Working at a Health Club in Washington DC

By a Western practitioner from the U.S.

(Clearwisdom.net) A little over 2 years ago, I had been studying the Fa for only a year, so I was still very immature in my cultivation. I worked as a document archival consultant contracted with a branch of the federal government. I felt life was pretty good and they paid me very well. Although I was capable of getting my job done, I had a reputation for being a little "slick" or sly. That reputation was well deserved, because you see, I knew how to check into the office and leave early; I could come and go as I pleased. However, this wonderful contract was about to end and so I had to take steps to look for a new job.

I decided to try to get away from the computer world altogether, so I got the idea to create my own job with some company or organization. I came up with two potential opportunities. The first was to develop a children's program at a community center. The second was to develop a special events and promotions position at a health club and exercise facility that, I might add, had not yet even been built.

I was finally hired at the community center. I was very excited about going to work on my first day only to find out that upon arrival, I had no job! They said that I had no job because the executive director that hired me had just been fired for misappropriation of funds. I was once again jobless. A few days later I received a call from the health club saying that they were finally ready to accept my offer and bring me on board.

After I started working, I immediately started seeing different opportunities opening up. The first thing that I did was to offer Falun Gong classes at the gym. After all, Yoga and Tai Chi were offered every day. At first, based on my understanding at the time, I was leery about offering the class. I was concerned about the issue of payment. Master tells us that we must never receive payment for teaching the Falun Gong exercises or else his Fashen (Law Body) will take back everything given to us. That problem was ultimately resolved when I made the arrangement for anyone to be able to come into the gym for free if they are taking the Falun Gong classes.

Shortly after the start of the classes, there was a confrontation that I had with some of the other managers. I was standing in the office wearing my yellow Falun Dafa jacket with the Falun emblem on the front. The other managers subsequently started making fun of the Falun and me. My thought at the time was that I should just simply forbear the insults and not cause any trouble. After I left the office, I realized that I chose the wrong thing to do. Fortunately, I was scheduled to return for a staff meeting later that day. I resolved to myself to the fact that I must clarify the truth to everybody even if it cost me my job.

Upon my return to the office, we had our staff meeting. We were close to ending the meeting when, with the most righteous heart, I finally interrupted. I told everyone that slandering Falun Gong was not a good thing at all and that if it happened again in the future, I would be forced to correct them. The owner of the club stepped in and he said, "You know, no one here knows anything about Falun Gong. Since we finished the meeting early, why don't you take the next fifteen minutes and tell us everything about it?" I was shocked! After the meeting, two of my co-workers chased me down to acquire Master's book Falun Gong.

I rapidly became well known by the members at the gym. I quickly enlightened to the fact that my behavior was very important. I had to live up to the standards of being a Dafa disciple. This was especially true since I was known as the person to talk to for any questions about Falun Gong. In my past jobs, I had never received compliments about my work because, as I said before, I was very sly. Since I began working at the health club, I actually worked hard when I went into the office. This was evident to the point that I overheard two employees talking to each other about me one day. They said (and I am paraphrasing) that no one works harder than me! Again, only by following Master's universal principles of Truth, Compassion and Tolerance could I ever receive such a genuine compliment.

The club I work at has a very special demographic. 80% of the members are staff members of the Senate, Congress and the President's Executive branch. Master must have arranged this for my Fa-rectification work. There was a problem, though, as I did not know who worked for which office. I did not try to pursue the answers. I simply treated everyone with a great deal of compassion. Slowly, one by one, people started revealing themselves. As they did, I would clarify the truth of Falun Gong to them. Even more amazing, many people from Capitol Hill needed part-time jobs. As a result, I wound up placing many of these people on my own staff. Because of the pure heart that I am still trying to develop and the personal relationships that I had, many of these "Hill Staffers" would actually listen to me and have complete conversations with me regarding Falun Gong.

There are many fantastic stories of things that have happened to me at this health club, but I would like to relate two stories of things that have happened recently. Both stories relate to the rescue of Charles Li.

The first story occurred one morning a few weeks ago. A member who works for the US State Department approached me and asked me to talk with her privately. Now I must admit that I did not have righteous thoughts at that time as I thought that she was going to be angry that I always approach her in the gym whenever there are problems with practitioners overseas. I should have had more faith in Master. We sat down on the couch and she was virtually in tears. She wanted me to deliver a message to all of the practitioners. First of all she asked me if I really knew exactly what she did at the State Department. I finally relented that I did not know exactly. She informed me that she is a high level director. Her message was that she really cared about Charles Li and she did not want the practitioners to feel or believe that she did not. She is doing things that she would never do for any other person in foreign custody. Next she told me that she was very impressed with how practitioners have come to the aid of Charles and, in her opinion, we have been doing all of the right things to secure his release. I told her that I was very touched by her sincere efforts and she would probably await a wonderful future.

The second story is about the time that I took the "Free Charles Li" petitions to work to gather signatures. A couple with whom I was very familiar came up to the desk where I had the petition. I first spoke to the wife and carefully explained the situation Charles was in. She was very eager to sign the petition. I then turned to her husband and explained that his signature could actually help save a life. He proceeded to back away and simply explained that he was sorry but he could not sign. Without giving any further pressure I asked him to at least take the literature so that he would be informed of the situation. I felt a heavy heart because he decided not to sign the petition. The couple subsequently left the building. Two weeks later, I saw the couple again. The wife told me that her husband was looking for me. When I saw him I came to understand that he was moved by what I said so much that he went to his boss to convince him to write a letter to the state department. He handed me a copy of the letter, and it did not take long for me to figure out that his boss was a very important US Senator. I was so moved by his actions to free Charles Li that I almost cried. Additionally, based on the letter I was impressed by the Senator's understanding of Falun Gong.

Master has arranged for my meeting many United States senators and congressmen. Master's arrangements have allowed for me to do things like hiking with senators, joining them in watching squash games, and having many great personal interactions.

I feel that senators and congressmen come from a very high level cosmic body. When we save these democratically elected people we are really saving huge numbers of sentient beings. Our effort, the righteous thoughts that we have and the past relationships that we have had with them will melt their hearts.

Thank you Master for this wonderful arrangement and the opportunity to cultivate Falun Dafa. Master, I will do better.

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