I noticed that Lao Zhao was still very thin though his facial complexion was quite good. Being curious, I asked him the reason for his weight-loss. He just nodded his head, saying nothing and looking gloomy. His wife next to him could not help but tell me, “This year in 2004 he was confronted with another test between that of life and death, the process of which was marked by hardships.” I was surprised at this because his previous tribulation was quite horrifying. I was curious about his second test.

To my great astonishment, I realized that my cultivation status had serious problems. What was wrong with me? What kind of attachment had caused me to deviate from the Fa? That night Teacher's article, "My Version of a 'Stick Wake-up'," was published on the Clearwisdom website. I felt as if a stick had hit me heavily. First, I realized that my orientation towards letting people know the truth about Falun Gong and the perseuction wasn't correct.

After my relative left, I opened Zhuan Falun and read it tirelessly without stopping. After I read the nine lectures in Zhuan Falun, all of the questions in my mind were answered. I felt every sentence in the book was a truth. Telling people to cultivate their hearts, to let go of all kinds of thoughts of personal fame and interests, and not to fight with the world is the genuine Law in the Buddha school!

Practitioner Cing did not talk back. But when they moved to the next village, she asked the coordinator if she could work with someone else. So she began to work with practitioner Bau instead. They soon finished their work and returned home safely. Cing didn't feel quite right about what had happened and began to look within. She couldn't quite figure out what she had done wrong and so she talked it over with me.

On this day it was unexpectedly very hot in Kunming. But even with the scorching sun directly overhead, nobody opened an umbrella. Practitioners sat with their legs crossed on the ground as the sun beat down on them, yet alleviating their discomfort were frequently felt, cool and gentle breezes. From the oldest to the youngest practitioner, nobody suffered sunstroke. Certain government organisations were surprised and impressed by this.

In 1999, the persecution against Falun Dafa officially started. Many practitioners gave up their cultivation under such huge pressure. My mind felt heavy. I quietly told Teacher, "Your disciple will steadfastly cultivate in Falun Dafa to the very end." At the time, I only knew that Falun Dafa had been attacked and Teacher had been slandered, and that I should take a firm stand against such actions. On the 9th of June in 1999, fellow practitioners and I went to Beijing to peacefully appeal for a stop to the persecution.

I started practising Falun Dafa in August of 1997. Even though I have being practising for quite a while, I have not been doing well with regard to letting people know about the persecution that is taking place against those who practise Falun Gong. It seemed that I had very few breakthroughs in clarifying the true facts about Falun Gong.

The town officials, knowing that we were firm practitioners, wanted to persecute us. They made four signs and hung them on us, then paraded us down the street. They put two signs on me, one of them saying, "Falun Gong Core Member." We had to stand for a long time on the road while people watched us. I thought that this was a good opportunity to promote the practise, so I smiled at the others and I was not cowed by the public humiliation.

After reading the Falun Gong teachings in the book Zhuan Falun, all of my illnesses were healed, and my moral standard also improved. I became a completely different person. I strongly believe that every person who practices and genuinely follows the teachings will benefit both physically and spiritually. Falun Gong benefits the people and the nation and harms no one. However, out of jealousy, Jiang Zemin launched the persecution against Falun Gong, slandered our Teacher, made that which is good seem bad, and bad seem good, and trampled the most wonderful principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance."

After the class, the young practitioner wrote a long letter to the teacher and told him the truth about Falun Gong. After reading the letter, the teacher said to the young practitioner, "You are the first student I have met who wrote to the teacher with an honest and sincere heart. I have remembered your words and from now on I will not say those things again." One time the teacher distributed test papers. The young practitioner noticed that one question on the paper defamed Dafa and she immediately pointed it out to the teacher. The teacher said, "Everyone, you don't need to answer that question."

Everybody in the cell dared to defy Jiang's order to strictly monitor practitioners and, despite the danger of been punished themselves, did their best to help me, because they all knew the truth about Falun Dafa. They all knew that practitioners were truly good people. That was what they did, sincerely, for a practitioner who was being persecuted.

They took the body to the hospital where my sister's daughter-in-law works and started to fabricate a story that they had taken him to the hospital after he committed suicide. When my sister's daughter-in-law saw the practitioner's lower body bleeding, she shouted out right in front of all the policemen, doctors and the practitioner's relatives, "This is not a suicide!" It shocked everyone there. The practitioner's family later won their lawsuit against the police using her words as evidence, and, as a result, these policemen were punished.

I told him what I did and explained that I thought the family would oppose my action. My brother-in-law who is not a practitioner said, "I like it. The people here think that the Dafa leaflets must not have come from a local person, but from a very capable Falun Gong practitioner from elsewhere. They like the leaflet too. Some people also received one in an envelope. I guessed it was you who did it." I smiled at him. My brother-in-law said, "Give me some. I'll go with you."

Because she has refused to cooperate with the authorities and compromise her beliefs, the prison personnel have violated the law and prevented her family members from seeing her. My mother-in-law's resolute behaviour has encouraged other fellow practitioners' righteous belief in Falun Dafa. A friend of mine is acquainted with one of the prison guards, so through my friend, I made arrangements to see my mother-in-law.

Arriving at the police station, my first thought was to straighten myself out, to see where the problem was and why this had happened. I found that, though I appeared to have sufficient righteous thoughts, a lot of competitiveness and human feelings had been mixed in with those thoughts. This competitiveness had caused me to miss Master's hints time and time again.

Teacher repeatedly told us to seize the time to study the Falun Dafa teachings, practise the exercises, improve our heart and use the teachings in Falun Dafa as a guide at all times. During the ten-minute break, Teacher didn't even drink any water. Instead he stood beside the podium and answered practitioners' questions with regard to their cultivation.

At about 11.am a male officer who I had never seen before appeared; he was not very tall and in his forties. He was holding my passport in hand and said to me: “Qi Luyi, come with me, I want to ask you something.” He took me to a meeting room next door while he was talking to me. He asked me when I came to Germany, I told him the truth. Then he asked: “Did you practise Falun Gong in China?” I replied: “yes, I did.” “Are you still practising it?”, “Yes, I am” I replied.

Among my family members was my father, who started practising Falun Dafa at the beginning of 1996. He improved greatly in both mind and body and as a result, my mother, sister, husband, two children and I also started to practise Falun Dafa. Our whole family, including my 3-year-old child, all the way up to the 70-year-old members of the family, lived in harmony and happiness, and we forged ahead diligently on the path of improving ourselves.

I did not feel the atmosphere was right after I got to school. I realised what had happened when Teacher Wang asked me to have a talk with him. Teacher Wang took a firm stance and as my righteous thoughts were not strong I failed to clearly tell him about why I practise Falun Dafa and why the persecution is wrong. Teacher Wang repeatedly said, "The power is in the hands of the Communist Party. It does not allow you to practise Falun Gong, although Falun Gong is good."

He gave a beautiful, heartfelt speech about how he learnt this year at college that we should not be afraid to open our minds to new ideas and ways of life. Every word was spoken from his heart, and I felt that everyone was listening deeply to him. Just when I was thinking about how much better an ordinary person had done than I had, at the very end of his speech, he said, "I want everyone to know that this very idea stems from my sister," and gesturing to me, he said "this is how I looked at what she got out of Falun Gong this year."

In January of 2004, I thought that I should go to the countryside since I had distributed materials frequently in the city. Especially in remote mountains, people did not know what Falun Gong was. I asked a practitioner to go to the remote mountains with me. We went there on a bus and walked back. That night, we walked through five villages and distributed several thousand leaflets.

He was very interested in Tai-Ji, meditation and so on and began practising these disciplines all the time. About one and half years ago he met a woman who practised Falun Gong while he was practising Tai-Ji in Malaysia. This lady told him what Falun Gong was all about and the persecution happening in China. After having listened to this lady he came to a certain understanding about Falun Gong. He realised that it is what he’d been looking for, and after a period of time, he firmly took the path of returning to his original, true self through practising Falun Gong.

The second group puts their own elevation and personal cultivation first. They have the attachment of getting rid of their attachments, the attachment to doing things, and have a hidden show-off mentality, zealotry, jealousy, and competitiveness. They are self-centred. On the surface, they are validating Dafa, but in essence, they are validating themselves. With no sense of security, they see the persecution of Falun Dafa as a way to establish their mighty virtue and to improve themselves.

I decided to go to my company and talk to them about Falun Gong and why the persecution is wrong. I approached leaders at different levels several times over a period of time and clarified the truth to them while asking them to give me back my job. However, my requests were turned down. Their reason was that anybody who had been sent to a forced labour camp and as a result of that been fired because of practising Falun Gong would have to declare his stand in front of the director of the security department.

I suddenly realised that, while I was very happy to accept that elderly gentleman's words when he pointed out there was something wrong with my car, I haven't been so happy whenever my fellow practitioners have pointed out my shortcomings. Why do I react differently? I suppose it's because I didn't know the elderly gentleman and I want strangers to be left with a good impression of me. When my fellow practitioners have pointed out my shortcoming, however, I thought they were doing so just to pick on me, so I would always try to find excuses for myself.

On the night of the 28th of December in 1994, the Guangzhou Lecture Session ended. Teacher said to us, "My visa is ready." All of us knew Teacher would travel around the world to introduce Falun Gong. We did not know when we would be able to see him in the future. During the eight days of lectures, Teacher taught us the universal law and cleansed our bodies. When it was time to say goodbye, everybody felt sad.

The practise site had become a landmark on scenic Ocean Drive, alongside the beautiful Indian Ocean. Even the taxi drivers asked whether we can do a Falun Gong program in their local language on the radio stations, so that they can learn about Falun Dafa while driving. When we handed out leaflets on the streets, people came up to us and said they had received our leaflets, and looked at the website. They said they couldn't believe the brutality of the persecution! Thanks to the media's continuing positive reports about the practise, Falun Dafa has become widely known.

I came across a situation in the early days of my cultivation: During a group sharing session, one practitioner pointed out the shortcomings of another practitioner, who then instinctively defended herself with angry words. A young female practitioner sitting next to me whispered to me: “See, her heart moved.” I wasn’t aware of the deeper meaning of those words at the time. But as my cultivation progressed, those words echoed again and again in my mind.

When talking about interference by the demon of lust in Zhuan Falun (the core text of Falun Gong teachings), Master mentioned a story of a practitioner from Wuhan city. The practitioner saw Buddha Amitabha and Laozi while he was doing the sitting meditation. Then Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara showed up and tested him by creating some flying heavenly girls. In the past I only realised that this was for teaching us how to deal with demon of lust. Recently, I suddenly enlightened to something more.

I again had blood in my urine and my whole body was in pain. On the seventh day, I suddenly started to vomit huge amounts of blood. At the time, the prisoners were very scared. They banged on the door and asked for the police and prison doctor. Meanwhile, Falun Dafa practitioners in different cells were also alerted. Yet, after vomiting blood, my stomach soon felt better and I was no longer in pain. After that, I was in a semi-conscious state. It was as if I had reached the limit of enduring the mental and physical torture.

During the past five years, with Master's help, we have continued with our group Fa study and sending forth righteous thoughts. No matter what the weather is, no matter if we were busy or not, we have continued post to materials. When there was no electricity we would use candles, and we'd wear boots and carry umbrellas in the rain in order to continue putting up materials. Currently, there are four new practitioners in our village.

An officer then squatted behind the stool where I sat and stretched his hand inside the overcoat to drag my hair back so that my head was lifted. Another officer stood behind me to force me to look as if I was tearing a book with both hands. I grasped my fists to my chest so that they could not get their way. One officer tore a book and threw it onto me, another seized the chance to sprinkle water on my face to concoct a tear. I closed my eyes without any expression. I thought that as long as I refuse to open my mouth they could not fabricate any facts.

"...After practising Falun Gong for only two and half a months, I restored my health and could carry a sack of flour weighing 55 lbs by myself to the fourth floor." The General Manager said, "Our finance department told me that you haven't made any health insurance claim for the past six years since you started practising Falun Gong." I added, "Do you remember that, before I practised Falun Gong, I was admitted to the hospital and cost our company 17,000 yuan in medical expenses?" "Yes. Yes. I remember."

Slowly my husband changed. He started to help me buy supplies for making materials that highlight why the persecution against Falun Dafa is wrong, and helped me solve computer problems related to Falun Dafa work. His work unit once organised an exhibition. I sensed it would be a Falun Dafa slandering exhibit and asked him, "Would you go if it attacks Dafa?" He said, "Absolutely not!" He not only did not go but he also asked his friends not to go.

I witnessed Falun Dafa practitioners from Shiyan City validate the Fa by risking their lives in the Detention Centre. On trial, we did not consider our lives. We explained the truth about Falun Gong to the judges in a dignified manner, appealed for the rights of Falun Dafa, exposed the evil nature of Jiang and his regime, and proclaimed our innocence. Although the judges went mad and sentenced us, we did not plead guilty, and appealed the sentence. Officials at the intermediate court dared not even to correct the wrong dates that had been put on the sentencing statement.

Each passing day brought news about practitioners' homes being ransacked. To be safe, we bought several tents and went to Jiulong Mountain. We lived on the mountain for 58 days. During the day, we still went to Tiananmen Square to talk to other practitioners, and at night we brought practitioners who had no place to stay back to the mountain. Some practitioners didn't have much money, and some were forced to eat leftover food from restaurants. The weather was getting colder, and practitioners who left home early were wearing thin clothes, and some slept on the streets at night. We gave almost all of the money we brought to fellow practitioners.

She looked at these former practitioners with her bright and pure eyes. I lowered my head. Many people shed tears. She started singing the song "Falun Dafa is Good." Her pure and beautiful voice was singing this precious song from her heart, awakening the memory and righteous thoughts of others who were surrounding her. Everyone was listening quietly, moved and purified by the heavenly song. Tears flowed from our eyes. The police officer was horrified and rushed to cover her mouth with a cloth. What happened next was something unforgettable for everyone.

At the beginning when I first started to talk about Falun Gong with people face-to-face, due to lack of experience, I would often try very hard but I still could not explain things clearly. Sometimes I missed opportunities due to over apprehension and excessive worrying. As I talk to more and more people, the path of clarifying the truth about Falun Gong face-to-face is getting broader and easier for me. Now it is very easy for me to lead a conversation towards a topic on which I can clarify the truth and I can naturally bring the topic back when it is interrupted.

One day, my husband suddenly called me on the phone and said, "I was wrong and I am sorry. Now I want to learn Falun Gong and I will try to be a good person. Wait for me at home and we won't get divorced." At that time I did not believe him at all. What kind of cultivation practice was so effective that it could really turn him into a good person? After he came back home, I saw that my husband really had changed; he had changed into a totally different person.

One day I went to a shop to buy a paper shredder. A customer who had made his purchase stayed back to watch how the storeowner tested my machine. At that moment two young people came into the shop. I knew this was an opportunity not to be missed, so I began by explaining why I needed a paper shredder, and went on to clarify the truth about Falun Gong. One of the young girls cut in, "That's right. I don't believe that Falun Gong is bad. I won't be misled so easily!" I said, "Yes, we should use our heads. Would the state-controlled media show you the truth about Falun Gong?"

I am 60 years old. In May of 1998 I was very sick, causing me to become extremely weak and to lose a lot of weight. A former classmate told me about the benefits of Falun Gong one day and I went to the local practise site that same night. Those first two nights, I could not complete the standing exercises or the sitting meditation. On the third day, a miracle occurred. For the first time in months, I felt clear-minded and comfortable in my body.

Upon starting a 15-day brainwashing session, I returned home on the afternoon of the first day. During the second month of the brainwashing session, I returned home after six days. One time I was arrested by the local police and was taken to the police department, yet I was able to go home after just six hours. I truly felt this was due to Falun Dafa.

The birthday party was bustling with activities, including a band playing music and drama troupes performing on stage. Almost one thousand people came to the celebration to enjoy the shows and to congratulate her on her birthday. Fellow practitioners used the opportunity to talk about the changes the elderly woman experienced after she started to practise Falun Gong. Her story manifested the wonders of Falun Dafa.

Master told a practitioner next to him to buy some platform tickets for us. Actually, we could get in and out of the station without any platform tickets by presenting our IDs since both of us wore police uniforms at that time. We knew that Master charged the lowest fees for his classes and must have incurred a lot of expenses when he travelled nationwide giving lectures. Yet, Master spent his own money to buy us tickets. We felt very uneasy about this. However, we realised deeply that Master was teaching us how to be a practitioner and how to achieve the standard of a practitioner.

During the last few years I have read "Lecture at the US East Coast Conference" countless times, but I failed to understand what Teacher was saying. When practising outside we should wear gloves if it's too cold. Teacher wasn't just telling the new practitioners. It was meant for all practitioners. Practitioners won't get frostbite from the cold. Teacher told us this in consideration of the new practitioners in order to prevent negative impact to Falun Dafa. We always study and learn from each other, and the new practitioners will try to imitate what they see

In this way the cotton strip was worn out. The criminal who was beating me squatted down and said quietly, "Grandpa, please forgive me. It was against my will to beat you; however, if I do not listen to them they will punish me." I said, "We follow the principles of 'Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance' so we are all good people. I do not blame you." The criminal was moved to tears.

One day, several dozen police officers broke into our home and took mom away by force. I asked the police: "Why don't you go and arrest pickpockets and leave my mom alone? My mom is a good person. Why do you keep her in jail?" Later, mom fled from jail and had to live a homeless life. Then she was kidnapped and thrown into a brainwashing centre. The police took my mom away from me. How more inhumane could they be?

Even though each region has different conditions and restrictions, when practitioners in an area have the heart to file a lawsuit against Jiang, whether it succeeds or not depends on the understanding of the entire group of local practitioners in their coordination during the lawsuit. It will go hand-in-hand with the improvement of the practitioners involved, whether they are coordinators or plaintiffs, and their coordination with the lawyer.

Every time I saw Teacher emphasising that practitioners needed to treat each other with tolerance, understanding, kindness, and immense compassion, I would say to Teacher in my heart, "How am I supposed to get along with them when they are so attached to their own ways." I didn't realise that I was also being too attached to my personal views. I knew it wasn't a correct state.

For these past five years on this road of practising Falun Dafa, I have experienced many difficulties and have navigated a rough, uneven path. I encountered many kinds of troubles and setbacks, but I also learnt many lessons, had many inspirations, accomplished certain goals, and steadily improved myself. During these years I also walked tortuous stretches along the path, which was due to my lack of Fa-study and because of ordinary people's notions and attachments that I still had not let go of.