A New England Walker

How time flies! It is already the sixth day since we set off from Boston. To us these days are truly down-to-the-earth six days! During these days, many things happened. We would like to share a few with you.

1. Physical Strength and Willpower Walking 20 to 25 miles a day, for the first few days, we really had to "persevere, lift the feet, the ten-thousand-pound legs." In order to send out the SOS emergency call to stop the persecution and killing of Falun Gong practitioners in China, we speeded up our steps without notice. On the second day, it was extremely hot and some of us got blisters on our feet. Even for walkers without blisters, they also found their feet to be in extreme pain. Each step forward was a challenge towards the physical body as well as mental forbearance. As time went on, it was not our physical bodies but our willpower that supported us. When we reached the limit of physical forbearance, we told ourselves: "Hard to forbear, but can forbear; hard to do it, but can do it." It is just as Master said in Zhuan Falun: "In a real hardship or a tribulation, you try it. It is hard to forebear, you try to forebear it; It looks like impossible, and said to be difficult, then you just try it and see whether it is truly impossible. If you can truly do it, you will find that there is another village after the willows and flowers!" On the fifth day even though it was still very hot, we walked very fast. When it came to the sixth day, we even did not feel any hardship.

2. Individuals and the Group Since none of us has ever experienced physical suffering and each has been taken good care at home as "the pearl on the palm" or "a child-emperor," we each most often would request support more from others, either mentally or in daily life. We each seldom consider or take care of others. Thus, we also had some conflicts after a few days'' walk. Some wanted to walk fast while others wanted to walk slowly. However, we all share the same belief that we cannot give up. After three days'' walk, we came to realize that we are a collective entity, we have to forebear it either we walk fast or slow. As our conscientious minds grow, our steps became more in harmony.

3. Support from the Media and the people Currently even though there are only a few of us walking, behind us there are more practitioners supporting us, forming a great voice and impetus. On the way, many people honked horns, raised their thumbs, or waved their hands to greet us. This is a great encouragement to us. A western man specially wrote a letter to us: "Your action is truly great. It is an action of justice..."" Before we entered Rhode Island, our picture was shown on the largest newspaper in Rhode Island. Along our way, many people greeted us in many different ways. Many said they read the report. We tried every effort to give our specially designed bookmark to everyone who passed us, and passed them the Falun Dafa information and the beauty of the future to those predestined people. Although sometimes we fell very tired, it was difficult to raise our feet, and each step forward had to be done with great effort, very often we would walk 10 to 20 meters more in order to hand out bookmarks to the pedestrians. One day, in order to catch up with a runner and give him our little bookmark, a practitioner ran 20-30 meters despite that he had already walked over a dozen miles. It is the strength of compassion, the strength of benevolence that was supporting him. This moved us all.

We all know that this is just the beginning. The road ahead is still very long, but our hearts harbor strong belief in Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance, and with great examples of indomitable practitioners in China, let us realize our promise with our action--walk until the end of the journey: Washington D.C.

Posting date: 7/7/2001
Original article date: 7/7/2001
Category: Falun Dafa Worldwide

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