My Unusual Experience of Coming to Practise Falun Gong Whilst Been in Prison

I am forever grateful for Teacher’s¹ benevolence and the greatness of Falun Dafa. I had the good fortune to learn about Falun Dafa and begin the practice while I was imprisoned in a detention centre, as I had been implicated after my ex-husband's arrest.

On July 6th, 2000, I was sent to a detention centre as a suspect in a fraud crime. At the time I was arrested, my eight year-old daughter was at school and her father had already been imprisoned for twenty days in a detention centre. Regardless of the need to care for my underage daughter and lack of proof of the crime, police arrested me illegally based on a confession made by my ex-husband, our daughter’s father. I was so helpless and in despair. I couldn’t imagine what would happen to my daughter when she came home without anyone to care for her.

I didn’t dare to think about it any further. All day long I couldn’t help crying. In just a few days, I lost a lot of weight and looked like a living skeleton. During this time, I met Tang Yaqi, a Falun Gong practitioner, in the second ward of the third brigade. She was concerned after she had heard my situation. She chatted with me and comforted me. I naturally liked to be with her. At noon, when she did the sitting meditation, I would just sit beside her. One day when she was meditating, I felt a cool breeze. I told her my experience when she finished meditation. She told me that I was very sensitive and what I had experienced was a good phenomenon. She wrote down Lunyu for me to memorise. Each day she wrote down the content of the book Zhuan Falun and explained it to me in detail. I thus had a general understanding of the miraculous Falun Dafa. I spent an hour learning the four sets of the Falun Gong exercises.

I began to use Falun Dafa’s criteria to guide my behaviour and started to cultivate in the detention centre. At the time, I was only a crime suspect and there wasn’t any evidence to prove whether I was guilty or not. Because of the severe persecution of Falun Gong, many good-hearted common prisoners (who were not practitioners) at the same ward advised me, "You have one charge still pending to be exonerated and yet you now practise Falun Gong. The government banned it! Don’t you want see your daughter? Don’t you want to get out of here? If a prison guards find out, won’t you be piling one offence on top of another?" After hearing this comment, I thought of my encounter. Although Falun Gong is being persecuted, I know that practitioners are good people. I thought if I were in a democratic country, I wouldn’t be imprisoned in my situation, as I had a small child without anyone to care for her and there was no evidence, not even any crime. I felt that the Chinese Communist Party was so unreasonable.

Risking the danger of being punished for practising Falun Gong, I began my arduous cultivation. In mid-September of 2000, Tang Yaqi was sent to the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp within twenty days of finishing her forced labour. This implied that they wouldn’t release her after she completed her term. At the moment when Tang Yaqi left our ward, I collapsed. I had a hard time seeing that she would not be set free and felt anxious for not having other practitioners be with me. Since I had only started cultivation one month prior, there were many cultivation things I didn’t understand. But in less than twenty minutes, another practitioner came in. You can’t imagine how happy I was. I felt our benevolent Teacher was watching over me all the time.

But this Falun Dafa practitioner dared not do exercises in the ward. I encouraged her while we were watching TV, "I am a criminal suspect and I still dare to do exercises every day. You come in here because you practise Falun Gong, why do you dare not do exercises?"

When I finished talking and sat there without crossing my legs, I felt my body was being pushed like waves in the ocean by a mechanism and I couldn’t stop moving. Not until later did I realise that it was Teacher adjusting my body. There were more than twenty people in the room and the miraculous sight attracted them all. Some said that they would like to start practising Falun Gong.

Before I began my cultivation, I suffered from many illnesses like allergic rhinitis, skin allergies, headaches and insomnia, vertebrate tissue proliferation, heart disease, gastric disease, endocrine imbalance, and rheumatism. All of these illnesses that had bothered me for years disappeared after I began my cultivation in Falun Dafa. One day in December of 2000, policewomen Yao Dongmei found me doing the Falun Dafa exercises, so she handcuffed and abused me. A fellow ward mate advised me, "Go to the correction officer to admit guilt and you’ll be set free." I thought that since I didn’t break any law or obstruct anyone, why was I guilty? Not willing to admit a mistake, I was handcuffed for ten days and ten nights. This experience didn’t shake my will, instead, it made me an even more steadfast practitioner. Prison guards not only didn’t pay attention to the common criminals violating prison regulations such as smoking or drinking alcohol, they even offered them conveniences. But I was put in handcuffs for doing exercises. This is clearly mixing right and wrong!

Six months later, I was sentenced to two years in prison, based on the claim that I acknowledged the crime my husband claimed I had committed. I asked the person who handled the case on what grounds I was sentenced. Instead of answering my question, he asked me, "Are you and he husband and wife? Are you divorced? Since you are husband and wife and are not divorced, why would he trump up a charge against you? If he said you knew the facts, then you must know the facts. This is the reason you are being sentenced to two years in prison." After almost a year, I was allowed to see my family. My brother and sister told me that my daughter had stopped going to school for one year already and she was living with my brother. Because of mental pressure, she was having health problems. My heart was in pain to learn that my daughter was deprived of her education. I cried for several days. If I weren't a practitioner, I would have collapsed, or even committed suicide.

What happened next made me even more steadfast in my faith. According to the regulations, anyone serving more than one year of a prison term should be sent to a prison. So having another year of prison term to serve, I should have been sent to a prison. Since prison would be strictly and severely guarded, it would be impossible for me to practise Falun Dafa there. However the paperwork on my case was misplaced somewhere so that I was kept at the detention centre. To remain in the detention centre under this situation would usually require bribery by the family member. I realised it was Teacher’s benevolence to allow me to continue my Dafa cultivation. The prisoners who remained in the detention centre are allowed to go outside to work. But because I practised Falun Gong, police wouldn’t allow me to go outside my ward, afraid that I would pass along Teacher’s articles to other practitioners in other wards. The guards abused me, kicked me, punished me by forcing me to squat, and performed a body search in an insulting manner because I did the Falun Dafa exercises, read the Falun Gong books and articles, and sent forth righteous thoughts. This was worse than a death sentence and was beyond what anyone could imagine.

It was most humiliating for me to be imprisoned in the Shengyang Detention Centre for two years. They treated me inhumanly and insulted my human dignity. But it was also the most glorious two years. I had obtained the Fa there under that special environment and I have become a steadfast Dafa cultivator.

In July of 2002, I finished serving my prison term and returned home. I found that my daughter’s condition was in a horrible state. She was a half-length shorter than children her age, all of her fingernails and toenails had disappeared, and half of her hair had become white. She would stay in bed for one to two hours before she could fall asleep. What had the poor child gone through?

It was during the holiday season that I let her listen to Teacher’ lectures. Within one month, she changed completely. Her hair had turned black again, she fell asleep quickly when she went to bed, and her nails all grew back. She became even prettier than before. Once again, I had experienced the miracle of Falun Dafa.

Those Falun Dafa practitioners who began their cultivation prior to July 20th, 1999, when the persecution began, were all being watched by the public security bureau, without exception. They were under surveillance when they went out. One could imagine how dangerous and difficult it was for them to clarify the truth. I was not under surveillance. Since I needed to care for my daughter and work, I carried truth-clarifying material with me everywhere I went. Wherever I went each day, I distributed the materials and clarified the truth. I haven’t stopped since July 2002. All the people I have contacted know the truth and most of them have withdrawn from the Communist Party.

I thought that because I had started my cultivation rather late, the police would not have a record of me and it would be convenient for me to clarify the truth. But in 2005, a fellow practitioner told me that my phone was tapped. A few days later, my landlady told me to move out because she had sold the house. After I moved out, the landlady told me that Shenyang City Public Security Bureau went to her to inquire about my practising Falun Gong. She was afraid of any trouble so she told me to move out. I thought I wasn’t being watched, but I knew now I was in danger. I didn’t want my daughter to be alone again and I didn’t want to lose my freedom for the second time. Without any alternative, I thus took my daughter with me to come abroad.

I should have told my story. But because of my attachment – being afraid of others not understanding and of being discriminated against if others knew my past, I several times thought of writing to the Minghui website to have my articles published, but stopped each time. Even after I came abroad, I still didn’t have the courage to tell my story, until I heard what Teacher said in "Teaching the Fa in Canada, 2006,"

"I have to set up certain tests for you and have you let go of those attachments of yours, have you get rid of all that baggage. As you go through one test after another, you are to continually shed your attachments and human thinking, and you won’t be able to carry those things into the various tests [and still pass them]."

I am grateful for Teacher’s enlightening guidance. I also want to thank those who gave me the courage to share my experiences. As I am writing this, a miraculous thing happens again. The swollen ankles that have been bothering me for the last few days have returned to normal. I again thank Teacher for his benevolence in saving me.

Please correct me if there is anything improper. Thank you all! Heshi.

Note:

1. Teacher: - Respectfully referring to the founder of Falun Gong, Mr. Li Hongzhi.