Rectifying Myself with the Fa and Letting Go of My Notions

(Minghui.org) I am 52 years old and began Falun Dafa cultivation in 2013. In March 2020, during the outbreak of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus (a.k.a COVID-19), I was illegally tracked down by the police after handing out truth-clarification materials, and my home was ransacked. After that, I was illegally detained. 

Looking Inward at the Detention Center

After arriving at the detention center, I sent forth righteous thoughts to negate the persecution by the old forces. However, I couldn’t calm down. The scene of my home being illegally ransacked kept appearing: My husband was sleeping at the time. Seeing more than 20 police officers that suddenly broke into our home, he was stunned, because he was completely kept in the dark about my making truth-clarification materials. 

When the police officers ransacked my home, they turned even the basement upside down and made a huge mess. In the end, they confiscated my Dafa books, a computer, printer, hard disks, ink cartridges, and truth-clarification materials that I hadn’t completed. I was also arrested and taken to the police station. 

My husband was a timid and honest person. In his day-to-day life, he strongly relied on me, and his psychological well-being was relatively poor. As I sat down on the floor at the detention center to send forth righteous thoughts, the concern and longing for my husband always popped up in my mind. I felt so depressed, with negative thoughts constantly appearing: A great elimination was about to occur. I didn’t know when I would get out of there. Perhaps we wouldn’t see each other again. My heart hurt as if stabbed by a knife. 

Suddenly, Master’s Fa came into my mind: 

“... What is given up is not one’s selfIt’s all foolishness in the maze” (“Discarding Attachments,” Hong Yin II)

I suddenly woke up: What was I doing?! I was holding on to those attachments and didn’t want to let them go. I even felt bitter. As a practitioner, how should I treat this?! I have been arrested, so I must have attachments that were taken advantage of by the evil. Instead, I quickly looked inward and found that I was still attached to sentimentality towards my husband. 

I began to seriously look inward and realized I had many attachments, such as lust, jealousy, attachment to leisure, fear, attachment to doing things, a competitive mentality, resentment, and looking down on others. There were so many of them. 

What stood out was my attachment to my husband. Out of concern that he’d be worried about me, I always hid from him that I made truth-clarification materials. I made the materials when he wasn’t at home or when he slept at night. Moreover, I didn’t thoroughly help him understand the truth about Dafa. I needed to make a breakthrough in my family environment. With my mindset about making truth-clarification materials so impure, how could I achieve a good effect in saving sentient beings? As a result I was reported by people who weren’t clear about the truth, so I was arrested and persecuted. 

After I realized these attachments, I felt lighter inside. The heavy substance that was pressing down on me suddenly disappeared. The feelings of sadness and depression also vanished. It was as if the sky became much brighter. I knew it was Master who helped me remove the bad substance. Thank you Master!

Eliminating the Party Culture of Networking with Regular People and Bribery

In society today, networking and bribery to the point of using monetary assets are very common. In the first few days after I was admitted to the detention center, the thought of having my family find my non-practitioner friends to help me get out of the detention center often appeared in my mind. 

During those few days, I had three clear dreams in a row: In the first dream, after I saw my husband and brother, I quickly asked them, “Did you find my friends for help?” They replied, “Not yet.” After I heard that, I was very impatient, complaining to them about why they hadn’t quickly looked for them. In addition, I said, “If you don’t want to do it, I’ll do it myself.” 

In the second dream, after my friends learned what happened to me, they appeared very calm. It was as if it had nothing to do with them. Seeing their reactions, I was dissatisfied. I wondered how they could be so indifferent towards me during this difficulty. 

In the third dream, I invited my most capable friend over for a meal and asked her to help me. I toasted her with a full glass of wine, but she only used a small glass for me. She was also absent-minded as if she wasn’t worried about me at all. 

The scenes in my dream were very vivid and clear. I was enlightened that it was Master trying to give me a hint. Thinking back about the details in those dreams, I began to look inward: I’m a practitioner, and I have Master. How could I rely on regular people to help me? I must use this opportunity to eliminate all of my attachments, and have my righteous thoughts and actions come out. When I manage to leave here, it must be in a very righteous manner. 

In the following few days, my mind became much clearer. With that, my righteous thoughts also became ample. I thought: Master didn’t arrange for me to cultivate in this evil den. This isn’t the place where I am supposed to be. I must get out!

Therefore, I began to send forth righteous thoughts for an extended time and clarify the truth to the guards. I asked to write to the directors of the Domestic Security Division and went on a hunger strike. In the end, the guards in the detention center brought me five letter size sheets of paper, with the requirement that I had to start eating. I thought that as a practitioner, wherever we go, we have to clarify the truth. When I reached the goal of being able to write the truth-clarification letters, I stopped the hunger strike. 

I put my heart into putting together a 10-page truth-clarification letter to the directors of the Domestic Security Division and handed it to the guard station of the detention center. In the end, I had no way of knowing if it was delivered to the Domestic Security Division. But I believed that the guards in the detention center and their managers would have seen it. I hope everyone who got to read the letter understood the truth. 

Realizing Sentimentality Is Based on Selfishness

After I was illegally held at the detention center for over 20 days, I was transferred to another detention center in the same district where I was placed in isolation for another 14 days. It was a huge cell of over 1,100 square feet and as high as a two-story building. When I sat in this huge, dark room, I felt suffocated and depressed again. 

Looking at those empty beds, I thought: As a practitioner, how could I be so sad? That sadness isn’t me, but rather my attachments to leisure, fear, and sentimentality towards family. What made me feel uncomfortable was those attachments, not me, and I must eliminate them. 

I thought: Every day I am here, I must seize upon my every thought, and look inward to cultivate myself well. When I did this and changed my notions, the feeling of being suffocated disappeared. With that, my mood went back to normal. I sat in the lotus position and began to send righteous thoughts intensively. 

Prior to being arrested, I could only sit in the lotus position for 45 minutes. At the detention center, I insisted on doing the sitting meditation for an hour. Sometimes I did so a few times in one day. I recalled the Fa that I was able to recite. I remember that Master said, 

“The Fa can break all attachments; the Fa can destroy all evil; the Fa can shatter all lies; and the Fa can strengthen righteous thoughts.” (“Drive Out Interference,” The Essentials of Diligent Progress II)

When a practitioner leaves the Fa, he or she will be uprooted. I must continuously recite the Fa. 

In the first ten days of isolation at the second detention center, a female guard came to see me every day. She chatted with me, and I clarified the truth to her. I told her about the beauty of Falun Dafa, its miraculous effects of healing illnesses and keeping fit, the fact that Dafa has been spread to more than 100 countries around the world, and so on. She listened attentively every time. When I needed pens and paper, she always gave them to me. She often took the initiative to prepare hot water for me to take a bath. She brought me some living necessities, watched out for me, and reminded me to drink more water, and other things. Every day we had a good chat. 

One day she said, “I have to go home for a break. Due to the pandemic, it may be quite some time before I return to work.” She hoped that I would be released before she returned. 

After she left, I missed her and felt a bit lost. I quickly seized upon that feeling. We only knew each other for a few days, why did I start missing her? It was because she brought convenience to my life; she gave me a glimmer of hope in my loneliness and boredom; and she made me feel that I was cared about in that evil environment. It was only because she satisfied my selfishness, that I developed sentimentality towards her. 

Rectifying Myself with the Fa, Letting Go of Sentimentality for My Family

On the second day of my illegal detention, the head of the detention center brought me letters that my husband and brother wrote to me. In the letters, they mentioned that after I was arrested, they were extremely concerned about my safety. My brother wrote that he has lost his direction in life, since our mother recently passed away, and now his only sister had lost her freedom. My husband’s letter was even more emotional. He said he could hardly accept my sudden departure; thus, he had trouble falling asleep every night. He often went out at midnight for a run to ease his mind. 

The ultimate purpose of the letters was to encourage me to quickly “admit my mistakes,” so I could get out of here and return to my life. 

Upon reading their letters, I couldn’t help but become teary. I believed they had the feelings they described to me, yet I couldn’t do what they told me to. I didn’t commit any crime. What I am doing is the most upright thing in the universe. I’m Master’s disciple, only Master can save me. 

I got a pen and paper and wrote them a letter that went like this: Prior to cultivation, I had multiple illnesses. After I began cultivating, all of the illnesses were healed, which you witnessed. It is only because I am healthy that I can perform well at work and arrange my family life in a very organized way. I’ve held myself to the standards of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and been a good person. There is nothing wrong with that. In this turbulent society, despite the risk, I still gave out truth-clarification materials to save people who have been poisoned by the Party. Helping them understand the truth and have a bright future is my mission. It was not me who caused harm and pain, but rather the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). 

Three months later, my husband hired a lawyer for me. In my first meeting with the lawyer, he brought me letters from my husband, brother, son, relatives, and friends. There was a medical exam report for my brother and a few pictures of family get-togethers on key dates. I shed tears when I saw their words of concern for me, their faces in the pictures, and especially my brother’s physical examination report that included medical diagnoses like “suspect lung cancer.” My heart became very heavy.

Both of my parents had passed away, and I had treated my brother like my own child since childhood. While I was illegally detained, his physical health deteriorated. I wondered, could he get through that? 

In my husband’s letter, he said he missed me dearly. When I wasn’t around, his days felt like years, and he often wept. The mental pressure and pressure from work made him look much older. He hoped that I could work with the lawyer, sign the documents to plead guilty as soon as possible, try to get a reduced sentence or even be exempted from being sentenced, so as not to impact our son’s future, and come out earlier to reunite with the family. 

That night, I couldn’t fall asleep. I thought: A regular person’s life is predestined. If my brother has reached the end of his life, then there is nothing I can do. But I also believed that he’d be fine, as he knew the truth about Dafa. During all these years he helped me do many Dafa things. Thus, he will receive blessings for sure. 

When my son was at the university, he said his high-school classmate visited Korea and shared with him that Falun Dafa is highly respected in Korea. My son also carefully kept the amulet I gave him in his wallet. With that, he received blessings for knowing the truth. When he was applying to a university and looking for a job, everything went smoothly. Now he works for a famous enterprise in China with a decent income. My cultivating Dafa can only bring him good fortune; how could he be negatively impacted by me? 

After I rectified myself with Master’s Fa, let go of attachments to my family and the accompanying worries, I felt very relaxed and became more composed. Actually, they were all illusions, which came down to the fact that the old forces tried to use my sentimentality to drag me down. I almost fell into their trap. I am Master’s disciple. Only Master can say where I should be. Practitioners are the messengers of Gods. Since I’ve come here, everyone I encounter has a predestined relationship with me. They are sentient beings who came to be saved. 

I stopped thinking about returning home and about my brother’s illness. I only focused on how I could get along well with other inmates, pay attention to my words and actions, and be kind to others in order to showcase the beauty of Falun Dafa to them and lay a good foundation for clarifying the truth to them. 

It was arranged by benevolent Master that after most of the cell inmates learned the truth about Dafa and quit the CCP, I was moved to another cell. By the time I left the detention center, I had changed cells three times and helped 22 people renounce their memberships in the CCP and its affiliates.

A few years have passed since then, and my brother has been doing well. My son wasn’t impacted by me; moreover, he received a promotion and a raise at work. My husband became more independent at work and a more responsible person. As soon as I came out of that dark den, I retired. Since then, I’ve had more time to do the three things.