January 13, 2004
(Clearwisdom.net) Liu Chengjun passed away after being brutally tortured by Jiang's regime for one year and nine months. I was shocked upon hearing this tragedy, and tears rolled uncontrollably down my face. Chengjun passed away; his righteous belief in Dafa and his compassion for sentient beings marked his short but magnificent life.
I am not a good writer. After being targeted for persecution, I have been homeless for a long time. But the time I spent with Chengjun created scenes that continuously flash into my mind, like a movie. Therefore I decided to pick up my pen and write about his simple yet magnificent experiences in Fa rectification.
I met Chengjun in June of 2001. At that time he had just broken free from a forced labor camp. After he left, the people there were afraid of having to be responsible for his escape, so they did not risk trying to track him down. We had just established a Dafa materials production site and there were many things that we weren't familiar with. We ran into many problems and often had trouble with the equipment. There were also several conflicts among practitioners. Not only that, many practitioners did not know to look inward and often held on to their own ideas. We also encountered trouble trying to find suitable practitioners to produce materials. Then Chengjun came. After he arrived, our Dafa materials production site began to operate smoothly, and we quickly made adjustments among the workers. Chengjun and I were in charge of printing the materials and thus began our validating the Fa together.
After Chengjun arrived, the machines operated very well under his hands. He was able to fix the small breakdowns because his righteous thoughts were very strong and his mindset was very pure. During the process of making materials, he showed steadfast belief in Dafa and was very calm and careful when doing Dafa work. His actions touched me deeply. In the beginning, because of my own fear and numerous deviated notions, my mind became uneasy as soon as I stepped into the materials production site. However, I would feel extremely calm whenever Chengjun was around. When I was with him I always felt a force urging me to improve. As I got to know him better, I saw my disparity when comparing my every word and deed to his. Why could he do everything so well? In fact, the difference originates from one word: "belief." My belief was only on the surface and not originating from the fundamental; yet his belief originated from the microscopic particles of his life.
From associating with him, we learned of some of his experiences of validating Dafa in the forced labor camp, and we all thought he was incredible. Once I asked him, "Chengjun, when you were in the forced labor camp, you refused to obey the orders of the police, never surrendered when they beat you, and even came to the aid of fellow practitioners when they were being punished and beaten. Have you ever thought that you might get tortured even more severely?" He said, "I knew that we were simply being good people. We have been wronged, and so I walk nobly and do things in an upright way. I conduct myself according to the standards of the Fa, and follow Teacher's words. I did nothing wrong, so I refused to listen to their commands. I did not think about what they might do to me."
Unlike today, where Dafa materials production sites are everywhere, there was then a limited number of sites. Even though we used a multi-function machine, the amount of materials we needed was very great; we were therefore extremely busy each day and almost never had breaks. But no matter how busy he was, Chengjun never omitted studying the Fa or doing the exercises. He strictly governed himself, and always found time to study the Fa every day. Each day after work he studied the Fa until midnight, and arose around 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning to do the exercises, cleaned his room, ate some breakfast and began another day of Fa-rectification work. Chengjun lived very simply; he only ate enough to sustain his body. No one ever heard him say what tasted good or what tasted bad. It seemed that this mentality had never registered in his mind. Once, after we had just finished moving and did not have time to bring eating utensils with us, he washed a plastic bucket and made instant noodles using tap water. He was satisfied with just that.
In Chengjun's mind, all the time remaining for us is for following the three requirements set by Teacher: study the Fa, send righteous thoughts, and clarify the truth. Chengjun never forgot his sacred mission of saving sentient beings. One time when we were coming back from Nong'an County, he put a lot of truth clarification materials into envelopes and handed them out to people on the train. He seized every opportunity to offer salvation to sentient beings. One day in winter he hauled a backpack filled with bright red paint in the piercing cold wind. It was minus 30 degrees outside and he walked through lanes and streets spraying "Falun Dafa is good!" on the walls of buildings. [Note: Without access to any typical means of communication such as newspapers, magazines, TV, or radio, Falun Gong practitioners in China have resorted to many creative and sometimes unusual methods for raising awareness among Chinese people about the persecution.] There he met a young man who looked on quietly as he sprayed the words on the wall. When he was done, Chengjun kindly told the young man, "Please remember Falun Dafa is good." The young man accepted his words with pleasure. But there were also those that did not understand the truth and screamed and shouted at him. Chengjun sent forth righteous thoughts while he wrote, ignoring all the evil interference around him. By the time he returned home, the hand that sprayed the paint was so frozen that he was unable to control it anymore.
One day a fellow practitioner learned that police were coming to inspect temporary lodgings. The two practitioners who shared a house with him suggested going into hiding for a while, but Chengjun was not moved by it. He shared his understanding with the fellow practitioners, " If our minds are not swayed, no one can move them." So he stayed in the house. It turned out that the two practitioners who went out to read on the lawn met the police and had difficulties, but Chengjun was unscathed. It was Chengjun's steadfast belief in Dafa and his solid foundation in studying the Fa that guided him through these tribulations.
In 2001, before the October 1st Chinese Independence Day, Chengjun realized that he should go to Tiananmen Square to validate Dafa. On September 28th, 2001 he collected his belongings, put on the pair of light shoes I had given him and caught a train to Beijing to validate Dafa. Chengjun left, a healthy and energetic young man, and returned 20 some days later as a weathered old man with a beard all over his face who swayed as he walked. All of us could see that he had been through a lot of troubles. At our request, he told us of his trip to Beijing and his encounter when validating Dafa.
When Chengjun arrived at Tiananmen Square he opened a banner and ran, circling around the square, while shouting, "Falun Dafa is good!" At this point a police vehicle pulled over; several police officers dragged him into the vehicle and took him to a detention center. Once he stepped into the detention center, he immediately made it known to the criminals, " I'm a good person. I practice Falun Gong, and you may not touch me!" With this strong righteous thought, those criminals did not dare to touch him. In the detention center he studied the Fa and did the exercises. Because he refused to give his name or address, he was then sent to the notorious Beijing Public Security Hospital.
There he went on a hunger strike and refused to drink even water. Seeing this, the police took all his clothes off, threw him on the concrete floor of the bathroom and poured cold water on him. Later they shocked Chengjun with electric batons, carried him to a bed and cuffed his limbs to the four corners of a bed. They tried to give him injections by force. Chengjun thought, "As long as I can still move my hands I will not let them succeed." The needle never went in. He grew very weak from the over 20 days of the hunger strike, in addition to being cruelly tortured by the police. He felt like his life was at its end. Right then he thought of our revered Teacher and of the thousands of people who have been deceived by the evildoers' lies. He cried out, "I have to walk out of here alive. I still need to offer a way to salvation to those sentient beings and validate Dafa!" He was unconditionally released the day after this strong righteous thought had formed. His clothes and new shoes had disappeared in the detention center, so he put on a deceased prisoner's clothes and a pair of ill-fitting leather shoes and began his journey home. After listening to his story, we all wept.
This is what I know about Chengjun. Although he has left us now, his voice and image still last and his courageous spirit remains. Chengjun lived forthrightly and passed away nobly. His magnificent and righteous demeanor will remain forever!