May 26, 2001
Houston, Texas
The day dawned sunny, hot, and humid, as is usual this time of year in this part of the world. As we left to go to the Chinese Consulate we saw some light gray clouds gathering and then a few drops of rain fell. But it stopped by the time we got there and we set about putting up our banners and then getting settled on the ground. We had a larger-than-usual group since practitioners from Dallas and San Antonio drove to Houston to join us. As we meditated before the time appointed for the first period of sending forth righteous thoughts, large drops of rain began to fall, slowly at first and then more rapidly. Heavy black clouds rolled in and, by the time for the first sending forth, the rain had started in earnest. From that moment until shortly before the time for the third sending forth, the meteorological effects were awesome. The rain intensified, as did the thunder, lightning, and the wind. The lightning was so intense it showed almost blindingly bright yellow and red through closed eyelids. The thunder was really loud, really sharp, and really close. There was no gap in time between the lightning bursting through the eyelids and the rumbling repeated cannon shots of thunder that actually shook the ground. The rain pounded down so fast it couldn't drain. So we sat in rising water and mud while being pelted from above and, as the wind grew, from the sides. The wind came up so strong it was hard to sit upright. The temperature dropped a lot, maybe15 or 20 degrees. Or so it seemed. I was shivering hard, almost uncontrollably but my head was totally clear, alert, and determined. It seemed that the more we thought about eradicating evil, the more ferocious the storm got and vice versa. I could not help thinking that really big evil was being destroyed somewhere and that this storm was a small manifestation in our dimension of the struggle.
About midway between the first and second periods of sending forth righteous thoughts, the rain let up a little and I opened my eyes to see that our banners were in danger of being blown away and that some practitioners were trying to hold them in place. I went over to help. A Chinese practitioner at one end of a banner started coaching two of us Westerners on the Chinese pronunciation of the phrases we were using during the righteous thinking. As we repeated after her, the weather got a little calmer but once the second period began and we silently included our newly learned Chinese phrases into our thoughts, the rain, lightning, thunder, and wind returned although they were not as fierce as before.
A few minutes after the second period ended we opened our eyes and noticed a man, also soaked, with a video camera pointed at our group. It turned out he was an amateur cameraman who often photographed "interesting" events to get his film shown on TV. He was very interested in what we were doing and why we were there. Of course, we were very glad to explain to him and give him what literature we had that was not too wet. He used a lot of videotape that day and said he would bring copies of his final tape(s) to us. Many of our practitioners were really cold and all were really wet. A woman who said she lived nearby and had seen us several times at the Consulate came up to us. She had made hot tea for us because she thought we looked so cold that she just had to warm us up a bit. She had a lot of herbal tea and plastic cups for us. Little did she know how brightly her kindness will shine in her future! We gave her what literature we could scare up and got her email address for further contact.
The third period was relatively calm, although there was still rain and sporadic thunder, lightning, and wind, all of which subsided within a few minutes of our leaving the Consulate. And so we ended the day's effort with enormous gratitude that we had been called to participate, and in the certainty that there had in fact been wholesale eradication of evil in the three realms.
This is only one practitioner's report on these events. Please help me find my errors.
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Category: Journeys of Cultivation
