Greetings, venerable Master Li. Greetings, everyone.
We, practitioners from the Greater Philadelphia area, would like to share with you our cultivation experiences spreading Dafa in Philadelphia during the past year.
1. Philadelphia Inquirer
Beginning on July 20th, 1999, when the Chinese government started its persecution of Falun Gong, the influence of the Chinese government's propaganda and the government's veiling of the truth led the Philadelphia Inquirer, our city's most popular newspaper, to publish some biased and even negative articles about Falun Gong. This was the case with many Western media at that time. After we read the negative articles, we realized how much we had fallen short in our efforts to spread Dafa to the public, and strongly believed that we shouldn't allow a misinformed Western media to mislead the public any further.
In response, some of us immediately sent materials to the Inquirer in order to tell the truth about Falun Dafa and the government's suppression. While some of us wrote to the paper to tell the truth about Falun Gong, others felt that directly talking to the editor would be a more effective way to clarify things. We thus called the chief editor of the international news section. Having listened to our explanations, the editor expressed his interest in knowing more about the practice. At that time there were large-scale Falun Gong group practices in Washington D.C., along with a press conference. After receiving our invitation to these events, the editor sent a reporter to Washington to cover them. The reporter talked to practitioners and watched them peacefully practice their exercises under the burning sun, calling for a peaceful resolution to the crisis in China. Afterwards, the reporter was deeply moved. The next day, an article with positive coverage on Falun Gong appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The editor personally told one of our practitioners, "Now I know what kind of practice Falun Dafa is." We then made an appointment with the editor and brought him Falun Dafa introductory materials and excerpts of media coverage on the Chinese government's ruthless suppression of Falun Gong. During the meeting, we told him our first hand cultivation experiences along with the cultivation stories of our family members. Several days later, a reporter and photographer from the newspaper came to our group practice sites to interview us and take photos. They then wrote a vivid and truthful report. The article was published on the front page of the Inquirer, and had a really positive impact on spreading Dafa in Philadelphia. We made sure to keep the editor informed through emails about the Chinese government's suppression of Falun Gong and its brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Since that time last year, the newspaper has published positive, factual articles, including even one very strongly worded editorial.
At a Chinese New Year Festival held at the University of Pennsylvania's Art Museum early this year, a different reporter from the Inquirer stumbled upon our Falun Gong booth and became deeply interested on a personal level. She also met into one our practitioners, a young women who was detained by police for several days when she went back to China to visit family members for the Chinese New Year. The reporter was taken by her story, and wrote an article the next day with detailed coverage. That article allowed the public to see the Chinese government's persecution of innocent Falun Gong practitioners in a personal light, while at the same time learning about the larger situation.
All of these experiences have made us realize that when we spread Dafa to the media or other organizations, a face-to-face conversation is a most effective approach. Through sharing our own cultivation experiences and, in particular, through our own conduct, we can allow people see Dafa practitioners' truthfulness and kindness. This helps people to feel closer to us, which makes for easier communication. Meanwhile, we have also realized our own shortcomings in Dafa spreading activities. For example, we used to focus more on group practice and study, but failed to realize the importance of spreading Dafa to the public on a larger scale and letting people know the truth about Dafa. Now we have a better understanding about why our Teacher has used the term "immense" to characterize our spreading Dafa to the public.
Over the past year we have also had appointments with reporters and editors of other local newspapers, including one with a reporter from the Chinese newspaper in Philadelphia, World journal. Their coverage of Falun Gong has also positively influenced Dafa's spreading to the public.
2. Proclamation of Philadelphia "Falun Dafa Day"
In the wake of the June 1999 Chicago Experience Sharing Conference, we realized that we should enable more people to have a correct knowledge and understanding of Falun Dafa. We thus prepared introductory materials and sent them to the Mayor of Philadelphia. Being impressed by Dafa's guiding principle of Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance, its capacity to elevate morality, its positive affects on mental and physical health, and its free teachings and openness to the public, the Mayor decided to proclaim a day in August as, "Philadelphia Falun Dafa Day" (the exact date was left for us to decide), and sent a representative to attend our ceremony.
In this activity, we received a lot of help and support from the city government as well as from both Chinese and Western practitioners. Some practitioners who had barely attended group practices showed up. Westerner practitioners were also actively involved in both preparations and in the actual ceremony. Many practitioners from New York, New Jersey and Delaware attended the ceremony on Aug.16, which was great support and encouragement to our local practitioners. The ceremony was solemn and serene. Reporters from the ABC TV station and World journal newspaper attended and reported on the event.
The proclamation affair has allowed us to realize that no matter how the Chinese government suppresses Falun Gong, it cannot prevent people from knowing the truth. The proclamations and recognition by many local governments and government officials has demonstrated that more and more people are learning the truth about Falun Dafa, and that they appreciate its positive impact on the society?omething that isn't just a simple phenomenon. Meanwhile, we have also realized that it is extremely important to spread Dafa with a righteous mind, for this determines whether we can succeed and is related to our own cultivation. How we interact with people shapes and informs people's perception of Dafa. So we should always do things in an upright and noble way. We should eliminate the mentality of fear when we promote Dafa to the public, because enabling people to have a correct understanding of Dafa is a most righteous and noble task.
3. Our Local Library Project
In April of this year, one of our local practitioners expressed a desire to create a library package. This library package consisted of a cover letter asking the librarian if they would accept as a gift the teaching materials of Falun Dafa. This cover letter gives a description of the practice and the teaching materials. We also attached to the cover letter the Philadelphia Proclamation and positive local news articles.
Upon reading the newly translated version of the Lectures At The Conference In Switzerland, this practitioner was very moved by Master Li's very simple request that the most effective ways of spreading the Fa is to practice the exercises in groups and to have the DaFa books available in bookstores. She immediately thought about the public library system and how public libraries are far more numerous than bookstores, and how these locations could reach out to even more people. We know that every town and major city in this country has a free public library. This practitioner has expressed how wonderful it would be if every public library in every major town in this country had our DaFa books and video.
To date, the library package has been quite successful, and in the Philadelphia area we have 11 libraries who now have the Dafa books and exercise video. We still have more libraries to take this package to so our work is not done. We would be more than happy to share our package with other areas, and the cover letter can be easily tailored to accommodate their area.
In addition, it is very important that we support the books in the libraries. We make sure the blue brochure and Falun Dafa Reader are available in the libraries, and we have come up with a label to place on these materials that notifies the person that these books and video are available in their library.
4. Chinese Newspaper -- A window of Falun Gong to the Chinese Community
After "7.20", the Chinese community was deeply influenced by the overwhelming malicious propaganda from Mainland China. In order to tell the truth, practitioners tried to put more Dafa articles on the 2 most popular local Chinese newspapers. Nowadays articles about Falun Gong are available every week on one full page. We work together and carefully select articles. We treat this as a window for people to know about Falun Gong, and for more people to learn the true story of Falun Gong.
Editors have grown up via editing Dafa's articles. Previously, good articles were chosen if the word counts were good, and covered various aspects. Occasionally, we used the whole edition for one long article. Right now, we use various columns, such as "the heart of citizens", "Persecution report", " Weekly News", "Scientific Exploration", "Practitioners' Recommendation", etc. The articles are more readable, and closer to the readers.
The ad that has been put on the newspaper for the first Falun Gong workshop in the Philadelphia Chinese community has attracted a lot of people. A lot of people came after they read a lot of Dafa articles that published in the local Chinese newspaper. Local practitioners made very impressive presentation during the workshop; the workshop was in harmonious atmosphere. A lot of people were very interested after the workshop, and talked to the practitioners for a long time. Later on some of them came to the practice site and learnt the exercise.
5. Distributing Newspapers--Letting People know the truth
We have found that by making available the newspapers edited by Dafa practitioners to the general public, this can be a very effective way to let people know the truth since the newspaper contains solely positive information.
On one hand, we put our material in the supermarkets and Chinese restaurants in the suburbs frequented by Chinese people for them to pick up. As for westerners, we put our material in some health food stores, food courts, restaurants, schools, bookshops, train stations, fitness centers, free libraries, museums, and so on. We also need to take care of the demand and replenish them in time.
We also distribute newspapers on the truth of Falun Gong at places with a large Chinese population, such as China Town, University City, Liberty Bell Park where tourists from China will definitely visit, and oriental supermarkets. While handing out newspapers on the street, it is natural to encounter various responses, attitudes, and eye gestures. It is only possible to achieve a good effect by truly maintaining one's Xinxing, constantly searching inward, truly forsaking the ego, and taking consideration of others under any circumstance.
In the beginning, we paid a lot of attention to courtesy. We would ask people whether they spoke Chinese, showed them the newspaper and asked them whether they wanted it, and then just wait for a nod of acceptance before handing the newspaper over. The result was half accepted and half rejected. It occurred to us one day that this kind of politeness actually covered a lot of attachments: the fear of being refused, the fear of losing dignity.... Anyway, it all related to the attachment of selfishness. After all, the stories in the newspaper are real. Those who can take it, read it, and accept the stories in it as real will put their life in a correct position in the infinite future. Upon truly realizing what a sacred deed we are doing, we found the pattern by which we distribute newspapers changed as well. We simply asked people whether they spoke Chinese, then presented the newspapers with both hands with only a sincere look and one word "Please". This time most people happily accepted. Once during a weekend when there were many people around, we were so busy in handing out newspapers and did not remember whom we had given them to. It happened that one of us asked someone twice within a very short time. Yet that person was not annoyed at all. He even pulled his friend over and said:"Give it to her, give it to her!" He kept telling her: "You should have it."
When being refused by a few people, we never complained. How much warmth do we need to melt this thick glacier? When one practitioner planned to put the newspapers in the "Global Book Bureau", the other practitioner reminded her that it might be very difficult since they refused us before. But it turned out to be very smooth: the shopkeeper even found a place for us to leave them. At that moment, we deeply understood that this involved the efforts of many other practitioners. In this dimension, we may not be clear what it means each time it is accepted or refused. While in the other dimensions, our great compassionate Master is looking after everything.
6. Falun Gong Workshops
In the past year, we have given quite a few Falun Gong Introductory Workshops in bookshops, libraries, health food stores, middle schools and universities. During the first few workshops, we placed the main emphasis on explaining the basic characteristic of Falun Gong and its significant effect on improving one's health both mentally and physically. We felt we'd better not bring up the issue about the persecution of Falun Gong in Mainland China at first. Yet we found that during the question and answer session, many questions were related to the current persecution in China. The audience expressed their concern and sympathy as well as their confusion about the reason why the Chinese government was persecuting practitioners. We realized rather than getting around this serious topic and passively taking questions, it seemed more appropriate for us to explain voluntarily the truth regarding the persecution of Falun Gong and its practitioners in Mainland China. In this way, we can present to the audience the whole picture of Falun Gong and to reveal to more people the absurdity and brutality of the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese Government. We also helped them understand the real manifestation of Falun Dafa in human society. This is also complementary to our Hongfa on the positive side.
In the workshops, thereafter, we covered the cultural and historical background of qi-gong. We also talked about the differences between modern qi-gong and Falun Gong, placing emphasis on cultivating one's xinxing, thereby explaining its dramatic health benefits in both mind and body. We also explained to the audience the reasons for the persecution of Falun Gong in China, and told them what is really happening there. If time permitted, we would play the video Falun Gong-The Real Story, and time allowing we would talk about some of the real stories of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. The audience was very interested in this kind of workshop and was also deeply concerned about the persecution of Chinese practitioners. We finally taught the audience two sets of exercises. The general feedback we received was very positive.
7. Give up our own attachments, and tell the truth to the public
There are two Chinese Bookstores in China Town in Philadelphia --The World Bookstore and the newly opened Xinhua Bookstore. We have put Dafa books for sale in World Bookstore for almost two years. The books are sold pretty good. The owners of Xinhua Bookstore are a couple from mainland China. They are very kind and well educated. Practitioners want to put Dafa books in the bookstore, but they have some considerations. Because "Xinhua Bookstore" in Chinese has the connotation of the Bookstore in the Communist China. Would they be able to accept the books while Falun Gong is being so overwhelmingly suppressed and distorted in Mainland China? Several practitioners are regular patrons of the bookstore, but they never asked for the possibility of selling Dafa books there.
One day, a practitioner was in the bookstore and asking about selling Dafa books in "Xinhua Bookstore". Out of his expectation, the owner of the store agreed immediately, and also encouraged us to have some workshop there. The practitioner then gave $500 for the initial working capital. Since then, the 2 bookstores both have Dafa books on stock. Up to now, we have offered the introduction workshops to the Chinese community twice and told the truth of the Falun Gong to the public.
This gave practitioners inspirations. After "7.20, 1999", some practitioners tried to spread Dafa and the truth to the Chinese community. Yet practitioner often got negative responses. They arrived at an conclusion that "there is no cure for those who have watched CCTV!" So some practitioners simply stopped talking about Falun Gong even though they can meet Chinese fairly often on various occasions. In reality, the avoidance is a kind of fear, fearing that people will misunderstand us and we will lose face. Practitioners recall the story about Han Xin in "Zhuan falun". The government's defamation against Falun gong is really a knife being held upon everybody's neck. As practitioners, we should help people out with a mind of great benevolence and forbearance. We should not consider too much about ourselves. Dafa and Dafa practitioners have established the great mighty virtue in the past year. The destruction in other dimensions has also been cleaned up. Why can't we give up all kinds of attachment, and tell the truth to the whole world? People will be able to gain correct understanding and put their lives in the proper positions. At the same time, it will help human society to restore the environment, which has been damaged by the evil force. This is a wholly thing. This is our practitioners' obligation. How can we avoid it due to our small frustration?
In fact, we found a lot of people are changing. They show respect and sympathy to our Dafa and wait to understand more about Dafa. Of course, there are still some people who stick to their prejudice. But it is very weak. A practitioner couple visited a Chinese friend and spread Fa to them. The wife was willing to accept, but the husband refused to let us lend him a book of "Zhuan Falun". His mind was preoccupied with CCTV and China Daily propaganda. The practitioner couple left a copy of "cultivation story" and Falun Gong newspaper. Two weeks later, when the 2 couples met again, surprisingly, the prejudicial husband asked a lot of questions about Falun Gong and said, "I read the book several times. I also read the articles on the Internet. I also read Master Li' new articles. Is there any seminar available?" This is a 180-degree turn. Later on, this couple went to the practitioners' home, learnt the exercise video, and borrowed the 9-day seminar videotapes and "Zhuan Falun". And now, they started the practice!!
What was worth mentioning is that this article was written by a group of practitioners based on their recent experience in spreading the Fa. Everybody becomes aware that the process of writing personal experience is to dig his/her own root. Looking back, all the tribulations are caused by our own attachments. Only by continuously studying the Fa, making progress on Fa, using the clean mind, will we be able to spreading the Fa better. This is the holiest thing in the world.
Thanks very much!!