Portrait of Li Zhiming
"Wake up! Daughter! You can’t just leave me like that!” The old man beside the sickbed was so grief-stricken that he wailed himself out of consciousness. In the bed was his daughter who had just passed away at an early age. Everyone in the ward was brought to tears by the scene of a bereaved father crying over his daughter.
The woman who just died was named Li Zhiming, born in March, 1963. She lived in a state-run farm in Heilongjiang province.
Li Zhiming had a very happy family with her loving husband and filial daughter. She used to be a saleswoman in a department store. She rented a counter when the store was restructured, and started to sell stationery. The business had good returns. Her life, though moderate and busy, was brimming with happiness, until everything was changed by her practicing Falun Gong.
On a day in June, 2001, Li Zhiming settled her counter as usual, preparing for the department store to open. An elderly woman told Li mysteriously that she had just begun to practice a miraculous qigong that can prevent disease, improve health and bring well-being to all family members. At that time Li suffered from constant backache and lumbago caused by her toiling work as a saleswoman, and she wished with all her heart that all her family members were healthy and happy. Then, under the “guidance” of that elderly woman, she began to practice Falun Gong.
At first the learning and practice was done in free time, which did not interfere much. Then her business faltered for some reason and she was troubled by difficulties, which spared her a lot of time and energy to spend in practicing Falun Gong whose heretical doctrines she found increasingly attracting.
In 2002 her family started to grumble about her change. But she was deaf to their admonition, considering it a “test of familial affection” that she must pass. So she went further in her own way, stopped doing business or caring for her family, and turned her back on her friends. She spent all her energy in reading books and scriptures of Falun Gong. Staying at home to practice and going out to advocate, everything she did she did to “accumulate the Gong” and “be elevated”. She had no hesitation in buying anything associated with Falun Gong, and treasured them as her own life. After many vain attempts to exhort Li, her husband divorced her in October, 2002, and left to Shandong province, taking their daughter with him.
Already in the tight grasp of Falun Gong, Li thought of the divorce as another test of familial affection that she had just passed, as Li Hongzhi mentioned, “Do not cling to familial affection, because it will exhaust you, trap you and possess you. By the time you realize it, you will have spent your life in the harassment of emotional attachments, you will find yourself too old to regret”. In this way, she sank deeper and deeper into the cult Falun Gong.
She was very pleased that her husband had left – a proof of her ascension to a higher level. A step away from familial affection and love, a huge leap, Li thought of her improvement in Falun Gong cultivation, much closer to Consummation. She often invited home other Falun Gong followers to practice together covertly. Her home then functioned as a secret contacting lair of practitioners.
Her aged father, having done everything he could to pull her out of the obsession with Falun Gong but still failed, tore into shreds all her books of Falun Gong that numbered over 70, and destroyed all the propaganda materials one day when she was out. She was furious with him as she cherished those books more than her own life, and now saw him as a devil. Gone berserk, she had a fervent wrangle with him, smashed everything she could in the house, and vowed to repudiate him.
In 2004 Li contracted ovarian cancer. All her relatives and friends advised her to go to the hospital for treatment. However, obsessed with Li Hongzhi’s theory of removing karma, she thought of the cancer as the master’s trial, and refused to go to the hospital or take any medicine. Her aged father tried every possible means to persuade her. But she seemed immune to both indignant reproach and tearful entreaty.
If treated at an early stage, 90% of ovarian cancer patients can survive. At her father’s demand, her relatives forced Li into the hospital. But she was resolute in her refusal of treatment of any kind. She categorized the relatives, friends and doctors as the old forces that tried to disrupt Fa and impede its spread, as the master described. It was her strong belief that the master’s Law Bodies would sure help his disciples break loose from this bleak world of trash pile, and ascend to the marvelous heaven of Falun Gong. So she forced out of the hospital, and since did nothing but practice Falun Gong every day.
Her pious cultivation never stopped even when she was terminally ill. She was still expecting for numerous Law Bodies of the master that can work wonders to heal her soon. No longer able to stand the sight of his daughter tormenting herself, Li’s father forced her into the hospital again. But the examination showed that cancer cells had spread throughout her body, and it was no use treating her. In addition, since she was not cooperative, her condition might be aggravated from mental repulsion and tension. While the aged father was overcome with grief, she perceived this as a divine manifestation of the master whose Law Bodies were protecting her from the harassment of the mortal, a symbol of her drawing nearer to Consummation.
Instead of receiving any kind of help from Li Hongzhi or Falun Gong, her conditions worsened in less than two months. She died on October 1, 2005 at the age of 42.
