(Clearwisdom.net) Throughout human history, many people have wondered, "Why am I here?" It is not a simple question where Dafa practitioners in the Fa-rectification period are concerned. Teacher said in "Teaching the Fa at the Great Lakes Fa Conference in North America:"
"Many people used to ask me this, and they also wrote it in their question slips to me: 'Teacher, why are we obtaining the Fa in the U.S.? Why are we obtaining the Fa outside of China?' Now it's clear to you, right? Without you doing these things here, wouldn't these things be incomplete during the Fa-rectification period? You should just do well over here with what you're supposed to do. This is why you obtained the Fa outside of China. If all of you were to go back to China, who'd be doing things to rectify the Fa, to expose the evil, and to reduce the persecution of students in Mainland China?"
To reduce the persecution against practitioners in China, it is absolutely important to clarify the truth of Falun Dafa and expose the evil persecution to every country's government and to international organizations. This work is a priority for practitioners outside of China. After the persecution started on July 20, 1999, practitioners in China continued to clarify the truth of Falun Dafa to the Chinese government. Numerous practitioners went to Beijing to validate the Fa. For each country, their government's attitude and actions during the Fa-rectification is vital for the future of its people and nation.
Hence, the responsibility of Dafa practitioners who live in the capital city of every country is obvious and important. They should use every possible resource and opportunity to clarify the truth of Falun Gong and expose the evil to the government and international organizations. The capital of every country is the center of its politics and has a large number of diplomats from other countries. It is also where the evil focuses to spread lies and poison sentient beings. Practitioners who live in the capital cities have the convenience that practitioners in other areas do not have, to tell the government and international organizations the truth of Dafa, that Dafa practitioners in China are being brutally persecuted and to eliminate the evil being spread by the lies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
In fact, where each practitioner obtained the Fa, what type of environment each practitioner has to practice, and what each practitioner should do was arranged systematically. This includes the historic choices and vows each practitioner made throughout the course of his or her life. Teacher said in "Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. International Fa Conference",
"Many disciples are highly educated, and the vast majority of the disciples outside China have advanced degrees. Why is this the case? It's precisely to have you put to full use at this crucial time what you've learned among everyday people and are good at, to have you validate the Fa using the everyday people's skills Dafa created for people in this world."
In the past six years of the persecution, Dafa practitioners have used all means possible to clarify the truth to the world's people and to validate the Fa. To make people care about and notice the practitioners and their families being persecuted in China, we often hold many truth-clarifying activities during important international conferences. The purpose is to give government officials and international organizations and the media opportunities to understand the truth. It would be easier for practitioners who live in the capital cities to arrange occasions that help these agencies further understand the truth.
Some practitioners are newspaper or TV reporters. There are all kinds of things happening every day that reporters can conduct interviews about and report on. Besides the people involved in the news, another important subject to interview people about is to see what the concerned governmental departments and organizations have done, and their views and plans toward specific incidents. While doing this, there are plenty of opportunities to clarify the truth. This is especially efficient because practitioners are introducing a big event happening in China as a third party. Sometimes the officials even directly ask for related information from practitioners because media reporters are the main source of news. There are many opportunities for reporter-practitioners to clarify the truth to the media. A senior reporter in a large media firm is the focus of many people. Many reporters, though working in different media, are good friends or know one another very well. Under many circumstances, reporters help each other and share information.
Clarifying the truth to mainstream media is another important activity practitioners have been involved in. Until recently, the way we did it was to have press conferences, inviting reporters to interview practitioners or trying to email, call and write after the media published erroneous, negative reports on Falun Gong. However, it was very difficult to get the media to admit and publicly correct mistakes they made in their reporting. To make matters worse, most news reporters do not express their own views but record what the interviewee says. If the interviewee lies and the reporters themselves don't want to do an in-depth report, then the news articles that result are false reports. The Chinese Communist Party persecutes Falun Gong through the media's lies, propaganda and slander. Without such false reports from the Chinese media, the persecution would be impossible to carry out, especially when so many Chinese people, including CCP officials and their families have benefited from the practice.
Coming back to the topic of this article, what should Dafa practitioners who live in the capital cities of other countries do? To reduce the suffering of practitioners being persecuted in China, I personally think it is most important to clarify the truth and expose the evil to the governments and international organizations, including the media. This is the long-term responsibility that practitioners living in capital cities should not avoid. These practitioners should not wait for practitioners from outside to go there once or a few times a year to validate the Fa. This will not reach the goal to further clarify the truth in depth.
Of course, it's not easy to do something consistently over a long period of time. It's like those who practiced Taoism in the past, living in a deep forest or on a mountain. Some practitioners like to be the first one to do everything and then leave the work they have just become familiar with behind or to a beginner. This heart of wanting to devote oneself to clarifying the truth is very good but maybe we should look at it in a different way. Maybe it is better to let other people work on new projects, especially those with the abilities but who are not very outgoing, and they can do what they normally do better or more professionally. For example, the layout of our newspapers outside of China and various truth-clarifying materials has still not reached a high degree of professionalism. One main reason is frequent staff turnover. For example, if practitioners who live in capital cities stay at home all day to clarify the truth online and practitioners who live in the mountains try to clarify the truth to the governments, this shows a lack of overall coordination.
Teacher said in "Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. International Fa Conference:"
"Of course, our students outside China don't all need to go to Tiananmen. If you all went there, there would be nobody doing Fa-rectification things outside China. This was all arranged in history."
Dafa pracititoners are one body who are doing various truth-clarifying things at the same time. We must coordinate better so we can do what we do well. Teacher said:
"Have righteous thoughts and righteous actions, dissolve all hindrances, and spread the facts widely. Divine beings are among men." ("To the European Fa Conference in Stockholm")