(Clearwisdom.net) Our activities are often richly colorful, but the essential goal of every activity we participate in is to save sentient beings. So no matter what we do, we should think about whether it can achieve the best effect or not. Waist drum performances and colorful dances are very good on some occasions. In some other situations however, they may not be the best, so we should not just simply copy this or any other format indiscriminately.
In Chinatown, many people have been deceived by the Chinese communist party's media propaganda and thus carry deep misunderstanding of Falun Gong and practitioners. In our activities there, we not only demonstrate Falun Gong exercises, but also play waist drums and perform dances, which is to use multiple and colorful forms to let them know that Falun Gong practitioners are good people and fellow members of society. We have our happiness and joy, we are versatile and lead normal everyday lives. This can effectively eliminate the poison in their minds and achieve a good effect in clarifying the facts and saving them. Thus this is acting appropriately to the situation.
On the other hand, if the audience of parades and performances are westerners who have not heard much about Falun Gong, especially in small cities, then waist drums and dances may cause the effect that the secondary supersedes the primary. Most westerners are not poisoned like the Chinese and they don't have negative thoughts against Falun Gong. We should thus tell the people about Falun Gong in a pure, simple, and direct way.
Some may feel that waist drums and dances can activate a lively atmosphere and add to audience' positive feeling towards Falun Gong. Actually, a Great Way is most simple and easy, complexity is not always good. Simple contents can draw audience attention to "Falun Gong," "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance," and the "five sets of exercises" that are elegant, relaxing and peaceful, which exactly meets our purpose. In fact, before 1999, in several big holiday parades in our state, we purely demonstrated Falun Gong exercises on the float with practitioners walking and holding a banner that read, "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance." We received warm applause along the way and hundreds of Falun Gong newsletters were distributed. The Fa has its power.
If most of our display is not related to Falun Dafa, the liveliness on the surface may attract more attention from the audience, which distracts them from focusing on the "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance" and the exercise demonstration. Afterwards, people may still wonder whether Falun Gong is a Chinese culture, or a Chinese ethnic group, or a dance, or an organization to promote the Chinese culture. In many activities flyer distribution is not allowed; even if allowed, only part of the audience actually receives the flyers. Thus, we should pay more attention to our presentation so that the message we try to get across to the people is precise and clear.
Sentient beings have been waiting thousands of years to hear about Falun Dafa, not to learn how splendid the Chinese culture is. If, after the fun, people are happy yet carry a wrong understanding of Falun Dafa, isn't the sentient beings' long waiting in vain? Aren't our efforts in vain?
I am not saying that from now on we should remove the waist drums and dancing from all our activities. What I mean is that when we do things we should think about what our purpose is and how we can most effectively meet our purpose.
This is my personal understanding. Please point out anything improper.
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