(Clearwisdom.net) The Seventh Internet Experience Sharing Conference for Practitioners in China was held over the course of 19 days, starting on November 3 and ending on November 21. A total of 177 experience sharing articles were published.
In these articles we can see that the truth about Falun Gong has been spread far and wide in China, and the persecution is becoming increasingly unpopular. New practitioners are beginning to practice Falun Gong, and are making rapid progress in their cultivation. Most of the practitioners who at one point had wavered on their cultivation path because of persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), eventually came back and restarted their cultivation of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, redoubling their efforts to make up for the time they had lost. They are now steadfastly walking the path of Fa-rectification and fulfilling their historic mission. It's just as the founder of Falun Gong, Mr. Li Hongzhi, said:
"Ten years have passed in the blink of an eye. Whatever persecution may have been perpetrated, it has merely served to temper our Dafa disciples to maturity." ("Fa Teaching Given at the 2010 New York Fa Conference")
Truth is Spread Widely, With Many New Practitioners Taking Up Cultivation
With the despicable conduct that the CCP has used in its brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners being exposed more and more, people have come to know the truth, and more predestined people are able to take up cultivation. These predestined practitioners have improved rapidly in their cultivation, learned the mission of a Fa-rectification period disciple, and joined in the effort of clarifying the truth and saving sentient beings.
The author of the article "If I Had a Choice I Would Have Gained the Fa Earlier" is a new practitioner from Zhejiang Province, who began practicing Falun Gong in June, 2009. In the article, he describes his happiness in assimilating to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, upgrading his xinxing, and how he has clarified the truth to people around him, persuading them to withdraw from the CCP and its subordinate organizations. This young practitioner said, "It's very late for me to have gained the Fa. I haven't had the same opportunity as other practitioners did to follow Teacher and safeguard the Fa during a dozen years of brutal persecution. Their deeds have deeply touched heaven and the earth. Every time I think of this, my eyes well up with tears. Where was I when Teacher and Dafa were slandered and framed? How come I didn't know about any of this? However, I'm aware now, and so am now able to safeguard the Fa. I wish I had had the choice to gain the Fa much earlier!"
Veteran Practitioners Progress Steadily Using Compassion and Wisdom to Clarify the Truth
Many veteran practitioners talked about how they seized the time to cultivate while at the same time exposing the persecution, clarifying the truth, and resisting the persecution. All of this reflects the solid and steady cultivation of veteran practitioners. For example, the author of "Experience with Materials Production over the Last Eight Years" talked about how he cultivated his xinxing while being responsible for producing truth-clarification materials over the past eight years. He relied on his righteous faith in Dafa to negate the persecution and ensure smooth operation of the materials production site.
The author of "A Policeman Who Recited the Fa and Did Exercises While In Detention" is a veteran practitioner who obtained the Fa in 1994. She was a police officer at the time of the article. During the persecution, this upright and kindhearted woman was discharged from her public employment, so she had to become a migrant worker to earn a living. However, no matter where she went, her first priority was to save people. She gave no thought to personal gain or loss, and saved sentient beings by being sensitive to their everyday attachments. Wherever she went, she would sacrifice whatever was needed to establish a righteous environment, then gradually started clarifying the truth to people she met and attempting to persuade them to withdraw from the CCP and its subordinate organizations. As soon as she was finished in one location, she would move on to a new one. She had done this in five different locations. Wherever she went, more than 90 percent of the people she visited withdrew from the CCP and its related organizations, and those who withdrew continued the work, helping their own relatives and friends to withdraw as well. Those she managed to convince to withdraw from the CCP included the police chief, local officials, state security officers, the deputy head of the police department, lawyers, party secretaries, office directors, prison guards, a justice department head. She would use all of her free time to spread the truth about the persecution of Falun Gong. She distributed truth-clarification DVDs and materials to Changchun, Harbin, Dalian, Zhenlai, various parts of Jilin, Xi'an, Daqing, Xuzhou, Guangzhou, Dongying and Jiangshu.
The author of "An Old Man from Shandong Province Who Has Never Skipped Fa Study or Exercises for 15 Years" is a 75-year-old man. He began practicing in 1995, and never skipped daily Fa study once for 15 years. He always seized the opportunity to clarify the truth to those around him. He used his pension to purchase production equipment and earnestly started to improve his computer skills. Through his efforts, he was able to set up a family-run truth-clarification materials production site.
Also inspiring is the story of a group of practitioners who gained the Fa in early 1999, and came across persecution immediately thereafter. Many of them had to break through the interference caused by the CCP's lies in order to continue with their cultivation. The same situation exists for practitioners who took up their cultivation after the persecution started. Those who have used their time to improve their xinxing while clarifying the truth have become the hope for people around them to be saved. The author of "Came into Falun Dafa in the Darkest Days of Persecution" is one of them.
The same article tells how the author became an example to her large family, and that under her influence her four brothers started to show filial piety to their elderly parents and treat each other kindly. The family's example helped other villagers to also follow their example. A woman and her in-laws previously showed each other no respect, but have since changed for the better. Others who sought only profits and tried to cheat for their own gain also mended their ways. The village head said, "We have followed party ideologies in our work for several decades but we are not as effective as you, a Falun Gong practitioner. You only need to say a few words and people change for the better. Falun Gong is truly great. It is no wonder that Jiang Zemin is so afraid of Falun Gong." A person from a different part of the country had heard of this practitioner, and out of admiration for her deeds traveled just to visit her. After hearing the villagers praise Falun Gong and speak highly of this practitioner as well as their boundless respect and gratitude to Teacher Li Hongzhi, the visitor presented this practitioner with a poem written on three scrolls. The first scroll reads "Cultivating virtue and promoting compassion wins people's respect," the second scroll reads "People everywhere learned of great blessings," and the final scroll, "Enjoy great renown and universal respect."
Cultivating Among All Social Classes and Clarifying the Truth to Save Sentient Beings
There are practitioners in every social class. Those who submitted their experience sharing articles include government officials, teachers, students, doctors, self-employed people, and farmers. Practitioners of every social class use Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance as their guiding principle, and with their wisdom form favorable conditions to resist the persecution and clarify the truth.
The author of "Examples in Clarifying the Truth to Save Sentient Beings in My Own Shop" is a practitioner from Hebei Province. He is a self-employed shop owner and clarified the truth to travelers, businessmen, as well as delivery people by taking advantage of his shop's good location.
The author of "Cultivating Alone in Diligence" is in charge of a very important department in his company. He was always respectful to his colleagues, and tried his best to consider things from the other person's perspective. He cooperated with the staff from other departments in an orderly manner, and was respected for his ability to set priorities. He was also a big help in raising the overall quality of management at his company. He re-organized how the company approaches managing its employees, which greatly improved everyone's morale. Since the practitioner's boss thought very highly of him, he clarified the truth to him first. Later, he approached his colleagues one by one. Most of them withdrew from the CCP and its subordinate organizations.
The author of "A Farmer Learns to Produce Truth Clarification Materials from Scratch" is a woman from the countryside. She couldn't read the letters on her computer keyboard, and didn't know how to use a mouse. She started by learning English letters first. With the supernormal wisdom given to her by Dafa, in a little more than ten minutes she learned how to print simple truth-clarification materials. Afterwards, she learned to speak Mandarin so that she could clarify the truth to migrant workers. With the help of fellow practitioners she learned how to visit websites, how to download from them, and some basic editing skills. She also learned how to install a computer operating system. Eventually she was able to type on her computer to make Chinese characters, wrote Fa-validating articles, and sent them to the Minghui website (Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net). Even her son commented on his admiration of Dafa after witnessing these wonderful changes in his mother.
The author of "Nine-year Old Young Practitioner - It Is Teacher Who Looks After Me" is a young practitioner from Liaoning Province. The article talks about the process of his cultivation, which includes clarifying the truth in school, persuading his classmates to withdraw from the Young Pioneers, and distributing truth-clarification materials alongside other adult practitioners.
The author of "Gods Are Among Human Beings" is the general manager of a private company. The author treated others kindly, using the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance as his standard. In his daily work, he treated his clients with compassion and honesty, and on one occasion helped his company resolve a production crisis that occurred when several machines failed. His boss and clients bore witness to the greatness of Dafa. Over the years, the author had many opportunities to show his clients and partners the difference between a Dafa practitioner and everyday people (for example, the difference in attitude towards material gain and fame, always being responsible, showing forbearance) through his work. He would clarify the truth about the persecution of Falun Gong when getting acquainted with people through his work.
Brainwashing a Complete Failure, Former Practitioners Take Up Cultivation Again
The main purpose of the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong is to force practitioners to give up their belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Under tremendous pressure, some practitioners became discouraged in their cultivation, and some even stopped cultivating. However, when the truth of the persecution become more and more widespread, and the pressure eased, these former practitioners started cultivating again. This is a further demonstration that the CCP's persecution of upright faith has failed.
The author of "Disintegrating the Brainwashing to Wake up Former Fellow Practitioners" is a practitioner from Yunnan Province. He talked about how he used compassion and wisdom to counter the CCP's brainwashing, which had caused former practitioners to enlighten along an evil path and join the persecution. In doing this, he helped to wake up their conscience and righteous thoughts. Most of them came back to Dafa cultivation as a result.
Mr. Tong Xin, a practitioner from Sichuan Province, shared in his article "Group Fa Study Helps Practitioners to Grow Toward Maturity Together" how he established an environment for practitioners to study the Fa together and encouraged former practitioners who had left under pressure to join in Fa study. He shared his experiences with them, studied the Fa together with them, and upgraded his xinxing together with them.
The article "Restart Cultivation with the Help of Fellow Practitioners" talks about the experience of a practitioner who gave up his belief under severe pressure when the persecution started, but then later came back to the path of cultivation with the help of fellow practitioners.
Cultivating Dafa and Resisting the Persecution While Working for the CCP's Judicial Department
Among all the experience sharing articles that were submitted for the conference, the story of several practitioners who work at the CCP's judicial department attracted the most attention. Their story shows how the CCP has lost touch with its own people, and how the persecution of Falun Gong has failed.
The author of "A Female Officer in the Judicial Department Went from Persecuting Falun Gong to Practicing It" worked at a forced labor camp where many practitioners were detained. This officer witnessed firsthand examples of practitioners who, in the midst of such an evil environment, persisted in living up to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. She also witnessed the noble realm of mind that practitioners displayed even while being tortured or verbally abused. As a result of these experiences, she determinedly set out on her own path of cultivation. Taking advantage of her position within the camp, she helped lessen some of the persecution endured by fellow practitioners, and exposed the evil acts perpetrated by camp authorities.
"The Story of the County Court Official Who Practices Falun Gong" talked about a county court official who persevered in living up to the Fa principles, used his heart and compassionate deeds to change his family members who had become poisoned by the CCP during the persecution, and helped them see the demeanor of a practitioner and the beauty of Dafa. At the same time, he clarified the truth to them. As a result, not only did his entire family withdraw from the CCP and its subordinate organizations, but his parents also took up cultivation. The author set a very strict standard for himself at work and resisted succumbing to the same temptations other corrupt CCP officials had. This helped people feel the purity of a practitioner. Even the common people who he had never met would say, "Are you the 'Justice Bao' of our county?" (Bao Zheng was a magistrate in today's Kaifeng, the capital of the Song dynasty. He is respected as the symbol of justice in China.) At the same time he used every opportunity to nobly clarify the truth and would help everyone he met to see through the CCP's lies and learn the truth of the persecution. He was able to do this with people over the dinner table, people in court, neighbors, the political and judicial commission, the People's Congress, the police department and police station, and even the 610 Office.
As practitioners see it, the 11 years of resisting the persecution has only been to provide a changing cultivation environment, and it proved that no one can block practitioners who are walking their path toward divinity. This feeling is demonstrated in the dialogue from "The Cultivation Path of a Woman Doctor": "An artist and scholar who still had righteous thoughts but had been persecuted by the wicked CCP in the past said to me, 'Ten years is a long time. How can a bunch of delicate women and elderly men resist such pressure?' He said that he saw a lot of young people (non-practitioners) very much frightened by the CCP's campaign to "transform" people. 'Why aren't you scared?' He couldn't understand. The thought that jumped into my head in response was '...through the power of righteous thoughts and the compassionate care of the gods'."
Some Feedback from the Organizers
Practitioners from the group who organized the Seventh Internet Experience Sharing Conference for Practitioners in China said that it was very difficult for them to select which articles would be published. A lot of the articles were very similar in content; their ways of doing things, and their ways of thinking were similar because many practitioners cultivated in the same down-to-earth manner. They were all doing very well and managed to meld their cultivation with their daily life and work. The practitioners themselves all thought that they were very ordinary, and that they were just doing what they should. Actually because they were busy doing the three things and since cultivation is simply so broad, a lot of spectacular moments were forgotten when writing the articles. However, the articles are still very moving, especially when read with a calm mind. Several editors said that after reading a large number of articles, they felt that their own xinxing had noticeably improved. One editor said that there were glittering gems in each of the articles, whether published or unpublished. That radiance and the righteous energy comes from Dafa, which always reminds us to cherish the opportunity we have and to be diligent.
Editors that worked on the Internet Experience Sharing Conference for Practitioners in China said that many good articles would be even better if there was more time for polishing. However, this was challenging since the workload to evaluate all of the articles was so heavy, time was limited, and the editors could not communicate with the writers due to the ongoing persecution in China. In the end, a little more than 170 articles were chosen. This doesn't mean that the unpublished articles would not have been able to play a role of reporting to Teacher, validating the Fa and clarifying the truth. As many authors disclosed in their sharing, they were reluctant to write the articles because of various negative thoughts they saw in themselves. However, they all came to know the importance of writing articles for the Internet Experience Sharing Conference for Practitioners in China after having received hints from Teacher.