Dou Jinbao uttered words very quickly as if pouring beans out of a bamboo tube during the interview. It was easy to understand his desire to get it off his chest, as he had finally got out of the quagmire of the Falun Gong cult. Unfortunately, his family was broken up due to his obsession with Falun Gong, and he felt ashamed to go to see his daughter.
Now, Dou Jinbao began busy life again. This kind of life gave him a sense of fullness, making him feel that life was full of sunshine. It was a life quite familiar to him, which had once made him feel the warmth of the family and enjoy the happiness of harvest.
Dou Jinbao is a resident of Songdong Village, Jiayue Town, Zhucheng City, Shandong Province. His parents are sincere and honest farmers. After graduating from junior high school, Dou Jinbao taught himself the skills of home appliance repairing while working as a household farmer. Because of his excellent skills, people around the village sent their home appliances to him for repair when they broke down. With his business increasingly booming, Dou Jinbao was filled with more hope for the future. Later, he got married and had his own small family. When his daughter was born, he felt that all the happiness in the world would soon fall on him.
However, while happiness was beckoning to him, a devil was creeping up on him. The Falun Gong cult spread to the local area like an annoying virus and propagated in every corner. In 1997, this abominable virus finally attached itself to Dou Jinbao. As Qigong was very popular all over the country at that time, the Falun Gong cult made its appearance under the guise of Qigong, claiming that practicing Qigong could cure all diseases. Dou Jinbao joined the ranks of Falun Gong practitioners with the desire to improve his health.
Dou Jinbao was suffering from rhinitis, which made him often feel uncomfortable due to gasping for breath. Then, an old woman in the neighborhood introduced him to a "magical qigong" known as Falun Gong. According to the woman, as long as you practiced Falun Gong, "Master” Li Hongzhi would help you eliminate karma; besides, you could also get the protection of Master’s law body, so everything would be all right with you even if you suffered a serious illness or disaster; moreover, one person practicing Falun Gong would benefit the whole family, and if you achieved consummation through cultivation, you could even become a Buddha and immortal.
The heretical fallacies and magical “gong” talked about by the old woman were very tempting to Dou Jinbao. He was used to hearing myths and legends since childhood and loved Qigong very much. He was also curious about becoming an immortal as described in the myths and legends and yearned for the magic power of Qigong. Thus he began to believe in Falun Gong in a muddle-headed way.
When attending the Falun Gong cult gatherings, Dou Jinbao felt all his physical discomfort had somehow disappeared through the exchange of practicing experience with his fellow practitioners. In addition, he got a sense of security from “the protection of Master’s Law Body," feeling that the "Falun Shield" and "Energy Field" were really unbreakable like steel. In fact, such a feeling emerged from the psychological suggestion from the Falun Gong cult, and practicing Falun Gong didn’t cure his rhinitis at all.
Through continuously “studying the Fa” and reading Master’s “scriptures,” Dou Jinbao had his mind filled with such things as "making advancement,” “going to higher levels," "reaching consummation," and "cosmic language." Whenever he closed his eyes, he felt he could “see” his heavenly eyes opened, the sight of ascension in broad daylight, and the heavenly world filled with gold. Being convinced that Master was "taking people to a higher level," Dou Jinbao became more and more disgusted with labor while "making advancement” in his cultivation. Gradually, he gave up his work to concentrate on “cultivation.” As a result, the days of his family were getting worse and worse.
Faced with the increasing difficulties in the family, Dou’s wife tried repeatedly to persuade him to give up Falun Gong and return to his normal life. However, Dou Jinbao, who had got increasingly obsessed with the Falun Gong cult, refused to yield to his wife's persuasion under the influence of the cult’s heresies of “cultivating away fame, material interest, and emotion.” Gradually, Dou ignored the existence of his wife and daughter. Finally, his wife divorced him in December 1997 and took her one-year-old daughter away with her. Later, she married again in a place far away from her hometown.
Dou Jinbao still didn't wake up to reality even after Falun Gong was outlawed as an evil cult by the Chinese government. Instead, he went further and further down the evil path that “Master” Li Hongzhi had set up. After feeing abroad, Li Hongzhi frequently issued "scriptures", instigating his followers to go out to disrupt social order and create chaos purposely in the name of "seeking explanations" and "clarifying the truth." Dou Jinbao once went to "clarify the truth” in Beijing. When he returned from Beijing, he continued to devote all his energy to "spreading the Fa.” During that period, he helped install illegal satellite receivers for Falun Gong practitioners almost every day.
Dou Qingpei, Dou Jinbao's father, said, "Falun Gong has caused great suffering to my family! It caused my son to neglect his family life and duties, which resulted in the breakup of his family. He wouldn't listen to us no matter how we persuaded him!" After Dou Jinbao divorced his wife, his parents repeatedly persuaded him to make a clean break with the Falun Gong cult. However, instead of following his parents’ advice, Dou Jinbao made a tremendous row with them from time to time. Later, he simply stayed outside for dozens of days at a time to avoid his parents' interference, without giving any thought to his senior parents’ daily worries about him.
Dou Jinbao had been punished many times for disturbing public order under the influence of "Master" Li Hongzhi. However, the Party and the government had never abandoned him but tried everything possible to remove the “toxins” from his mind and patiently led him to the right track of life. Dou Jinbao said, "It was the anti-evil-cult volunteers who had helped me gain a new life. Without their enthusiastic help, I would have been made more miserable by Falun Gong."
Through the unremitting efforts of the anti-evil-cult volunteers, Dou Jinbao completely recognized the nature of Falun Gong as an evil cult aimed at cheating people out of their money, fooling its followers, and harming society. Finally, Dou Jinbao returned to the right path and broke with the Falun Gong cult. With hope rekindled in his heart, he resumed his home appliance repair business and revitalized the crops grown in his family's fields.
Dou Jinbao had been looking forward to seeing his daughter, but after thinking it over and over again, he held back the idea for no other reason than because he felt ashamed to face his daughter, who was then a college student. His experience as a Falun Gong practitioner made him feel that it might bring shame to his daughter and made her feel embarrassed. However, he added, "Since I have a daughter, I should work harder. I only hope that I can fulfill my duty as a father in the future. Also, I hope those who are still obsessed with Falun Gong can get rid of the evil cult as soon as possible."
