(Minghui.org) In July 1999, Jiang Zemin and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched the persecution campaign against Falun Gong. I had only been practicing Falun Gong for a little more than a year. I had personally experienced tremendous changes in my character and in my health by the practice and could not, for the life of me, think why anyone would persecute such a wonderful practice. I was a Falun Gong practitioner in the army, and I boarded a train to Beijing to demand justice for the practice.
That was in late December 1999, when cold temperatures were starting to set in. After my train went past Qinhuangdao at around 2:00 a.m., a railway guard came to inspect our tickets. He found a passenger without a ticket and asked him to pay. The passenger, a disheveled-looking man in his 50s, said he did not have any more money and was only a few stops from his destination. The guard told him he had to get off at the next stop, and then left our car.
I thought the guard was not serious about his threat, but as the train stopped at the next stop he came back to evict the hapless man. It was freezing outside; where would the penniless man go in the middle of the night in a strange place? I could not stand by and let that happen, so I paid for the man's ticket to prevent him from being kicked off the train.
A few hours later when I arrived at Tiananmen Square, I had no idea what to do and who to speak to. I just sat on the steps. After a long time, an armed policeman came over to question me. I showed him my army officer pass. He took a quick look at it and left me alone.
Knowing I could not just sit there, I asked one of the armed policemen, “I heard you are arresting Falun Gong practitioners who come to the square.” He asked me, “ Do you practice Falun Gong?” I said, “Yes” and that was how I ended up inside a police van parked on the square.
A few more policemen were inside the van. I was searched and even though they found nothing on me apart from my army officer pass, a policeman assaulted me by hitting me on the head with an object he had fitted to his hand. The army had trained us about some common legal principles, so I knew that the policeman had broken the law and may have even been blatantly ignoring the law. I was an active army officer, and they had no right to use force on me. Furthermore, I had not broken any laws–all they could do was send me back to my barracks.
While I was in the police van, a policeman asked me why I practiced Falun Gong. I told him, “After I started practicing, my stomach pains went away. Ever since I was little, I had frequent stomachaches and I used to vomit all the time. The pain once lasted half a month because I had a sip of cold tea, and no amount of medicine helped.
Since I started practicing Falun Gong more than a year ago, I have not experienced any stomach pain. And for as long as I can remember, I have always had a very active mind. My mind would go wild at the best of times, imagining all sorts of things. If I was unhappy or angry, my thoughts would go into overdrive. It was worse at night. I would lie in bed every night and ruminate for at least two hours before falling asleep. My head would hurt from being overworked, and this seemed to have worsened as I got older. I had not had a good night's sleep for years. I took relaxation-inducing medication and supplements, but they had absolutely no effect. But after I started practicing Falun Gong, whenever my mind started to wander as I tried to sleep, the words of Master Li [Hongzhi], the founder of Falun Gong, would come to mind:
“Quiet without thinkingCan see the wondrous and mystical.”In the Dao, Hong Yin
“With that, I would be able to stop whatever I was thinking about and fall into a deep sleep. I used to envy people who could fall asleep the moment their head hit the pillow. I am pleased to say that now, I too can fall asleep easily when I am tired.”
The policeman stopped me from talking because I was extolling the benefits of Falun Gong. However, a little while later, he again asked me the same question: why do I practice Falun Gong? I picked up my story and told him that on my way to Beijing on the train, a passenger did not have money for his ticket so I paid for him to prevent him from being thrown off the train. The policeman said that I had been scammed. I told him that I once saw a few dozen yuan on the ground that someone had dropped, but I had never even thought about picking it up. The policeman retorted that some non-practitioners would do the same. I said I was comparing myself to how I used to be.
I told him, “Before I practiced Falun Gong, I did pick up money someone had lost. The person who'd lost the money brought his father along to search for it and told his father the exact place where he had lost it. I knew the money I'd picked up was his, but I didn't give it back. After I started practicing Falun Gong, I felt terribly guilty about this. The guilt has stayed with me and sometimes talking about it makes me all teary. Another time I was not tempted by money. I was on a trip for work and had more than ten thousand yuan in cash with me. It would have been easy enough to appropriate a few thousand yuan for myself and not even a receipt would have been necessary, but I was not in the least tempted.
The policeman insisted that some non-practitioners were just as honest. I responded in the same way: I was comparing myself to how I used to be. Before I practiced Dafa, I pilfered lots of items from the army. I had helped myself to anything and everything that could be of use at home, and even things that would not be of any use. Also on the topic of honesty, it was quite common for army officers to frequent clubs and bars for entertainment, or to socialize with local officials. I have taken part in these activities, but have always maintained my propriety and never done anything inappropriate.
The policeman again stopped me from talking, because I was still going on about the goodness of Falun Gong. Sure enough, he asked me the same question a short while later. That gave me another opportunity to continue my story: “Our army unit went through a re-structure, and all personnel subject to the re-structure were trying to seek favors from those who were in charge of their superiors, so they could secure a good post for themselves. My superior urged me to do the same and even let me officially claim all the related expenses. I refused his offer.
I also gave up gambling a few short months after I started practicing Dafa. My gambling used to be the cause of many arguments with my wife and nearly broke up our family. Drinking alcohol was also another problem. In this day and age, it can be difficult to avoid drinking when carrying out one's duties as an army officer. But my body did not take kindly to alcohol–vomiting, joint pain and headaches were a few of the negative reactions I would have. After a terrible hangover, I would vow to never drink again, but all that would be forgotten the moment an opportunity to drink presented itself. But I was able to give up drinking a few months into my practice.
My story about what I gained from practicing Falun Gong came to an end, and the policemen in the van had no more questions. One of them asked the others what they should do with me. My story may have touched them or awakened their consciences. They returned my army officer pass and let me out of the van.
The rapid transformations I have experienced as a result of taking up the practice of Falun Gong are quite common to many practitioners, as long as they are genuine about following the teachings of the practice and strive to be morally upright people.
The persecution of Falun Gong has caused my family and friends to oppose my practice, and my wife has even threatened me with divorce. I know it was because they feared for my safety, rather than any issues with my character. However, when the public at large oppose Falun Gong, it's because on the one hand they don't understand us and they need us to clarify the truth to them. On the other hand, there are those who understand what we are about, but choose to put money and power above all else and act against their consciences.
We use to all sneer at those who would 'point at a deer and call it a horse', and scorn those who were simply 'grass sitting atop a fence' that bend with the winds of history. The fact is though, many people today are willing subjects of these old scornful sayings on the matter of Falun Gong. We also have an old Chinese saying: “Divine beings are watching us from above.” We are all accountable for whatever we do, so we should take care not to be misled and become doomed forever.