A Practitioner from Mainland China

[Minghui Net] I would like to tell our Master, fellow practitioners, and people who still have goodhearted thoughts, about how I survived the most cruel and most vicious and unprecedented persecution of "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance" during this special period of "assisting Master in the human world," "clarifying the truth" and "the Fa rectifying the human world."

The shame of a nation and of a people -- forcing people to speak untruths

My name is Tian Yiling (pseudonym), a member of the Chinese X Party. I am a teacher with 30 years experience. I started to cultivate Falun Dafa in July 1997. Ever since Jiang Zemin and his gang started the persecution against Falun Dafa on July 20, 1999, I have been the target of the local police station. The local police illegally ransacked my home and took away my cherished Falun Dafa books. The town chief colluded with my relatives to force me to write a so-called "guarantee letter." I could never imagine that everyone, including the government, the police and all of my relatives would come together to force me, a recognized good teacher, to tell lies and renounce "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance." I did so only after extreme coercion and totally against my will. I became extremely upset.

What's wrong with the people today? "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance" teaches people to be kind. The practitioners just want to become better people, healthy people. What's wrong with that? I have been working as a teacher for thirty years. I have worked very hard all my life. Since I learned Falun Dafa, I have become even more humble and I have willingly and consistently worked very hard. I have received 17 awards and 18 certificates during my teaching years. Now Jiang Zemin and a few vile people control the entire state apparatus. So they persecute the practitioners who cultivate "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance." This is both the shame and the sorrow of our nation.

Tortured for clarifying the truth; promoting Dafa in the prison.

On a morning in July 2000, I went to the County Committee office to deliver truth-clarifying materials with a pure, kind and responsible heart like all other practitioners. I was hoping to wake up the people that Jiang Zemin had fooled and employed to persecute all of these kind people. To my surprise, these materials became "dangerous and explosive articles" in the eyes of the wicked County Committee officials. They slapped the criminal charges of "attacking government agencies" and "disturbing social order" on me. That night, they illegally detained me, a woman of almost 60 years of age.

Once in the detention center, I promoted Dafa to the female prisoners. Using the standards of Dafa, I was considerate of other people. I took the lead in cleaning up and taking care of sick prisoners. At night I slept close to the foot of the bed and helped swipe away the flies and mosquitoes for the prisoners so that they could get a good rest. When we ate, I took only what I needed. I picked up the rice bits that fell and ate them all so that nothing was wasted. As a Dafa practitioner, my compassionate deeds deeply moved the people around me. Before, they wasted water and food without consideration. By watching me, they understood about conservation and their actions became more civilized.

The head of the prison cell used to smoke one pack of cigarettes a day. At night, I would promote Dafa to her for a long time and persuade her to become a good person. She said, "Your Teacher is indeed magnificent. Dafa of 'Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance' is so powerful. I can see Falun Gong practitioners are different from us." Later, when someone offered her cigarettes, she said, "I quit smoking because of learning about Falun Gong. I'll surely practice Falun Dafa when I get out of the prison!" A prison guard tried to stop me from practicing the exercises and put shackles on my legs. The female inmates were enraged, "Tell the guards that the only Falun Gong practitioner here is a great person! Putting shackles on her is wrong!" The prison cell head cried and demanded that they take off my shackles. The second day the prison guards took them off. The 13 or 14 prisoners in the cell all respected and understood me. They were willing to listen to me promote Dafa. "Dafa is being widely spread, saving all sentient beings." ("Dafa Disciples' Righteous Thoughts are Powerful") I can deeply feel the purity and compassion of the boundless Dafa. It is truly a glory and a pride for any predestined person to be able to hear the Buddha Law in this chaotic Dharma-Ending Period.

I was a renowned "outstanding teacher" [a designation awarded to particularly good teachers], a model teacher in charge of classes throughout the school board and the County. I was deeply loved and esteemed by students and parents. The police detained me because I clarified the truth to the unlawful County officials. This was shocking news in our small town. My husband, who is an invalid and bed-ridden, was left at home without anyone to take care of him. I taught a graduating class, so the students were all waiting for me to give them classes. When the central principal, the school principal, and the parents learned about this, they all complained, went all over asking people to vouch for me, and strongly demanded that I be released right away.

It is hard to answer the students' question: "Teacher, how come you were arrested?"

The prison head told me that I had to write the so-called statements of "understanding" before they could release me. This time I firmly refused. To let people really see that Falun Dafa is good through the practitioners' high-level words and deeds is showing genuine compassion for these people. The prison guards didn't know what to do. They detained me for another 15 days and finally released me after my family paid a ransom of 3,500 RMB (about seven months' salary in China).

Upon entering the classroom, the students cast questioning eyes at me, "Teacher, how come you were arrested?" I wiped sorrowful tears from my eyes and lifted up my trembling voice, "Students, I was illegally detained because I went to the County Committee office to give Falun Gong's truth-clarifying literature to the officials. It is definitely not wrong that I practice 'Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance.' Practitioners don't seek fame and profit, nor do we get involved in politics or oppose the government, let alone intend to overthrow the X Party. We just hope the people who have been fooled by the lies can understand the truth about the persecution of Falun Gong, so that they will distinguish right from wrong, good from evil, and establish their positions for the eternity of their lives. You and your parents all understand, respect, and trust me. Like you, I do not understand why an excellent party member and an outstanding educator was sent to the X party's detention center and cuffed with the X party's shackles simply because I dared to tell the truth..."

The police's criminal acts arouse the public's anger

Nonetheless, the disasters continued. At about 11 p.m. on the night of the Mid-autumn Festival of 2000 (the 15^th day of the eighth month in the lunar calendar), Yang from the police department, after drinking, brought nine strong policemen to break into my home and illegally ransack it once again. He shouted wildly, "Take out all the flyers and books!" He violently knocked over the table, chairs and sofa, and threatened me and my husband, who was confined to the bed due to his illness. They rummaged through the whole room and turned it upside down. They took away all of the Dafa books and materials, and shouted at me loudly, "If you were not so old I would have kicked you a few more times! Your husband is ill. Otherwise I would send you to jail tomorrow!" My husband was so scared that he cried in great panic. Looking at my husband as well as the Dafa books that they were taking away, I was suddenly stupefied. For a moment I was trembling all over with anger and fell to the ground. What are these people? Bandits! I work as a teacher yet I cannot describe even one tenth of the vicious acts of these police with words.

After illegally ransacking my home, the officials of the Public Security Bureau were even more afraid that I would go to appeal, and thus placed me under tighter surveillance. They checked three times a day, especially late at night. Each time, four or five people came and shouted loudly, violently banging on the iron gate without consideration for my sleeping neighbors. They said shamelessly, "We've come to visit you." They treated a senior citizen and a hardworking teacher like me who has no power or influence as an "enemy of the government." The plainclothes police acted like spies and secretly followed me throughout the day. People from the Public Security Bureau and the police station frequently drove police cars to the school to harass me maliciously and without restraint. The principal, my colleagues, and the students were all annoyed and disgusted by their unlawful behavior. They made this observation, "They are so scared that they dare not arrest mobsters or even discipline groups of prostitutes on the street. They feel they are lucky as long as other corrupt officials don't take advantage of them. They have nothing to do everyday but arrest Falun Gong practitioners at will. Jiang Zemin should have lost his position as president long ago!"

These immoral people put me under tight surveillance for over a year and a half. It's just as our Master says, each attempt to destroy us is actually promoting us. People of my school, the residential area, as well as the peddlers in the market all know that I am a Falun Gong practitioner and that Falun Dafa is good.

Tearfully telling of the injustice to wake up the people in the maze

One day, the commissioner of the Education Bureau brought reporters assigned by higher authorities to come interview me. They asked me to defame Dafa and our Master. As soon as I entered the room I said to the commissioner, "Before I cultivated Dafa, I had been an outstanding teacher for many years. After cultivating Dafa, I became even better. Up to now I have no assigned apartment and have to rent one. I pay all the medical expenses of 30 to 40 thousand RMB for my husband and try to not bother our leaders. Our leaders have witnessed how hard I have been working. In order to improve the quality of my teaching, I have stayed up many days and nights. When you first came, you once said that I was so foolish to exert all my energy on my work. Because I did not want all of you to be deceived by the lies and so that you would understand the truth of Dafa, I was jailed, cuffed with iron shackles, fined money, beaten, and cursed. My home was even ransacked twice. I am like a wet towel that has been twisted dry. Do you want to destroy this towel? I am a 60 year-old woman, yet you won't leave me alone. What more do you want with me?"

I had lost my personal freedom for a year and a half. The impact of the mental torture suddenly erupted and I cried while I spoke. I wept without stopping; my Master has been treated unjustly; Dafa and all Dafa practitioners have been treated unjustly... I know that I was not calm enough, yet I really could no longer tolerate the abuse. The political rogue Jiang Zemin has threatened our positions and jobs. The high and low ranking government officials brutally persecute practitioners by fair means or foul to fulfill the so-called "task" of persecuting good people. Such heavy political pressure can really drive people mad over time, and they will "follow the instructions from above" and put the blame on practitioners. They will say that it is because of their practicing Falun Gong. Such cases are all too common under Jiang Zemin's tyranny.

The chief principal, the secondary principal, and the commissioner of the Bureau were all stunned, and they finally saw the true result of their so-called "care and reform." The two young reporters showed sympathy for me with tears in their eyes. After the commissioner came back to his senses, he said repeatedly, "I know, you are a well-known outstanding teacher and you are an upright and very good person." They knew they were in the wrong. They dared not mention the real purpose of the interview, which was to defame Dafa. Instead they hastily ended the interview.

Clarify the truth and sternly return the "gift"

After experiencing one tribulation after another and the struggle of righteousness against one evil after another, I gradually matured as a Dafa particle. During the New Year's Day of 2001, the chief of the police station sent a "consolatory gift" to me. He was actually afraid that I would go to Beijing to appeal for Dafa, so he used this as an excuse to see if I was at home. I took the gift to the police station and said, "What I cultivate is 'Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance.' Why should I accept your 'gift' for no reason? Dafa practitioners cannot accept what they should not take." The assistant chief of police said, "You can cooperate with our work. If you don't want to sign the contract, how about writing a guarantee letter?" I answered, "I won't sign the contract; neither will I write a guarantee letter. We must have a conscience and know how to be a human being. One cannot be like a stick and beat whomever his bosses ask him to beat. Why did you confiscate and burn our Master's books that teach people how to become good people? You clearly know that all Dafa practitioners are good people, yet you still illegally placed us under surveillance again and again. Do you think that's right? You'd better think about the tricks behind it, and should not blindly follow them!" She said, "We really don't want to bother you anymore. It was so cold on the night of the New Year's Eve. We kept watch for the whole night downstairs from your apartment." I said," You are all officials who are supposed to carry out the law. So you should be clearer than the rest of us about who is violating the law when dealing with Falun Gong. You were freezing, yet did you think about what you were doing? People of today cannot distinguish between good and evil because they are blinded by political power and money." Seeing that I was so steadfast, and spoke solemnly and sternly, she dared not come to bother me any more.

In fact, clearheaded people can always recognize who is righteous and who is evil at a time when Jiang controls the government of a big country with a population of 1.3 billion people and attempts to force people to give up "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance."

People have metabolism, and the cosmos also needs to get rid of the stale and replace it with what is fresh. Now is the great period of history when the Fa rectifies the human world and completely eliminates bad people. Each person chooses his own life. A single thought of good or evil is actually choosing the existence or destruction of your own life. The Dafa of "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance" is judging all beings justly. If you go against the Dafa of "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance," you will be recognized as a bad person in the cosmos. It is you yourself who chooses destruction. Please calm down, carefully listen to the true voice from the bottom of your heart, and make the correct choice.

Posting date: 7/6/2001
Original article date: 7/6/2001
Category: Views on Cultivation
Translated on 6/28/2001
Chinese version available at http://minghui.cc/mh/articles/2001/6/24/12423.html