(Clearwisdom.net)

Not long ago, I saw on Minghui Weekly [a Chinese language digest of articles from the Minghui/Clearwisdom website] a notification about collecting articles for "The Second Mainland China Falun Dafa Practitioners Cultivation Experience Sharing Conference on the Internet." At the time, I did not pay attention to it, nor did I read it through with the awareness of a practitioner, but more as if I were an outsider and it had nothing to do with me. Since the first issue of Minghui Weekly was published to the present, I had not written any of my understandings, Instead, I formed a notion about this. I thought that I did not need to write anything this time, either. Later, I saw on Minghui Weekly that the San Francisco Falun Dafa Cultivation Experience Sharing Conference was grandly held and Master attended and gave a lecture. I then thought that Master had published a new article and my fellow practitioner should have brought the article to me by then. Not until I saw the practitioners' articles about their understanding of Master's new article, "Mature," did I suddenly wake up. Since I did not write nor send articles to the Minghui/Clearwisdom website and just waited for the publication of Master's article, "Mature," how could I be mature? This was the same as trying to find a shortcut in cultivation.

I have deeply understood that writing down one's understanding is a process of upgrading oneself, of becoming mature, as well as of cultivating oneself. Being able to see and realize what one has incorrectly understood makes one improve, raises one's level, and is cultivating oneself. Is this not what takes place during our cultivation? Seeing where we have done wrong, doing well the next time, learning the lessons and not committing the same mistake afterwards, we are then in the process of cultivation, during which we gradually turn ourselves into good persons, become better and better, and finally walk toward maturity. I thought that all those who have not written down their understandings should write them down, because this is very important. No matter whether the articles are published by the Minghui website or not, their significance for Fa-rectification period cultivation is the just the same.

Today, during the process of writing this experience-sharing article, I had in fact rewritten and corrected it over and over. After I related one incident, I read my writing and found that I was not validating the Fa but was validating myself. So I made corrections. While I kept writing and kept making changes, I gained new understandings; this itself was an improvement.

I formally walked through the door of Dafa cultivation in January 1998. The evil started to persecute Dafa on July 20, 1999. I went to Beijing to validate the "Fa" in October of the same year. Because I had not learned the Fa well and had strong attachments at that time, the evil took advantage of my loopholes. I was sent to a forced labor camp, and took a quite long detour in my cultivation.

I resumed cultivation in July 2001. In January 2002 I went to Beijing again to validate the Fa. I was illegally arrested and sent to a detention center. This time I firmly remembered Master's words,

"No matter what the situation, do not cooperate with the evil's demands, orders, or what it instigates." ("Dafa Disciples' Righteous Thoughts are Powerful" in Essentials for Further Advancement II)

I did not cooperate with the evil. I also protested the arrest by staging a hunger strike. I said, "I validate Dafa. I am innocent. I am not a criminal. I do not eat the food meant for inmates." They force-fed me. They put me on a metal chair and then raised one side of the chair so that my feet were raised high while my head was lowered down. They used the tongs that are generally used in a dental clinic to pry open my mouth and then started to force-feed me with salted corn porridge. But when the porridge was put in my mouth I did not swallow it. They then pinched my nose so I could not breathe, so as to force me to swallow it. When I did not swallow the food, they would slap me on my face. When I spit the food out, they then used a spoon to press down my tongue so as to prevent me from spitting it out. I simply let the food stay in my mouth.

I was force-fed twice a day like this. Each time there were four to five or even more people participating in force-feeding me. It lasted over two hours or even longer at each session. But I just did not swallow the food and also thought of ways to spit it out. When I spit the food out, it went onto my clothes and collar. Since it was winter, when the clothes were wet there were no dry replacements. So, before each force-feeding, the other practitioners would put napkins and towels around my neck and remove them after the force-feeding.

During subsequent force-feedings, the prison personnel replaced the corn porridge with dried milk powder dissolved in warm water. They also said, "This time you should eat. This is what your family members bought for you. If you spit it out again, you are wasting your family's money." At that time, I really felt that Master was by my side and protecting me. When I refused to swallow it, the milk just stayed in my mouth and did not flow down into my stomach. When they continuously slapped me on my face, I also did not feel any pain. When they pinched my nose, I could not breathe to a point that that I almost was unable to hold it any longer. I thought that I would rather die of suffocation than swallow their food. Master's Fa always echoed in my mind,

"Indestructible righteous faith in the cosmos's Truth forms benevolent Dafa disciples' rock-solid, Diamond-Like Bodies, it frightens all evil, and the light of Truth it emanates makes the unrighteous elements in all beings' thoughts disintegrate. However strong the righteous thoughts are, that's how great the power is." ("Also in a Few Words," Essentials for Further Advancement II)

A guard with the last name Liu slapped me on my face. His watch, which was worth 10,000 yuan, broke when he slapped me. He shouted loudly and yelled at me. Later, I heard that whenever he hit me, he first removed his watch. One person with the last name of Zhang, who was said to be the detention center director, seeing me not swallow, poured the milk into my collar twice. I remembered Master's words,

"Under any difficult circumstance, everyone, remain calm in your hearts. Just by staying unaffected, you will be able to handle all situations." ("Lecture on the Fa at the U.S. Midwest Conference" June 26, 1999)

Because I did it this way every day, all the inmates and guards there were moved by my actions.

When my hunger strike had lasted over twenty days, the inmates stopped force-feeding me. As a result, eight inmates in my cell were put in handcuffs. I was then carried into another cell where the inmates were ordered to force-feed me. Later the eyes of all the inmates involved in force-feeding me started to hurt and became very red and they all needed to use eye drops. Some said, "I will not do the force-feeding, no matter what. I will not do it even if they handcuff me." The detention center had difficulty finding inmates to do the force-feeding.

One time the male inmates were told to force-feed me. When several male inmates carried me, one of them said to me, "Ma'am, I am sorry!" During the force-feeding, an inmate said, "This is too cruel. All those practicing Falun Gong are my sisters. I will not do the force-feeding today." All the practitioners and inmates in the cell said to me, "Originally, these guards were very ferocious toward us. Ever since you came here, they started to not be that way anymore. In the evening, when the practitioners performed the exercises, the guards pretended that they had not seen it and then left, ignoring the scene." When my hunger strike reached one month, my menstrual period came. The inmate leader in the cell said to the guard, "Buy sanitary pads for her." A person who had been on a hunger strike for one month still had her period. All the persons in the cell praised Dafa for being miraculous. Then all the inmates in the cells started learning Falun Gong, and some of them even did the meditation exercise and learned to recite Master's articles.

One day the guard called the inmates in the cell together and asked them, "What did you do last evening?" Some answered, "We practiced Falun Gong." The guard said, "You told the truth, so you can go back." Those who said that they had not practiced Falun Gong were put in handcuffs. An inmate leader in the cell told me, "Dafa is really miraculous. One day, when I used the lotus flower hand gesture to send forth righteous thoughts, my hand became so warm that my face could feel the heat." Because this inmate leader was detained there because of her criminal activities, she had been incarcerated for a relatively long period of time and had been in contact with a lot of Falun Gong practitioners. They all clarified the truth to her. She thus became a genuine disciple of Master. She not only recited Master's articles, but also cultivated her xinxing. She also often taught me to recite Master's new articles in the evening, encouraging me to be steadfast in Dafa.

By the time my hunger strike had lasted almost forty days, whenever I was carried onto the metal chair, I would involuntarily cry. Others said, "You cried." I said in my mind, "I have not cried. I have not shed tears;" however, my tears just kept flowing. I knew that I had not cried at all, and it was my aware side that cried. The only words that echoed in my mind then were, "struggle between righteousness and evil."

On Day 45 of my force-feeding, guard Liu was in charge (they took turns force-feeding me). Several days before, Liu fiercely said to me, "Wait for my shift," which meant that he would do something vicious to me. He had once hit me on my face with the metal dental tool that was used to pry my mouth open. He also kicked me as if he were insane. His actions scared a cell inmate so much that she temporarily lost control of herself, and she yelled and shouted. All the inmates became scared whenever it was the time for force-feeding. The atmosphere was very tense. I knew that it was the evil elements in other dimensions that were manipulating humans to persecute me. I then sent forth righteous thoughts to resolutely eliminate the evil.

During the force-feeding I refused to swallow the food. Guard Liu said, "Put her on the floor." Another guard said, "She is already a skeleton. What do you still want to do to her?" Liu did not listen. He picked up a baton that was used to beat the inmates. One end of this baton was a wooden handle, covered with rubber-like plastic tube. After he had beaten me for a while he said, "Take her up and continue the force-feeding." I still refused to swallow the food. He then resumed the beating. He slapped my face continuously and also used that baton to hit my legs. After the beating he said, "Force-feed her again." I still refused to take the food in. The evildoers became scared, "It will not work this way. Take her to the hospital tomorrow!" I had no strength and was even unable to cry out. I even felt too tired to keep my eyes open. When I had been occasionally given intravenous injections before, they had done this all inside the cell and had not taken me to a hospital. This time I was sent to the hospital twice, where a tube was inserted into my stomach through my mouth.

On the third day, my family members took me home in an ambulance. As I was carried outside, Liu still followed and kicked me. On the way home I really cried. I cried for Master's compassion and protection, which had made it possible for me to pull through.

What was described above was my cultivation experience during the Fa-rectification period. I would like to cite Master's words to encourage us all,

"This instant is precious beyond measure. Completing the last leg of this journey well is what's most magnificent." ("Teaching the Fa in the City of Chicago" June 26, 2005)

December 15, 2005