(Clearwisdom.net) Some of our internet articles have reported that some practitioners who were illegally imprisoned and not allowed to practice the Falun Gong exercises developed illnesses like those of non-practitioners. In some cases, the situations were very serious and they were sent home. Oftentimes they didn't recover after receiving treatment in the hospital and passed away. I read these articles and thought, "They died of 'illnesses.' Why did the articles say they died as a result of persecution?"

Later on, I read some other articles about another situation. That is, some practitioners who were not illegally imprisoned also developed serious "illnesses" and passed away. The articles also said that these practitioners died as a result of persecution. I thought again, "He was at home. Who had persecuted him? He developed the illness himself, so why did the articles report that the practitioners died as a result of persecution? How could this convince people? Even if one looks at this from the point of view of cultivation practice, one would conclude that it is because they did not advance diligently and therefore failed to get rid of their fundamental attachments or human heart. How could we say they died as a result of persecution?"

Through Fa study and being tempered through cultivation practice, I started to realize that many fellow practitioners weren't released from detention until they were tortured to the brink of death. They were released because the labor camp authorities and police wanted to shirk responsibility for their deaths. They wanted the practitioners to die at home, to make it look like the labor camp had nothing to do with their deaths. I was fooled by this kind of ruthless manipulation. Looking at the issue from a higher level, this persecution is not human-to-human, instead it is a persecution by evil beings in other dimensions of Falun Dafa practitioners! I realized that a serious problem of mine had been exposed. Amidst the evil persecution, I had failed to understand it from the standpoint of the Fa and thought that only physical torture by the police constitutes persecution, and only when practitioners were tortured to death in police custody could one conclude that a practitioner "died as a result of the persecution." I had completely treated the persecution as a human-to-human issue, and totally taken myself as a non-practitioner. In fact, even some non-practitioners with a clear mind could recognize that if someone was tortured to the brink of death in the labor camp and was carried home and died at home in a few days, it was the result of the torture that he or she suffered during the illegal detention in the labor camp.

Evil beings in other dimensions are persecuting us, and they have arranged and controlled wicked people in the human world to repress Falun Gong and force our practitioners to give up practicing cultivation. In efforts to damage our cultivation practice, they will use any means or form in the human world. Regardless of whether practitioners in China have been illegally imprisoned or not, all of us have been subjected to persecution. This is the case because if there were no persecution, Falun Dafa practitioners' paths wouldn't have been like this. Since the persecution systematically started on July 20, 1999, all practitioners in China have been forced to live for a long time under conditions of terror and harassment. Therefore, even if none of the practitioners who had been illegally arrested and persecuted had died, the gang of Jiang Zemin, Luo Gan and Zeng Qinghong, as well as the wicked Chinese Communist Party (CCP), would still have unshirkable responsibilities.

As a matter of fact, haven't the practitioners outside of China also been persecuted in disguised forms? Although they have not directly been detained or tortured, they have to bear the pressure and misunderstandings forced upon them by the evil forces' defamation and hate propaganda. This is especially so for overseas practitioners who have family members, friends in or close ties to China. Besides them being illegally monitored by CCP spies and listed on the CCP blacklist, they have suffered numerous misunderstandings, discrimination and even hatred from people who have been poisoned by the wicked CCP's defamatory propaganda. If there were no persecution, would these things have happened in their lives?

The arrests, ransacking of homes, detentions, intimidation, fines and torture by the police and personnel from the 610 Office are the easiest to recognize as persecution. But as soon as the form of the persecution in the human world changed, it became more difficult for us to recognize the evil factors behind it. In many circumstances, it was not because our righteous thoughts weren't there or that we didn't have the power to overcome the persecution, it was because we failed to recognize the form of the persecution, and therefore we have acknowledged, cooperated with and indulged the evil. After my understanding on this issue improved, I found myself clear-minded.

It's true that our fellow practitioners have shortcomings, but who doesn't have shortcomings during cultivation practice? We should look at it from a higher level, and think about what we are doing when the evil is persecuting our fellow practitioners. While trying to do the three things well without being disturbed, are we standing with our fellow practitioners and rooted in the Fa to firmly eliminate the evil, or are we standing with the evil and staring at our fellow practitioners' attachments and accusing him or her? In answering this question, I saw the shortcomings in my understanding of the principles of the Fa, and started another round of self-improvement.