(Clearwisdom.net) My aunt just came back from Canada. I asked her, "Did you see Falun Gong practitioners distributing truth-clarification materials in Vancouver? What did you think of it? What do the local Chinese people think of it?"

My aunt said, "We saw them very often. Generally we would wave our hands to say no and politely refuse them. Actually, I think they did more than what they should do. I think Falun Gong is a political organization since they fight against the Chinese Communist Party and Jiang Zemin. They are cultivators. They shouldn't get involved in such matters. They should simply enter tranquility and focus on improving themselves."

I said, "Let me tell you what I think. For example, you are a cultivator. You left a village that persecuted cultivators and didn't believe in gods. When you got to the next village, they did not know the truth about what happened in the other village. In the beginning, they misunderstood you since they believed the lies spread by the other villagers. After you explained the facts to them, they understood you and became sympathetic. This ensured your safety, enabling your life to become peaceful again and gave you an environment to cultivate. You then focused on cultivating yourself and stopped talking about what you had experienced in the other village, even though you knew your fellow cultivators were still suffering persecution in the other village. Since your life is peaceful now, you can just stay in a tranquil state and improve yourself? Can you really do this?" My aunt turned her eyes away from me.

I continued, with tears welling up from inside, "I don't think I could do that." My aunt looked at me surprisingly. I said, "It's been seven years. Currently, there are still more than one hundred thousand practitioners illegally detained in forced labor camps. It has been verified that two thousand seven hundred and thirty five practitioners have died from the persecution." I calmed down and went on, "I know Chinese people living abroad don't care for political struggles in China. In order to protect themselves, they don't want to discuss anything that can be considered political. They try to earn more money and live a peaceful life. As an average person, one might not be wrong to do so. However, as a cultivator, one cannot think only of oneself. One cannot ignore the persecution and only focus on improving oneself. None of the true cultivators are able to do this."

Then I told my aunt why they are unable to do that.

The persecution is really happening. Practitioners cannot ignore it. If you were to deny the truth, you would easily go along with the lies propagated by the Chinese government and it would become easier and easier to take what is fabricated as fact. Eventually, you would not be able to differentiate truths from lies. You might even help to fabricate lies.

Practitioners are not being compassionate if they only think of their personal enlightenment while their fellow practitioners are suffering from the persecution.

They can be called "tolerant" if they don't fight back when being beaten, which is similar to "an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth." However, is it tolerance if when they see someone beating up another person, they say nothing, and simply close their eyes?

Dafa practitioners are assimilating to the future cosmos. We should do what Teacher tells us to do,

"From now on, whatever you do, you should consider others first, so as to attain the righteous Enlightenment of selflessness and altruism." ("Non-Omission in Buddha-Nature" from Essentials for Further Advancement)

This is completely opposite of focusing on oneself and ignoring others' sufferings.

3. Cultivators certainly hope for a peaceful and harmonious environment Unfortunately, a brutal and inhumane persecution was imposed upon us. Because of the principle of mutual-generation and mutual-inhibition, where there is slandering and fabrication, there will be truth-clarification. Where there is persecution, there will be anti-persecution. For example, if a malicious person beats or rapes a kind person, can't the kind person tell others about what happened? Can we claim he or she got involved in politics when he or she told others about what happened? In the case of Falun Gong, there are many people practicing it. Should we call it a political organization simply because a large number of people stand up to clarify the truth? Is this reasonable? Falun Gong cannot be called a political organization because Falun Gong simply does not have any political pursuits. Falun Gong practitioners clarify the truth and disclose the evil with the purpose of enabling people to understand the facts. We believe that when people are able to have the right understanding of Falun Gong, their outlook for the future will be better. If the persecution hadn't happened, Dafa practitioners would have been quietly cultivating themselves and teaching others the practice. There would not have been a need to clarify the truth.

4. Practitioners are actively cultivating compassion. When they have compassion, they will naturally step forward to clarify the truth and save sentient beings. Our chief purpose is to help our fellow practitioners in China. Secondly, we want to help people around the world that have been deceived to understand the truth so that their moral outlook can improve and gods can save them. Thirdly, we are trying to reach Chinese officials who are deceived and persecute Dafa practitioners, so that they can stop what they are doing. This is also compassionately giving the persecutors an opportunity to position themselves better regarding Falun Gong and giving them a chance to be saved.

Cultivators are human beings who are on the path to godhood. How can they simply watch their fellow practitioners being brutally tortured or persecuted without doing anything to help? Teacher said,

"Since you're compassionate, let's think of ways to save the world's people, and have more people know the truth." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Atlanta Fa Conference")