Study the Fa with a Calm Mind and Persist in Clarifying the Truth Through Various Means
By a Falun Dafa practitioner from Ireland
(Clearwisdom.net) Study The Fa With a Calm Mind "The Fa can break all attachments, the Fa can destroy all evil, the Fa can
shatter all lies, and the Fa can strengthen righteous thoughts" (Essentials
for Further Advancement II: "Drive Out Interference"). Master has already
conveyed to us the importance of studying the Fa, but at the beginning, I always
treated Dafa work as the most important job for me to do. I adopted the habit of
judging one's advancement in cultivation by the quantity of the work one could
do and by how much money one could contribute to produce truth-clarifying
materials. Since I had not studied the Fa solidly, when I encountered conflicts
that deeply touched my mind, my human notions quickly occupied my whole
consciousness. I was not able to maintain my Xinxing level and was affected at
different levels by many aspects. With the help of veteran practitioners, I
realized I needed to merge my efforts in studying the Fa, clarifying the truth
and sending forth righteous thoughts. Through copious and solid Fa study, a Dafa
student can do Dafa work well. Only then can one melt into the Fa. In the beginning, it was difficult for me to calm my mind when studying the
Fa. Quite often, I wanted to get up and attend to some very urgent things I had
to do. In "Fa-Lecture at the Conference in Florida, U.S.A.", Master pointed out: "when you study the Fa, don't just go through the motions. You have to
calm your mind when you read it, and truly study it. Don't let your mind
sneak away from you. Once your mind wanders off, you'll be studying in vain.
If we look at it from another angle, when you study the Fa and your mind
isn't on the Fa, it's not only a problem of just going through the motions,
but also that the person studying the Fa is actually not being very
respectful of the Fa. How could the Fa reveal itself, then?" After I better understood these Fa principles, I made up my mind to secure a
certain time of the day for Fa study. I told myself that no matter what happens,
I still need to finish reading three chapters a day. That statement was easy to say, but hard to fulfill. When Fa study time
arrived, various distractions appeared as well. I had to grit my teeth: one day,
two days... A few weeks went by. My fellow practitioners all commented that I
had changed a lot. I also felt that the surrounding environment had become more
serene, pure and righteous. I finally experienced the joy of melting into the Fa.
I then understood understand Teacher's words, "No matter how difficult your environment is, no matter how busy you get,
you cannot forget to study the Fa. You must study the Fa, because it is the
absolute, most fundamental guarantee of your improvement." ("Fa-Lecture at
the Conference in Florida, U.S.A.") Clarifying the truth to my parents and relatives During the early stage of my obtaining the Fa, my attachment of complacency
emerged, and I treated worldly things lightly. During conversations with my
parents over the phone, I used terms that my father could not understand. Since
he did not agree with my words, inevitably, he was not willing to listen to my
truth clarification. I am the only child in my family, and I haven't been back
home to China in the last three years. I can easily imagine how much my parents
must have missed me. I could tell that my father blamed my cultivation for my
failure to return to China for a visit. Later, I enlightened that I needed to
embrace their feelings and emotions towards me as a cultivation principle. I
also needed to understand them with compassion. This would also enable them to
understand me. This would support Dafa as well as support explaining the truth
of the persecution. Master said: "while we're cultivating in the ordinary world we're supposed to respect
our parents and be good to them, just as we should teach our kids and
discipline them. In every situation we should be good to others and be kind
to people, let alone your family members. We should treat everyone the same,
be good to our parents and our kids, and always be considerate of others.
Then your heart isn't a selfish one when you do that, but a compassionate
one--it's compassion."(Zhuan Falun) After I understood these issues, I started talking about the details of my
ordinary study and work during telephone conversations with my family. I also
enquired about the health of my parents and other relatives. I asked them about
the conflicts they encountered in their work and life. I explained Dafa
principles to them and offered to help. I made them feel that their son had
matured and changed into a new person through studying Falun Dafa. In regards to
not returning home temporarily, I explained that it was due to the persecution,
which would not last much longer. More important, I told them that if they could
help their son to tell more people that Falun Dafa is good, and about the truth
of the persecution, then the persecution might end even quicker. Additionally,
the chance of their son returning home would increase. After all, their son is
doing the most righteous work in the world: they should be proud of their son.
Later, my parents began to understand me and positioned themselves well during
this persecution, establishing a bright future for themselves. Clarifying the truth in Internet chat rooms Prior to my cultivation, I was very keen on using Internet chat rooms to make
friends. After I started cultivation, I began to realize that the Internet could
foster many bad attachments for me, so I gradually distanced myself from
computers. After I read an experience-sharing article from a practitioner about
Internet chat rooms, I began to wonder why I could not do the same as that
practitioner and share the facts about Falun Dafa to others through the
Internet? Therefore, I retrieved the QQ software that I had abandoned a long
time ago and started clarifying the truth over the Internet. The majority of the people in the chat rooms are young people. Most people
use chat rooms to talk about romance and pass the time. Because of their young
age, many of them know relatively little about their society. They are easily
swayed by the evil propaganda. While in the chat rooms, I have thought of many
useful methods, but I also saw many of my own attachments. I feel my heart and
mind are being purified and elevated .I noticed that if I study the Fa better,
then I can achieve better results in the chat room. If my heart is filled with
more compassion, the words I send touch people's hearts more deeply. Quite
often, I can sense the gratitude from the bottom of the heart of the being who
has realized the truth about Dafa. In the meanwhile, they promise to tell more
people about the truth of this persecution. Just as Master has said: "Your every word, every flyer, every keystroke, every telephone call, and
every letter is having a huge impact. Beings that have come to understand
the facts become mobile media, and they too clarify the facts. It's had a
big impact on society." (Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Midwest-U.S. Fa
Conference) "Putting Down the Ordinary Person's Heart" -- Clarifying the truth to
classmates I remember when I began college, most of my Chinese classmates had never met
practitioners of Falun Dafa. When I entered a classroom wearing my Dafa clothes
for the first time, they went dead silent and quietly looked at me. I knew I
needed to use my behavior to validate Falun Dafa in the near future. Everyday I
arrived in the classroom a couple of minutes early, cleaned the blackboard and
tidied up the desks and chairs in the room. I always warmly greeted my
classmates first when meeting them. I never got cross with them, even if they
did not respond to me. Next time I met them, I would still greet them first.
After a few times, the situation became a lot better. I would offer my warm help
if they had any difficulties. When the teacher was giving out reference
materials, and there were not enough materials, I immediately offered others my
own copies. As days went by, we were all getting to know each other. Some of my best
classmates addressed me as "Fa brother". One day a classmate told me that
someone had cheated him, and my classmate was extremely angry. The classmate
said he could have done the same back to him. However, he told me that since he
had been with me for such a long time, he was able to react differently this
time. He just let the situation be this time. I felt so happy for him after he
told me the story. Master mentioned in Zhuan Falun: "Only the energy field from cultivating a true teaching can have this
effect. That's why there used to be a saying in Buddhism, 'Buddha's light
shines everywhere, propriety and righteousness harmonize everything.' That
is what it means." Those classmates who learned the truth also lend a hand to practitioners.
Some of our practitioners didn't have jobs due to various reasons and had hard
times making ends meet. One of my classmates then helped our practitioners to
find steady jobs. Once the local newspaper publicized a photo of us appealing
outside the Chinese embassy with me in it. The next day, many of my classmates
were happy to see me in the newspaper. Clarifying the truth to colleagues I've changed jobs several times during my life, and each time I met a few
people with predestined connections. The most common statement they made to me
was, "I seemed to have met you somewhere before." I immediately understood why I
was to work with them. I tend to smile at them and reply, "I quite often went to
the city center to deliver newspapers. Therefore you must have met me there."
They also laughed and agreed to this. When we took a rest during work, I quite
often told them some facts about Falun Dafa. Master mentioned in Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New
York Fa Conference: "But they are able to understand things like what humankind, today's
people, call 'human rights' being squashed and freedom of belief being
squashed. So when you're clarifying the facts your words should revolve
around those topics, and people will be able to understand and they'll be
supportive." Some of them were really good people, and they could understand the
principles very quickly. I also try to awaken their benevolent thoughts by
telling a few cultivation stories. One workmate exclaimed, "Falun Dafa is good!"
after one of the stories. My tears nearly came down. I knew the best future of a
life had just begun. One of my workmates wasn't' very friendly at the beginning. He hardly spoke
to me and often yelled at me during work. Once I was not able to uphold my
Xinxing and threw a few words back at him. Afterwards, I stood there feeling so
much regret. I asked myself, why did I come here? After I got enlightened to
this, I quickly walked towards him without any hesitation and expressed my
sincere apology. He also made some friendly comments. Through this encounter, we
seemed to have some common ground between us. He started asking me a few
questions and I began to answer him little by little. The relationship between
us got better and better. One day, I asked him, "What do you think of Falun
Gong?" He frankly replied, "I can't say it is bad because you are good person.
However, I can't say it is good since I don't know it." I knew that answer came
from the side of his life that longed to obtain the Fa. So I said to him, "No problem, I will bring the book for you tomorrow so that
you can have a good read." Later he told me that he knew Dafa was good, but he
could not let go of his attachments. Therefore he did not want to cultivate for
the time being. He even commented that a cigarette now seemed tasteless to him.
I looked at him and smiled. I told myself that Master is already taking care of
him. Clarifying the Truth by making phone calls The process of making phone calls was a cultivation process for me. Just like
Master said: "he goes from place to place, begging for food and running into all kinds
of people who laugh at him, and insult him, or take advantage of him. He
runs into all kinds of things. He goes about everything as a practitioner,
he keeps his interactions with people in the proper perspective, he guards
his character well, constantly improves his character, and he doesn't get
affected by all the different kinds of ordinary people's material
temptations." (Zhuan Falun) At the very beginning, I was reluctant to make phone calls to the people from
southern China. I didn't really understand their dialect very well. I was
reluctant to make calls to the police in China because they would swear at me,
and I thought I might start arguing with them. Once I was very reluctant to make
a call to a few policemen from Henan province. In the end, they in turn started
swearing at me using their home dialect. I burst out laughing while I was
sending forth righteous thoughts. They all stopped swearing then. I felt I had
passed this test. Since then, nobody has ever sworn at me over the phone. While making the phone calls, I often felt a chill penetrating my bones. I
was shivering all over, and even the heater next to me didn't make any
difference. On a few occasions, my left hand was shaking, and I was unable to
press the phone button. I had to use my right hand to steady my left hand to
press the button. I realized that interference from other dimensions was
definitely directed at me before I picked up the phone to confront the evil
force. It was crucial to send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil in
other dimensions. After I read that a sister of a practitioner living in U.S.A. was persecuted,
I rang the local political and legal committee right away and had a long chat
with a local official. He was very good at talking. However, the lies fabricated
by the Jiang regime could not withstand being tested. When he mentioned that the
ban on Falun Gong was based upon the will of the majority, I questioned him, "If
Falun Gong was given half an hour on a TV station, do you think that the
majority of people would change their minds and support Dafa instead?" Suddenly
he stopped talking. I then carefully talked with him about the global spread of
Dafa outside of China. He was carefully listening to news that he never had the
opportunity to hear inside China. I finally persuaded him to read the book for
himself so that he could know what Falun Gong really was. I once made a phone call to the "610 Office" in Daqing City. After an evil
person realized that I was calling from Europe, the first thing he asked was,
"What do you want from me?" Then he hung up the phone immediately. I felt a fear
deep inside of him. Teacher has said, "Every phone call from our students shocks
them to the point that they can't sleep at night." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2003
Midwest-U.S. Fa Conference") For a period of time, as long as the Clearwisdom website had some contact
phone numbers, I made phone calls to clarify the truth, from Heilongjiang to
Guangdong Province, from Shandong to Sichuan Province and from Hubei Province to
the midlands. The long sessions could last more than an hour while the short
ones lasted a couple of minutes. Almost everyday I would talk to the police and
officials from the 610 office. I wanted to let them hear the voice from Europe:
"Stop persecuting Falun Gong practitioners! 'Good is rewarded by good and evil
returned by evil' is the heavenly law!" From time to time, I asked myself: Dafa is spreading in 62 countries and
regions; if even one practitioner from each region made phone calls everyday to
a few places crowded with the evil in China, then wouldn't those places receive
at least 62 phone calls from various regions and countries in one day? The shock
to the evil received would be so immense. I always carry a shoulder bag with the words, "SOS, STOP PERSCUTING FALUN
GONG IN CHINA" while I'm out. I give truth clarification materials to all the
Chinese I meet. Many of my friends said to me, "Not many Chinese would recognize
you by name, yet if you asked them whether they knew a young lad carrying an SOS
bag and delivering newspapers, many people would know that it was you. You have
nearly become a Dublin tourist attraction." In the last two years, I often look back on the path that I have been on and
the process of obtaining the Fa; I understand that all my paths are set by
Master. Often I was moved indescribably. I can only express my heart by using
one sentence: Thank you Master!
Chinese version available at
http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2003/11/23/61053.html
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