(Clearwisdom.net)
Part 1: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/11/11/54425.html
Part 2: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/11/12/54445.html
Telling the Truth Collectively
Soon after I went back home in May or June 2001, the persecution against Falun Dafa escalated. Several of our fellow practitioners discussed this and decided to hand-write flyers, and post and distribute them within the county. We also traveled via trains to nearby places to post these flyers, and mailed the hand-written truth clarification materials to various places as well. It wasn't long before we returned to Zhangshi City. We brought truth clarification materials, and then went to another county to explain the truth to the families of our friends and relatives. On our way back we walked 77 Li (about 24 miles) overnight with truth clarification materials and glue, and we posted and distributed the materials along the way.
During the night of October 25, 2001, I hung big banners and vertical scrolls with fellow practitioners, and posted Falun Dafa truth materials all over the main streets and small alleys in one city. On the third day the police department increased their efforts to capture me. The police patrolled everywhere on motorcycles and police vehicles looking for me. The day when I returned from out of town, three police officers riding motorcycles stopped in front of me, stared at me, and asked each other in a low voice, "Is she the person?" When I noticed this I turned around and immediately walked away. I sent forth righteous thoughts while walking and said, "Master, please strengthen me -- this Falun Dafa practitioner. I cannot be abducted by these evildoers because there is work here for me to do to offer people salvation. I am also carrying a few thousand yuan that other Falun Dafa practitioners saved from their food and daily expense money. The money cannot fall into the evil's hands." When I turned my head again to look, the police were gone. I was grateful for Master's merciful protection.
Fellow practitioners and I constantly went to the countryside during the night to distribute truth-clarifying materials. I had discussed with fellow practitioners that we should go to the countryside. We had distributed many truth-clarifying materials in the city, but in the countryside there were people who had never seen any. We agreed that we should distribute the informational materials everywhere. One time, fellow practitioners and I went to a county a few hundred Li away (1 Li = 0.31 mile) to distribute the truth-clarifying materials. The local county fellow practitioners were concerned about how to proceed, and did not have any materials, so they were very happy to see us. We held a small experience sharing conference there, and during the discussion and experience sharing we came to understand that we not only needed to clarify the truth well as individuals, we must also lead other practitioners around us to leave their ordinary people's mentality behind, and take part in the work of offering salvation to people, and help each other as fellow practitioners. That same day we returned to our own town and later brought many materials back to them. Soon after that, they also established their own informational materials production site. Now one can see them posted everywhere in that county, and "Falun Dafa is Great!" and "Truthfulness-Benevolence-Tolerance is Great!" written on utility poles everywhere in that county.
Breaking through the Barrier of Emotions
I had relaxed in my cultivation pertaining to emotions toward my family members, which permitted the evil to use my weakness, so I was forced to leave home to avoid being persecuted. On February 9, 2002, police officer Li from the local precinct came to my home to disrupt things, and he wanted to abduct me. My family members helped me get away to avoid being persecuted again. Police officer Li duped my daughter and my son-in-law into coming to the local police station, and then sent them to a detention center. During the time of my children's persecution, black karma constantly emerged as interference because of my heavy emotional thoughts toward my family members.
I thought that as a Falun Dafa practitioner guided by the Fa I could break through the persecution, no matter how severe it was. My children were not Falun Dafa practitioners, but although they supported and understood me, I was afraid that faced with such severe persecution, they might fail to endure it and that this might destroy their future. I was extremely anguished by such emotional thoughts. My faulty thoughts also made the persecution against my children more severe. Through learning from the Fa I came to understand that if I went to the police in exchange for my children, I would be cooperating with the evildoers, and as a Falun Dafa practitioner I should not do that. I also came to understand that anguished feelings and heavy emotions are attachments, and that I should come to recognize and let go of them, based on the Fa. There are so many people waiting for me to offer them salvation. I am a Falun Dafa practitioner with a significant mission. My views regarding this situation must be based on the Fa! My children are also living beings that Master wants to save. They had protected Falun Dafa practitioners, and had done things of boundless compassion. Master would therefore compassionately resolve their situation. I then calmed myself down, continually sent forth righteous thoughts, and studied the Fa. While I was sending forth righteous thoughts, I suddenly saw with my celestial eye that a wooden cage restraining my daughter was blown into pieces and my daughter stood in a broad space. I then knew that Master's law-bodies were protecting her.
After about twelve days I thought that I should not passively endure this persecution. I should go out to offer the common people salvation. Every day, besides studying the Fa, practicing the Falun Gong exercises, and sending forth righteous thoughts, I went to the streets to clarify the truth to the people. Sometimes I explained the truth to several people a day; other times, with Master's arrangement, I met with more than 20 people whom I knew before. I told them my personal experiences of benefiting from cultivating in Falun Dafa and of being persecuted by the evildoers. I also told them that Falun Dafa practitioners are good people who cultivate their minds toward becoming compassionate, that Falun Dafa practitioners do not involve themselves in politics, and that what we oppose is the persecution. I told people with predestined relationships to clearly distinguish righteousness from evil, to support justice, and to understand that good will be rewarded with good and evil will be repaid with karmic retribution.
Falun Dafa Truth-Clarifying Materials Production Sites
At the beginning of 2003, the evildoers frequently destroyed Dafa materials production sites in the city I lived in. This brought many losses to the local truth-clarification work. Clearwisdom.net had proposed repeatedly that Falun Dafa materials production sites should "spring up everywhere." I really wanted to do this work but was frustrated by not understanding the technology. At one Falun Dafa experience sharing conference I met with fellow practitioners from other cities, and practitioners who were familiar with the technology. They wanted to do this work but they were unfamiliar with the local places and people, and were having difficulty starting up this work locally. We were grateful that Master arranged for us to meet. I worked with them proactively and arranged for several local steadfast Dafa practitioners that I often worked with to learn how to operate personal computers. After we learned, we then taught more practitioners. We kept on studying the Fa and learning the technology, and we connected with fellow practitioners from various locations. We organized small-scale Falun Dafa experience sharing conferences, and discussed amongst ourselves how to elevate our understanding of the principles of the Fa. When these conditions were developed we could establish a new Falun Dafa materials production site.
When we first did this, the mentalities of the practitioners were pure, and we cooperated well with each other. Later however, the practitioners who were learning the technology became absorbed in the technology, and the practitioners who were distributing the materials ran several places a day. We could not calm our minds to study the Fa. When this went on for some time the interference started. Some practitioner did not view the situation from the aspect of cultivation. With an ordinary people's mentality they thought that we were not competent enough to do this work, and they wanted to get involved, and take part in this Dafa work. Their suggestions were valuable, but the evil old forces made use of their behavior, and caused them to become hindrances and interfere with the Dafa work.
In the beginning I did not think about these problems from the Fa and I felt irritated. I did not want to contact these particular practitioners, and did not want the practitioners that I was working with to contact them. This resulted in continuous interference. Through studying the Fa I came to understand the principle of the Fa at the level I was at. I then shared experiences and discussed my findings with several practitioners. We agreed that we must follow Master's teachings and should tolerate others, be kind to others, and do it well to embody the Fa. We arrived at the Dafa practitioners' homes with the thoughts of achieving integrated cooperation among the practitioners in the city as a group. Determined not to bring losses to Dafa work, and with the mindset of not giving the evildoers any opportunity to create losses for Dafa work, and for the goodness of the others, we were ready to proceed again. First, we sincerely looked inside ourselves for drawbacks and then held a compassionate discussion. We recognized that if we did not discard our attachments, the evil would take advantage of the attachments to created losses for Dafa. We also recognized that everybody has a different cultivation path. Master arranges our cultivation paths, and as long as our hearts and minds are focused on offering salvation to people, Master will help us to achieve it. We should follow Master's teachings when doing our work.
The practitioners were deeply moved. Their family members who did not cultivate Dafa observed this incident and happily said, "I admire you Falun Gong practitioners from the bottom of my heart! No matter how big the losses, you have endured, and you still look inside yourselves for anything lacking. It is very good!" After that, this kind of interference never occurred again.
On October 15, 2003, Master published comments in a Clearwidom.net article, "Expose the Evil Happening Locally to the Local People." (http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/11/17/42315.html) For various reasons we did not start to work on this aspect. By the end of 2003, fellow practitioners in Zhangjiakou City wanted to do this work. I took the initiative to work with them and immediately wrote down the facts of my being brutally persecuted by persons from the local police station and the police division.
In the beginning of the following year, we organized the statistics of the crimes committed by the police division and the local police in their persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners. After we posted this data, many people came to read it. It had important and encouraging effects for saving lives and frightening the evildoers.
Maintaining Righteous Thoughts
During the five years of opposing the persecution and offering salvation to people, although I had many attachments and large amounts of karma, I was not discouraged. I remembered that I was a Dafa disciple, and I am very honored and fortunate. Falun Dafa created Falun Dafa practitioners, and as Falun Dafa practitioners we should firmly defend Dafa and validate Dafa, and we should give full play to being Dafa particles. This is the responsibility to which a Dafa practitioner is bound, otherwise one is not worthy of the title Dafa practitioner.
I knew from the bottom of my heart prior to July 20, 1999, when the persecution began, that Falun Dafa is great. I had once vowed to Master that if I could not cultivate to consummation, I would beg Master to extinguish my body and soul. I will give full play to my role as one particle of Falun Dafa. My wish has always been that every Dafa practitioner would abandon the mindset of ordinary people, and that diligent practitioners would move forward more diligently. I often discuss this with fellow practitioners. We encouraged each other and cultivated diligently together to raise our levels together as an integrated group, and to let Master be happy for us. When I see fellow practitioners give up common people's mentalities and cultivate diligently I feel happy for them from the bottom of my heart. When I see those practitioners who were not diligent and when I see people who deviated from Dafa I feel fearful and anguish for them. I feel anxious about them, and I feel sorry for them.
During these five years of opposing the persecution, it seemed that we did ceaseless Dafa work, bearing the difficulties of offering salvation to people. In other people's eyes, faced with hardships, we did difficult work and we were tired. But in my mind I felt steady and sure, and I felt honored. During my coordination work, whenever some practitioners were persecuted, I would look inside myself for signs of ordinary people's mentality, and for anything I had said that was not compassionate or not based on the Fa. Did anything I do make things difficult for fellow practitioners? I turned the sadness I previously had into diligence in studying the Fa, removing my ordinary people's mentality that I had discovered, and into raising my understanding of the principles of the Fa, so I could more diligently cultivate forward.
I looked back on my paths of assisting the Fa-rectification following Master. It was just as Master said, "He [Sakyamuni] was also constantly improving himself during the forty-nine years of his Dharma teaching. Whenever he upgraded himself to a higher level, he looked back and realized that the Dharma he just taught was all wrong." (Zhuan Falun) "To tell you the truth, the entire cultivation process for a practitioner is one of constantly giving up human attachments." (Zhuan Falun).
As the Fa-rectification progresses, the Fa principles that Master teaches us are becoming more and more explicit, loftier and higher, and becoming more and more profound. I have come to a fundamental understanding that as Falun Dafa practitioners, cooperating well as one body makes us stronger and more effective. I deeply feel that Falun Dafa practitioners' every step forward comes from Master's enormous caring. Without Master's benevolent protection we could not even guarantee our lives, not to mention validate Falun Dafa.
During the more than three years of being persecuted, and homeless, as long as I upheld righteous thoughts, Master helped me - a Dafa practitioner - with everything. Whenever I went out of town to deliver the materials, to encourage fellow practitioners, or to offer salvation to the people, I did not feel cold in the world of ice and snow, I did not feel hungry even if I did not eat for the whole day, and I did not feel sleepy even if I did not sleep for three days and nights while doing Dafa work. Instead, I felt more energetic. Whenever the evildoers increased their efforts and issued warrants to arrest me, the danger was turned into safety each time. I understand that all of these are from Master's greatness and benevolence, and from Falun Dafa's magnificence and miracles. I feel that I am closer to Master as I progress more on the paths of Fa-rectification. Master! You have given ever so much to our practitioners and to the common people. Even if we were to exhaust all human language, we as practitioners still could not express our feelings of gratitude toward Master. At the last moment of assisting in the Fa-rectification, I will firmly uphold my every thought and I will not give the evil any opportunities. I will truly and rationally become aware, and I will spread the truth and offer salvation to the people, and minimize the losses to Dafa work. I will cooperate well with fellow practitioners, and will establish much stronger righteous thoughts with fellow practitioners. I will give my full energy as a Dafa practitioner, and will follow Master's teachings that practitioners "should step up their efforts and do well the things they are supposed to do, staying always diligent." (from "Greetings")
Greetings, Great Master! Thank you, Master !
(An Article from the First Written Experience Sharing Conference for Practitioners in China)
October 13, 2004