Shared at 2004 Canada Falun Dafa Conference
(Clearwisdom.net) During the past four years, thanks to the hard work of many fellow practitioners in clarifying the truth, the Torontonian Chinese community has been moving closer and closer towards Falun Dafa. Due to the fact that my company's work involves meeting a large number of clients and customers, and not forgetting to do the three things that Dafa disciples are required to do, clarifying the truth has been merged very naturally with my work.
A fellow practitioner works with me. There are also a large number of Chinese clients. Whenever I met a Chinese client, I'd have a chat with them. The two of us would cooperate, and we would discuss things from the Cultural Revolution, to the June-4th Tiananmen incident; from unemployment in China, to corrupt officials in the government; from materialism in the Chinese society, to the destruction of morality lead by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Finally we would discuss the "self-immolation tragedy" on Tiananmen Square, or sometimes we would even play a truth-clarification video on the computer for the client. In this way, I could both display my product's good quality, and be able to clarify the truth. Regardless of whether the client is a scholar, a visiting elder, an international student, or an immigrant, whether they protest irrationally or remain silent - under our seamless cooperation, many people understood the truth, some were even deeply touched by Dafa's compassion. We were able to use rationality and logic to clarify the truth.
After continuing in this way for a long time, our place was turned into a small Chinese activity center. People would always come to sit down with us and chat, sharing some very deep, heart-felt words, or discuss some troubles that they were facing. Of course, it never bothered them that we were Falun Gong practitioners. A lot of deeply hidden words were spoken. A chemical engineer told me once, "I really believe that Falun Gong is being persecuted by the CCP, you've clarified the truth to me three or four times, I know about it all. But your Falun Gong is a noble movement; it's too far away from the common society. You guys have to tell us what to do, or else I'd still be dreaming of going back to China to do some business one day." I realized that I have to clarify the truth even further. This is exactly like what Master said,
"Clarifying the truth is the master key. They win people over with money and incentives, which are all ordinary people's things, and they only last temporarily. Yet what you give them are things that have to do with their eternal existence, and the beings on Earth all exist for this event." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Atlanta Fa Conference")
People who know the truth, even if they submit to interest and profit by the evil forces, deep inside them, they're still struggling, trying to come closer to Dafa. Each time I see a righteous thought emerging from them, my heart is filled with immense compassion. I was able to understand Master's words in Zhuan Falun even deeper, "When a person's Buddha-nature comes out it shakes the Ten-Directional World."
Master said,
"The old forces have systematically arranged their elements, too, and in that way they specifically arranged everything they wanted. So this has put every student under the influence of specific arrangements by the old forces, and under the influence of those old force beings." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Midwest-U.S. Fa Conference")
If it is this way for Dafa disciples, then in society, the old force arrangements are everywhere. Once, an event that suddenly occurred gave me an idea ¨C unite everyone who has understood the truth, and influence them using Dafa's purity and righteousness, so as to help them escape the evil's control and influence, and eliminate the markets used by those so-called leaders in the Chinese community to persecute Dafa. We'll unite all righteous Chinese people around Dafa, and completely sever all forms of evil persecution from them. We'll save them from a deviant form of government, and use our righteous thoughts to bring them towards purer minds, leading them onto the path to return to their true self.
Here's a description of an incident: A local Chinese was robbed in my company's neighborhood 50 miles away from home. He/she was stabbed three times by a knife and was also beaten up. A few days later, another Chinese elder was robbed again. All of a sudden everyone in my small community felt endangered. There are a lot of Chinese people in my community. Many of them came to me, asking for help. This was a great opportunity for me to build a relationship with the local Chinese community, while at the same time, I could use a way that everyday people can understand to participate and contribute to society. Therefore, I came up with some ideas: we should unite together, communicate with the police station, request more frequent patrol, and build up a good relationship with the police. Everyone supported me very warmly. As such, I set up a small organization in our community called the "Federation of Asian Canadians." In a single week, membership rose to more than 400. We set up a board of directors, and the federation began operation.
At the first "crime-watch" workshop organized for the community in conjunction with the Toronto government's anti-crime unit, I had a female teacher help me look after my kids. She knows that I am a Falun Gong practitioner. Whenever she meets someone, she'd tell them that I was a Falun Gong practitioner. She'd also say, "I don't live in this neighborhood, and there's no benefit for me at all running about in such snow and chilly wind." Eventually this spread to me, but with the cooperation of fellow practitioners and my hard work, after I finished the neighborhood watch workshop, and began working with the local police station to set up other seminars and workshops for family and individual safety, she added another sentence saying, "What you're doing is really not easy."
The residents were able to understand: Not only do Dafa disciples have a compassionate heart; we are also concerned with the community. We are not people who are cold towards our neighbors, and only care about ourselves. I have built up a very good relationship with the local community, clarifying the truth to them using ways that they can understand. Clarifying the truth to them was the key that opened their predestined relationships that has been buried for a long time. This was due to a cultivator's righteousness, doing things not for personal profits but going through hardships for the benefit of others. This touched them deeply. This is also why they are now standing up to speak up for me as well.
A community leader in this neighborhood who has close ties with the Chinese Embassy has never offered or provided any benefits for the neighborhood. He soon began going door to door telling people that practicing Falun Gong has political motives. The result was that many neighbors stood up in unity against him. They told him, "You can believe in Christianity, I can believe in Catholicism, but he cannot practice Falun Gong? He did so much for us, giving us so much, and you, what have you done?" Listening to these neighbor's description, I smiled from the bottom of my heart. Before I left they reminded me again and again, for everyone's good, I must continue what I've been doing, if anyone dares to say anything bad about Falun Gong again, they'll stand up and speak up for me. As a result, this small community gradually changed from one or two of us clarifying the truth, to hundreds of people helping me to clarify the truth. Because the Torontonian Chinese community has thousands of connections with mainland China, by telling them the truth, they'll tell the truth to their friends in China and in this way, we're effectively stopping the evil. To some Chinese people that are unable to reach in China, this has extraordinary significance.
In Fa-rectification cultivation, studying the Fa is closely related to cultivating the mind, hence, new understandings of the Fa appear everyday. I remember when I first set up the "Federation of Asian Canadians," I promoted many people to join, and also delicately planned how I could improve the organization so that it could reach out to even more people. I thought of using it to unite Chinese people, to create large-scale opportunities for clarifying the truth, to let Falun Gong merge into society, to meet with predestined people, and uproot all manipulations of the Chinese community by the dark minions.
After organizing a few activities, one of the victims who were robbed approached me and thanked me many times. He even insisted on giving my daughter a pair of bracelets before he left. I declined. He said, "Living far away from our homeland, with our family members being injured so seriously, it is indeed terribly unjust and hard to bear. Everyone came and offered some words of sympathy, but they did not do anything." After I organized this federation, he also realized that Chinese people must unite, care for each other, and take care of each other. He insisted on thanking me, so I said, "Sure, if you really want to thank me, just say my favorite phrase." He asked curiously, "What's your favorite phrase?" I said, "Falun Dafa is wonderful." He smiled immediately, then, he said, seemingly realizing the truth very well, "Falun Dafa is wonderful, Falun Dafa is just so wonderful." We smiled together after that.
However, when all these things began I started to worry. By setting up such a large organization, spending so much energy and time with everyday people, will I be participating in "politics"? Cultivators practice Falun Gong so as to leave this everyday human society. After going through so much trouble, why am I jumping back again? Now they're giving gifts, but who knows what they might start giving next time. I began to read Essentials for Further Advancement repeatedly. Master mentioned in "No Politics":
"Dafa disciples' cultivation surpasses what is human, they are cultivators who have grasped the truths in higher realms, and what they understand transcends the realm of everyday people. Any understanding below the realm of the higher Fa-principles is no longer the Truth of the cosmos. Every Dafa disciple is clear about this in his cultivation, so even less should he mix everyday people's politics into Fa-rectification. The tribulations Dafa disciples endure are things amidst Fa-rectification and in cultivation. Exposing the evil and clarifying the truth to the people of this world is only to show them the persecution that Dafa and the disciples have endured, and its ultimate purpose is to save the people of this world, to get rid of the poison in sentient beings' minds that the evil has inundated them with, and to rescue them from the danger of being weeded out in the future due to their hostility toward Dafa. This is a reflection of Dafa disciples' grand mercy in saving sentient beings even while enduring persecution. From another angle, how could Gods and Buddhas get involved in humans' politics? Even less would Gods and Buddhas affirm the politics that appear in a warped human society.
"Human society is a good place for cultivation, since everything here can lead to attachments. Precisely because of this, a person who is able to step out of it and get rid of all his attachments to human society is magnificent and is able to reach Consummation."
I realized that, speaking from a most fundamental level, we are not participating in politics, we are only using the forms of society, using a way that people can understand, to clarify the truth and save all sentient beings. This process itself is also a cultivation process. Only by studying the Fa well, can I walk a righteous and upright path.
All this happened in no more than 5 months. With the help of fellow practitioners, our federation has a membership of more than a thousand right now. Through this, we have established wide contact with people from all walks of life, and created many new opportunities for clarifying the truth. With the success and appraisal of many of our activities, I've been able to meet with many policemen and government officials, which gave me excellent opportunities to clarify the truth to them.
On June 5 this year, after a successful Chinese international students Safety and Employment workshop held in conjunction with the police headquarters, 18 fellow practitioners were invited to represent the federation to attend the Toronto Police Services ¨C Chinese Community Consultative Meeting. On the one hand it was to promote safety in the Chinese community, and on the other to promote development in the Chinese community with righteous thoughts and actions. Of course, we mentioned the spread of hate propaganda by the Chinese Embassy. The discussion was divided into a few groups of people, and we were able to discuss the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese government and the greatness of Dafa in each group. The outcome, I'm sure, we could all imagine.
In this process, I was enlightened to compassion, tolerance, and unselfishness. During today's Fa-rectification period, every event to clarify the truth requires cooperation and help from fellow practitioners, even though many practitioners themselves have a lot of work and events to take care of. Opinions shared among fellow practitioners who are together with us in validating the Fa is very precious. One of them once mentioned to me that we should create opportunities to clarify the truth to young international students from China. Although a practitioner a year ago only brought this up, I have always lived close to a university and have wanted to do something for them as well. Nevertheless, I haven't been able to find an opportunity. At an event held in conjunction with the local police force, a senior Chinese police official mentioned to me that he hopes that we could hold an event for students locally. This gave me the opportunity. Hence, our federation began contacting students with the help of fellow practitioners. Once again all this came naturally. Therefore, understanding and considering every fellow practitioner's opinions could make our work much easier, making clarifying the truth much more effective.
In order to share and understand with other practitioner's effectively, first, we must be unselfish, only then, can we look at issues from the perspective of the Fa, and to understand fellow practitioner's opinions from the perspective of the Fa as well. If we are unable to do so, we will be moved by emotions, selfish emotions in our work. We would become what Master has mentioned, people who cannot hear others' opinions of themselves, and move even further away from presenting our compassion and tolerance. We would be unable to cooperate, causing harm to our Fa-rectification work and cultivation, something that the old forces would be happy to see.
As a Dafa disciple who's walked forward to this point today, under Master's constant encouragement, as we walk towards maturity on our Fa-rectification road, any damaging actions detrimental to Fa-rectification work would be leading us against our wish to follow master in Fa-rectification.
Thank you.
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