PureInsight | February 25, 2002
On my flight to Beijing there were several American practitioners and myself, a German. We avoided contact on the flight. My first tribulation came at the Beijing Airport. My luggage didn't arrive. They told me that it was still in Detroit.
When I arrived at the youth hostel where I had a reservation, I met several other practitioners from Sweden, the United States and Great Britain. Very soon we had a Dafa atmosphere like the one we had in the youth hostel in Geneva. Very harmonious and peaceful. We felt safe. We let our guard down. With another Dafa disciple, I made a trip to the Great Wall. With my tianmu (celestial eye or third eye) I saw some ancient horse guards riding along next to our bus and saluting us. It was like a fairy tale. I had a feeling of being home. At the Great Wall, under a beautiful blue sky, we sent forth righteous thoughts. Stronger, calmer and more powerful than ever before. The next morning, the thirteenth of February, a fellow practitioner told us that the hostel had been crowded with policemen. Those policemen disappeared after half an hour. We didn't wake up from our feeling of being safe.
I went to visit the Forbidden City. I came into contact with some young Chinese people in the afternoon. They were excited to meet a westerner. After a while I told them I practiced Falun Gong. They were even more surprised. I told them the truth about the persecution and how Jiang Zemin's regime had been manipulating them. It was a long and interesting afternoon. In the evening I returned to the youth hostel, entered the lobby, and was surrounded by thirty to forty policemen dressed in black. One put his hand on my shoulder and asked for my name. He told me they had been waiting for me only and that I was the last one. Five guided me to my room on the fifth floor. On the way I asked what was going on and if they were looking for drugs. I angrily showed them my entrance tickets to the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. On seeing the tickets to the Forbidden City they were surprised and became a little bit unsure. I felt the question in their heads: Why wasn't he in Tiananmen Square holding a banner? My room, 507, was completely empty. No luggage, no clothes, no bed sheets and no fellow practitioners. I used all my inner strength to stay calm. I continued acting like an innocent tourist, asking what was going on and stating that I had no drugs. I had only one week free time and I wanted to see Beijing! The chief of the police was a smart and charming policewoman. The interrogation started. After a while she asked me: Do you know Falun Dafa? I stared at her in a very surprised way, as if she had mentioned that the Great Wall was made of biscuits and cheese. I didn't say anything, only stared at her with open mouth. She said: "That means 'No'." I simply didn't answer. Why should I?! She took my passport and wrote down all the information. Another police officer came with a camera to photograph my passport. I refused and took it away. He looked up at his female supervisor and she shook her head to him. Then she wrote down the address of another hotel. She told me that it was near the airport and as cheap as this youth hostel. I was immediately alarmed. I knew that it was the same hotel in which the first group of practitioners was detained. She recommended to me that I go there and suggested that I take a taxi. She left the room with the other policemen. For a moment I was alone. I became very calm and determined: The evil forces will not take me away! No! I took my backpack and my small suitcase. Before anyone came back to guide me to a taxi or to somewhere, I went downstairs in an upright and calm manner, passing through all the small groups of the thirty to forty policemen. I simply didn't pay attention to them. At the entrance someone shouted at me to stop me. With an unmoved heart I continued my way. Another policemen told the shouting one: "It's okay."
Instead of taking a taxi to this "first red star class detention hotel" near the airport I went to a fast food restaurant. I had to think very calmly about my situation and about my plan for appealing the next day. I didn't know anything about the other practitioners, I only knew that the evil forces were aware of my plan and I was completely on my own. They had my passport number, so it was not possible to rent a new bed at another hotel. I knew they had a very tight information network connected to the police.
I looked at my map and decided to sleep outside under the sky. The Qinghua University seemed to me the best place. At universities there were usually a lot of foreigners. I came out of the fast food restaurant and took a taxi. In front of the restaurant there was a car waiting, with two darkly dressed men inside. When my taxi left, the car with the two men followed it. After a period of time on the highway I couldn't see if the car was still following me. We arrived at the University. I expected an open area like western universities, but the complex was surrounded by a wall and at the entrance was a police guard. Great! Quickly I told the taxi driver to turn into a nearby street. The area became darker and darker. To the taxi driver's surprise, I told him to stop near an alleyway. I paid him and got out of the taxi with my stuff. Shortly afterwards, a car with two men drove past the taxi and stopped twenty meters in front of it. One man left the car and came towards my direction. I rushed into the dark street with no streetlights. I looked for a place to hide. Was the man still following me or was he simply looking for a restaurant? At a small intersection I turned left. For a short moment he couldn't see me. Instead of jumping into the trash container on the right side or jumping over the wall into a garden, I ran to an open field. My intention was to lie down on the open field and stay still. It was a night without moonlight. Nobody would see me and nobody would expect someone to hide in an open field. Then I discovered a construction hole in the ground. I jumped into it and pressed myself onto the cold earth, no breathing, no moving, only listening, into the night. One or two other cars arrived, doors slamming, voices. For one or two hours I didn't move. I remembered in Zhuan Falun how the practitioners in the mountains sealed their caves with shentong (supernormal abilities). I decided to do the same and I simply trusted that it would work. The construction hole in the ground became my exercise place, my bed, my restroom, and my hotel for the night. It was a very cold and frosty night. But the cold was not as painful as the loneliness, not knowing what had happened to my fellow practitioners. I was completely on my own and I realized that I had become homeless in a land where evil ruled. It got very cold. After doing the fifth exercise I lay down to sleep singing Falun Dafa hao to the blinking stars in the sky above my cave. I felt lonely, but not lost. It was hard to describe, but I felt the power and the compassion of Dafa in my soul. This was my sheet cover for that night in the land of China.
In the next morning I jumped out of my "earth apartment." An old grandma stared at me, a dust covered westerner with his travel suitcase and backpack. I hid for the next hours in a bamboo grove in a park, before I went to Tiananmen. It was the fourteenth of February the day for me to validate the Fa. When I arrived, the whole area and all the entrances were overwhelmed with policemen. I went into the subway system in order to reach the line to the Square. A young policewoman blocked my way and, together with a colleague, she asked for my passport. Before they could ask me the critical question, if I knew Falun Dafa, I asked them if they could tell me the way to the Internet cafe. I saw it shortly before I went into the subway system. The policemen told me how to go there and I left complaining how confusing the subway system is. I realized they knew everything. They weren't simply blocking Tiananmen Square; they were hunting us westerners everywhere. I had to face the reality that possibly I was now the last free western practitioner in Beijing. I spent another night under the stars in Beijing, somewhere in the bushes on a company's grounds. That night I felt for a moment the soul and the being of my wife at home.
My plan was, if the place were to be closed on the fourteenth, I would do it the next day at the same time. I drank my last coffee at a restaurant bar near the Square, when I came across another practitioner from America. What a joy! I was thinking there must be other practitioners and we decided to separate and meet at the Square at two o'clock sharp.
The next day, I arrived three minutes after two, too late. I didn't see him. I saw no other western practitioners. I started to waver. Nobody knew I was there then. No journalist, no fellow practitioners. I strolled around and read "Lunyu." Only one word out of the lines flashed to me: ...forward.... It took me some further moments to go to "the line" into the Square, when suddenly a policeman stood in front of me, blocked my way and shouted aggressively at me to open the suitcase. I remained calm, laid down my suitcase, and opened it. When he started to search into my clothes, I stepped two steps back. I gripped my banner with "Zhen-Shan-Ren", which was hidden in my sleeve and started to sing "Falun Dafa hao." I felt how the four or five policemen dragged me and threw me down to the stones, hands and heavy bodies everywhere, knees in my back, and heavy boots on my legs. Still I continued to sing "Falun Dafa hao." Then they pushed me into a police van. I hoped that some Chinese people with predestined relationships watching this incident were able to position themselves in a good way in the new cosmos.
At the police station they pushed me into a room and I saw the U.S. practitioner in the corner. What a terrific feeling to see each other again! They started to take pictures of us in a very ill-behaved manner. The U.S. practitioner told me not to cooperate, as they would use the photos against Dafa. A few moments later the U.S. practitioner jumped over to the table, grabbed one of his pictures taken before my arrival and started to destroy it. He put the picture in his mouth when four or five policemen threw him to the ground and kicked and punched him severely for one or two minutes. I tried to reach him but another policeman grabbed me. With an upright palm I started to send forth righteous thoughts. They took a picture of me in this position.
The U.S. practitioner lay on the floor without moving. I asked him "Are you OK?" – No answer. All the time they ransacked and searched all our personal stuff. I suddenly noticed my photo with the upright palm on the table. I jumped at it, grabbed it and started to destroy it with my hands and teeth. Two police officers started to deal with me. I finished what I had to do. They didn't beat me as they did to the Chinese looking U.S. practitioner. He was now lying on a chair and throwing up blood and spit.
Later on they separated us. They took me into a van and drove me to another place. On the way I asked one of police officers, "what about the other guy?" He answered: "Which other person?" We entered the building, maybe a ministry, through a garage. The heavy iron gate closed behind us with a loud noise. Fluorescent electric lights. Closed area. Nobody knew where I was. For several minutes I had to face the garage wall. Then they pushed me into a small room for interrogation.
A young policeman who was able to speak German did the interrogation. Often he was speechless in a childish way, after I told him my true story about why I practiced Falun Gong and why I went to Tiananmen. After a certain time I was asked whether I was afraid. I looked at him and said: "No." After some seconds looking at me he said, "You will have your human rights."
They brought me into a room with two cells. In one of them I saw my fellow practitioner again, lying on his side. In my cell was a mattress covered with dried blood and all other sorts of human excrement. How much violence must have happened here. I sat down on the mattress and calmly started doing the fifth exercise. The nine to twelve policemen in front of the cell stopped talking immediately. Some started to shout, but not very determinedly. I continued with the exercise. Never was my mind so calm and peaceful. One policeman after another left the room. At the end my interrogator cried out to ask me why I was smiling. I didn't realize that I was smiling. It was the smiling of a Dafa disciple when he is beyond any fear and bad thoughts, when his heart is one with all upright beings in the cosmos. What I experienced during this sitting meditation is hard to describe with words. At one time I was in a room, confronted with the symbol of communism and several, maybe six, red flags. Everything was evil. With one pure thought and unlocked divine power I transformed all this evil matter into lotus flowers and other wonderful things. There was no hatred or anger in my heart and mind. Only wonderful unshakeable peace and a previously unknown boundless benevolence toward the cosmos with all its sentient beings were filling up all my true being. Everything was "hao" and "Zhen-Shan-Ren".
Later I did exercises one to four in my cell. My guards observed the exercises again. Afterwards I sent forth righteous thoughts in a dignified manner. After another several hours of detention they brought me to the airport and let me leave.
