John Nania, practitioner from Minneapolis, Minnesota, US

Greetings Master Li, practitioners, and guests!

Before we went, we knew that going to Tiananmen Square to send forth righteous thoughts together was something important and necessary. Each person prepared carefully for the event, but we did not look too far beyond the event, and there is a lesson in that, one of many lessons we are learning from our experiences. I think that all of us who were on Tiananmen Square on November 20 are still looking inward and trying to understand the experience as cultivators. So rather than a comprehensive report on the event, here are a few observations and things that I have realized.

I think this one sentence, from the message from Master to the Second Dafa Conference in Russia, is quite rich with meaning during this time period: "You should communicate with students in other countries often, encourage each other, and progress together with diligence." I take this as a firm instruction for all practitioners now, wherever we live. Certainly it provides guidance for us before, during, and after our trip to Beijing.

Master has mentioned on a couple of different occasions that there are reasons that practitioners are living outside China during this time, and also that "students outside China don't all need to go to Tiananmen." (from "Lecture on the Fa at the Washington, D.C. International Conference") This seemed to be a reason not to go to China, yet as I came to the decision to go to Tiananmen and join the group there, I knew that there were many good reasons to go, and my understanding was not that we were instructed that no one should go. Using our rationality and wisdom to understand the Fa brought us to the point of understanding that we could go to Tiananmen with solemn and calm hearts, and that we should go, we must go. Going as Westerners, we knew we would not be viewed the same way as Chinese practitioners who do the same simple and righteous act. We would be seen and treated differently by the government officials, by the Chinese people, and by the international media and world community. We felt it was our obligation to use this circumstance of our superficial characteristics--essentially our skin color in this lifetime--to do some Fa validation.

In the weeks before our journey, I took seriously this passage from the lecture in Washington DC: "Under any circumstance, in any period, and no matter how busy you are with your work, you can't stray from your Fa-study.... You can't do Dafa work without studying the Fa, or it would be an everyday person doing Dafa work." It seems that all 35 practitioners who were detained took this seriously, also, as I observed and heard about each practitioner staying true to his or her understanding of the Fa during our time on Tiananmen Square and our detention. There are 35 different stories of how we reacted and what we did, and I would love to hear them all some day!

I'll just repeat that the interesting point is that every practitioner's story is very different, yet each conducted himself or herself according to individual understanding of the Fa. In other words, our external behavior varied dramatically and visibly. Some practitioners stayed calm and motionless, some ran around, some called out "Falun Dafa Hao! (Falun Dafa Is Good)," some wouldn't easily allow themselves to be taken away. While we were in detention, some talked sincerely to police, some stayed quiet, some answered the police's questions, some did not. Of course every practitioner searched within afterwards to see how they could improve, but what I see is that, on the whole, what each practitioner did was correct and necessary.

I am reminded of this passage, again from the lecture in Washington: "You are one body, just like Master's gong ...which does different things at the same time... In other words, one body doesn't necessarily do one thing. But no matter what you do, you need to be worthy of being called a Dafa disciple."

Looking at this varying behavior externally and from the everyday society's viewpoint, we see some positive manifestations. If practitioners were as the government has portrayed them, how could one act so differently from another? Why were some doing this and others doing that? Actually, if you look at the event from a certain standpoint, we were very disorganized in our response to the police's actions. Yet, each person was self-disciplined and acted in a conscientious, noble way.

As the police came to know us through many hours of interrogation and detention, I could see that they were perplexed. They must have been thinking, "All these different people from different countries, different ages, different professions, and behaving so differently... yet each one is obviously a good person, a person who steadfastly stands for these principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance that they talk about... how can this fit what the government has told me about Falun Gong? Who is telling the truth here?"

Many of us had never met each other before that moment that we assembled in Tiananmen Square. Yet each of us study the same Fa, and each of us had that Fa to guide us in our actions. Our interpretations of the Fa assumed different superficial forms, yet the group was harmonious. We supported each other during the time in detention, despite any differences in our backgrounds, our languages, or how we acted. Each person there had a role to play, we all balanced each other. Each practitioner truly acted like a Dafa particle.

There is a photograph taken of most of our group after the banner was raised and before the police arrived. There are many interesting things about it. I was amazed to hear the translation of the sign on the east side of Tiananmen, which appears in the photo centered behind our group of practitioners who were born in, live in, or are citizens of 15 different countries. Right behind our banner with "Zhen-Shan-Ren," it is no accident that that sign says, "Long live all the peoples of the world united together."

After we were released, there were surprises awaiting us, and many tests and tribulations. We were met at the airports by bouquets of flowers, cameras, and reporters. This is an obvious test of our attachment to fame. For me, this was not as difficult as understanding the reactions of other practitioners, that is, those who did not go to Tiananmen, in the days afterwards. The reactions of many other practitioners seemed to be one or both of the following: emotion and excitement on the one hand, and, on the other hand, not handling the event as an opportunity to validate the Fa, an opportunity that all practitioners can seize, but instead handling it only as something that those 36 other practitioners did on their own.

This second reaction has puzzled me most, and there is no doubt that it relates to my own attachments, and I will continue to search myself on this point. But why would many practitioners view this event, which was done for the benefit of the Fa, as an isolated event that has little to do with themselves? Or, in another vein, why would they, with regret in their hearts, wish that they had been one of the practitioners to go on the trip? Does it matter which practitioners go? We knew this, we even discussed among ourselves before going to Tiananmen, that each of us there represented millions of other practitioners. We knew that we were supported by the powerful righteous thoughts of practitioners all over the world at that time. Didn't those who go do it for the benefit of everyone? Couldn't all practitioners make use of the favorable conditions for Fa-rectification that come from the attention generated by the event?

As I puzzled over these questions, I thought that perhaps the time has not quite arrived for certain things. One evening in group study, half of my mind was preoccupied with this issue while half of my mind was reading along with the group. Suddenly as we were reading, a section in lecture 8 of Zhuan Falun, on the heavenly circuit, grabbed all my attention. This is what I read: "The cultivation practice in our Falun Dafa avoids using this method of one energy channel bringing hundreds of energy channels into motion. From the very beginning, we require that hundreds of energy channels be opened up and make simultaneous rotations."

Master has mentioned that when we truly understand something in the Fa deeply, it sounds mundane when put into the words of human language. Given this, I cannot transmit my understanding of this passage fully, but here is a small piece of it. For myself as an individual practitioner trying to persuade other practitioners to act or think a certain way, or for our group of 36 in Tiananmen, we cannot "spur into motion" a large number of other practitioners. I understand that each individual practitioner must understand events for himself or herself, and that a time will come in the future, possibly soon, when many of us will simultaneously "open up" in some way. We practitioners all over the world, as Master has said several times, are one body. Perhaps the body referred to in this passage on the heavenly circuit could also be understood as the body of all practitioners.

As practitioners, we must balance many things. I would like to close by quoting two passages from Master, the first from the lecture in Washington, and the second is a repeat of the message to students in Russia, which is obviously meant for all of us. For some people, these two passages may seem to present a conflict between emphasis on the individual and the group. My understanding is that they point the way to harmony and balance in our body of all practitioners:

"Cultivation is an individual matter, and following the crowd won't do it. Each person's improvement must be well-grounded."

"You should communicate with students in other countries often, encourage each other, and progress together with diligence."

Thank you, Master, for all the Fa you have taught us.

Posting date: 1/2/2002
Original article date: 1/1/2002
Category: Cultivation Experiences

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