By a Dafa practitioner in Shandong Province

(Clearwisdom.net) Before July 20, 1999, when the persecution started, I was a local assistant for Falun Gong. In my local area many practitioners knew me. At that time I was not diligent in learning the Fa and doing the exercises. My job was easy and paid a decent salary, and I could independently arrange my schedule. My work and family life would not have been affected even if I put all my effort into Dafa. Therefore, when the coordinator of the assistance center asked me to be an assistant, I agreed without any hesitation. My family members also supported me. I then came into contact with many practitioners, and I felt very joyful. I was always around Dafa practitioners' genial faces -- the faces that showed the incomparable joy of having obtained the Fa, the faces that showed the excitement of having benefited both mentally and physically, the faces that showed honesty without reservation among the practitioners, and the faces that showed truthfulness and mutual trust.

My heart was warmed and melted by Dafa. At times, at the large-scale experience sharing conferences, during group practice or during group study sessions, my tears would run down my face because of the purity I could see in Dafa.

Even though I did the exercises and read the Fa every day (and I introduced Dafa to others), I still did not know what cultivation really meant. I did not understand the seriousness of cultivation. All I knew was that we are a group of the best people in this world. Therefore, no matter what other people said about us, I would forgive their ignorance. Although I frequently organized the practitioners to read the Fa, to do the exercises, and to introduce Dafa to others, I did not realize the full responsibility of an assistant. I often did not use the Fa taught by Teacher as the standard to measure how I was doing. Occasionally, when I compared myself to the requirements of the Fa, I felt that what Teacher had emphasized I had already corrected. Even when I found some of my attachments, I felt there was plenty of time and I was still young. I thought that I could discard those attachments later. Basically, I did not know how to awaken to the Fa. I took others as models for my cultivation. I did what the person responsible for the assistance center, who had cultivated well, had done. I did not understand many principles of the Fa from studying the Fa, but I was not worried because I could ask the coordinator of the assistance center. If he (she) did not know, then I could ask the coordinator of the general assistance center, and then he could ask the Falun Dafa Research Society personnel.

On April 25, 1999, 10,000 people appealed for Falun Gong in Beijing, and the situation in China began getting more stressful. However, I naively thought that the larger environment would not turn to oppose Falun Gong. I thought that Dafa is so good, how could people oppose Dafa? Anyway, if I had questions that I could not answer, I would go and ask the assistance center personnel. I used my abundant time to tell the public security department and appeals' office that we are good people, and they also recognized that. However, during that period of time I rarely studied the Fa and did the exercises. This lasted until July 20, 1999, when the evil's persecution started without any rationale.

I went to Beijing with fellow practitioners to appeal for Dafa. When I stood on Fuyou Street in Beijing, the police started to arrest and beat people. When the police took away group after group of Falun Gong practitioners, one fellow practitioner kept calling my name and asking me what to do. My mind went blank and I had lost communication with the other coordinators. With great difficulty, I made contact with one coordinator via my cell phone and the answer I got was, "Handle it yourself." At that moment, I felt pressure for the first time, and I knew that I had to make decisions regarding the situation by myself. To cultivate, one really cannot depend upon others! One has to make choices by oneself! Making a right choice at a critical moment depends on one's solid study of the Fa during normal times. At that moment, I truly felt the importance of studying the Fa well; all wisdom comes from the Fa, and all the right choices are from the Fa. Following the trend is not cultivation, asking the coordinators what to do is not cultivation. I tried hard to recall Teacher's Fa, and Teacher's Fa lecture suddenly emerged in my memory:

"Whether or not you safeguard this Fa, whether or not you promote this Fa, whether or not you spread this Fa, and whether or not you assimilate into this Fa in the future, all of these are in your own hands." ("Comments Regarding the Fa-Rectification Made at the Falun Dafa Assistants Meeting in Beijing" in Explaining the Content of Falun Dafa)

Thereupon, I called the practitioners whom I could contact and told them that I was in Beijing and that I was there to speak up for Dafa.

However, when I came back from Beijing, almost all the local assistants had written "guarantee letters" under pressure. I remembered that on the Minghui/Clearwisdom website, a fellow practitioner wrote;

"After the persecution began on July 20, 1999, all of the Assistance Center heads and 'famous people' immediately faced immense pressure. A group of them fell very quickly; some went to the opposite side completely, and some were mired in demonic tribulations for long periods of time. At the time it brought about a great deal of confusion and interference to some of the practitioners, and it shook me up a great deal, as well. I thought, 'Most likely it's because they had too much work to do on a day-to-day basis, and they didn't focus on grasping the time to study the Fa well, so the foundation for their xinxing and cultivation was not well established.'"

It is indeed true that if one has not learned the Fa well, he would not be able to use the Fa to direct himself in the process of doing things. Instead, he would be influenced by ordinary people's ideology. He may not even realize the seriousness of writing the guarantee letter after he had written it. For me, as an assistant with certain influence among the practitioners, this was in no way a minor matter. Teacher said:

"But for us, being assistants, there's a question of being responsible; meaning, if you don't do well you might lead your group of people awry. If the whole group of people is led awry, then, besides what you've done to yourself, you might have ruined a whole group of people! " ("Comments Regarding the Fa-Rectification Made at the Falun Dafa Assistants Meeting in Beijing" in Explaining the Content of Falun Dafa)

At that time, the fake writings also started to appear and spread. I remembered that a fake writing was passed to me. I had realized that it was not a true writing. (The fake scripture asked the practitioners to come out on a certain day of a certain month.) However, because I did not consistently study the Fa for a long time and because my sense of responsibility was fading, I did not promptly stop the practitioners. As a result, many practitioners were arrested.

What hurt me the most was that our local materials production center was destroyed. Several of our coordinators understood the importance of clarifying the truth and saving lives; so the practitioners used their own personal money and we formed the materials production center. However, the coordinator of the materials production center was so busy that he had almost no time to study the Fa, not to mention to study the Fa with a peaceful mind. He pursued and focused on the quantity of the printed truth materials, and his zealotry grew. Moreover, batches of the printed truth materials were destroyed because the materials did not conform to his personal point of view. Even though several of our coordinators knew this issue beforehand, we were unable to stop it. We were trapped in multiple contradictions. Some of the coordinators thought that we had printed sufficient amounts of truth-clarification materials and that we had enough mighty virtue. Additionally, we were not afraid of being arrested. I felt something was not right, but because I did not clearly understand the Fa principles, I did not know what to say. As a result, almost all of the materials production center personnel were arrested, and I was forced to leave home and become homeless to avoid arrest.

During the time of my being homeless, I felt confused. Not having a stable place to live on a long-term basis made it difficult for me to study the Fa with a peaceful mind. I felt empty, and more and more I failed to hold up my xinxing. At times I would suddenly lose control of my temper under my strained circumstances, and I started to haggle over things. Once a fellow practitioner from another area suspected that I was a spy. The fellow practitioner did not listen to my explanation, and he asked me to recite a teaching. Fortunately, I was able to recite it and that eliminated the fellow practitioner's suspicion about me. I was very disappointed; I did not see the sincere and trusting faces among the fellow practitioners which had been there before July 20, 1999.

When I went to the homes of my relatives and friends to clarify the truth, I sometimes felt very uneasy. They regarded me as a person in dire straits and as someone seeking them out for shelter. I knew this was because I did not establish a solid foundation during my personal cultivation period (before July 20, 1999). Before I started practicing Falun Gong, I was a significant figure among my relatives and friends, and I had a certain influence over them. Moreover, I often helped them, including helping them to resolve their domestic disputes. After I started practicing Falun Gong, I communicated mostly with practitioners, often ignoring relatives and friends. I was destitute and homeless when I visited them. Some of them said that I was not as I was before when I had significant influence over friends and relatives and that I had no money and came to them to seek help. Some of them even wanted to report me to the authorities.

I then started to calm myself down. No matter how difficult it was, I started looking inside myself for a solution. At times I would ask myself: "Am I cultivating? When will I learn to look inside for my solution?" After I found a stable place to live, I took out all of Teacher's lectures. I read each of Teacher's lectures with all my heart, as if I was reading the lecture the first time. I read with a peaceful mind, and I suddenly found that, even though I had read the Fa many times before, I felt more and more of Teacher's mighty mercy and Dafa's great connotations. This time when I read the lectures, it was truly like I was reading the Fa for the first time.

I knew that when one understands or views things from the Fa, his tribulations will be smaller and less frequent. I have also understood long ago that being arrested, being tortured and even being persecuted to death is not the path arranged by Teacher. In order to reject the old forces' arrangement, one needs to uphold his righteous thoughts and do righteous deeds. Although any supernormal abilities have been locked up during my cultivation and before Teacher told us to send forth righteous thoughts, I often sent out a quiet thought to not allow the evil to interrupt me. I found that this thought was very effective.

During my studying the Fa, I corrected many of my thoughts. For example, when I was imprisoned or when I was destitute and homeless and the police were searching everywhere for me, at that time I thought that the persecution I suffered was because of my status as assistant. During my most painful time I even thought that if I were not an assistant, I would not be listed by the police and that would be good; nobody would know that I practice Falun Gong. I then could quietly do the three things that Teacher asked us to do, and I could also reach consummation. I even envied the overseas practitioners and thought that they were lucky and that they would not be arrested even if they had attachments. But because of my being an assistant I became a focus of the CCP's persecution. Other practitioners also held such beliefs. Teacher said:

"If you go on like that without following the requirements of our Falun Dafa and behave yourself as usual among everyday people without upgrading your xinxing, you may still run into some other troubles though you practice the exercises. You may even claim that it is the practice of Falun Dafa that makes you go astray. This is all possible." (Zhuan Falun)

Through my learning the Fa with a peaceful mind, I suddenly awakened and realized that my thoughts were dangerous. It was not as I had previously thought at all. I previously did not cultivate myself with solid steps, and I did not look inside myself when I encountered problems. If I had continued developing in that direction, would I too say that I went astray because I practice Dafa? For a Dafa practitioner with righteous thoughts and righteous deeds, how could the evil dare to touch him? How could the persecution I suffered be related to my status as an assistant?

Meanwhile, I also learned how to access fellow practitioners' articles on the Minghui/Clearwisdom. I no longer took fellow practitioners as examples to follow regardless of how well they cultivated themselves. I instead looked at how the fellow practitioner followed Teacher's Fa to cultivate in his every word and deed and when he was passing a test. I looked at whether the fellow practitioner still had insufficiency and whether I had the same problem in the same aspect. Through learning the Fa with a peaceful mind, I found that everything around me was gradually changing. At the same time, my friends and relatives also understood the truth, one after another. They stopped thinking that I was just asking them for help, and some of them also told me that the dissatisfaction they had toward me had disappeared.

From my studying the Fa, I came to understand more and more and I felt more and more enriched. Many of our fellow practitioners formed a Fa study group, and I experienced the power of our integrated group. During the period when the evil was the most rampant, our Fa study group sent forth righteous thoughts every half-hour and disintegrated the evil's plan to persecute us, time after time. Our local fellow practitioners who were arrested had all demonstrated their firm belief before they were arrested. But when they entered that evil field and due to their prolonged lack of studying the Fa, only a few people walked out of there with righteous thoughts and deeds. To help our fellow practitioners, we sent forth righteous thoughts collectively. When we knew that some fellow practitioner showed signs of being persecuted, we would intensify our sending forth righteous thoughts. When a fellow practitioner went out to clarify the truth, we also sent forth righteous thoughts. Some fellow practitioners had attachments, and the evil wanted to persecute them. We would not allow that to happen. Therefore, the practitioners in our Fa-study group have rarely been interfered with by the evil for all these years.

Regarding my clarifying the truth, I have experienced many frustrations. Fear was one of my big barriers. I knew that every truth-clarification flyer I distributed had my information on it; thus the effectiveness of my flyer distribution was significantly related to my cultivation status. In the beginning, some non-practitioners threw away the truth-clarification flyer I handed them, and some refused to listen to my telling them the facts. On one occasion the police saw that I was posting a truth-clarification flyer; the police then chased me and I ran away. Now, I am much calmer than before; my calm mentality, with my pure, righteous thoughts, restrains everything around me that is not righteous. Every time I read the "Minghui Weekly" I read the Fa Teacher taught us:

"Validate the Fa with rationality, clarify the truth with wisdom, spread the Fa and save people with mercy" ("Rationality").

Yes, we must follow our Teacher's teachings at all times. We must take our cultivation seriously and take our own life and the lives of all living beings seriously. We must be serious about doing Dafa validation work, without any idea of leaving things to luck. We must not create new barriers in our path while we are clearing away the existing barriers. If we fell down during the peaceful personal cultivation period, we can still get up and move forward again. But today the old forces purposely want to destroy us; if we fall, they (driven by jealousy) will try with all their effort to destroy us, even at the risk of their own lives!

I have cultivated through the Fa-rectification period until today. I am grateful for our great Teacher's merciful salvation. Without Teacher's protection, I would not be able to sit here writing articles about my experiences. I am also grateful to all of my fellow practitioners. They quietly helped me and held my hand, helping me do the three things Teacher asked us to do. Today, I dare not say that I have grown in Dafa, but I can say that I am growing in Dafa!

The above are my personal experiences. Please kindly point out any mistakes.