Dealing with Tribulations while Maintaining Firm Belief in Dafa

Before I started practicing Falun Dafa, I had many diseases and lived my life in pain. My husband never cared about me, and he often swore at me. One time when I was on my way back home from shopping, I saw some practitioners promoting Falun Dafa on the sidewalk, where they displayed a banner which read "Falun Buddha Fa." I stood there for a while and I felt very relaxed. At that moment I seemed like a lost person who had finally found my relatives.

Upon returning home, I decided to learn Falun Dafa, but my husband prevented me from going to the practice site, which was just beside my house. Sometimes when I passed by, I could hear Teacher's recorded lectures. The more I listened to the lectures, the more I liked them. My son later brought home the book Zhuan Falun, and in late 1998, I started practicing Falun Gong.

Prior to the New Year of 1999, a fellow practitioner suggested that I should watch Teacher's lecture DVDs. I was determined to go, but my husband made every effort to prevent me from going. Nonetheless, I broke away from him eventually. When I saw the Teacher's compassion on the screen, I couldn't stop crying. I felt that my pent-up grievance and depression had suddenly disappeared. I was very happy, and had a feeling that I had never experienced. It seemed that my heart was so broad that trains and ships could run through it. The night after I listened to Lecture One, the kidney disease that had tortured me for years disappeared. I used to use the restroom seven or eight times every night, and each time my husband cursed at me, but that night I slept soundly and didn't go to the restroom.

I later made up my mind to persist in studying the Fa and practicing the exercises no matter what difficulties I encountered. Before I started practicing, my vision was blurry. In the Fa study group, we took turns reading the Fa. I couldn't see the words clearly, but I knew when fellow practitioners made mistakes. My turn to read came last, and whenever it was my turn, the words in the book became very clear. I had a neurological disorder before I began practicing Falun Dafa, so when I was sitting in meditation, my hands shook very intensely, but later the shaking stopped.

Before I practiced Falun Dafa, I couldn't even cut two bunches of rice at one time while harvesting. My husband didn't care about me, and he cursed at me and said I was too slow with my work. I can now easily cut seven bunches at a time and I don't feel tired even after labouring for an entire day. As I continued studying the Fa and practicing the exercises, all of my difficult and complicated diseases from the past ten years disappeared, including nephritis, chronic bronchitis, rheumatic heart disease, skin disease, neurological dysfunction, etc. I had been living in despair and feeling helpless, but Dafa changed me and filled me with hope and happiness.

On July 22, 1999, then-Communist leader Jiang Zemin banned Falun Dafa in China and started to crack down violently against the practice. Since the persecution began, I have been arrested seven times.

While being held in the detention center, I persisted in doing the sitting meditation. The guards didn't allow me to practice, so I thought, "I won't cooperate with you. I need to correct the field so that the guards can have a correct understanding of Dafa. If I cooperate with the guard, it is equivalent to harming her and she will have misfortune in the future." One day she came in and saw me sitting cross-legged, and she slapped the bed plank with a sweeper. When she saw me sitting there still, she said, "Sitting cross-legged isn't allowed, is it? Why are you still doing so?" I asked her, "Is there an item in the national law that people are not allowed to sit cross-legged?" She said, "No, there isn't." I said, "Since there is not such an item in the national law, I am not violating the law, nor violate the rules in the detention centre, so why don't you allow me to sit cross-legged?" She knew that she was in the wrong, and later said, "Nobody else sits cross-legged, so please spare my feelings so that I can step out of this cell without embarrassment." I said, "All right. I will spare your feelings today." Then I put my legs down.

The next day she came again and when she saw me still sitting cross-legged, she slapped me with a leather belt, but I didn't feel the pain. Later she was tired, so she left. For the following month, that guard (her last name was Liu) didn't show up.

About one month later, Liu took us to dig in the field. One practitioner asked her if she had been on a business trip during the past month. She said, "I received karmic retribution after I beat your fellow practitioner. I don't know why, but one day I dropped my baby into the ditch along the roadside while I was walking down the road. My baby was seriously injured. I was busy looking for doctors to have my baby treated." That practitioner then asked her if her baby had recovered. She said, "Not yet, but if I don't come back to work, I am afraid that I will lose this position." From then on, no guard in the detention centre dared to bring us any trouble. They always smiled whenever they met us.

Another time I was arrested when I participated in the Shulan (a city in Jilin Province) Fa Conference. At that time we were surrounded by the police, and some practitioners jumped out of the window and escaped. The rest of us were cooped up in the house facing to the west. The police used wooden clubs and steel pipes to beat us violently, and then ordered us to squat in the southwest corner of the house. At that moment I thought of Teacher's Fa,

"No matter what the situation, do not cooperate with the evil's demands, orders, or what it instigates." ("Dafa Disciples' Righteous thoughts are Powerful," from Essentials for Further Advancement II)

No matter how hard they pushed me or held me down, by no means did I cooperate with them. One policeman was so angry that he held up a steel pipe and got ready to beat me. He said, "If you don't obey my orders, I will beat you to death." At the moment, a person outside the window said, "Give it up! Even if you beat her to death, she will never change." When the policeman saw me staying firm, he dropped the steel pipe and left. That experience made me witness again that tribulations will be dissolved as long as we hold firm belief in Teacher and the Fa.

As to my experience above, I would like to share one point with fellow practitioners. Without Teacher's strengthening and protection, it would have been impossible for me to break through those seven tribulations. Due to my attachments, I was severely persecuted. From now on I will make greater efforts than ever to compensate for my past regrets and hold firm belief in Dafa until I succeed. Please compassionately point out anything inappropriate in my sharing.