By a Dafa practitioner in the United States

(Clearwisdom.net) Practitioners participating in community parades is a very good way to introduce Falun Dafa to the community. Within one day, so many people in the area will get to know about Falun Dafa. I personally think the topic of the leading banner should be related to the topic of the community parade. This is a basic courtesy. Then we should have the Falun Dafa banners, exercise demonstration, the Tang dynasty dance team, and then the waist drum team. This way, we demonstrate traditional Chinese culture and we can show the peacefulness, compassion, and beauty of Falun Dafa. Having the Tang dynasty dance team or the traditional drum team but without Falun Dafa exercise demonstrations may lead others to believe that Falun Dafa is a cultural or dance group.

The banners we choose are an important issue to consider. One time before a community parade started, practitioners had some arguments on whether to put out the banner with Chinese "Falun Dafa is good."

Some practitioners thought it would be fine if we had the English banners saying "Falun Dafa" and "Truth, Compassion, Forbearance." It was not necessary to put out the Chinese "Falun Dafa is good" banner. Plus there were not many participating practitioners. They felt it would be more effective if we had the practitioners give out Dafa materials instead of holding a Chinese banner that said "Falun Dafa is good." However, some practitioners thought we were there to clarify the truth because "Falun Dafa is good." Hence the arguments started.

Since our group in the community parade had the English banner with the words, "Falun Dafa" in the front, plus we had Dafa practitioners doing exercise demonstration following that, I thought people would understand that this was the Falun Dafa group. Besides, there were practitioners giving out Dafa materials at both sides of the street, once people saw the materials, they would understand more about Falun Dafa.

Although there was not a "good" in the banner of "Falun Dafa," the shiny golden words meant "good" by themselves! "Falun Dafa is good" was designed to target the propaganda and defamation inside China. If it was a parade only for Falun Dafa or if we were in front of a Chinese consulate, then we should put out the "Falun Dafa is good" and "Global Trials on Jiang Zemin" banners.

I thought it was good to have the English "Falun Dafa" banner in the community parade and it was also fine to have the Chinese "Falun Dafa is good" in the middle of our group. However, if we did not have enough people and hence we decided not to put out this banner, it was definitely not some "evil interference." The problem was not whether to put out the banner, the problem was our attitude. The parade was about to start and we should follow the order of whoever was in charge of the project. If anyone had any suggestions, it could be proposed after the parade. It was normal that different people had different suggestions and opinions. We could all talk about our opinions calmly and not accuse others "you have to look inward, you have to learn the Fa more" in every argument.

Posting date: 8/18/2004
Original article date: 8/17/2004
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2004/8/5/81020.html

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