[Case 4]

Falun Gong Ruins My Family[①]

I'm Li Guanglian, 38 years old, primary school teacher in Yishui County, Shandong Province. I gave up Falun Gong six years ago, as for the miserable experience of practicing Falun Gong; I don't want to recall it all these years. Finding so many practitioners without any knowledge about the truth and sticking to the old road I was on in the past, however, I feel uneasy and decide not to sit there doing nothing at all. With the help of Kaiwind.com, I want to tell those still being obsessed by Falun Gong the lessons I had learned and the stories on how Falun Gong cult ruined my family so as to give a warning to all practitioners.

Before I started to practice Falun Gong, I used to have a happy family. Both my husband and I had a good job. Although the family income was not very high, yet we lived a happy life, with a hardworking and caring husband and a lovely daughter, my family was in harmony, joy, and happiness.

Accordingly, after I gave birth to my daughter, I felt so carefree and started to gain weight.

But, everything changed gradually after I started to practice Falun Gong, and I destroyed my family due to being obsessed with the cult.

Back in 1998, since I'd always wanted to be beautiful, I tried all means to lose weight, but the results were unsatisfactory. Just at that time, one of my neighbors told me: "To practice Falun Gong can not only help you to lose weight, but also make you more beautiful and young forever." So I decided to give it a try and started to learn the exercises of Falun Gong from several fellow practitioners. According to the rules of Falun Gong, I got up early in the morning and stayed up late in the evening to practice for two hours everyday. Several months later, I really lost some weight. Then my fellow practitioners told me that if I wanted to keep it that way, I'd got to read Zhuan Falun by Master Li. So I started to "study Fa" besides doing exercises.

I read Zhuan Falun by Li Hongzhi and it said: "After our Falun Dafa students cultivate a while the way they look changes a lot. Their skin becomes delicate and fair, it glows with health, which is all common. You truly do a dual practice of nature and longevity you'll naturally get that, and I can guarantee you won't need to do facials." I wanted to be more beautiful and kept that way, so I started to grow admiration toward Li Hongzhi, for I believed that Falun Gong he founded was just amazing. Gradually, I lost the normal thinking pattern as an ordinary human being; as an intellectual, I didn't know that my losing weight was actually the result of physical exercises. Anyway, I started to believe in Li Hongzhi and his Falun Gong against all logical thinking.

Before I realized it, I've read most books of Li Hongzhi, Zhuan Falun, Explaining the Content of Falun Dafa, Falun Buddhism on Reaching Consummation, and Fa Teaching in Singapore, etc., finding that some of its theories including "Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance," "not to participate in political affairs," "to look inward for the cause within when things happen" match with my own principles and life philosophy. I believed that to practice Falun Gong could not only make me more beautiful but also improve my character, and it was worth doing. From then on, I started to give top priority to the practicing of Falun Gong in my life, spending all my spare time in Fa study and in practicing. As a result, I didn't treat my students so seriously as I had been before, I was no longer be so patient with my girl. At the sight of a toddler crying for mother, I would feel so uneasy and vexed.

At the same time, I gradually felt that I was not in line with the environment of "ordinary people." Whenever I saw my colleagues worked actively and hard, I would discard them for "being involved in vanity fair" and for being so vulgar. As for my husband, all he did was working, taking care of daughter, doing household chores, so I felt he was so pathetic for being an "ordinary man." For Li Hongzhi once said that: "The human beings are those fall downwards from the universe, while the Earth is but the garbage dump ... the entire process of cultivation is to continuously get rid of the attachments of human beings." Later on, my family that used to be so warm to me gradually became an obstacle on my way of cultivation. One day, my daughter had a hyperpyrexia, in order to practice as usual, I did nothing but to give her some medicine for adults. Two days later when my husband went back, our daughter became dazed. My husband was so angry that he criticized me: "The kid is so ill and how can you still study Fa and practice it, are you the mother of this girl?" At these words, I argued confidently: "A practitioner will benefit the entire family, our girl will be just fine!" Ever since, our quarrels have never stopped and my husband proposed divorce several times out of anger.

Then the government announced that Falun Gong was banned as a cult, and at that time, with the regulation of the law and the attitude of my families, I should have wakened up. But I didn't see through the nature and danger of Li Hongzhi and his Falun Gong, holding that the order of banning was unfair to both Master Li and Falun Gong. I thought to myself: how could it be wrong to "improve one's health" and to "be a better person"? As a result, I was on the illegal road and committed crimes. Being encouraged by the lies of Li Hongzhi that "those practicing at home will get evil enlightenment," while "those stepping out of the home are great," I had been to Beijing for three times leaving my 2-year-old daughter at home.

Due to my performance, I was appointed as the Falun Gong counselor in my county. But it was a dilemma for me with the disciplinary restriction of my school and the emotional attachment to my family. After several days of hesitation, I went back to work at school. Taking into consideration of the fact that my daughter was still very young, the school leaders let me submit a written promise on not practicing Falun Gong anymore in future. But I didn't change my mind to return the kindness of school leaders; on the contrary, I started to work for Falun Gong in secret.

Since then, when it was getting dark, I would go out to distribute Falun Gong materials and communicate with other fellow practitioners in the name of taking the kid out to play around. I did all these very carefully, but still, my husband found about the truth. In order to stop me, he sent the kid to his parents while he managed to go back home early everyday to keep me company. Being house arrested, I had another plan of doing all these at work. Finally, the school was going to send me to the Study Group, at the hearing of which, I ran away from home on that very night and started my four-year journey of being a professional Falun Gong practitioner.

In order to gain "Consummation" advocated by Falun Gong, I really did what Li Hongzhi taught us to do, "to bear what no ordinary human being can bear." But in real life, what I really got is injuries and hurts instead of so-called "Consummation."

When I was on the run, the only support I got was from the fellow practitioners, and I was no longer a respectable teacher in both appearances and behaviors. Although I always comforted myself: "I'm the sacred Dafa disciple," yet the real life full of hardships of living in the open had turned me into a beggar. When life was hard, I couldn't stop missing my girl. In order to have a look at her, I sneaked back home at night several times, taking a look at her outside the window of her bedroom. One day at the end of 2000, the only I wanted to do was to give her a hug and so I opened the door and stole away the girl still soundly asleep. With her around, I started to know what the word "hardship" really meant. Back then, she had fresh fruits everyday at home; but during two months with me, I could hardly get enough food for her. I remember it clearly till now that she once took quiet a while eating half an apple picked up from garbage can and really enjoyed it very much, I felt so painful at the sight: my child, a princess loved by all in a family, now became a little beggar because of my practicing Falun Gong! I used to double on what benefits Falun Gong really brought to me. But then I recalled what Li Hongzhi said: "Gong cultivation has a way, the heart is the path, Dafa has no bounds, hardship serves as the ferry."[②] So I didn't give it up. In a cold winter, I couldn't afford a hotel room and had to take my daughter to a pile of corn stalk at night. Both of us were frozen. If it were not a kind old man who managed to warm us up, it's probable that we would end up like Liu Chunling and her daughter, reaching "Consummation" in the paradise created by Li Hongzhi. But this didn't make me change my mind either

I stole my baby, which was the last straw breaking the back of my exhausted husband. At the news that he fell ill, I felt a little uneasy and went back home at midnight with our daughter. At the sight of us, my weak husband knelt down in front of me, begging me to give up Falun Gong. But at the thought of the teachings by Li Hongzhi that "you won't cultivate if you don't give up emotions ... to give up fame, interest, and emotion is the only way to reach Consummation and to go up to heaven," I told my husband resolutely: "I'd rather lose everything than giving up Falun Gong."

Being homeless and wandering from place to place, home became nothing for me, especially being controlled by the spirit advocated by Li Hongzhi, I believed that: "Who are your real relatives? Nobody when you close your eyes ... How many parents have you had in so many lives? No one is able to count them." Just like that, I have been full-time practitioners for three years. At that time, I heard that, in order to take care of our young daughter, my husband had to take the responsibilities as both a mother and a father. Besides, he had to work to support the family and his weight reduced quickly from 90kg to 65kg. As a wife, I didn't feel guilty for that but complacent for being able to "pass the test of emotions." I even showed it off to others: "When I finally make it, my husband must be the one benefiting the most from it." Just like that, I deserted, dragged, and hurt my husband, who had to bear all the pressures. He was exhausted and couldn't stand the torture brought by me, an obsessed Falun Gong practitioner. Finally, on the third year I got away from home, he made up his mind to give me up, to give up the wife that he used to love so much. So that's the benefit Li Hongzhi promised to his loyal followers, a broken marriage and a broken family.

Many others "benefited" from my cultivation too, especially my parents and parents-in-law, among which the one "benefiting" the most is my mother, who missed her only daughter so much that she had an acute cerebral haemorrhage and been bed-ridden ever since, being this close to death at one time.

Such an experience of cultivation that I find unbearable to recall! Going through all these, I conclude that what's behind the propagation of "one practitioner benefiting the entire family" advocated by Li Hongzhi is actually the real scenes of frightened and tortured families and even a broken marriage, a broken family.

Thank the Communist Party and the government for not giving me up so that I had a chance to start all over again and to have a new family. But I have paid such a big price for the happy life today. Look what I have got in return for what I have sacrificed so much! Brothers and sisters, if you are still obsessed with Falun Gong, wake up right now! What Li Hongzhi said that "one practitioner will benefit the entire family" is a poisonous sword; don't let it hurt our relatives again!

[Case 5]

Falun Gong almost Makes Me Isolated from All My Relatives and Friends[③]

My name is Zhao Xiaoping. I'm a farmer in Baixiang County, Xingtai City, Hebei Province. Now, when I recall the course of practicing Falun Gong, I find my life during those three years miserable and tortuous.

Wishing to improve health and follow the good, I started to practice Falun Gong in 1998. Soon after that, I was totally obsessed by the so-called "Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance" preached by Li Hongzhi. And my thinking and doing changed radically. I hung the portraits of Li Hongzhi all over the walls, practiced Falun Gong all day long and stopped talking to others. At that time, I regarded Dafa study as the first priority in my life. Once I saw my family members working industriously, I became quite annoyed. I thought if we practiced Falun Gong, we could go to "Paradise" and gain "Consummation" easily and there was no need to work hard. I thought it was my "glorious" responsibility to persuade them into practicing Falun Gong and help them to get out of "the abyss of misery." At first, I tried to persuade my son to set an example for others. I went to his home everyday and asked him to practice Falun Gong with me. However, my daughter-in-law was strongly against me, and she said I had already become insane because of Falun Gong and she didn't want his husband to suffer the same. I was furious, and then I started a rumor in my village that my daughter-in-law was a "devil" that prevented my son from reaching Consummation. For this, my daughter-in-law hated me intensely. Each time I went to my son's house, she would stand in the way with a kitchen knife in her hand threatening to die together with me if I dared to get in. When I found it's impossible to persuade my son, I began to instruct my sister who used to practice Falun Gong. I went to her home at intervals and persuaded her into practicing Falun Gong again. Knowing this, my nephew drove me away from his home, condemned me as "an evil spirit" and forbad me to go to his home forever. After these failures, I was more assured with my responsibility to "save all sentient beings." Whenever I dropped around relatives and neighbors, I would instruct them to practice Falun Gong, while they would turn away from me as avoiding the plague. Finally, I was raging and firmly believed in the words of Master Li Hongzhi: they are just ordinary people, the devils interfering with Fa-rectification. Only by cutting off my relations with them and letting go of attachment could I "get into a higher level" and gain Consummation. As a result, I purposely disconnected communications with all my children, relatives and neighbors and made myself utterly isolated from the outside world.

Later on, with the help of government instructors, I gradually realizes my absurdness. It is my perverse belief that made me isolated from my children; my selfishness made me loss all my relatives; and my striving for Consummation drove neighbors away from me. They are not devils; it is Falun Gong that made me a devil. To my gratitude, ever since I have stopped believing in Falun Gong, my relatives and friends come back to me and my life is full of laughter and happiness again.

[Case 6]

Falun Gong Deprives Me of the Last Chance to Requite My Mother[④]

My name is Zhang Zhenyu and I live in Yangji Town, Tancheng County, Shandong Province. Seven years ago, as an obsessed Falun Gong follower in pursuit of "going to Paradise and reach Consummation," I blindly disregarded affections from my family, became inhumane and ignored social ethics and laws. My inhumanity brought endless vexation and sadness to my family; as a result, my mother left the world with eternal regret and pain.

Looking back, I felt as if I had lived a dream; however, all that happened remained so vivid.

In hopes of "cultivating mind and following the good," I began to practice Falun Gong in 1995. The fabrication "to get into a high level" and "to reach Consummation" invented by Li Hongzhi dissolved my world-weariness and catered to my indolent attitude. At that time, I imagined how wonderful it would be if I could cultivate myself into a god or Buddha in my life. So I was totally obsessed by Falun Gong and practiced it day and night. During that period, I became indifferent to any other things, insolated myself from the society (I disconnected communication with others, stopped reading other books and refused to watch television including CCTV news programs), pursuing nothing except Consummation. I even stopped doing chores or farming. I was intoxicated to believe "I am the only sober person in the world" and plunged myself completely into an evil trap set up by Li Hongzhi.

Before the"4.25 Incident," I spared no efforts to spread the Fa in order to "acquire virtues" and "get into high level," and even persuaded my kind-hearted wife to believe it. When the government banned the cult in 1999, I left my five-year-old son alone at home and went twice to Beijing with my wife to seek "Consummation." When asked by others why I didn't take my son with me, I told them absurdly "the child is too young to be taken into Paradise and I let him accompany the elderly." In fact, my mother then was confined to bed by serious illness; my 60-year-old father had to attend not only to my mother, but also my 80-year-old grandmother who was almost incapable of taking care of herself. However, I burdened him more by leaving my little son to him. It is impossible for my aged father to look after them all, let along to cope with the Autumn Harvest. But I was deeply captivated by the lie "When he succeeds in cultivation in the future, he will get whatever he wants just by holding out his hands... he can bring his relatives to his own paradise as sentient beings." I disregarded my family but comforted myself with so-called "Repaying with blessings in Paradise." In order to reach Consummation and go to Paradise, I totally ignored my parents' sufferings.

Now, recollecting this, I, with the original aim to "cultivate mind and follow the good," have actually gone to the opposite. Disregarding my mother's illness, I believed she needed to remove her Karma; neglecting my father's hardship, I considered that to be his fate, he deserved it. How selfish, brutal and inhuman I had been!

My parents loved me with their whole heart, brought me up through all kinds of hardship and helped me to set up a happy family; but when they badly needed me, I offered nothing but harm to them inhumanly many a time!

When my wife and I violated national law for distributing Falun Gong leaflets and had been taken into custody, my seriously-ill mother who was helped by the trembling hands of my aged father came to see me. She took my hands and said to me in tears, "My boy, come back home. We all need you." I pushed away her hands and climbed up to the window, waiting for the appearance of "propitious clouds" and the moment to go to Paradise.

I wrote a promise against my will to say I would stop practicing Falun Gong when I heard about my mother was terminally ill.

When I went back home, I felt dazed all day long, paying no attention to my mother's illness for fear that I would be punished by Li Hongzhi. I remembered he used to say: Those who betrayed Falun Dafa would "be sent to hells; be tortured and disposed of physically and spiritually for good"; he also emphasized many times that those who betrayed the main deity were more guilty and whose original souls would be threw down to hell, then be put in a spittoon. The spittoon was full of phlegm of the sick and you would be there forever. The Master would keep you conscious, making you suffer the unbearable filthiness eternally.

Hoping to make up my mistakes, I together with my wife fled to Hebei Province in 2000, leaving my critically ill mother and my little son at home again. We rent a room there and engaged in Falun Gong activities heart and soul. Harboring the aspiration to gain Consummation sooner and incited by "no pains, no gains" boasted by Li Hongzhi, we handed out leaflets secretively and industriously. I totally forgot my pathetic mother. If not my wife made a call home out of worrying; my family even couldn't connect me to inform me of my mother's death.

My mother left the world with deep regret; I, being intoxicated by Falun Gong, even shed no tiny tear for her, neither had I kowtowed in her mourning hall as others usually do. According Li Hongzhi, we cultivated people were superior and how could we kowtow to those "ordinary people"? My mother was an "ordinary person," and she died because her longevity ended. There was, of course, no need for me to feel sad! I was truly fatuous and inhuman at that time!

[Case 7]

Falun Gong Changes Me into an Inhuman Puppet[⑤]

My name is Liang Xiuyun, 39 years old, and I used to be an employee in the former Xinyu Company, Shiyan City of central China's Hubei Province. I had a happy family: My husband is a teacher in a key high school, and my son is smart and lovely. In April 1997, I was attracted by the dazzling lies, such as "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance" and "To be a good man," which invented by Li Hongzhi. And I was stuck in the mud of Falun Gong. Finally, the kindly help from the society influenced me, saved me, showed me the right way and gave me a brand new life. Whenever I look back at the past, my heart would be full of tangled feelings and the haunting remorse.

It was in 1997 that I first came into contact with Falun Gong. At that time, I suffered from the protrusion of the lumbar intervertebral disc and a gastric ulcer. I had to go to hospital frequently in poor health. Later, I heard that Falun Gong could "cure the disease and strengthen the body," could practice "Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance" and could teach people how to "be a good man," so I took part in the Falun Gong practice group without any hesitation. At the beginning, I just practiced it on the playground and read the books sometimes; by and by, I began to exchange views with the elder practitioners and did more study on the Fa. I was not satisfied with just "studying the Fa" and "practicing Gong," so I started to "spread the Fa" and "report the situations." Finally I even became more "advanced" than some elder practitioners. Probably because the increase of the physical exercise and the regular daily life, I really felt better; but I thought I did benefit from Falun Gong, so I got more addicted to it; I even cut out all the connections with the society and didn't care about my family. After the "4.25 Incident," my husband stopped me from practicing Falun Gong, but I didn't want to obey him. Even though he ripped all of my Falun Gong books, I'd already made up my mind to continue. When the government banned Falun Gong according to law, I was very confused: it was right to be a good man, and the idea of "Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance" was the traditional virtue in our culture, then, what's wrong with Falun Gong? Why must it be banned? When I was puzzled about these questions, the "scriptures" from Li Hongzhi came out one by one, asking the Falun Gong disciples to go out "to rectify and protect the Fa." I said to myself that it's a test of Falun Gong disciples' faith to the Fa. Li Hongzhi said: "The ones who study and practice secretly are controlled by the Demon, and they will get the evil apprehension," "the ones who come out to testify the Fa are great." In August 1999, instigated by Li Hongzhi's scriptures, I gathered with others to appeal to the government and distributed leaflets everywhere. Finally, I was sentenced to labor restriction (Reform through Labor) for one year on the charge of disrupting public order.

At first I was very stubborn in the prison, and I felt proud of my sacrifice to the truth, because Li Hongzhi had said: "A great disciple would never attach to anything that belongs to the ordinary people, even the life." So it is not shameful to be jailed, and I felt very nice for being a great disciple. During this period, my husband could not withstand the huge mental pressure, so he fell ill several times. No one took care of him, so he was confined to bed in hospital all by himself. But he had to think about his son's meal and his wife's situation... While, at that time, feeling unfair about the injustice to Li Hongzhi and Falun Gong in the labour camp, I cried out and knocked against the iron gates. Under the mental control by Li Hongzhi, I lost my humanity long before, finally I lost all my feelings. The letters from my sick husband writing in the hospital didn't touch me. In fact I took his sincere persuasion as a test to me. The tearful policewoman said to me: "Your husband's getting worse because of you, so you have to wake up to reality right now, or you'll never see him again." I turned a deaf ear to these words and I had but one thought: Discard fame, material interests and emotions, you'll gain the Consummation in the heaven. Yes, the "Consummation" braced me to struggle with "the Demon," but my husband and my son were worried about me night and day; they thought I suffered the tortures reported on the Minghui, so they often woke up from the nightmare that my hands were broken by tortures. Being a sick man, my husband struggled to visit me in Shayang. He was not familiar with the roads, so when he arrived, it was one o'clock in the midnight, and he missed the shuttle to the Reform through Labor unit. To meet me sooner, he didn't rest in the hotel but walked to the labour camp. It took a whole night for him to get there alone on a wild road without a single road lamp, dragging a huge bag and a sick body. It was five o'clock when he arrived. When the policewoman asked me to meet him, I found him wearing disheveled hair and his face was sallow, apparently he was totally exhausted. He was sitting on the bed, holding his feet with his hands. The policewoman told me that his feet were full of blisters, and required me have a good look at them. But I refused. My husband held my hands at full tilt, tears in his eyes. He said: "Your hands are ok, the policewomen here are not like what Minghui said, so I am relieved, I can have a sound sleep from now on..." These words made the policewoman tearful, but none of me, since I thought he was "the demon" that disturbed my practice. This made my husband very sad, he said I had changed from a reasonable and kind person into a dumb and unhumanized puppet.