My Understandings After Leaving Home

One afternoon about six weeks ago, a relative of mine who lived in another courtyard called me, saying in a low voice, "The law enforcement team personnel are here. You'd better hide!" So I took my copy of Zhuan Falun, put on a jacket and left. As I was leaving, I heard a car park outside my house. Two groups of police officers had arrived at the same time and were surrounding both courtyards. At this critical time, the telephone call to alert me helped me to escape. But I didn't give much thought to this as I climbed over the courtyard wall and left.

After this incident happened, I started to look inward and search for my shortcomings in a serious manner. I had of course known that Fa study was very important, but I always felt that I had no time for it. Furthermore, whenever I studied the Fa, I became sleepy. I also didn't practice the exercises regularly. Instead I placed more emphasis on making truth-clarification materials. Subconsciously, I had the mindset of establishing more mighty virtue for myself. I felt hatred towards the police officers who arrested our fellow practitioners. I also held a helpless attitude towards the persecution. Before I was persecuted I had the thought that I should finish the tasks at hand, in case anyone came to search my house. Two hours before the above incident happened, someone had told me that my name was on the Wangqiao Police Station's "blacklist." I didn't put the remaining truth-clarification VCDs away properly, because I felt that if I hid them away it would be as though I had fear and was thus acknowledging the persecution--thus I had created loopholes through which the evil could take advantage. I frequently had the thought that if I were persecuted, my family members would be implicated as well and I would lose my personal freedom to lead a normal life.

I think that it was precisely these complicated thoughts of mine that created loopholes that allowed me to be persecuted. I packed my necessities and was preparing to leave home and wander around. On the one hand I would study the Fa, but I would also write slogans to clarify the facts about Falun Gong, as well as make telephone calls to the personnel who were persecuting me and publish details about the persecution on the Minghui website (Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net). A family member eventually found me and said that the police were looking all over for me. I was told that if I left home and got arrested I would be doomed. I was advised that the best thing for me to do was to admit my "crime" and surrender to the police. I adamantly disagreed. My family member also told me that my aunt, uncle, elder brother and younger sister had all written a guarantee statement because of this. If I was arrested while going to appeal for Falun Gong, all of them would be implicated. They would lose their jobs and benefits. Out of love for me, my family member did not agree with my intention of leaving home and wandering around homeless. In consideration of this situation that my family members and relatives had placed themselves in, and to alleviate their worry, I decided to go to another area to hide for a while. I thought that I could make use of the time to study the Fa well and send righteous thoughts to stop the persecution of practitioners.

Before I left, I believed that my attitude was very righteous while I was talking to my family member. However, after a few days of settling down and studying the Fa with a calm heart, I realized that I had many human attachments at that point in time. I thought I had let go of the attachment of sentimentality, but during the few days I spent away from home I cried whenever I thought of my family. Whenever I thought of them, I wanted to return home. I am now using the Fa to assess my thoughts. I am monitoring my thoughts to correct them and I have managed to cultivate this attachment away. Under normal conditions, this attachment is very difficult to detect. But this is not acknowledging the persecution by the police and agreeing to it.

I am making use of this time away from home to increase my time to study the Fa and improve my understanding of the Fa. At my current level I have the understanding that if we study the Fa with calm hearts, we will be able to eliminate our attachments during Fa study and reach certain levels of consummation. Eliminating our attachments leaves no loopholes for the evil to take advantage of, thus effectively ending the persecution.