By a practitioner in Shaanxi Province, China

(Clearwisdom.net)

Greetings Master, Greetings fellow practitioners,

During this fourth annual mainland Falun Dafa practitioners' written experience sharing conference, I would like to share some things about the Dafa truth clarifying materials production and supply site where I work and some situations that have occurred during the process of my Fa-rectification cultivation. My intention is to be responsible to what the editors of Minghui.org suggested, namely, to contribute positive records of cultivation during this very important historical period. Please be kind enough to correct me if my content is inadequate.

Setting Up a Dafa Truth-Clarifying Materials Site

During the end of summer and early autumn of 2005, a few Falun Dafa practitioners came to this city at different times and for different reasons, yet we all shared similar backgrounds. All of us are middle aged, have elderly parents and young children, and have lost our jobs because of the persecution. We were, therefore, unable to stay where we were and had financial difficulties in our daily lives. So, early on, we had similar thoughts of doing some kind of business to support our families. At the same time, we hoped we could validate Dafa and help save people.

As we were discussing how to go about creating a partnership for doing business, one of the local practitioners in charge of a significant-sized materials site was in danger of being illegally arrested by the police. Some fellow practitioners had already been arrested, impacting the safety of another truth materials site. Local coordinators asked us twice to help move the materials from these two sites to a safe area. Moving things from the second impacted site to a fellow practitioner's home was a good thing to do, I felt , but to have all that equipment wrapped and packed in storage didn't feel right. The right thing to do was to transfer the equipment to a safe place and then set it up for operation so that it could continue to support Dafa practitioners' efforts to clarify the truth.

At that time, because the two materials sites had stopped production for two weeks, most of the practitioners in the city were short of truth clarifying materials and copies of "Minghui Weekly." Under the circumstances, a number of out-of-town practitioners gathered together to study the Fa and consider what to do in the face of the new situation.

As disciples of the Fa-rectification period, we were faced with a real opportunity. Could we put our own plans aside in order to cooperate with local practitioners to achieve the goal of saving sentient beings? Through our discussions, we all acknowledged that it wasn't wrong for us to validate the Fa while doing business. We only needed to set the relationship straight: Fa-validation first; business second.

Our first concern was to ensure that we could reach the goal of saving sentient beings. Then, if we still have time and energy, we'd consider doing some business. With strong determination, we filled the two empty local spots for producing truth-clarifying materials.

We took action immediately, finding suitable locations right away. We moved the equipment in and set everything up. A completely new materials production facility was quickly ready for operation. The first priority was to print Minghui Weekly and Minghui News Weekly. At the same time we printed copies of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. Before long local coordinators made adequate arrangements to move some of the equipment from the new office to the second materials site where they're mainly in charge of producing truth-clarifying materials. In our office we're mainly responsible for producing the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party.

The setting up of our new materials site seemed like an accident, but it was actually arranged by Teacher especially for this critical moment, as we soon understood.

As we know, everything of Dafa disciples' comes from Dafa, so studying the Fa well is essential.

Our materials sites are working smoothly. In the process of validating Dafa they have helped lots of people to understand the truth about Falun Dafa. We are able to accomplish much mainly because we have maintained our group Fa study. During group study we take turns reading one paragraph each. Then we share our understandings of the Fa and reflect inward. We analyze problems that exist within ourselves according to the Fa, thus setting our minds right.

In the process, all of us feel that we are gaining something, that our human notions are changing, and that our characters are elevating. As the last part of our group Fa study, we discuss problems and various issues, including difficulties we discover in producing truth clarifying materials, conflicts between practitioners, and the unique situations that arise with regard to truth clarification in our area or in the greater area. Through Fa study, we learn to analyze causes, find solutions, and acknowledge problems.

In contrast to our diligent Fa study, we found our new city to be lacking in this respect. So, we talked to the coordinator about our thoughts, our understandings, and the way we did Fa study. He accepted our suggestions and recommended them to other materials sites. Also, fellow practitioners were mobilized to organize small Fa-study groups citywide.

During that period of time, copies of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party were needed in large quantities not only locally, but also in the surrounding cities, counties, and towns. We needed money to buy materials. What the coordinators brought in wasn't enough, though they did their best. According to the principles of Dafa, we weren't allowed to gather capital from practitioners. It was preferable not to even mention it.

We asked our coordinator whether we could get jobs to make some money to help support the materials sites. He contacted two other coordinators and their opinion was, in order to guarantee an uninterrupted supply of the Nine Commentaries, the manpower at the materials sites shouldn't be reduced. They said they would find a way to solve the money problem. Their final solution was that the two of them would come up with more than 6000 yuan, 3000 or so each. This sum of money didn't actually last too long, but the money situation at that time was just like this.

Through studying the Fa and sharing opinions, we all agreed that saving people shouldn't be jeopardized no matter how difficult the situation was. Every practitioner should live up to his or her potential and find a way to come up with some money to support the materials sites.

When Xiao Yang (alias) came to this city, he told his wife he was going to do business. But because of the shortage of manpower, he became one of the volunteers. He To deal with the problem the materials sites were having, he chose to call on his wife for help with monthly living expenses. His wife had an income back home. Every time he asked she'd send him several thousand yuan, enabling Xiao Yang to help the local materials sites many times.

Xiao Yu (alias) lent money to her friends and relatives before the persecution started in 1999. Being a practitioner, she didn't care much about money. If the borrowers didn't voluntarily repay the loans, she didn't really bother to ask them for repayment. After 1999 she was fired from her job because she went to Beijing to validate Falun Dafa, causing her to lose her income for many years. Even then, she didn't seek repayment from the borrowers. But now that the truth clarifying materials site had money problems, she sought the money back from the borrowers.

Xiao Fang (alias) had a mortgaged house back home. She went back to sell the house. After paying off the loan, she turned the remaining money over to the materials sites.

Donations from these fellow practitioners, totaling more than ten thousand yuan, solved the initial capital problems in setting up the materials sites, allowing a good quantity of the Nine Commentaries"to be produced. In about six months, after more and more fellow practitioners were able to get the Nine Commentaries, they donated money saved from living frugally. The new situation, as it turned out, entirely solved our funding difficulties early on, enabling us to produce as many Nine Commentaries, new lectures, and other Dafa books as needed.

In order to save as much money as possible, so as to produce as many truth-clarifying materials as possible, fellow practitioners rented the most economical office space, found ways to save water and power, bought cheaper foods, and wore used clothing donated by fellow practitioners. After each meal we poured hot water into our bowls, rinsed them, and drank it all up. This way no rice was lost and it made cleaning the bowls easier. A year later, when a fellow practitioner was leaving town, he wrote a poem commemorating it.

Since we could produce large quantities of the Nine Commentaries, we weren't limited to one area. As long as fellow practitioners needed the Nine Commentaries, regardless of location, we'd supply the quantity at the specified time as required.

After Xiao Yang had been with the local materials site about half a year, he was needed to transport a load of the Nine Commentaries back to his hometown, which was a long distance away. Fellow practitioners asked how Xiao Yang would arrange the delivery of the books and visiting his family. He flatly said, "No family visit this time, I'm delivering Nine Commentaries only." Two months later, the same kind of delivery was needed. Xiao Yang said, "If I go home for a visit, I'd probably delay fellow practitioners' work and it would impact other things too. I'd better skip it." Just as on the last trip, he came back the same night with the others.

Three months later, fellow practitioners in Xiao Yang's hometown needed the books again. This time, fellow practitioners at the materials site all agreed, "No matter how it goes, we have to make time for him to visit his family." Xiao Yang himself also thought that it was time for him to see his family. However, transporting the Nine Commentaries this time involved fellow practitioners from different areas who were responsible for many matters. It was rather hard to arrange the whole thing. In view of the problems, Xiao Yang said, "I would rather not go back home. All of us should just concentrate on delivering the Nine Commentaries." So they did! When they got back to the office in the city, one fellow practitioner was very touched. "Back in ancient China, there was this great irrigation expert, Da Yu. When he was too busy, too focused working on his water project, he didn't have time and never thought of visiting his family even though he was in the neighborhood three different times." Today, we were eyewitnesses to a similar incident. Fellow practitioner Xiao Yang took part in transporting the Nine Commentaries three different times from a distant city to his hometown where his family resided, but he was too busy to visit his loved ones!

Our materials site is actually a big one, and it is furnished with strong technical support, because we furnish supplies not only locally, but also out of town or even in distant locations. Because of the evil persecution, we have faced tough times, but we have remained diligent in studying the Fa well and getting rid of friction among fellow practitioners, so the evil forces have basically found no loopholes to take advantage of us.

On the surface, we're inspired by Teacher's Fa teaching that the Great Way has no form. We pay attention to every aspect, causing the evildoers to have no knowledge of our existence, let alone how to deal with us. Only a few coordinators know about us. All other practitioners in the city have no idea at all. Even in our office, only one practitioner is responsible for dealing with the coordinators who place orders and receive products. As far as our location and the number of practitioners taking part are concerned, they have no idea. Whether they know or not isn't important. The point is how the things are handled in a safe way so as not to cause troubles as far as Fa-validation is concerned. For safety reasons, no one in society knows who does what and how much or what outstanding things he or she did at our materials site.

Due to our efforts as a single body based on the great Falun Dafa, whenever coordinators are confronted with difficult matters, they want to consult us, to let us solve the problems for them. Also, in surrounding counties and townships, whenever they want to set up new materials sites, we are the ones to help do the job. In one district, several materials sites were destroyed by the authorities and several dozen fellow practitioners were arrested. Some avoided the arrest with righteous thoughts. These practitioners managed, through twists and turns, to get in touch with our local coordinators and requested technical support to reconstruct their materials sites. Consequently, after consultation our coordinators turned this mission over to our materials site.

Under the prerequisite that the new mission was not to interfere with what we had already shouldered, after one month's preparation, we chose three fellow practitioners to spend a week helping them in that area. Within this one week's time, we weren't in a hurry to teach technical skills or how to solve specific problems. Instead, we spent day after day concentrating on group Fa-study, on understandings and sharing ideas from Fa study, and on discussing the reasons why they were persecuted. We especially emphasized the importance of group Fa study and maintaining the habit of it after setting up the materials site.

After Fa study for a few days, those local fellow practitioners became not as anxious to learn the skills as they were early on. They were more willing to spend time on Fa study. Xiao Fang, the fellow practitioner familiar with technical matters from our site, stayed behind for a month helping local practitioners to solve technical problems as well as to solidify their Fa study.

One time when Xiao Fang was printing some Chinese characters for modifying specific characters in Zhuan Falun, the printer automatically printed out on the center of the paper: "CULTIVATION OF FALUN DAFA IS THE MOST UPRIGHT, THE GREATEST." These characters were printed in large heavy block letters. Also, on both ends of the string of characters there appeared a few lotus flowers made of yellow ink drops. Letters of this form couldn't be printed out even if the printer was given a special command. All of the fellow practitioners at the scene soon understood that it was done by our great compassionate Teacher so as to encourage us, the disciples. Every one of us was greatly touched with tears in our eyes.

Note:

Due to family reasons two fellow practitioners from our materials site went back home. One of them we have never heard from, but the other has always been in contact with us. The latter has been a significant coordinator in his area. We've been in constant contact, getting messages across, encouraging each other, helping each other, and mutually improving together.

This fellow practitioner said to me that the most beneficial thing he learned after a year at this materials site was group Fa study. Now, as a coordinator in his area, his main mission is to lead his local fellow practitioners in doing Fa study, on which they agree with him. Based on their maintaining Fa study, every project in defense of Falun Dafa in his local area has been going rather smoothly. Recently, two other fellow practitioners came to join our materials site with their own specialties. They are willing to work jointly with us for the great mission of validating Dafa and saving sentient beings. The basics of our materials site are still the same even though there have been some changes in personnel. We're still upholding our schedule of daily group Fa study from which we increasingly benefit.

Posting date: 12/20/2007
Original article date: 12/20/2007
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Translated on 11/10/2007
Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/11/7/165258.html

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