My omissions in my cultivation were taken advantage of and I was kidnapped while distributing truth clarification materials. Because of my omissions, I was doing Dafa work with the attachment of fear and with the mentality of treating Dafa work as a mundane duty. In detention, I successfully foiled the police officers' attempts to take propaganda photos of me or to fingerprint me, and I did well during their tricky interrogations. Even so, the malicious prison guards were still bragging, "No big deal. We will still break you down." What was more, they would say, "After a month of torture in the Labour camp, you'll be writing a thank-you letter to us!"
I am a Falun Dafa practitioner. Cruel tortures (what the vicious political clique calls "the spring breeze and the melting rain") would never force me to betray Dafa. I would never acknowledge such a persecution. I was determined not to follow the arrangements to test me, so I went on a hunger strike.
The ruthless prison guards threw me into a "tiger barn" where criminals were supposed to beat me severely. But after I explained the truth about Falun Gong to those inmates, they all wanted to be my friend. To the guards' surprise, most of the criminal inmates were sympathetic towards me and fully supported my protest for justice.
On the fourth day into my hunger strike, the prison guards ordered the inmates to force-feed me. This involved pinching my nose and chin, knocking out some of my teeth, and inserting a tube down my throat. The Assistant Director found a hard rubber tube and ordered the inmates to use any means necessary to insert the tube into my throat, saying that this would be more convenient for them. I was injured during this brutal procedure, and blood was all over my face and mouth -- even the inmates were frightened and refused to torture me any further. The Assistant Director then yelled, "Torture him to death, and treat him like an ant after he is dead!" He tried to encourage the inmates by saying, "If he dies, our Director is the responsible party. What are you afraid of?" He thought nothing of getting promoted and furthering his career at the expense of the lives of Falun Gong practitioners.
The Bureau Chief in charge of prisons came to me one day. He tried to cajole me, and said "I respect the freedom of belief. If you have any problems, you can report them to the higher authorities. Why do you make trouble for yourself? ..." I was not moved. Then, he started to yell at me: "If you remain on the hunger strike, I will kill you with poison!" I answered peacefully, "I know that you are capable of using any vicious and low means to persecute me." He left disgracefully. The Labour Camp Chief would play a game of carrot and stick: First, he would promise that anyone was free to make any request, food being a big one. Later on, he said viciously that if I kept on disregarding him and if I continued the hunger strike, he would send me to a crematory alive! This villain was so malicious and so greedy that he actually said, "Your body is worth lots of money. Let's cut out your internal organs and donate them to the Communist Party. In fact, I just need to find a criminal inmate to take your hand by force and make you write a will donating your organs. Then we'll make you fingerprint it and it'll become legal. You are dying anyway. After you're dead, you cannot testify, right?" He started to laugh, admiring his own "terrific" performance while the other vile prison guards and inmates, trying to gain his favour, were praising his brilliant tactics.
When they found out that force-feeding did not work on me, the prison started the forced infusions. The prison doctor was not happy about this. Usually he liked to sleep late into the morning after singing karaoke with his wife the night before. Only when there was a patient that needed his care would he be summoned back to be on duty. He would tell me, "It would be great if you could die sooner!" After he set up the infusion system, he foisted the job onto a criminal inmate and snuck back to get more sleep.
My family members came to the prison in tears. My elderly mother was crying and sobbing uncontrollably, and her nose was even running as she clung to me. The purpose of their visits was to appeal to my attachment of familial relationship, in order to pressure me to cooperate with the ruling political Party and give up my belief in Dafa. My relatives would sneak food into my mouth, saying what a shame it would be if I died. During these meetings, the prison agents were busy surreptitiously shooting film footage to validate their persecution of Falun Gong. At that moment, I recalled what Teacher had said in "Your Mind Must Be Right" (Lecture 6, Zhuan Falun) and "For Whom Do You Exist" (Essentials for Further Advancement), and I remained firm and did not give up my principles because of familial sentiment. If I were to cooperate with the prison guards just to appease my family members, I would have caused more practitioners to bear more pressure, with more practitioners' relatives being persecuted.
As my time in detention grew longer, my suffering was getting worse. My body was totally dehydrated; my mind felt the sensations of explosion and confusion. I felt great pain even with my body motionless, let alone when I had to move. My mouth had a bitter taste and smelled terrible; I developed serious ulcers in my throat. The prison guards handcuffed me to the bed frame, turning it into a "tiger bed." I was lying there like a skeleton, unable to move, talk or open my eyes. Everyone thought that I was dying due to the vicious tortures I suffered. The agony of pain was pushed upon me like huge mountains, exceedingly difficult to bear for even a minute. I was not sure if I was in a coma or if I had any consciousness at all; I would just feel a fit of pain and then fall unconscious again. There was much interference. In the state of semi-consciousness, most of the time I felt as if I was eating some delicacy. Some say that I was breaking the status of ordinary society. My mind was constantly challenged: Could I make it to the end of cultivation? Could the evil be defeated?
When my suffering and pain would become unbearable, I would tearfully beseech Teacher to reduce my tribulations. I was also asking myself, why did I feel such pain in all this suffering? What was it that hindered me from making further progress? Teacher taught us to "treat hardships as joy" ("Tempering One's Mind and Heart" from Hong Yin). Had I done it? I was reciting the poem quietly and looking for my own attachments. In this critical time, I could feel that Teacher's words were so profound! It seemed that the Fa [Law and Principles in Falun Gong] had invested upon me boundless energy and stamina; numerous sufferings were borne and overcome amidst my constant enlightening to the Fa principles. At that moment, I was very much regretting that I had not been diligent enough in cultivation, not remembering much of the Fa! The physical suffering was almost nothing to me. However, when my strong desires surfaced, I would then really feel the pain of suffering. I also had the attachment of fear -- the fear that I was not doing very well in my cultivation. What if I died? I found various attachments hidden in the attachment to fear of death. "The Fa can break all attachments, the Fa can destroy all evil, the Fa can shatter all lies, and the Fa can strengthen righteous thoughts" ("Drive Out Interference" from Essentials for Further Advancement II). By virtue of the Fa in my heart, I was constantly breaking through these obstacles; I understood the significance of my very existence and that I must not fear death.
Practitioners who had enlightened along an evil path and forced to give up their believes by the police also came to interfere with me. They told me ridiculous lies that had deceived both themselves and others. They would use the persecutors' logic to defend the evil clique's persecution. They would constantly defame Dafa and Teacher. At this stage in my hunger strike, my physical condition had deteriorated to the point that I did not see light or hear sounds. This was because I would feel great pain at the slightest sensation of light and sound, so I just tightly shut my eyes and mouth, and became like a vegetable handcuffed to a tiger bed. I shut myself up so that there was no chance for those villains to get any information out of me, and so they could not find any chance to talk to me. I was afraid of those defectors' cold hands touching my painful body, but I also felt the pain of them betraying Dafa. Teacher has been leading us on the righteous path of cultivation, why have you betrayed Dafa!
I was receiving infusions around the clock, including protein infusions. I had needle scars all over. Even my veins sank under, so they were hard to be found for inserting needles. Later on, my intestines and stomach were bleeding and twitching and I vomited chunks of blood. The nurse screamed at the sight. My preconceptions came back again: What if I died? Could I make it to the end of cultivation? The collaborators were also threatening me. But their betrayal of Dafa warned me that I should never count on the evil people for hope or fortune.
Those thugs would use foul language to defame Teacher in order to incite me to talk, but I would not budge and thus avoided falling into their traps. My staunch belief and faith was the only thing that mattered now. Each time that I was clear-minded, I would clear away interferences, and recall and study the Fa like a baby sucking milk. I felt that the Fa was so profound, instilling in me boundless confidence and helping me to break through many interferences and attachments. Each time I reaffirmed my decision to go on a hunger strike to protest the persecution and insist upon my belief, I would feel that if my righteous thoughts were strong enough, then the pain of the suffering would become less and less significant.
I feared being force-fed by them inserting a tube into my stomach -- then those thugs came to do exactly that. Five or six muscular villains would hold me down and violently insert the tube into my stomach, which was excruciatingly painful. The porridge, my mucous and saliva were all over my head and the bed. Even the doctors and nurses were revolted. It felt extremely painful when my stomach was suddenly filled with food, but I had no strength and no means to protest. The doctor said that removing the tube would further hurt my oesophagus and stomach, so he would not pull it out. I then just pulled it out with a sweep of my hand. Later, the thugs used gauze tape to restrain my head, and taped the tube onto my forehead, saying it was all for my own good. I was not here to take in food; I was kidnapped by persecutors and I must fight the persecution. I must not cooperate with the vicious purpose behind this façade of phony kindness; I must get the tube out. My stomach, mouth, throat and facial muscles were all twitching in unison. Finally I managed to get hold of the tube in my teeth and eventually worked it out little by little with my teeth. Then the miracle happened, and the villains even became frightened. They had to use even more force to insert the tube into me and many times I was able to either bite it or the tube was blocked by my throat, spilling porridge all over.
In this situation of being persecuted, I realised that I should not passively cooperate with these thugs; I should take the initiative and take charge. As I was trying to clear all the contents of the feeding tube out of my mouth, I also started to pull out those needles by rubbing them off against a hard surface. I also tried to fall out of the bed and to carry out all other possible means of protest. Those thugs were afraid that I would die, as other practitioners had died due to their tortures and they were afraid to take responsibility for the deaths. They handcuffed my four limbs and tried using fatigue tactics to break me down. They would threaten me and slap my face. My body could not even bear any light and sound, let alone able to suffer the painful slaps. They continuously worried about taking responsibility if I was tortured to death. They knew that people on hunger strike would die if they continued to be tortured. However, none of their cruel efforts were able to break me down.
One of the vicious low ranking officials witnessed the whole process of force-feeding and appeared to be horrified. He said, "Oh my, force-feeding is so terrible. So disgusting. I have never seen this before. I admire you ... don't make yourself suffer. Eat your food, we won't mention your past." These enticing words did not work on me.
Weeks had passed. As my time in detention grew longer, the prison guards were approaching their wits' end in their efforts to break me. They would release their hatred upon me. I would constantly look inside myself: Is it because I am still not up to the standard? Has my omission in cultivation been used? Why has my detention been so long? After remembering more of the Fa, I came to understand that I should not worry about death. Without this attachment to life or death, all I had to do was to focus on staying determined in safeguarding the Fa. My mind should not be preoccupied with the fear of death. Although still in agony, I suddenly felt that my whole body was so light, relaxed and magnificent. We shouldn't worry about how much time was left and how vicious those thugs could be, since we had the Fa in our heart. The Fa is invincible!
I did not know how many more days had passed. I was finally sent back home. The last word the doctor said was, "Wow, skeleton specimen. Can this person survive?" After I got back home, I found that I was so thin. My bones were covered only with a layer of black-coloured, shrivelled muscles and skin. I could not move at all. I could not remember how many days I had been forced to stay on the tiger bed and how many infusions I had endured. I did not know. At the time, everyone thought that I would die. But the Buddha Fa was in my heart. I made it.
This is just one small experience to be shared with fellow practitioners. If there is anything inappropriate please point it out with compassion.
Chinese version available at
http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/2/1/43810.html
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