Shared at 2004 Canada Falun Dafa Conference
(Clearwisdom.net)
Good-day everyone,
My name is Olivier. I would like to share with you how, after a long sleep-like state of three years, I have returned to Dafa. I would like this sharing to encourage those practitioners who have procrastinated or feel guilty because they did not do well in being more determined, to eliminate this attachment rapidly.
I was born into a French-speaking family in Montreal. In 1997, Master gave me the chance to know Dafa. The first time I read Zhuan Falun, I knew that I would practice Falun Dafa for the rest of my life, that this is what I was looking for, and that I was ready to sacrifice everything and anything to be a good practitioner. But as Master has mentioned many times, good or bad may arise from a single thought. So, in my case, I was afraid to let go of all of the attachments I had developed since my youth. At that time I started to cultivate, but since the environment for French practitioners was not that well developed in Montreal, and because I was too lazy to learn English, I would read and practice alone at home. Without a stable environment, about a year after, my notions and attachments and fears became stronger. So for three years I continued to consider myself a practitioner who would practice after tasting the joys of life. I knew I was taking a crooked way without any sense, and I did not manage to strengthen my righteous thoughts. During those three long years, the evil took advantage of my gaps and incited me to take on a certain behavior which moved me further and further away from being a practitioner and even worse than that, of being an ordinary human being.
My enlightenment began in the summer of 2001. At that time, I was in Ottawa on a contract, and I saw the self-immolation scenes at Tiananmen Square in the Canadian media. Then, my righteous thoughts were reinforced and I decided to break through all these attachments, which I had to do to finally become really responsible towards the Fa. I felt so unworthy to have done nothing up until that time to support Master and Dafa, that had given me so much. So, I decided to start clarifying the truth.
The next morning a young reporter from a Radio station in Ottawa came to interview my friends and me about the decision that was made to have the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. So I took advantage of this opportunity to clarify the truth to the reporter and to my friends who did not know that I practiced Falun Dafa. In retrospect, I understand that Master was looking after me, and that he had never abandoned me. He was waiting for me to take the full responsibility that he had attributed to me as a disciple of Dafa to give me opportunities to clarify the truth.
Nevertheless, since I had accumulated a lot of karma during those three long years, at that time most of the people who were close to me opposed vehemently the fact that I would practice Dafa. It didn't matter that I explained it in all the different ways with calmness and patience, the situation only got worse. I was being pressured from all sides. I only had a limited understanding, but I had the heart to validate the Fa and to come forward with each step being more and more firm. I started to clarify the truth to the University of Montreal, where I am still studying, and did this through information booths in the halls, presentations before groups and participating in different events. Each time I felt that I was breaking through notions of embarrassment and the attachment of how others would view me. Even though I knew I was making a lot of mistakes, for the fist time I felt I was accomplishing that for which I was born.
In 2002, I started to ask myself just how more effective I could be in validating the Fa. After a period of reflection, I came to the understanding that since I was young and had few responsibilities in the society of ordinary people, the best thing for me was to go and clarify the truth in China. However, I really did not know how to do this or how one should clarify the truth over there. Consequently, I spoke about it to a practitioner in Montreal and he confided to me that he also was thinking about going to China.
Approximately two weeks later he contacted other practitioners who had the same desire. We thus started to organize a project and to exchange on the subject during several months. It was at this time that the Minghui website posted a message asking practitioners not to go over to China. So little by little the project fell through. I still had this understanding that my way was different, and no matter what occurred on the surface, I was always determined in going to China. In spite of that, I did not have any money and I had no clue as to how I would validate the Fa in a responsible way in China.
After one week of questioning myself to the point having a headache over this I decided to let go and to be trusting in the fact that if I was to go to China, Master would show me how and why. One week later I got this phone call from a friend, inviting me to teach French in China. When I answered that I did not have the financial means, the answer was that the company that was hiring me was in such a dire need of a teacher that they would pay the plane ticket, part of the cost of the apartment, and would give me a monthly salary. I was surprised with Master's arrangements on my path and accepted in appreciation to Master. About a month and a half later, I was on the plane in the direction of Kunming, province of Yunnan without fully appreciating what was going to happen and how I would clarify the truth in an environment where I knew neither the language nor they way of life.
Upon arriving there, I felt a great pressure. I knew that I had to be most calm and rational so as not to put the lives of those around me in danger, I had a lot of notions about the situation in China. Before leaving, I did not have much compassion for those who opposed Dafa. There were many things that I did not grasp with my western notions. All along this trip, I realized that men, women, and even children had a negative attitude towards Dafa, not because they were basically bad but because they simply had no other source of information but for the lies of Jiang Zemin.
Aside from the reincarnated demons, a lot of people oppose Dafa because the evil takes advantage of their ignorance and their shortcomings. One of my students was a practitioner before she went to a labor camp for one year. After a divorce, prison, and much pressure from all sides she was supposedly "reformed." Even though the evil had taken advantage of her gaps and shortcomings, and instigated her signing a letter supposedly "promising" to stop the practice, how can we not have compassion and desolation for such a practitioner who fell under so much pressure? After talking with her I understood that she had read the Zhuan Falun more than a hundred times, but she had been only superficially reading the Fa. Her understanding of the Fa was very superficial. In spite of everything when I showed her the French version of Zhuan Falun,
Her face lit up as if she was finding a happy thought that she had long forgotten. Towards the end of my trip, unfortunately, all of her attachments to fear came to the forefront and took over. But until it is finished she will have other opportunities.
Having witnessed all the evil in China on all levels, and wanting to do all that I could for the Chinese people, I started to buy equipment and material to make VCDs. To make copies I had to use the office computer where I worked, and I had to do it fast so I would not be caught, because sometimes my work companions would come back quickly, unannounced. When I had enough I would distribute them in the night. It was not always easy. At each second, I had to fight my attachment of fear of being caught by whomever, not only in the distribution but also in the making of the VCDs. However in the distribution there were very few problems for a surprising amount of time. Master was watching over me. One day as I rested for a few minutes whilst making VCDs I had a dream. I saw at a few hundred meters away from me, some people being killed by a rainfall of stars descending from heaven. It was as if each star was aiming at the particular person. In my dream I immediately started running in their direction to save them, but I had the horrible feeling that I should have done more before this catastrophe. I woke up startled. I understood Master's message, and I started to make VCDs anew being even more determined to save sentient beings of this world.
During the whole time I was teaching, I tried to clarify the truth in smaller discussion groups by showing films of truth-clarification and having righteous behavior. At the end of my stay my students told me: "You have not come here only to teach us French and the Quebec culture but also to teach us how to be a good person." Later, at the last class, I explained to them that I did try to do my best to be a good person in the way that Master has taught me. They understood that Falun Dafa was good and that the Chinese government was lying to them to justify the persecution.
Towards the end of my voyage, because I was doing things with a hurried heart, and I was not paying so much attention anymore to my safety, someone reported me to the police. I was illegally detained for 3 days. Contrary to what I was expecting, the policemen were not particularly mean. Of course they lied to me and made all kinds of threats, but they did not insist on making defamatory remarks about Master or Dafa. At the beginning, I clarified the truth to them in a persistent way, but I encountered their years of bad accumulated notions. I was not able to make them accept what I said to them in connection with the truth.
Thereafter, I adopted a calmer attitude. I then understood the lesson: The best way of clarifying the truth to them was by my behavior, not by words. Although they did not seem to understand what I had come to do in China, when I left, I felt that several of them almost greeted me like a friend. Even one of the police officers, who was going to make a dirty joke about Master, became quiet after I asked him nicely but firmly not to make such comments. I do not know the future of these men, but I hope they will come into contact with the films that I have left there and that their hearts will open up to Dafa.
I was then illegally expelled to Singapore. There, I was very moved after having been seven months in China, and now able to see so many disciples practicing in the open air, it was like walking into a garden of flowers after a long walk alone through a desert way full of stones. I joined them, and an old couple of practitioners helped me greatly so that I could return to Canada. As Master says, Falun Dafa is a place of purity. Everywhere around the world, somebody can count on the practitioners to receive assistance in the event of a problem.
Upon my return to Montreal, I started again to clarify the truth through various projects. But I also had the idea to take part in the organization of a Fahui in Montreal. My comprehension was that this opportunity could clarify the truth on a broad scale in Quebec, and in this way would help the entire body of Canadian practitioners to be more solid. Also, the people of Canada would have a deeper comprehension. My personal cultivation resembles a lot the cultivation of the body of practitioners in Montreal. We had been late in our efforts, and now we had to make up the time lost and consolidate the body as a whole. One could say that when one takes care of the weaker part of a body, the whole body will become more solid.
I knew that we would come upon obstacles when trying to get this project off the ground, but I could not imagine in which form they would take. Among the greatest obstacles were those from us in Montreal. On this subject, the lack of communication between the Chinese and Western practitioners played a big role. The first obstacle was a lack of confidence in organizing such a Fahui here. For the most part, the Chinese practitioners were afraid of the workload because they did not know how to proceed in a French society. And furthermore they did not know if they could count on the Westerners, who in the past did not commit themselves too much. The Westerners understood the workload not to be that complex, but expected the Chinese to take charge of everything.
For so many years, the Westerners waited for the Chinese to set up truth-clarification projects. And sometimes when the Chinese practitioners did not succeed well in truth-clarification, not knowing the mentality of our society, we would blame them without looking inside, without understanding that it was our responsibility to silently complete them to make a whole. How could we expect that Chinese practitioners who only knew the English language or just Mandarin could understand the mentality and the means to do things in Quebec?
All things considered, I am infinitely grateful to Master to not have abandoned me and to have given me a second chance even after three years of a behavior that was not even worthwhile for an ordinary human being. Sine then I have surmounted obstacles that seemed immense from the point of view of an ordinary person, but that I consider minute from the point of view of a practitioner. At the beginning of my cultivation I lost a lot of time but I am hurrying to make up for lost time; a lot of beings are waiting to be saved.
