(Minghui.org) I began to practice Falun Dafa in 1995. At the beginning of my cultivation, my excitement and happiness at being a Falun Dafa practitioner were beyond description. Even though I lacked a deep understanding of Dafa, I knew this was the Buddha Law and what I was looking for.
After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started to persecute Falun Dafa, I was illegally arrested, held in a forced labor camp, and imprisoned for a long time. None of that, however, has undermined my determination to practice Falun Dafa and assist Master in rectifying the Fa and saving sentient beings. Empowered by Master, I overcame all my tribulations.
I was arrested and imprisoned at the end of 2002. My team leader in prison had tried to get me released on medical parole twice since 2003, but since the people in the provincial prison administration bureau knew that I had not “pleaded guilty,” they refused to approve it. I realized that this was only the superficial reason. Fundamentally it was because my attachments were taken advantage of by the old forces that I had to face being persecuted.
I was the main contact at our local assistance center. I worried that the state of our local practitioners’ cultivation and our efforts to clarify the truth was lagging behind that of the practitioners in other areas. I was competitive and had a show-off mentality, and I was attached to time, to my ego, to doing things, and much more. I only came to recognize those attachments after some time.
There were quotas for medical parole. The team leader and divisional manager visited me in the hospital to talk me into signing a guarantee statement. They claimed that they would let me go home. I refused to sign. Before I was taken to the new prison, a few prisoners who were in charge came to the hospital a few days in a row to try to talk me into putting my fingerprints on the statement that they prepared, which didn’t involve any sensitive words. If I put my fingerprints on it, then I could go home.
In that moment, an idea flashed into my mind: “You are forcing me, which shouldn’t be counted as my own wish, therefore, it wouldn’t matter even if I were to leave my fingerprints.” Since I didn’t negate this thought in time, a few of them grabbed my hand and put my fingerprint on the document. I was dumbfounded and didn’t know what to do. I staggered back to the ward with tears running down my face. I refused to eat or drink for the rest of the day.
I found a pen and paper and, with a shaking hand, began to write a letter to the divisional manager. I firmly and solemnly wrote: “That fingerprint was obtained by those prisoners against my will. I will never acknowledge it. It’s null and void!” In the end, I bit my finger until it bled and left a bloody fingerprint on the letter. Soon, the divisional manager told me that the statement with my fingerprint it on was null and void.
At that time, my physical condition made many prison guards and doctors think that I wouldn’t make it out of prison alive. I thought to myself: “I have read Master’s recent lectures, which were mainly about saving people. I should not be attached to being bailed out for medical reasons. I should stay here to save people, but my physical condition must change so that more people can witness Dafa’s power.”
Every day after that besides reciting the Fa, clarifying the facts, and sending forth righteous thoughts, I cleansed every attachment in my thoughts for an extended time in order to eliminate them. I was determined to use my main consciousness to take charge of my brain to assimilate with Dafa unconditionally, as well as follow the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Anything not in line with Dafa’s principles was not acceptable.
Within six months after I started sending forth righteous thoughts intensively, safeguarded and empowered by Master, my high blood pressure, heart disease, tuberculosis, microcephaly, stomachache, and other illness karma illusions disappeared. My weight returned to normal, and my complexion also became normal. I could walk and run freely. Seeing that, the guards, the head of the prison, and the doctors were in shock. They had witnessed the power and preciousness of Dafa in person. This caused quite a stir in the tuberculosis ward inside the prison.
One day, the prison warden came to the hospital. As soon as she saw me, she began to scold me, saying that I refused to admit guilt. She didn’t move me but I used my strong righteous thoughts to clean up the evil behind her.
A few minutes later, she began to calm down. Then I told her that cultivating Falun Gong is legal. The fact that its practitioners were in prison was illegal. I also talked about how I benefited physically and mentally from cultivation and how wonderful Dafa is. This time we spoke for half an hour. Before she left, she said, “I wish that you could be a smart woman.”
The second time the warden came to talk to me alone. I talked to her about some principles I’d enlightened to from Dafa, which were: When a person dies, it’s only his cells that are cremated. Fire can’t reach the particles smaller than molecules, otherwise they would cause a nuclear explosion. When a person dreams in his sleep, his physical body doesn’t move, yet his feelings are vivid and clear. Actually it comes down to the movements of microscopic lives in microscopic dimensions. One’s life is not limited to a few decades. As to which level a person reaches and the quality of his or her life during reincarnations, it all depends on how much virtue they have accumulated in a lifetime. The warden found these thoughts interesting, and they caught her off guard.
The third time she came, I had this thought in mind: “She shouldn’t leave before I finish talking.” This time, I mainly focused on how precious Dafa is and that it is now practiced all over the world. She even asked me to clarify some things. In the end, she said to me sincerely, “If our circumstances were different, we could have been friends.”
During more than 10 years of imprisonment, even though I lacked in-depth Fa-study, didn’t know how to look inward, and didn’t negate the old forces’ persecution, I still safeguarded Dafa and was empowered by Master. I refused to be “transformed” or participate in hard labor. I sent forth righteous thoughts for a long time every day to eliminate the evil behind every police officer and prisoner.
I clarified the facts to the prisoners close to me. Most of them understood that Dafa was good and decided to quit the Party and its affiliated organizations. There were also a few of them who studied the Fa with me; some of them had their celestial eyes opened and went through great physical and mental transformations. I’d like to highlight a few cases.
I ran into Bao, who used to receive a special allowance from the State Council. Prior to her imprisonment, she turned her company around from suffering a heavy financial loss to generating an annual profit of a few hundred million yuan. However, because others were jealous of her bonus payout, they falsely accused her of embezzling, and she was sentenced to life in prison. She was very upset, feeling extremely hard done by, and she often cried out loud. She often went to the divisional manager’s office to slam her fist on her table and pound on her windows. She also yelled and screamed until she almost collapsed.
After I met her, I began to comfort her by sharing Dafa’s principles. Gradually, she would calm down. Empowered by Master, she began to study the Fa. She had good enlightenment quality and changed greatly, both physically and mentally. Within a couple of months, she recovered from her serious heart disease, cerebral neurasthenia, and other ailments. She was then always in good spirits and smiled a lot.
In the tuberculosis cell of the prison, there was a young girl named Cai who was deaf and mute. She only weighed about 50 pounds and often had a fever. She was so fragile that she couldn’t even hold a bottle of spring water. No family members visited her. By the time she came to our ward, the inmates had all begun to practice Dafa, so they cared for and helped her.
She was not well-educated, but she was very smart. I used a few hand gestures and wrote down some words to communicate with her. I taught her how to recite the poems in Hong Yin. She put her heart into what she did and learned very quickly. With that, she recovered fairly quickly. Her temperature went back to normal, and she also gained some weight.
Within two months of starting to study the Fa, she not only recovered from her illnesses but also went from being extremely skinny to chubby. She helped other inmates run errands every day. When we did the group exercises, she stood by the door to keep an eye out. One time, she firmly used her hand gesture to say to me, “After I go home, I will never commit a crime again. I will listen to Master and be a good person by following Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.”
After I left the prison hospital and was put on a team, some of the inmates on my team began to obtain the Fa, while others were immersed in Dafa’s saving grace. One day, the team leader said during the team meeting that she only trusted me. After that, there was no one specifically watching me, so I could do what I felt like, which made meeting with other practitioners and sharing with them more convenient. My environment also became more relaxed.
However, with the passage of time, I relaxed in my righteous thoughts. About a year before I was released, a practitioner in another team was reported by another inmate for reading Master’s new articles, which she got from me. I was put in solitary confinement. This time, as soon as I got there, it was as if a super-heavy load pressed down on my shoulders. I collapsed and sat on the ground. A powerful sense of helplessness and horror pressed down upon me, and tears covered my face. Later, I came to enlighten that it was due to my fear of being “transformed” again.
As a practitioner, I was very clear deep down that the only way to break through the tribulation was the Fa and Master. I wiped away my tears and began to recite Master’s articles repeatedly, as well as Hong Yin, Hong Yin II, and some of Zhuan Falun, the main book of Falun Dafa, especially On Dafa.
Master said,
“Righteous Fa spreads,Hardships piled upon hardships.Myriad demons block,Perils exist within perils.” (“Undisturbed in Tribulation,” Hong Yin)
My feelings of heaviness and extreme fear were suddenly gone.
It was November and snowing. Water leaked into my solitary confinement cell. There was no heat, so it was very cold. One night, I curled up in a quilt and recited the Fa. Without noticing, I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was too warm. I was very surprised: Was the heat on? When I touched the ground, it was still icy cold. Then a warm current went through my body. I understood: It was benevolent Master protecting his disciple.
Near dawn, I dreamed I saw branches with beautiful flowers sticking out of a tall window covered with ice. The long flowering branches were full of flowers. I immediately woke up and knew it was Master encouraging his practitioner. Empowered by Master, during the time I was held in solitary confinement, I helped five people quit the CCP.
Soon after I was discharged from the hospital, I was transferred to the team that specialized in “transforming” practitioners. Whenever a practitioner was “transformed,” the prisoners would be rewarded by having their terms reduced. One time, a practitioner in her 70s was slapped on her face dozens of times and deprived of sleep for several days. She wasn’t allowed to eat and was made to stand for a long period of time. One practitioner’s spine was broken from being beaten. Practitioners had been persecuted to death in this ward.
Because my term was long and because I hadn’t been “transformed,” if I was “transformed,” the inmates responsible would have their terms further reduced. To facilitate their efforts, there were no monitoring devices installed in this room. Only six of the 12 beds were occupied, all were accomplices of the team leader. I kept sending righteous thoughts and I tried not to trigger their evil sides. I didn’t resent them or hate them but used my wisdom to clarify the facts to the team leader and her two main accomplices. I often ended up talking to them until after 10 p.m. I talked about the path I had taken and my experiences cultivating steadfastly in the detention center and the labor camp. I also talked about my faith in cultivation. I said, “The sun could rise from the west, and the earth could rotate in reverse, but I will never ‘transform!’”
I was strict about adhering to the standards of Dafa in whatever I did. I understood the inmates and treated them kindly. Within a month, two of her main accomplices agreed to quit the CCP and began to study the Fa. After a month, the team leader called me into an empty room and said, “If you do me a favor and ‘transform,’ I’ll kneel down in front of you.” Before she even finished, I answered, “No, I won’t!” After that, they gave up trying to “transform” me. She also praised me several times in the workshop.
After two months, the team leader said to me, “Can you go to room 8 and look after an elderly lady practitioner? She has been tortured and has to be treated at the hospital every day. Her doctor said that she has serious heart disease and bile duct stones. She is emaciated and has developed a big hunchback. After you get there, you have the say, so however you want to help her, feel free to do so. The main task now is to take care of her. At night, you can study the Fa and do the exercises with other practitioners.” I gladly took her up on that.
When I went to her room, I saw that she seemed to be lacking righteous thoughts and couldn’t think of any of the teachings, so I studied with her, sent righteous thoughts with her, and helped her to look inward. Within a few months, she had recovered from all her ailments. For the first time since she was admitted to the prison, she went to do the grocery shopping by herself and bought two bags of groceries. She carried them all the way up to the fifth floor all by herself. The entire floor was in shock, and everyone was truly amazed by Dafa’s power.
Quite a few people had started to practice Dafa, and even more had chosen to quit the CCP. A team was usually composed of 70 inmates. When there were only a few left on my team who hadn’t decided to quit the CCP organizations, the teams were all re-shuffled. I knew that Master was always near me. He would arrange for people with a predestined relationship to see me.
When I left the room that had been set up specifically to “transform” practitioners, whenever practitioners were admitted to this ward, the team leader then arranged for them to work at the workshop as opposed to forcing them to be “transformed.” The “transformation” team in this ward was effectively dismantled.
Through more than 20 years of Fa-rectification cultivation, my path has been bumpy. But Master has enlightened and protected me every step of the way. Because of Master’s immense compassion, his disciple has been able to follow the path of returning to my true self so that I can fulfill my vow. I am grateful for benevolent Master’s compassion! Thank you, Master!