The Story of a Local Mobster Who Turned over a New Leaf and Stepped onto the Path of Cultivation

The following is a story of a mobster who turned over a new leaf and stepped onto the path of cultivation of Falun Gong.

In the summer of 2004, a Falun Gong practitioner from Shandong Province was returning home from work when she ran into an acquaintance. They began talking and during their conversation, she mentioned that she had lost a bike recently. A young friend of the acquaintance said, "No problem, I will take care of it." The practitioner did not take him seriously at the time.

A few days later the young man found the practitioner's bike. He was a mobster and was very familiar with theft in the local area and had approximately 100 people working at his disposal. Upon receiving her bike, the practitioner expressed her gratitude but urged him to quit stealing: "Good is rewarded with good, and evil is met with evil," she told him.

The young man did not take her warning seriously at first, but when he stole again, he noticed that a fireball was chasing him around wherever he went. He was very frightened because he could not find any place to hide. He jumped into a pond without thinking and yet the fireball was still flying toward him! Now he was really scared! He started to believe what the Falun Gong practitioner had told him was true.

The practitioner sent the young man a copy of Zhuan Falun shortly after his experience. He read the entire book the very night he received it. Afterwards, he stepped onto the path of cultivation.

Those who worked for the mobster could not believe the changes in him. They thought that he might be mentally confused and they wondered how they might help him. "I have started practising cultivation," he told his workers in a quite serious manner, "please do not try to find me so I may go the right way. I hope you guys do your own good things."

His workers didn't want to let their boss desert them. Some of them knocked him down, tied him up, and shocked him with electricity. Since he felt nothing but pins and needles, they figured these methods were ineffective on him. They then decided to inject narcotics into him. When they were preparing the injection, the boss said righteously: "If you inject me, I will kill myself in front of you. If you do not believe me, you can try me." They knew that he was not joking, so they had to give up on this method. (Since the young man had just started practising Falun Gong, he did not completely understand Falun Dafa's principles and consequently intimidated his workers with death threats so that they would understand his determination in cultivating and would not interfere with his practise. In fact, the principles of Falun Dafa forbids killing, of oneself or others.)

Yet the workers were undeterred and tried to find other solutions to change their boss, including locking him in a room with two attractive and coquettish young women. The boss immediately warned the women: "If you come further, I will jump through the window (they were on the fourth floor)." They did not believe him and as they tried to approach, the mafia boss did in fact jump through the window. The moment before his head touched the ground, he felt something lift him up, breaking his fall. His workers quickly ran down and wondered how badly he had injured himself. They were astonished to find that he was safe and sound. They realised they could do nothing to make him change. Furthermore, they thought that they should not try to change him, as it was possible that something beyond their understanding might be protecting him. So they finally gave up on trying to return him to his former self.

Before the young man started practising Falun Gong, he stole someone's real estate certificate to apply for a 140,000 yuan¹ mortgage loan. The clerk discovered the problem later and had been worried for a long time, since this mistake might cause him to be fired. One day the young man went to the real estate agency to return the money. The clerk was very surprised and happy that he was willing to return the money: "This mortgage loan is not in your name," he told the young practitioner, "You don't need to pay it back." The young practitioner replied: "I now practise Falun Gong. How could I not return it?"

Note:

1. Yuan is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.