Some Thoughts on Making Assumptions about the Effectiveness of VCD Programs

(Clearwisdom.net) Recently when I was sharing experiences with a practitioner. What she said left a deep impression in my mind. Other practitioners might also have encountered the same thing, so I decided to write this down.

This practitioner said that she had observed that when other practitioners were clarifying the truth, they all had the problem of making assumptions about the work they were doing. For example, when she asked for some feedback from other practitioners about how ordinary people reacted to the VCD programs, they all said that people thought they were pretty good. However, in reality they did not get any feedback from ordinary people at all, but were assuming that others would also like the programs because they liked them, and thought that others would naturally like and dislike programs based on their own personal likes and dislikes.

When arranging the order of the VCD programs, I found that my assumptions and the feedback from common people were quite different. We thought that our programs were perfectly arranged, but the feedback we received was that our VCD was erratically arranged; from the beginning to the end there wasn't a process that first introduced the main topic and then developed it to reach a climax. Of course, it's hard to satisfy everybody, but from the large gap between people's feedback and practitioner's opinions, it was definite that there was something we needed to improve.

After viewing our program, our friends gave us some valuable suggestions, and we rearranged the order of our programs editing out a few parts. In the end, even though the entire contents of the CD had been decreased to only about 650 megabytes, the programs had a train of thought ascending to the climax, thereby attracting more viewers and letting them understand the truth.

From the feedback on our VCD programs, we saw many of our problems, how we were taking many things for granted, and not putting ourselves in the shoes of people from the standpoint of how to save them. Master has said that the highest level of old forces has been completely eradicated. The only evil left is the old forces' behind-the-scenes helpers. Some of us hence developed an attitude of being overly optimistic with the way we do things instead of being meticulous like before. In my understanding, what Master was talking about was that the change is occurring in the colossal firmament, but in our dimension, Dafa practitioners still need to do what they should be doing to push forward the changes in this dimension. "Following the Fa in everything, and compliance is cultivation." ("Solid Cultivation" from Hong Yin)

I hope that everybody will put their hearts on the issue of providing salvation to the people. Avoid the mentality that after you have distributed materials or given out CDs that your mission is done. As a matter of fact, I believe that the practitioner aforementioned did very well. She told me that every time she clarifies the truth to somebody, she would first consider their status and level of society, and then choose the truth clarifying material most suitable for them. Sometimes she would first clarify the truth by mouth, and, after they had accepted what she said, she would then give them CDs they could watch. Doing things in this way can minimize the loss of the VCDs that Dafa practitioners have worked hard to make. She said, "What we are doing is so sacred, why can't some practitioners put in more time and effort to do it? Sometimes it gives the impression that it is not so sacred." Indeed! We should really think about it! Did the people really understand the truth? Did we truly consider the sacredness of clarifying the truth?

This is merely an experience I would like to share with practitioners. If there are any misunderstandings on my part, please point them out. I hope we will firmly accomplish the task of providing salvation to sentient beings!

September 2, 2003

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