(Clearwisdom.net)
Greetings Master Li and fellow Falun Dafa practitioners.
I was born and raised in the suburbs of New York. My educational background and training is in science. I have a Ph.D. in Plant Physiology. For the past 16 years I have lived and worked in St. Louis, Missouri. The company I work for is a global organization. Part of my job entails working with international visitors, including guests from China. I was first introduced to Falun Dafa and the persecution of practitioners in China by a friend in the spring of 2004. This is the story of how I came to know and practice Falun Dafa.
During the spring of 2004, a friend at work approached me regarding Falun Dafa. She shared with me some literature describing the persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners in China. I learned that in addition to herself, there was at least one other person at work who was a practitioner and that it was very important that I speak with her regarding Falun Dafa.
One day while walking down the main stairway in the building where I worked, a Chinese woman was coming up the stairway. This woman gave me a big smile. It made my day and somehow, somewhere in the past I seemed to remember this smile. But I could not place it. Several weeks later, while walking out of the building I heard someone call out my name. I turned around and it was the woman with the big smile. She was very friendly and explained to me that she was the friend of my friend who had first told me about Falun Dafa.
This new friend told me that Falun Dafa could be summed up in three words: Truthfulness - Compassion - Forbearance. It was as simple as that. She also told me about the five simple exercises and invited me to a practice session over the weekend.
From our conversations it struck me that before coming to the U.S., my new friend's life in China under Communist rule had been very different from mine. Growing up in the United States, my parents, relatives, and neighbors had never been arrested for speaking their minds, and had not been arrested for their beliefs, or because they belonged to any particular organization. We always had enough food to eat. The police were our friends. I looked at a globe; exactly on the opposite side of the earth from the United States was China. I felt that there were major differences between our two countries: Democracy vs. Communism. Freedom of religion vs. no religion allowed. Freedom of speech vs. no rights. Election of government officials by the people vs. government by brute force.
The company I work for has a division which is responsible for writing a weekly company newsletter. The newsletter reaches 17,000 global employees. One of my immediate friends writes the column. I suggested that my new Chinese friend could provide a story that would interest our readers. My teammate agreed, and an interview was set up. I volunteered to take a photo of the Falun Dafa exercise group for inclusion with the article.
It would be impossible for me to accurately describe what I felt as I took photos of the group going through the exercises that first Saturday morning. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before in my life. Simply put, as I watched and photographed the group doing the exercises, there was such an air of tranquility, which I had never myself experienced before. It was so peaceful. When I went home that morning and developed the photographs, I again felt that same tranquility that I had felt at the practice site. These kind and gentle people were very special, the likes of which I had never before encountered. I decided that perhaps I would give the five Falun Dafa exercises a try and perhaps read the book which my new friend had offered.
The next week, I told my friends that I would like to join them in the exercises. I also suggested that I would like to try to set up an exercise class at the office. With a little effort, we succeeded in gaining permission to practice at the office once a week.
The news article on my new Falun Dafa friend was published in August. It was a very positive article, and soon many people were calling my friend to ask about participating in the on-site practice sessions. The article even stated that the company "supported" the practice sessions. Little did we know that the old forces and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were working to overturn and disrupt all the good that the article had brought to Falun Dafa at our company.
During the week when the article appeared on the company's intranet website, the writer of the article began to receive email from other employees objecting to Falun Dafa. This was disturbing, as our company had always stated that diversity and the acceptance of others with differing points of view were a large part of what made the company strong. Even more disturbing was the report that the head of the company's branch in China had strongly objected to the fact that the company was "supporting" a Falun Dafa practice session on company property. The company's head in China put great pressure on my team to remove the article from the website. I am very pleased to say that my colleague who wrote the article stood firm in support of Falun Dafa. The article remained posted on the company intranet site for the full standard seven days.
But, there was a second article which was published the very next week. The second article was not good. In fact, the second article was bad in that it made it a specific point to say that our company does not "support" Falun Dafa. We heard from company sources that this was in response to pressure from the company's China head who did not want to lose business if the CCP discovered that our company "supported" a Falun Dafa exercise class. To add further insult, my friend was asked by the company human affairs director if she would remove the statement "supported" from all posters which we had put up to advertise the class. We could still hold the class, we just could not say that it was "supported" by the company.
We realized that we had a loophole that the old forces had taken advantage of, and began to search for it. We decided to talk with key managers in our company and validate the Fa. Each time the manager with whom we were speaking seemed to "wander" off subject, we would send forth righteous thoughts and they would come back into the conversation. At our most recent meetings in June 2005, we left with the understanding that the subject of Falun Dafa and the persecution in China would be discussed at a higher level in the company. We continue to work toward directly validating the Fa to the company's CEO. In the interim, we will keep sending forth righteous thoughts.
In September, I read the book, Falun Gong and started on Zhuan Falun. I began to attend the practice sessions every weekend and once each week at the office. I learned about sending forth righteous thoughts.
As I read Zhuan Falun, I realized that there was one attachment which I needed to get rid of immediately. It was alcohol. I knew that I had a problem with alcohol and that I wanted to stop my daily drinking of beer and/or wine. But until this time, it had been impossible for me to stop for even a single day. Zhuan Falun was very clear on this point: drinking alcohol is an attachment. I stopped abruptly sometime in September 2004 and have not had a single drop of alcohol since. What had been difficult, if not impossible for me to accomplish, I was now able to accomplish. Thank you Master Li for guiding me through this difficult attachment.
Another difficult attachment was one directly related to my position at work. I had started as a full-time research scientist at our company in 1989. In 1994, I was laid off due to corporate restructuring. My current position, which I have held for the past 10 years, is that of a contract worker. I had always felt a deep bitterness because I did not have a full-time position with benefits like a full-time employee. From reading Zhuan Falun, I realized that I needed to better understand karmic relationships and let go of this attachment. I believe that I have done this with Master Li's help. Thank you Master Li.
In October 2004, I traveled to New York for 9 days of truth clarification with my colleagues from work. I stayed at my father's home on Long Island. My colleagues stayed in New York with fellow Falun Dafa practitioners. We met in New York each day to validate the Fa.
During this trip to New York, I had my first opportunity to meet practitioners who were not from the St. Louis area and also to directly clarify the truth to sentient beings. We worked throughout the city, wherever we were needed, but spent the majority of our time in the Wall Street area just opposite Federal Hall.
I believe that every practitioner knows that Wall Street is the heart of corporate America and it is a very dark and very cold place to spread the Fa. We were literally freezing the entire time we were there. When it was not freezing, it was raining extremely hard. We clarified the truth on Wall Street from almost sunup to sundown. We talked to people from around the world who were visitors to the city and we also talked to people who worked at the New York Stock Exchange.
One of the most difficult things for me during this time was to approach Chinese people to validate the Fa. I shared this problem with a fellow practitioner from China. She told me something which has helped me immensely. The significance of my presence as a westerner in spreading the Fa to Chinese people was very important. My presence demonstrated that it was not only Chinese citizens who were practitioners of Falun Dafa, but that the 100 million practitioners were from over 60 different countries from around the world including the U.S. This insight greatly empowered me in my ability to approach Chinese people (including diplomats and government officials) to validate the Fa.
During this trip to New York, I had the opportunity to validate the Fa to my 90-year-old father. My dad has always been a stubborn man and set in his ways. I was able to share with him some truth clarification materials, which he read. My dad and I have always had a very difficult relationship and rarely talked to each other. My days in New York validating the Fa required that I get up early and take the train into New York, returning late at night. My 90-year-old dad cooked me breakfast almost every morning and waited up for me and cooked me dinner late each night. I believe that he fully understood about the persecution and was doing his part to validate the Fa by helping me in my efforts. After many years of not understanding each other and not talking with each other, I believe that the Fa has helped my dad and me resolve many things that would have been impossible to resolve in the past prior to my coming to the Fa. Thank you Master Li.
In November, I returned to New York City with my fellow St. Louis Falun Dafa practitioners for the New York Fa Conference. The winter and spring of 2004 - 2005 was spent reading Zhuan Falun and attending local community events including parades, the 2004 U.S. Presidential Debate at Washington University, group practice sessions on weekends, two practice sessions during the week with colleagues at work, as well as practice and readings at home. Group readings were attended on Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons. We also clarified the truth at local St. Louis events, including the NCAA Final Four basketball tournament in March.
As a new practitioner, I still have many attachments. Sentimentality is an especially difficult attachment for me to understand and to let go of. Knowing that removing sentimentality involves replacing it with "Compassion" helps. I continue to struggle with this every day.
My life and my understanding of the Cosmos have changed since I first came to Falun Dafa in 2004. I am a different person from who I was just one year ago.
Thank you Master Li and fellow practitioners for this opportunity to share with you my experience in coming to Falun Dafa.
Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
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