(Clearwisdom.net) When I clarify the facts about Dafa, I proudly tell people, "I practice Falun Gong." When I say these words, I feel the wonder and dignity of believing in Master and trusting in the Fa.
At work, I put very little effort into concealing the fact that I am a practitioner and that I study the Fa. My colleagues openly play the "truth clarifying" CDs that I give them as well as the Divine Performing Arts DVD, without closing their office doors.
I have many wonderful cultivation stories to share regarding my path of validating the Fa, but the following three experiences stand out most vividly in my mind:
1. Righteous Thoughts Suppress a Person's Unrighteousness
One day in 2005, I called a taxicab to deliver Master's writings to a fellow practitioner. Shortly after I got in the taxi, I noticed that the driver had a very dark energy about him and he talked to me in a very seductive manner. Instead of being afraid of him, I suddenly felt a powerful sense of righteousness well-up inside me. As soon as the driver finished speaking, I quickly and firmly told him, "I am a Falun Gong practitioner." The driver looked at me and was stunned, and he didn't know what to say.
After a while, I began to silently send forth righteous thoughts. I started to tell him how practitioners cultivate their hearts and strive to be pure and kind. From the look on his face, I could tell that he was paying close attention to what I was saying.
When we were close to my destination, the driver said, "I admire you Falun Gong practitioners very much. Some of my customers are practitioners and they are indeed all very good people. On the other hand, I am an unprincipled person and have done many bad deeds in my life. As soon as I see a beautiful woman, I start to have lustful thoughts. The same thing happened when you got into my car. I don't like being this way but I just can't seem to control myself."
I said, "Then try to behave like a good person, starting today. You were not born with this bad trait. It mainly came from living in this morally-depraved society of ours. But remember always that doing good will attract good things into your life and doing bad things will cause you to meet with retribution." The driver nodded in agreement. After I got out of the car, he lowered his window and looked at me with a very relaxed, friendly expression on his face. I felt at that moment that a breath of fresh air had just been blown into his life.
2. Benevolence Touched a Taxi Driver
One day a fellow practitioner and myself took a taxi to a train station. On the way there, we started to chat with the driver in an attempt to clear up any misconceptions he might have about Falun Gong. All of a sudden he asked me, "Are you a Falun Gong practitioner?"--to which I replied, "Yes." Then he said, "I think I should take you to the local police station, not the train station." Instead of answering him, I calmly looked at him straight in the eyes, as the practitioner in the back seat sent forth righteous thoughts.
After a short silence, the driver said, "Do you hate me a lot?" I said, "No. I was just thinking that we have chatted the whole way and we have expressed our views on many matters. It seems to me that you should be able to see my true nature. But instead, you said such threatening words. I feel very sad. It must be because I haven't cultivated well enough to have touched you with my benevolence." The driver didn't say a word, so my practitioner friend and myself continued talking.
Before arriving at the train station, this practitioner shared some of her security concerns with me and suggested that we ask the driver to let us out as soon as he could. When he stopped on the side of the road, I paid him and we got out of the car. Just as I was about to close the door, the driver hurriedly said, "You are a good person, you are absolutely a good person." I smiled, and handed him a keepsake imprinted with the words "Falun Dafa is good," which he happily accepted.
3. A Driver Went Out of His Way to Take Me to Work
One morning in 2006, due to an urgent matter at my work unit, I decided to take a taxi to to work instead of taking the company bus. Normally the fare from my home to my work unit would be about ten yuan (where I live it is a common practice to bargain with a taxi driver before getting into his car).
Just as I got to the bottom of the stairs, a taxi pulled up to the curb offering his services. When I asked the driver what he would charge to take me to work, he said, "Twenty yuan." I told him, "Go away, I don't want to take your cab." The driver said, "Then how much will you offer?" I said, "No matter how little you charge me, I won't take your cab because all you think about is money."
The driver drove away, but then circled back, saying, "Tell me how much money are you willing to pay me?" We haggled with each other for a while until I realized that I was his only potential customer in sight. Feeling a little sorry for him, I reluctantly used his services.
After getting in his taxi, I said to him, "Do you know why I don't want to use your services? What you are charging for this trip is unfair. Generally the highest fare that I would expect to pay is fifteen yuan, and normally it's only ten yuan. But you're asking for twenty yuan, which is pure nonsense."
The driver said, "Nowadays, every taxi driver will cheat you if he thinks he can. If you don't know the correct price, then I will gain." I said, "What you said is wrong. In this world there are still good people who will not cheat people. You think that it is alright to cheat a person, but Heaven has eyes. I am a Falun Gong practitioner and I know this principle very well. Really, you must have a clear conscience when you do things."
Along the way, I spoke to him about many Fa principles, including the principle that good and evil have their respective rewards and punishments. He said, "I have lived for so long but no one has ever told me these principles. You are the first to tell me. When I was listening to you I felt very comfortable. Everyone I know is telling me how to avoid being bullied and how to cheat others out of their money. I feel very tired living this way. How wonderful it would be to live the kind of principled life you just described."
Upon arriving at my work unit, he refused to accept my fare. So I quickly dropped fifteen yuan on the passenger seat and walked away. The next morning, as I was about to board my company bus, a taxi that was parked directly behind the bus kept blowing its horn.
Since I was the only person in sight, I figured that the driver must have been trying to get my attention. When I approached the taxi, the driver noticed that I looked very confused and said, "Don't you recognize me? Yesterday morning I drove you to work. Today, I made a special trip to pick you up and take you to work."
After he spoke, I told him that I did recognize his voice but not his face. Since he insisted on taking me, I felt I had to oblige him. As soon as I sat down, I realized that I forgot to help him renounce the CCP.
In the process of "clarifying the truth," I often run into people who don't want to listen to even a few words of what I have to say, but instead ask me in an offhanded way, "Are you a Falun Gong practitioner?" When I am confronted with situations like this, I generally reply, "What do you think? Actually, I really want to practice Falun Gong. The Falun Gong practitioners I know in my work unit are especially kind, and they are all in good health. All the stories that the state-run media broadcasts about Falun Gong are untrue. Everything they report is fabricated and designed to frame and slander Falun Gong. There used to be a lot of people practicing Falun Gong in our area." Although the person I am talking to may not take a stand on Falun Gong right then and there, they at least heard the truth about Dafa.
When I say these words, "I am a Falun Gong practitioner," I feel very proud. When I meet former acquaintances of mine and don't have enough time to talk to them about Falun Gong, I try my best to at least let them know that I am still practicing Dafa. Why do I do this?
Everyone who knows me has witnessed the positive changes I have undergone since I began practicing Falun Gong. They all know that I now enjoy my life and have a wonderful family and work environment. As a result, they won't readily be hoodwinked into believing the negative things they hear about Falun Gong on the news.
Some fellow practitioners are afraid that others might find out that they are practicing Dafa. Actually, this thought alone can put their life in danger. Think about it, if we are unwilling to acknowledge that we are Dafa practitioners, then who in the Heavens will dare to protect us?
Of course, we should always pay attention to safety issues and rationally and wisely clarify the facts. If we want to tell others that we are Dafa practitioners, we should first examine ourselves to see if we have sufficient righteous thoughts and to see if we are really proud of being a Dafa disciple.
