(Minghui.org) Looking back on my 27 years of cultivation, I see that Falun Dafa has completely changed my behavior, attitude, and way of thinking. Dafa renewed my life, and my heart is filled with gratitude for Master!
After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched the persecution, I went to Tiananmen Square in Beijing three times to speak up for Falun Dafa. I lost my job and my comfortable living environment. I was taken to a brainwashing center in April 2002. Because I refused to renounce Falun Dafa, I was sentenced to three years and taken to the Mansanjia Forced Labor Camp.
The moment I entered the labor camp, I asked myself, “Why are you here?” I answered, “I’m here because I’m walking the path to the divine.” I relaxed. I felt that my ties to this human world were far away, and I no longer missed my family and cared less about my career.
When the local police interrogated me they demanded I tell them where I got the informational materials about Falun Dafa. They claimed a practitioner who was transformed in a brainwashing center said that I gave her some materials. They said if I refused to tell them, I would immediately be sent to Liaoning Women’s Prison.
I remembered what Master said:
“...in history’s future, everything of yours that is pure and righteous will be what ensures that the colossal firmament has formation and stasis, but not destruction.” (“Congratulatory Statement to the New York Fa Conference,” The Essentials of Diligent Progress III)
I thought, since Dafa practitioners were aligning themselves with the principles of the new universe, how could I align myself with the old universe, which is selfish and decaying? I should be responsible to the future universe, and the safety of fellow practitioners. So I said, “I can’t tell you and let you destroy yourselves by committing more crimes against Dafa.”
Their hostility vanished. They said a few words and then left.
The days that followed were increasingly difficult. The labor camp guards did not allow me to sleep. Several former practitioners who had been “transformed” surrounded me and tried to convince me to renounce the practice.
“Do you think I can be transformed?” I said, “Every drop of my blood and even my bones were made by Dafa!”
They started to torture me. I was locked in a small cell, frozen, hung up, and not allowed to sleep. When they forced me to do slave labor I refused.
A female guard brought me to her office, and said, “Your term is three years. For each day you refuse to work, one more day will be added to your term. When will this end? Your child won’t even recognize you when you get out.”
I looked into her eyes and said, “Three years, thirty years, or three hundred years, they are the same. They are just an instant.” At that moment, I stood tall and proud, and the evil seemed so insignificant.
One day, the inmates were sent to work at another location. During the head count, I refused to say my number, since I was not a criminal. When we returned that evening, a guard ordered the inmates to wrap a rope around from my forearms to my hands, tightening it into my flesh. They then hung me up from behind, attached to the upper bunk bed railing with my toes barely touching the ground.
The pain was intense and I almost fainted. My sweat dripped to the floor. But my mind was very clear, “If I give in, other practitioners who refuse to work in the future will be put through the same torture. I won’t let this happen. The worst that could happen to me is death. That’s okay.”
The guard intended to keep me hanging in this position overnight. After I let go of my attachment to life and death, the evil elements behind the guard dissolved. They let me down after an hour. My arms and hands turned black (and I lost sensation in my right ring finger for over a month). When they locked me in a restroom I did the five sets of exercises.
During that difficult time, I managed to memorize most of the lectures in The Essentials of Diligent Progress II, and I recited Hong Yin every day. I could feel that my life was being renewed by Dafa.
The Zhangshi Forced Labor Camp, Longshan Forced Labor Camp, and Masanjia Forced Labor Camp intensified the persecution toward those practitioners who refused to give up their belief in Dafa. They once put my legs into the double lotus position and tied them with a rope. My hands were tied together behind my back, and the rope was tied from my shoulders to my legs. I was almost tied into a ball.
I thought, “In order to spread the Fa to sentient beings, Master endured every hardship in the universe. In comparison, what I’m suffering is nothing. I will follow Dafa no matter what.” Master saw my heart and endured most of the suffering, and left me only the part I could endure—so I was able to endure it. Yet on the surface, I started vomiting blood. The blood in my stomach was brown. I vomited blood for half the night. They untied me the next morning, after being tied up for more than twelve hours. My legs were swollen and I was unable to walk. Next, they hung me from a heating pipe with only my toes touching ground. Every night, I counted the seconds, and every second seemed like a year.
After I passed this test, they gave up on “transforming” me with physical torture.
They subsequently used my family members to persecute me. My father visited me and said that my husband was having an affair. He tried to convince me to write a guarantee statement so I would be released.
At that moment, I remembered what Master said:
“A hundred hardships falling all at once” (“Tempering One’s Heart and Will,” Hong Yin)
I told my father, “If my husband insists on a divorce, please keep the child, since the child is here for the Fa.”
It turned out that my father made it up. He wanted to use this to get me to go home.
When I was persecuted to the brink of life and death, I understood what it meant to “let go of life and death.” We let go of the attachment to “life,” since we are not afraid of death. Meanwhile we should let go of the attachment to “death,” and keep ourselves alive so that we can validate the Fa.
Because I was detained, I did not know that Master said, “completely negating the old forces’ arrangement.” I just repeated Master’s poem:
“The endless journey has come to a closeAnd the pervasive haze is gradually dispersingWhile righteous thoughts display the might of GodsReturning to Heaven is no longer just yearned for”(“New Year’s Greetings,” The Essentials of Diligent Progress III)
I understood that I should not follow the old forces’ arrangements. I needed to be released so I could save people. If I continued to be detained, I wouldn’t be able to do the three things Master asked us to do.
I recited the poem repeatedly all night, and felt that every word was imprinted on my heart. I firmly believed I could get out of prison by using righteous thoughts.
I wrote a statement to the labor camp guards. I declared a hunger strike, requesting that I be acquitted.
After another four and a half months of brutal torture, including countless force-feedings and injections, and when I was on the verge of death, I finally got out of the labor camp where I had been persecuted for sixteen months.
During this period, due to the tremendous mental and physical pain I suffered, I developed hatred for the guards. I hated them for being so inhumane. I thought they were beyond redemption. I hoped they would go to hell and be punished. As soon as I thought this, I realized I was wrong. This was not what Master wanted. Practitioners should save sentient beings, not destroy them. Even if they chose the wrong side, I should be compassionate. I should eliminate the evil elements behind them, and wake up their knowing sides. They are all waiting to be saved!
When I thought of this, my heart was full of compassion and righteous thoughts. I knew that the labor camp would no longer be able to hold me, as I had already stepped out of the realm of selfishness.
By the time I was carried out of the labor camp, I weighed less than 30kg (66 pounds). I was so weak that I couldn’t walk, and my voice was almost inaudible. A Dafa practitioner should not look like this, I thought. On the way home, I kept sending righteous thoughts. I felt a Falun, as big as my body, rotating, turning nine times clockwise and nine times counterclockwise, and correcting everything that was incorrect. When we arrived home, I climbed to the fifth floor by myself.
Upon returning home, I felt like a seedling that had found sweet dew after a long drought. My desire to read the Fa was so strong that I only put down the book when I went to the restroom. I read, and read, and only slept two hours per day.
Within three days, Master expelled over a hundred bottles of liquid that were injected into my body at the labor camp, out through my skin, which was extremely itchy. Within one month, I gained 15kg (33 pounds).
I once again immersed myself in validating Dafa.