PureInsight | June 5, 2006
[PureInsight.org] Perhaps in my
last life, I met a horrible death. It must have been a miserable life
because, in my earliest memory, I was five years old and I used to hide
under the quilt blanket crying secretly out of fear of dying. At that
time, I had never seen a dead body and had never heard of people dying,
yet I was afraid of dying. I was afraid that when I died, I would lie
in a cold dark place and would be unable to move. I dared not tell the
other members of the family of my fear, and had to bear it quietly by
myself. When I think about it now, my fear of death actually has helped
me a lot in my later life. Otherwise, as I learned to treat life with
indifference in my later years, and developed an overzealousness to do
whatever the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) required of me, I do not
know how many times I could have been killed.
(1) Treating "Heroes" as Models and Always Being Prepared to Sacrifice My Life
When I was in primary school, the CCP encouraged everyone to learn from
the good Samaritan Lei Feng. At that time I believed all the propaganda
of the CCP and did my best to emulate Lei Feng. I told myself that I
would not seek benefit for myself in any way, but to benefit others,
while treating an enemy coldly like a severe winter, callously and
mercilessly. Being able to live in the City of Beijing, the heart of
the "World Revolution," even though most people were living in hardship
at that time, I felt that I was incomparably fortunate. In my heart of
hearts, I was always thinking that two-thirds of the people in the
world were in the abyss of suffering (those who lived outside of the
Communist Bloc, as we were taught by the CCP). The CCP preached that we
must live for others, sacrifice ourselves for the nation, and only that
was being "Great and Honorable". Since everyone must die, one must die
a worthy death, otherwise life would have the value of a goose feather.
In the event of a war after I grew up, I was to become a solider and,
in order to avoid being captured by the enemy, the last bullet must be
reserved for me. The last hand grenade would be for taking the enemy
with me, otherwise I would be a worthless coward. As a result, I always
held onto the thought that I must "Be prepared to sacrifice myself for
the CCP and always in readiness to struggle for life or death with the
class enemies that are damaging socialism." At one stage, my intention
of sacrificing myself for others and to vigorously exert myself to save
the national wealth from being damaged became quite developed. As I
walked along the street, I would look around to see if there was any
opportunity to save others, and at every moment be on my guard to seek
out those class enemies and stop them from taking part in destructive
activities.
Gradually, as I was taught not to treasure my own life, I began to
treat other people's lives with indifference as well. If I reckoned
someone should have sacrificed his life for the "greater good" but did
not do so, I would despise that person, and cannot understand why that
person, at the crucial moment, did not sacrifice himself for others?
Later, I saw in some foreign films that the hero did not use the last
bullet to take his own life, but would meekly surrender, or be taken
prisoner by the enemy. I thought those were the most despicable acts.
It took a long time for me to realize that what they did was yet
another way to exist.
(2) Growing to Suspect the Party and Later to Detest the Party
Later, I began to have doubts about the party and eventually grew to
detest it. Initially, because I was naive and simple in nature, I was
easily hoodwinked by the Party. When I was growing up, I often heard
that the Chinese Nationalist Government that the CCP had overthrown to
take over power in China was incompetent, corrupt and could not provide
the citizens with a proper livelihood and hence must be overthrown. On
the other hand, I was told that the CCP should be in power because it
was great and wise and the CCP officials worked for the well-being of
the people.
But, subsequently, I observed that the Chinese peasants were living in
severe hardship. Even my elder brother from Beijing who went to settle
in the countryside was also very poor. My brother worked exceedingly
hard for three years and only earned a total of a bit more than five
hundred yuan (Chinese currency). The peasants looked towards the people
living in the cities as if they were living in paradise. But in public
the peasants still had to shout out slogans like "Our lives are sweeter
than honey!" that the CCP had taught them. In fact, at that
moment, the people who lived in Beijing were not so well to do either.
Actually they were also very poor. When watching films from overseas, I
noticed that people there were living better lives than the people in
Chinese cities. I was astonished. They were living in the abyss of
suffering and in poverty like we were taught by the CCP. I thought
their lifestyle was much better than ours. To me, it indicated that the
Communist Party hadn't been leading China well.
At that time, I often thought to myself, "The CCP hasn't been
administering the country well. That was because they did not have the
capacity to do so. It was just the same as when the Nationalist
Government was overthrown. The XX Party should therefore relinquish the
power honestly and allow others to take over." Hence I patiently waited
for them to step down. But as they continued to do everything to stay
in power, I became very disgusted with them. In those years, one
statement was often heard on the radio, "XXX encountered the objections
of the whole of China" or XXX was embraced by the whole of China." I
kept thinking, "How could they say that? How could that statement
represent my opinion? How would they know if I was in favor or
against something?"
After the Cultural Revolution, I returned to the work unit from the
Cadet School. It was at the period when the whole country was acting
against the "Gang of Four" (translator's note: to shirk responsibility
for holding the decade-long Cultural Revolution, the CCP singled out
four individuals for persecution and claimed that those four people
alone were responsible for the Cultural Revolution). I felt very
disgusted when the CCP officials at my work place organized everyone to
attend a public gathering to condemn the "Gang of Four," just like how
they organized everyone to listen to the public lectures by the "Gang
of Four" during the Cultural Revolution. On one occasion when I was
asked to attend an activity that was related to applying to join the
CCP, I refused to do so. I could not comprehend why those people were
always doing the same things. In the old days, they were promoting
certain things. Then they turned around and criticized what they had
taught without missing a single step! How would I know if they wouldn't
do another about-face tomorrow? Later, the Party Committee sent
someone to inform me: if I did not take part in the activity for the
application to join the Party, my application would not be considered
again. A chill ran down my spine when I heard that. But then I
thought, "If I continue to participate in such activities, I will be
used by them to do what is against my conscience." Hence I timidly
said: "If they do not want to consider my application, so be it!" Even
though I was very frightened of the CCP, I felt much better after I
made my decision not to join it.
(3) Though Not a Party Member, My Thoughts were Still Influenced by the Party Culture
Under the education of the Communist Party, life is treated with
indifference and violence. I didn't cherish other people's lives or my
own. For a long period of time, when I encountered an aggravating
incident that I found difficult to bear or even at the slightest
provocation, I would think of killing myself. To me, committing suicide
was one of the avenues to escape or seek revenge. Of course I had never
contemplated how to commit suicide because my fear of dying from an
early age was always before my eyes and I dared not think about it any
further. Before I took up cultivation, when I encountered suffering
that I couldn't deal with but didn't dare to kill myself over, I would
console myself by thinking, "When the children grow up and become
independent, I will no longer see a doctor or take any medicine. That
will quickly terminate my life and I can leave this world early." This
thought became my spiritual sustenance, and my life seemed to be
tolerable.
More than ten years after I left China, I was still under the influence
of the Party culture. For example, no matter who pressed my door bell,
I dared not refuse to open the door. Deep down in my heart I was
thinking that I had nothing to hide. But no matter what I did, I was
afraid that others might misunderstand me, and would always try to
explain my views over and over again to other people. The normal and
simple life thus became very complicated and trying.
After I started to cultivate, I encountered some tribulations that I
could not overcome. The most difficult for me was that in the past I
could use ending my life early as a way to comfort myself. To me, at
least there was the way out left for me. But after I started to
cultivate, I knew I shouldn't commit suicide and I shouldn't even think
of committing suicide. I could not elevate my xinxing and hence tribulations became extremely difficult to overcome.
Reflecting upon it, under the nurture of the Party culture, my approach
to life almost became absurd. The Party had made ordinary Chinese
people become abnormal, strange creatures foreign to the normal ways of
life.
(4) One Thought that Has Always Stayed with Me
Even though the Party culture was all pervasive, there was one thing
about which the Party culture could never influence me. That has been
in my thought all my life and something that I have always reminded
myself, which is "I will never isolate myself, never resist anything
new, and never bypass anything that is good and genuine." Therefore,
after coming into contact with Dafa, I very quickly decided to
cultivate, and have never wavered.
Recently, when I heard that the CCP had removed body organs from Falun
Gong practitioners' bodies while they were still alive for organ
harvesting, I wasn't shocked. It is because I already knew that is a
reflection of the real, evil nature of the CCP. The CCP has been
carrying out the policy of "Cripple them economically, annihilate them
physically' against Falun Gong practitioners. I know that many fellow
practitioners still refuse to believe the live organ harvesting really
happened. I reckon it is because they are actually still being
influenced by the Party culture and still having hope for the evil CCP,
hoping that they will correct themselves and become good. Such thoughts
originated from the Party culture and are the filthy ideologies that
people must eliminate from their thinking.
The above are personal realizations. Please kindly point out anything that may be wrong.
Translated from:
http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2006/5/22/37798.html
