I Would Still Want to Be a Falun Dafa Practitioner If I Were to Choose Again (Part 1)

Preface by the author: I am a girl who has lived a life of ease and comfort. A few months after I attained Dafa, the persecution of Falun Dafa began. I was the only Falun Dafa practitioner in my family, the verification of Dafa and my personal cultivation were one and the same. I walked step by step under the perilous situation in China. Once an acquaintance said to me, "You could not reach the end no matter what you do; but I admire you since you still insist on practising in this situation. In the future, no matter what you do, you shall be successful."

1. Starting to Practise Falun Dafa

February the 12th, 1999 was one of the most meaningful days in my life. In northern China, it was still a cold winter and very dark outside. I found the Falun Gong exercise practise site myself. When I was practising the second exercise, Master opened my celestial eye and I saw a rotating, grand Falun or Law Wheel. The Falun that Master installed in my body was also rotating with great speed. I truly felt the supernormal phenomenon and I understood: this is what I have been waiting for all my life, the purpose of living in the world is to find this. From that moment I have insisted on practising Falun Dafa. No matter whether there was a sudden storm or a huge difficulty, I have never doubted Master and Dafa.

2. Unyielding under Huge Pressure

I was still in college in May of 1999. My teacher asked for me and told me: "If you go to the park to practise Falun Gong again, you will be expelled from the school." From the next morning, whenever I woke up, I thought, "I want to practise Falun Gong in the park." Suddenly the weariness disappeared completely and I went to the park and practised the fives sets of Falun Gong exercises every day.

It was not an easy thing to insist on practising in the park. Along with the increasing pressure, people with different mindsets started to show up at the site. At the practise site, we often heard messages about practitioners in other areas who were persecuted for practising Falun Dafa, so some people were in a state of anxiety. One day when I was preparing to practise the Falun Gong exercises, I suddenly thought: my life is so tiny, if I can protect such a magnificent Buddha Fa with my life, then what an honour this is? What should I be afraid of then? At that moment, I felt myself completely melt into Dafa. I wanted to put down the notion of life and death, and I wanted to protect Dafa. Therefore, in those perilous days, I was able to go on unimpeded. On the 23rd of July, 1999 I was still practising in the park in spite of the pressure, and afterwards I went to Beijing twice to peacefully and lawfully appeal for a stop to the persecution of Falun Dafa.

Most of the practitioners in my area were pretty new, and many of them were going to Beijing to appeal for Falun Dafa, hoping for consummation. Many of them had ordinary people's notions, not only could they not reach the goal of validating Dafa, but they also had the negative effect of being persecuted. Some went astray down an evil path; some dared not to step forward anymore; some distributed fake articles. At that time I could not see clearly through this perplexing situation. I didn't know what to do, so I quietly studied the teachings of Falun Gong at home. Because my family has our own business, we had many visitors during the day. I often stayed in our warehouse to read the Falun Gong teachings by myself during the night until dawn. Once when my mind was very calm, I read Zhuan Falun (the core text of Falun Gong teachings) twice in one day. With the three sets of Master's audio lectures, just after hearing several sentences I started to know which lecture it was. At the time I felt my thought-karma was reduced by a large amount and my understanding of Falun Dafa grew deeper and deeper. This set a very good basis for my validating Falun Dafa later.

At first I just clarified the truth about Falun Gong to people when I had a chance, and I didn't really realise its importance. In the beginning of 2001, I heard from other practitioners that they needed money to build a material production site, so I brought 1,000 yuan from my savings. Just like this I started to attend to some work of the materials site and assisted in passing out factual materials about Falun Gong or sent Master's articles to practitioners detained in detention centres and forced labour camps. Sometimes the materials printed from the site built up, so I often went outside to distribute these materials. Later Minghui Net (a Falun Gong website, the Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net) notified everyone to send forth righteous thoughts. After reading some of Master's lectures, I always sent forth righteous thoughts and asked for Master's assistance before I went out to distribute factual information about Falun Gong. Therefore, it always went very smoothly and I could distribute several hundred pieces of materials very quickly.

I often went outside to distribute materials by myself and stayed until the next morning. Many times I felt very thirsty and it was difficult for me to walk a single step further, so I kept encouraging myself by reciting Master's lectures until I passed out the last leaflet I had. Some practitioners were worried about my safety, for I was a girl. I thought, I'm Master's disciple and what I'm doing is the most sacred thing, I will be fine. Master also used all kinds of ways to give me hints and encourage me. Occasionally the practitioners attending the work of the materials site were arrested and the sites were damaged continuously. The police came to arrest me many times and I sent forth righteous thoughts every time. Many tribulations have been avoided under Master's protection.

3. Painful Price

I went to another city to study the Falun Gong teachings, and got to know practitioner B through practitioner A. A was a girl and had been in the same Falun Gong study group with me. B was a boy. After I had become B's girlfriend, I could not tolerate and accept what happened between A and B. I saw a very big loophole in my mind nature, and that was my attachment to sentiment. The old forces also clearly saw this; however, I didn't break the arrangements set for me. At that time my jealousy and competitiveness was strengthened to the extreme, and I could not face all of this calmly and rationally. Just like this, the three of us were restrained strictly by the old forces, and we were walking every step along the road arranged for us by them. During that period, I could not study the Falun Gong teachings calmly any more. The interference of sentiment and trouble at work made me very weary. I saw that my own cosmic dimension became grey, and sending forth righteous thoughts could only temporarily reduce the problems, but not completely solve them. Later B was arrested and due to the intense torture and physical punishment he provided the authorities with information about me. I had no choice but to leave home.

After that my parents, who used to love me so much, seemed to have completely changed and they refused to give me even a penny. They also scolded me harshly over the phone. Other practitioners were also talking about me. Some said that I slept with B; some said I had problems with using my money for Falun Dafa related activities. I explained to them and tried to prove that I was innocent. Some practitioners just would not believe me. It was unbearably painful at that time. Actually the tribulations the old forces arranged were meant to destroy me. I often thought: if I didn't practise Falun Dafa, I would have ended my life. I knew that my wandering around away from home brought an unsteady factor to our local entity. Because of my sentiment with B, those practitioners all stood on the side of the old forces and made the persecution worse for me by not minding their speech when rumours were already overflowing. No matter how bad they seemed, after all it was my own loophole; I didn't walk a righteous path and caused a huge loss to saving sentient beings in my local area. I felt deep regret and felt so ashamed to face Master's mercy. I was in pain and desperate.

4. Verifying Dafa with the Purest Heart

Compassionate Master could see all this and he didn't give up on me. He still led me step by step to rectify my cultivation path. Master said in his lecture:

"So in validating the Fa, you've all seen that there's a problem, namely, the old forces' emergence seriously interfering with the Fa-rectification and Dafa disciples. But no matter how they've interfered or how evil the things they've done are, when you look back you'll see that in fact nothing has "escaped from the Tathagata's palm."[1] (Applause) And that's for sure." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Western U.S. Fa Conference")

After I left home, when I broke the arrangements of the old forces, I worked more efficiently in letting more people know the truth about Falun Dafa.

In the process of working at the material site, the practitioners beside me were continuously arrested by the evil authorities, and the sites were damaged from time to time. I saw the police waiting at the site to arrest practitioners and time after time I avoided this tribulation; I also saw police and police cars by the building of the material site, where they were preparing to arrest practitioners. I walked away safely while sending forth righteous thoughts. One time after another, my experience was always dangerous but I passed safely. Some of the practitioners around me trusted me, some admired me, and some suspected me. Until one time, when the last practitioner who did Internet technical work was arrested, (at that time I had just gone to another city to assist in their material site), my pressure was increased. I said to a very close practitioner: "No wonder some people suspect me. Even I started to suspect myself. What happened? How come whenever I left, something would happen?" This practitioner sincerely told me, "I've had this kind of thought too. This is thought-karma." At the time I was trapped in a quandary: why could I always avoid so many tribulations? I wanted to know the answer. Later I finally understood under Master's hint, and that was to do the most sacred thing with the purest heart.

The following are several of my experiences. When I validate Dafa with the purest heart, the impossible thing can become reality under Master's compassionate assistance.

A practitioner sewed Master's article in some clothes and we together delivered the clothes to a detention centre. When we arrived, they said it was not time to send in the clothes yet. The practitioner wanted to leave and I didn't agree. I silently asked Master: "Master, help us, I must send the articles in there and allow the practitioners detained there to read them. They need them the most." After I sent forth the pure thought, Master arranged it for us. Immediately a guard walked out of the detention centre and he knew the practitioner who was with me. When that practitioner explained the situation, the guard asked the gate guard to send us in. Later I delivered articles several times myself, the gate guard didn't ask anything after seeing me and let me through. Other practitioners all felt this was unbelievable.

Practitioner C and I were delivering a box of materials containing the true facts about Falun Gong to practitioner D's home. Because her home phone was monitored, the police came immediately. Practitioner D started to chat with us about families etc, and practitioner C appeared a little nervous and wanted to escape with the excuse of going to the bathroom. It was the first time I had encountered such a situation and I didn't know what to do either. I thought that none of us should escape. The police would be suspicious and cause practitioner D a big tribulation, which would be a huge loss to Dafa. I could feel that under Master's assistance, my peaceful and compassionate field covered the whole apartment. Under this righteous thought practitioner C came back, and the tribulation was resolved.

Though I didn't know the two practitioners who escaped from a detention centre, I accepted them warmly when an acquainted practitioner led them to my place. The next night, the husband of one of the practitioners led the police to my place. Her husband knocked with the signal that we agreed upon earlier. After I opened the door, seven or eight police came with him. My first thought was: since the police have come, let us take this opportunity to clarify the truth to them . So I clarified the truth about Falun Gong and the persecution to one of them. The two practitioners hugged me and left me with tears. They were sent back to the detention centre. Later I heard that they were illegally sentenced to jail. At that time in the room there was Master's photo, Dafa books and materials everywhere. To me it should have been a huge disaster, but the characteristics of the universe constrained everything, and everything was accounted for by Master. It seemed that nothing had happened to my place.

(To be continued)