(Minghui.org) My life was peaceful when I was young. My father never argued with my mother, nor did he raise his voice with the children. However, my life changed after I married. My husband, being the youngest child in his family, had been spoiled and behaved badly.
My husband was an alcoholic and would smash anything in sight when he was drunk. He even started hitting me and our children. There was always screaming, crying, and a mess in our house.
It became so bad that I wanted to commit suicide, but I couldn't leave my children to deal with him alone. So I opened a business in a mall to sell furniture, so that I could become independent.
A colleague gave me Zhuan Falun, the main book of Falun Dafa, in late 1998. He said that the book would help change my outlook on life. It took me three nights to finish reading it.
The principles of Falun Dafa, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, became imprinted in my mind. Although the words sounded too high a level for me, I just kept reading and listening to the lecture tape recordings.
Right after I made the decision in my heart to practice Falun Dafa, the police were beginning to arrest Dafa practitioners, and the state-run media was constantly vilifying the practice to incite hatred against practitioners.
My husband tried to stop me from practicing. He destroyed my Falun Dafa books and tapes, and even tried to kill me.
I closed my business, changed jobs twice, and moved out to an apartment. But he did not leave me in peace. To help me get away, a classmate offered me a job in Beijing as a caretaker in 2002.
A neighbor in Beijing told me that she was a Falun Dafa practitioner, originally from Urumqi. She was on the wanted list by her hometown's 610 Office because of her belief.
She taught me the five sets of Falun Dafa exercises and got me the book Zhuan Falun, other Dafa books, and new articles written by Master Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Dafa. The materials belonged to her aunt, who had stopped practicing due to the persecution.
I realized that Master Li had arranged for me to come to Beijing precisely for this chance to start practicing. Diligently reading Zhuan Falun and other Dafa books helped me strengthen my belief and realize my purpose in life. My neighbor and I worked together to tell others about the beauty of Dafa.
When my classmate’s brother and his family immigrated to Canada in 2005, I had to find another job and another home. Although we lived three hours apart, my former neighbor still provided me with Master Li’s new articles as soon as they were published. However, she passed away from an illness in 2007.
The persecution in Beijing was very brutal and I didn’t know any other practitioners. I nonetheless continued to study the Fa, do the exercises, and send forth righteous thoughts.
I used every opportunity to talk to people about Falun Dafa, and posted handwritten notices that read, “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good” in public areas. I also helped people to quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
I eventually met a practitioner from Anhui province in 2010. We worked together to tell people about Dafa and the persecution, but a salesperson in a mall reported us to the authorities in 2011, and we were arrested.
I told the police nothing when I was interrogated at the police station. After some time only one officer remained, so I talked to him about Falun Dafa and the persecution.
He believed what I told him, but said that he had no choice but to follow orders in arresting Dafa practitioners. I told him that treating practitioners well would benefit him and his family, and that he should remember “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.”
I was worried that the police might find my Dafa books and the name lists of the people who wanted to quit the CCP at my home, so I asked Master in my mind to protect these materials.
After I was released I found out that my son had taken these materials with him because he knew that they were important to me.
The practitioner and I were held in different cells. My cell was called the “sick patients cell.” I was placed there because I had been diagnosed with high blood pressure and low sugar levels. They tried to make me take medication, but I refused.
I talked to the head of the inmates about Falun Dafa, and she eventually allowed me to practice the exercises on Sundays.
I was sentenced to a two-year term in the Tiantanghe Women’s Forced Labor Camp in Beijing 50 days later.
The fourth division of the labor camp was notorious for mistreating practitioners. They demanded that I write a guarantee statement denouncing Falun Dafa. When I refused, I was taken to a small solitary cell.
I was not allowed to sleep, drink, or use the bathroom. I had to sit on a small wooden bench 18 hours a day without moving. Inmates were tasked with monitoring me.
They tortured me a lot, but I never stopped talking to them about Falun Dafa. The first two inmates assigned to monitor me understood that my cultivation practice was good, but the third one stuffed my mouth with dirty rags to prevent me from talking. To show my resolve I once sat on the bed, crossed my both my legs in the meditation position, and shouted, “Falun Dafa is good! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good!”
My son visited me in the camp and recounted how some of the guards had told him that I was the toughest practitioner they had ever had to deal with.
The guards had hoped that my son would help them and get me to cooperate. I told him not to listen to the guards as I hadn't done anything wrong. I reminded him that I had Master to take care of me and that he needn't worry about me.
I was transferred to the second division, the brainwashing section, six months later, where we were forced to watch programs that denounced Falun Dafa and Master Li.
I just kept reciting, “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” I also recited Master Li’s poem “Don’t Be Sad”:
“Imprisoned as you are, don’t be sorrowful or sadCarry on with righteous thoughts and actions, and the Fa is with you Calmly reflect on the attachments you have Remove your human thoughts and evil will naturally die out” (Hong Yin Volume II)
I was released two months early, when the labor camp was shut down in 2013.
I returned home in June 2013. My son brought me all of my Falun Dafa materials and I joined the local Fa-study group. I also handed out informational materials about Falun Dafa and put up posters and banners to help spread information about Dafa to everyone.
In May 2015, many Chinese citizens began filing criminal complaints against Jiang Zemin, the former head of the CCP, for launching the persecution of Falun Dafa in China in July 1999.
I sent out my complaints before the local authorities began harassing Dafa practitioners. I also helped other practitioners file their complaints against Jiang.
When my son got married, he and his wife forced me out of my own home one year later.
Luckily, I had an unfurnished apartment so I moved there.
On my way there, I recalled the injustices in my tough, hard life, but then realized that I was too worried about saving face and seeking a normal family life, which is exactly what a cultivator should cast off.
Master said:
“Those who are attached to affection for family will definitely be burned, entangled, and tormented by it. Pulled by the threads of affection and plagued by them throughout their lives, they will find it too late to regret at the end of their lives.” (“Cultivators’ Avoidances” from Essentials for Further Advancement)
I realized that I was kicked out of my home to work on Dafa projects and to cultivate diligently.