(Minghui.org) I met another Falun Dafa practitioner, Lin (alias), in a Chinese forced labor camp in 2000. This was when the persecution of Falun Dafa in China was especially severe. Many practitioners persisted in their efforts to appeal for the right to practice Falun Dafa at the State Bureau for Letters and Calls and in Tiananmen Square. Unfortunately, our visits sometimes ended in bitter jail time.
In the forced labor camp, like many other Dafa disciples, I was tortured with electric batons. I was ordered to write a statement to stop practicing Falun Dafa. I wasn’t afraid because my determination made the evil very small. I felt a stream of heat flowing through my body, from the inside out, and when the electric batons touched me, I just felt a little vibration. I knew it was Teacher that helped me through this tough time.
Lin was around 20 years old and we shared the same cell. She was young and bright. After we left the labor camp, we rented a place and shared the cost. We also worked on the same projects.
Mei (alias) was another practitioner I got to know in the detention center. When I met her, she had already been detained for 14 days. We spent a couple of hours sharing our experiences and then she was released the next day. About two weeks later, I was also released. I went looking for Mei and we have worked together to clarify the truth ever since.
A practitioner called Hua (alias) started practicing Falun Dafa in 2007. When I met her, she was working on making Falun Dafa informational materials.
Below is about how Hua, Lin, Mei, and I cooperated and moved forward together in our cultivation of Falun Dafa.
Cooperating with Lin
In 2001, Lin and I rented a house to share living expenses. Because we didn’t have a printer, we had to go into the city to pick up Falun Dafa flyers. It was basically a single sheet flyer. We picked up 10,000 copies each time, folded and bagged them, and then distributed them.
As particles of Dafa, we did our task with full attention without feeling fatigue or bitterness. We worked well as a group. When someone had an idea, we all lent our support, with no debates or disputes. Usually, in just one night we were able to hang “Falun Dafa Is Good,” “Falun Dafa Is the Righteous Fa,” and “Teacher Li Is Innocent” banners of all sizes all over the streets. Sometimes we would climb to the roof of a building and hang a long banner vertically.
However, because we didn’t study the Fa much, our mentality of wanting to “do things” became a loophole for the evil to take advantage of. Once when we were distributing flyers, Lin was beaten and badly injured as she was trying to escape the authorities. They covered my face with a black mask and took me away to be tortured. I was incarcerated for five years.
Lin became a paraplegic while she was incarcerated and was sent home. She relied on Dafa to help her get through the difficult life and death experiences that she encountered. She thought she could not die because that might bring damage to Dafa. It was the repeated reciting of the poem “Nothing Kept” in Hong Yin that gave her strength. When she was able to sit up, she learned to print materials and how to use a computer.
Following my release from the prison, I worked with Lin once again. I carried her on my back to help practitioners repair machines and offer technical support. It was our tacit understanding that enabled us to work together like a surgeon and a nurse. When she needed something, I would hand it to her. When I wasn’t needed, I sent righteous thoughts. We have been cooperating like that for more than ten years now.
Together, we produced countless truth clarification materials, such as CD's, booklets, display boards, banners, calendars and so on. We also helped practitioners print many Falun Dafa books. I was the one who carried and moved things around, whereas she was responsible for the technical aspects. We managed five or six printers at a time. When there was a big demand for materials, we worked until the middle of the night.
My home was usually full of printers to be repaired. We dismantled and repaired them one by one. Our hands were stained with ink almost every day and sometimes a machine was dismantled several times but still didn't work. In these circumstances, Teacher would help by giving Lin new ideas. The process of fixing a machine presented us with opportunities to cultivate our minds. When we got anxious, we would complain or worry. We would then remind each other to pay attention and cultivate the attachments away. Sometimes we said jokingly that even the fairies would envy us these opportunities to assist Teacher in rectifying the Fa and saving people!
Cooperating with Mei and Hua
Mei and I didn’t live in the same city. Whenever she needed help, we gave her our full support, and after we completed making the materials, I would take them to her. In Mei’s area, when practitioners’ machines needed to be repaired, they usually took them to her house. We then went to her house, where we taught practitioners how to install software and resolve technical problems.
Mei knew that if it had to do with assisting Teacher to rectify the Fa, we would go to her house and help. Mei was very diligent. She studied the Fa in the morning and in the afternoon she went out to clarify the truth. When she got home at night, she worked on truth-clarification materials. She didn’t go to sleep until after sending righteous thoughts at midnight. Every day she studied the Fa by heart and read the sharing articles on Minghui. She sent righteous thoughts at least 10 times a day.
Then Hua (alias) joined our small team. She was active and helpful. Although she obtained the Fa later than the rest of us, she was diligent when it came to clarifying the truth. She kept us all connected. When we were all busy working on things, she would prepare meals and clean the house. She was humble and always said, “I don't know how to do technical things, but I will always do what I can.”
Conflicts Dissolved
There were times when we were in conflict with one another. For example, once Mei needed some materials, but Lin and I were busy doing something else. We asked another practitioner for help, but Mei wasn't pleased with the printing quality, so she declined to take the materials. Hua helped us redistribute them to other groups, so the materials weren't wasted.
After the incident, I went to Mei's house to share with her. I explained my understanding and she explained hers. Both of us felt that what we did accorded with the Fa principles and it was the other party that was out of line. I felt wronged. The sharing ended unhappily and we got to the stage where we felt there was no need to connect with each other in the future.
When I got home, through Fa study, I realized that I was wrong somewhere. Although I couldn't pinpoint where I'd made a mistake, I realized that the fact that there was some misunderstanding somewhere between Mei and me meant that our efforts to let people know the facts about Dafa would be affected. Who would be pleased to see that? The evil would, but Teacher wouldn't. So I no longer thought about who was right or who was wrong. Instead, I tried very hard to look inside, and in the end, I saw that behind the heart of “not feeling wronged,” I was very attached to qing – emotions. I liked to work with Mei, but this sentiment had now become impure when it came to working together to save people. I felt my dimension become clearer. I didn't complain anymore. I called Mei, and from her tone of voice, I sensed that there was no more misunderstanding between us.
Lin and I have lived and cooperated with each other for almost ten years. It is hard for her to move around, so it is mainly I who helps take care of things around the house. Through my actions, her relatives saw that a Falun Dafa practitioner was someone who cared for others like family.
In fact, there were times I struggled. My attachment to profit sometimes almost won out and I was on the verge of moving out. I needed to work during the day, so I couldn't make all the materials that practitioners needed. When some machines needed to be repaired, I could do minor things but couldn't manage the complicated ones. Without Lin, many tasks wouldn't get done. My attachment to profit constantly surfaced, and each time it happened, I tried to correct myself to assimilate to the Fa.
Through an image on a calendar that we made, Teacher helped me see two “lucky babies” – one was her and the other was me. The present time was for us to work together to save people. Attachments in the human world were not as important as the wish to cooperate with each other to let people know the truth.
We have been working together to repair machines and produce materials for a long time now, and at times I get easily annoyed. Once Teacher showed me a Fa principle: We need to cultivate with the heart we once had. How? The heart of cultivating should remain the same, from the beginning to the end. Lin and I reached a consensus and agreed we would walk our path consistently, from the beginning to the end. What we do is not an ordinary person thing but, rather, very sacred. We will remain like this, in the land of Dafa, until the Fa rectifies the human world.
Teacher said,
“Dafa disciples, you are golden light in the mortal world, the hope of the world’s people, Fa-disciples who help Master, and future Fa-Kings. Keep diligent, Awakened Ones that walk the earth: Everything of today will be the glory of the future.” (“Congratulatory Message” from The Essentials of Diligent Progress, Vol. III)
I'd like to conclude my sharing by citing a Fa teaching:
“In this final hour of the Fa rectification, cultivate yourselves well and solidly every step of the way and accomplish your mission of saving people.” (“To the Fa Conference in France”)
Please point out anything inappropriate.
