The True Purpose of Life

My name is Li Zhen-Di (in Chinese Zhen-Di means True Purpose).  I am a young lady, 14 years of age, and I live in Tung-Shan city of Sichuan province in China.  I obtained the Dafa on April 2, 1997 from my Dad who introduced it to me.  When my father and other practitioners talked to me about Dafa, I felt sensationally good.  From then on, I walked in the Great Way of Cultivation.  

In July of 1999 we saw some articles that slandered Falun Gong.  As Dafa practitioners, during our discussions, we thought it was unfair to Dafa.  So we decided to relay our opinion to the government in two areas.  One group would go to the Shuchuan provincial government, and a group of three people would go to Beijing.  To me, I thought I should join them and take some action myself.

Dafa gives life to the practitioner.  A practitioner to Dafa is like a baby to a parent who nurtures and gives milk to the child.  The baby can not survive without the parent.  We need our Teacher to preach the Fa principles to us.  And we need the Universal Dafa to guide us on our journey of cultivation.  Without all this, we can not survive.  Therefore, when Dafa is being damaged in this earthly world, practitioners should stand up with our lives to protect it. So I made up my mind and went to Beijing with two other young ladies and one auntie on an airplane at 5am on July 22, 1999.

On our second day in Beijing, we met other practitioners from Tung-Shan and went together to a hotel.  At 3p.m. that day we saw some news bad-mouthing Falun Gong.  So we went to Zhong-Nan-Hai as 4 teams to voice our concern.  When the first team arrived the police detained them.  The police searched them and found the name of the hotel we were staying at.   The other three teams could not get into the government office so they returned to the hotel.   Upon our arrival at the hotel, the Beijing police took us away.  The provincial police sent us back to our hometown.  The police asked me whether I would continue to practice Falun Gong or not.  Because I said yes, they detained me for three days.  I did not feel ashamed or scared during my detainment.  On the contrary, I felt I was willing to suffer for Dafa?even if it meant being thrown in jail for a few years.  I just wished I could make the non-practitioners understand our thoughts and actions.

On October 13, 1999 approximately 20 practitioners went to Beijing again.  On board the train, two aunties and I went to buy the make-up tickets.  One train officer tried to do a crooked deal so that he would pocket some money.  Auntie told him that we were Falun Gong practitioners who should behave right and that we would not help him do any bad deed.  After learning that we were Falun Gong practitioners, the train officer sent us to the local police.  Back in Tung-Shan city my dad and others were detained for 155 days.  I was spared because of my young age.

In early November we went to Beijing again.  This time we were suffering much more.  On the second night there, being hungry and cold, we stayed outdoors sitting on the bench of a roadside vendor’s stand.  In the daytime, we walked and walked and then at night we slept in the waiting room of the Beijing train station.  At midnight the police woke us up to ask a few questions.  This time I was able to remain calm and answered the police in a nice way, which had been very hard for me to do before.

I would like to say something more about my going to the Tian-An-Men Square on November 16.  A few days before that, I heard that Dafa practitioners were planning to go there to display a banner and do the Falun Gong exercises in public (which was forbidden by the government).  After a brief consideration, I thought I should join in this activity.  Dad and aunties told me I should think it over carefully.  It could be dangerous as the police might beat us and put us in jail.  I remembered that on the past Saturday I had tried to ask for a leave of absence from school.  But all teachers were off on the weekend and they did not answer my pages to them.  It seemed like a test for me to let go of worrying.  For protecting Dafa, I should let go of my concern for other things and not worry about any thing.

The Teacher exhausted all from himself for us; so there is nothing we can not give up for Dafa.  He says in the article True Cultivation, “Can you bring to paradise the things that you can’t give up in your heart?”  I thought we should do something to show that Dafa is not evil, as it teaches people to be good while cultivating their mind nature.  We should try our best even at the cost of suffering in life to explain this fact peacefully to the government, which mistakenly labelled Falun Gong a cult.  So I said, “I have already thought it over.  I want to go.”   

On the morning of November 16, I took a taxi with Grandpa and Grandma to the square.  There were a lot of plain-clothed police and tourists, as well as Falun Gong followers, some of whom we knew and some we did not.  People were walking around here and there.  At approximately 9a.m., one Falun Gong male started playing the music of exercise two from a cassette recorder.  And two other men quickly and suddenly pulled out a banner displaying the words “Falun Dafa”.  Right away, I ran there and stood in front of the banner so as to start raising my hands in the position of Holding the Wheel.  It only lasted about 10 seconds or so when I heard a policeman shouting angrily while charging towards us to grab the banner.  Then more policemen came to pull down the banner.  While the exercise music was stopped, some practitioners were still in the Holding the Wheel posture.  I turned and saw one policeman trying to force a practitioner’s hands down that were moved back to the raised position.  Then somehow, I was pushed out from the spot into the on-looking crowd.  Meanwhile I saw two practitioners tugging at the precious banner and the police kept hitting the hands of those two practitioners.  By that time many Falun Gong practitioners were taken away to the police vans.  At that I was heart broken and cried with tears.

Nowadays what happens to the society? We Dafa practitioners are good people.  Why does the government want to detain us?  Isn’t it better to have more good people? Why not give us a chance to be good people?  I stayed at the Square until a little bit after 1p.m.