Cultivating in the Fa-Rectification Period
By a Dafa practitioner from Tennessee, U.S.
(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings to Honorable Master! Greetings to All practitioners! I am a Falun Dafa practitioner from Tennessee. I have practiced Falun Dafa
for about five years. During this time, I have passed and failed many Xinxing
tests, but with the careful protection of compassionate Master, I overcame the
difficulties. In our area, the practitioners are actively involved in calling
China, mailing truth-clarification materials, Fa promotion activities and more.
Today, I will talk about experiences while clarifying the truth to overseas
Chinese and cultivating while working with the local Chinese community. In the past, our practitioner families were very close but we didn't have
much contact with ordinary people. So our social contact was limited to a very
narrow circle. Two years ago, the southeast region of a Chinese language
newspaper that carries truthful article about Falun Gong began publishing. In
order to promote our newspaper, we were forced to get involved with the local
Chinese community. 1. Setting up a distribution center and establish contacts with Chinese
grocery stores and restaurants At first, our idea was simply to put the newspaper in the local Chinese
groceries. We expected the Chinese people would take our newspaper while they
were shopping. There was a Chinese weekly newspaper called "Mid-America Times"
in local markets. It sold for 45 cents and as I estimated, about 70 copies were
sold weekly. We put 100 newspapers in three Chinese grocery stores. But only
half of the newspapers were taken. Maybe readers didn't know the newspaper was
free, or they didn't see our newspaper because we didn't have our own shelf. Our
newspapers were mixed in with Buddhist materials. We thought we needed to
collect some local advertisement so the readers would be interested in our
newspaper. We believed if more people read our newspaper, more people would get
the truth, so they can be saved. In our area, we have only a few practitioners,
so we could not organize many activities. The newspaper became our major channel
to clarify the truth to Chinese people. We contacted storeowners and made
friends with them and collected some advertisements. For a few months, our 100
newspapers were all picked up by Chinese people. However, we heard the readers said that the newspaper was a Falun Gong
newspaper and that the articles were biased. Such comments really hurt us. The
practitioners in China were suffering from such evil and brutal torture;
overseas Chinese didn't feel sympathy. They were indifferent or even
discriminated against the Falun Dafa practitioners. We felt the evil propaganda
and lies had deceived so many Chinese people. We were very anxious and worried.
How can we help them understand the facts? How will they accept our newspaper?
As many practitioners had said, if you truly want to save sentient beings,
Master will create the opportunity for you. Master did arrange the opportunity
for us. 2. Report local Chinese activities and get involved in the Chinese community In June 2001, with Master's compassionate arrangement, my daughter got a visa
to come to America. We sent her to school and we also looked for a Chinese
school because we wanted her to continue a Chinese education in America. We
found a local Chinese school and registered her to take Chinese classes. Chinese
school is a good place to meet other parents and chat. So we approached the
principal of the Chinese school and offered to write some articles about the
school. Later, in order to provide digital images, I bought a digital camera.
Since the newspaper covered local news, it had more readers, so we increased the
quantity to 200 newspapers. Many times, we heard other parents talking about our
news reports such as "Did you see the picture of that child in the newspaper?"
Since they read the newspaper, more or less, they got to read the facts about
the persecution of Falun Dafa. Once, the newspaper had an article about the children's performance at the
end of the semester. It had a picture with many students, the principal and the
vice-principal in it. A few weeks later, the vice principal surprisingly
received a phone call from a university classmate who had lost contact for many
years. It was because the friend saw his picture in the newspaper and recognized
him. Well, this became our story to promote the newspaper. The vice-principal
was also very happy and promoted the newspaper for us. After three years, we now have our own newspaper shelves. We distribute 400
copies every week that are mostly being taken by Chinese readers. Our newspaper
is in all four Chinese grocery stores and over ten Chinese Restaurants. Our
newspapers have been put on the shelves of ten public libraries. 3. Serving the local Chinese community At the Chinese school, we interact with a mostly fixed group of people. In
order to increase our influence, we started to get in touch with other Chinese
groups. Last year, our Chinese community organized a large-scale Chinese New
Year's Party. We volunteered to write reports, take photos, design flyers and
even perform for the New Year's Party. Though every practitioner had already
taken on many Fa-related jobs, we managed to squeeze out some time to serve the
community. We usually write reports ourselves, so we can control the article. We
would use the newspaper to praise good, compassionate and beautiful things. As
for those bad things, conflicts and deceptive practices that interested ordinary
people, we would avoid them. Dafa has given our practitioners many talents. One female practitioner in our
group does a lot of Dafa work. She is a computer programmer and can also write
very good Chinese articles. She can play a musical instrument, play GO (Wei qi),
do calligraphy, and paint traditional Chinese paintings. She can also sing,
dance, and recite. When we worked for the community, we were very serious. Many
times we had no experience in an area but we still did well and the Chinese
people liked it very much. Through our hard work and many talents, the leaders of Chinese community
recognized that Dafa practitioners were not freaky as propagandized by Chinese
government. We are talented, have a high moral standard, and have warm hearts to
serve others. One of the practitioners was accepted into the council of the
newly established Chinese Association to be in charge of the communications
committee. We clarified the truth to overseas Chinese and let them bring the
truth to their relatives and friends in China. Our experience is that we need to
spend time with Chinese community and serve the community. Besides writing news articles, we also exchanged experiences with other
reporters and editors. We gradually understood that our articles couldn't be
limited to the news itself. Many things don't look related to Dafa, but we can
still clarify the truth through our reports, and to clear the lies and expose
the evil. For example, this summer, SARS reached its peak. One of the local Chinese
grocery stores was hit with the rumor that it had an employee infected with SARS.
Customers were urged not to shop there. In a few weeks, the store lost a lot of
business. At the same time, many Chinese worried they would be discriminated
against suspecting them of carrying the virus. In order to help the store rid
itself of the rumor and at the same time expose the Chinese Communist Party's
cover-up about SARS, we contacted the local public health department to get
first hand information. We also contacted a few local Chinese leaders to shop in
the store. Then we used the newspaper to publish articles to dispel the rumor
and widely publish the articles about how Chinese government covered the truth
about the epidemic disease and ignored the health of the people. Even after the
world media exposed their lies, they still tried to block information and cover
the real situation. In our articles, we emphasized that all overseas Chinese
became the victims of the Chinese government's policy. The origin of the rumor
was actually from the Chinese communist party's policy to cover the truth.
Through this event, we clarified the truth to the Chinese community and also
made friends with the store. 4. Clarify the truth in local community and change their biased ideas about
Dafa. In order to eliminate the wrong ideas in peoples' minds, we chatted with many
people at the Chinese school and tried to clarify the truth through
conversation. At beginning, I had the mentality of fear. I was afraid that other
people would oppose me so I was afraid to talk about the truth about Falun Dafa.
Sometimes, we went from one topic to another for a long time and I didn't say
anything about the persecution and the truth about Falun Gong. After going back,
I would regret missing such a good chance and began to think about all kinds of
words hoping next time I could do better. After many attempts, I gradually found
the way to talk. For example, I would start by telling a joke. One year, a
village in north China had a drought. The local communist cadre spent a lot of
manpower and resources digging four wells. But none of them had any water
because the cadre didn't know that he needed to explore the land and find the
water's source first. But he reported to high level leaders that he did such and
such. The next year, the leaders wanted to increase agricultural output. So he
ordered the four dry wells to be filled in and reported that he had led the
village and worked hard to recover so much land by filling in the four wells. He
always chose the good part to report so he got promoted higher and higher. But
the villagers got nothing or they even got even poorer. Through the joke, the
people will start to talk about the communist parties lies and ridiculous
propaganda campaigns. Later I will mention the persecution of former Chinese
chairman Liu Shaoqi who was framed as a traitor and spy on fabricated evidence.
If the people followed the topic, I would talk about a recent case, the
"Tiananmen Square Staged Immolation Case." This will expose how Jiang's regime
framed Falun Gong to create an excuse for their persecution. Another story is about two new elderly practitioners. One practitioner's
parents came to America to visit them. After seeing the practitioner's life with
their own eyes, and after watching the video programs, they changed their ideas
about Dafa. Later, they also started to practice Dafa and had their illnesses
cleared. Their moral character was higher. Once, the family went to a friend's
family party. The new practitioners met another elderly couple from Hubei
Province. When the other old man heard Falun Gong being discussed, he became
very angry. His face turned red and he began to repeat a lot of lies created by
Jiang's regime. The new practitioners didn't know how to handle the situation
and didn't know where to start. After some time, they began to talk about Tai
Chi. The other old man had also practiced Tai Chi for about 30 years. So they
found a common topic. The practitioner said his Tai Chi teacher was over 70
years old and because of his age, he could not practice Tai Chi anymore. The
other old man is also over 70 and met the same problem. He didn't have the
strength to practice the whole set of Tai Chi. They said that Tai Chi could only
build muscle, when you are getting old, you could not practice it anymore. Only
Qigong exercises change the internal health of the body. They also discussed
many common diseases among old people. In the end, they introduced the theory of
Falun Gong and how to open the hundred channels at the same time. They talked
about the good effects of practicing Falun Gong and persuaded the old man to put
away all his biased ideas about Falun Gong and read the book Falun Gong
himself. The old man didn't say anything negative. It seemed this talk had no positive effect at beginning. But a few weeks
later, another practitioner told them that the old man borrowed a copy of
Falun Gong from her and later asked for truth VCDs. A few weeks later, they
met the elderly man at another party. This time, the old man said he had read
the Dafa books and that he liked them. He also asked the practitioner for the
Falun Gong exercises CD. Their attitude toward Falun Dafa totally changed. This is positive feedback, but we still see many Chinese around us who don't
have the correct attitude towards Dafa. Some of them still have biased ideas
about Dafa. These lives are waiting for us to save them. We must hurry up and
clarify the truth. Thank you Master! Thank you all!
Chinese version available at
http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/12/8/62054.html
Yearly Archive
Printer Version
feedback@clearwisdom.net
|
Related Articles
|