(Clearwisdom.net) Over a month ago, a practitioner in our area was arrested. His family had over a hundred date trees, and it was now time to harvest the dates. Being the main source of labor in his family, his absence meant that there would be no one to harvest the dates. On September 26-27, a dozen practitioners came to his house to help with the harvest. It would have been such a waste for the dates to rot away.
The journey to the practitioner's house was about twenty-five kilometers (about 16 miles). In order not to bring any inconvenience to the practitioner's family members, we bought griddle cakes for our lunch and also brought drinking water. After getting off the bus, we hurried to the date farm. We cooperated very well with one another, and a dozen of us were able to harvest the dates from more than one hundred trees in a single day. We packed the dates in bags, transported them to the house, and then moved them into the storage room. Besides eating lunch we didn't take any other breaks.
It was interesting that at around noon, a neighbor who was a elderly farmer came to where we were working and asked us, "Where are you guys from?" I smiled and said, "We came from different places." He then asked us if our lunch was taken care of. We replied that we had brought our own lunches and that we voluntarily came to help with the harvest.
"Ah! You all came to do good deeds!" The old man tucked in his lips and nodded his head. We could tell that he was very pleased with us and was full of admiration. I said, "The owner of this farm was arrested because he practices Falun Gong. Now is the time when the harvest must be brought in, yet they refused to let him go. The fruits of an entire year's labor depends on these few days. If no one harvests them, the dates will drop off and rot on the ground. If we don't harvest the dates, wouldn't it be a waste? Don't you think that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is unreasonable?"
He didn't reply. (Later we learned that the people in this village don't have a clear understanding of Falun Gong. They also found it hard to understand why the practitioner was arrested and persecuted.) At this point in time, we started to clarify the truth from all perspectives. We talked about the corruption of the CCP, about the children's deaths and illness due to the CCP's failure to disclose the poisonous milk powder scandal, the changes taking place in the climate, the need to renounce one's Party membership, and the wonderfulness of Falun Gong. While we were talking, we also helped him out with some of his tasks. He was very supportive of the actions of practitioners and he changed his opinion about Falun Gong.
During the harvest, the practitioner's wife mentioned that while suffering due to the persecution, she also had to continue supporting the family. Besides this, she had to endure the disapproval and reprimands from some of their family members, and the sneering comments from the neighbors. The girlfriend of the practitioner's son even wanted to break up with him. Faced with all of these pressures, the wife didn't know what to do. We encouraged her to stay strong and we reminded her that she still had all of us to count on. We told her that almost all of us had suffered in one form or another from the persecution and that we had all gone through similar tribulations. We told her that during the many years the Communist regime has been ruling China, they have been doing bad deeds. All of the various movements like the "Three Anti's Campaign," "Five Anti's Campaign," "Suppression of Counter-Revolutionaries," "Cultural Revolution," "June 4th Tiananmen Square Massacre," and the "Persecution of Falun Gong" are all bad deeds. We practitioners are just being good people and have not done anything wrong to anyone. Not a single law in China states that those who practice Falun Gong are committing a crime! The evil CCP is crafty at plotting against and persecuting the Chinese people. We also told her that amongst us, there is a fellow practitioner who has a mother who is bedridden at home. Another on of the practitioner's children has no one to take care of them, and someone came to help out. They all managed to overcome their difficulties and so we have come here today to help with the date harvest. Some of us had just gotten off working the night shift and some have put aside our business to make time to come help. We all put down what we were doing just because we were afraid that the dates would rot away and that the arrested practitioner's family would be overcome with worry.
Before we left, we also specially set aside time to share with the practitioner's wife about how to ask for the practitioner's release. Our actions and words were a great encouragement to the practitioner's family. His wife felt comforted and inspired. Later that night, she discussed everything that had happened and what she had learned with the practitioner's younger brother and they decided what to do the next day and made preparations to ask for the release of the practitioner.
Although we were all very tired after a hard day's work and our knees and calves were aching, we were able to help sentient beings understand the truth about Falun Gong, and have better understandings of Falun Gong and practitioners. We all felt doubly gratified and comforted.
October 7, 2008
