, the bloody, mangled flesh startled him so much that he stumbled backward a few steps and nearly fell over before returning to his seat. “Is your other leg the same?” When I said it was, he asked, “Do you your family’s support?” When I confirmed that I did, he said, “Call them right now and tell them to get the funds needed for an amputation! Your legs can’t be saved.” I wrapped my legs back up, returned to my cell, and pondered things over. My family had already suffered greatly because of me. I was unwilling to let them suffer anymore.
I realized that I had been wrong. The evil Party that suppressed Falun Gong for no reason was capable of anything. I called my family and told them about my condition, and they visited me the following day. My wife burst into tears to see how thin I had become. My legs were just skin and bones, and the skin was black.
My family searched the provincial hospital and got a specialist who was trained in France to examine me. The doctor prescribed several oral medications and wrote “To follow up” on my diagnosis, indicating that I should seek medical attention if anything changed. After returning from the hospital, I distributed the medications to my cellmates before going about my day as usual. Because practitioners do not have diseases, I refused to be swayed by this illusion. By then, my legs had withered away into dry sticks of firewood covered in scabs.
One morning, I woke up and felt something rustling on the sheets like peanut shells. When I lifted the covers, I saw the scabs on both legs had all fallen off! My legs were healed.
My appetite increased significantly. My family had sent me some money, so I invested it in some nourishing food. I bought a slice of pork head and stewed it in a small aluminum bowl on the electric stove. After I finished eating, I saved the leftovers for my next meal. The next time I ate what I’d saved, the bowl was suspiciously full, though I did not notice it at the time. I only realized how full the bowl remained as I was eating my third meal. This reminded me of the story where Jesus fed a large crowd with only a few loaves of bread and fish. Thank you, Master, for your encouragement!
Cell Head Begins to Treat Falun Dafa With Respect
Despite being such a good practice, Falun Dafa is persecuted by the CCP. Imprisoned practitioners are not allowed to study its teachings. Those caught doing so were severely beaten at best or put into solitary confinement at worst.
One morning after breakfast, the cell head and I remained in the cell. He was a gang leader who didn’t do any labor because no one dared to order him to, and he was particularly ruthless when it cam to practitioners. He once took a practitioner into a small room, locked the door, and ordered several thugs to beat him. He and his second-in-command once beat a practitioner who had been doing the exercises with sticks in the middle of the night. Ever since he came to my cell, I had been looking for the right opportunity to tell him about Falun Dafa. By then, my righteous thoughts and actions had left him with a very positive view of me.
I sat on my bed and thought, “I must study the Fa openly and position Dafa correctly.” I reached under the covers, retrieved the book, and began to study it in full view of whoever was there. The gang leader was hiding under the covers, using his phone to solicit prostitutes. As I was studying, the head inmate of our cell block returned to rest after giving out assignments to the others.
The head inmate had just sat down when he saw what I was doing. He jumped up and got ready to pounce on me like a hungry tiger! When he was just a foot away, he suddenly jumped like he had been struck with a bolt of electricity, tumbling through the air and landing with a thud on his bed.
The noise prompted the gang leader to sit up. The head inmate touched his body, saw I was still studying the Dafa book, and charged at me a second time. When he was a foot away, he was thrown high into the air again, sending him tumbling onto his bed. This time, he shrank back and stopped interfering with me.
This spectacular occurrence left the cell head amazed. He pulled a large, brand-new, notebook from his cabinet, walked over to my bed, and tossed it to me with a smile, and said, “Use it. I’m giving it to you.” From then on, the practitioners in my cell block began to openly practice the exercises and study the Fa.
Immediately after this, I experienced a new state. I didn’t feel thirsty, hungry, sleepy, or tired for a full day. This wonderful state lasted six months, and I finally understood what it meant to feel refreshed and energetic, with my body light and full of vitality. I spent almost all my time reading and copying the Fa, feeling extremely at ease.
I strove for quality over quantity, because I knew Master’s Law Body resided behind every word. I strove to make each word I copied straight and neat, like the clerical font I admired but did not know how to write. I did my best to imitate it, and over time my words actually started to look somewhat like it.
As I learned, Master opened my wisdom. Poems would spontaneously appear in my mind, and I would quickly write them down. It seemed on the surface like I was composing them, but in reality, these were gifts from Master.
Whenever Master published a new article, our coordinator would run to me and say, “Quick! I need seven copies.” I would copy them down, and he would take them away. A while later, he would return and say, “Quick! Give me 10 more copies.” After a while, he would return and say, “I need five more, ” then “Three more.” I suddenly realized this was my path. From then on, I cooperated closely with our coordinator, copying whichever lecture other practitioners needed. This allowed them to study the Fa and gave me the chance to study at the same time.
Before my release from prison, I had made two copies of Zhuan Falun, three copies of Essentials for Further Advancement, four copies each of Hong Yin and Hong Yin II, and many copies of lectures published at the time. I lost track of the number of new articles I copied. I left all these handwritten copies with other practitioners when I was released.
Postscript
As a Dafa disciple, I know that:
“Cultivation depends on one’s own efforts, while the transformation of gong is done by one’s master.” (Lecture One, Zhuan Falun)
This is absolutely true! I often say in my heart, “Benevolent Master is so great, so infinitely great. Tens of thousands of songs are insufficient to praise Master’s boundless grace.” This couplet that I composed myself is now pasted on my door.
