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Persistence Is the Key--My Experiences in Truth Clarification via Phone Calls

Presented at the 2011 European Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference

Dec. 9, 2011 |   By a practitioner from UK

(Clearwisdom.net)

Greetings to our revered Master!
Greetings to my fellow practitioners!

Around May 2011, practitioners in mainland China forwarded me some phone numbers and hoped that I could call those Chinese people to clarify the truth further. Knowing that I should cooperate with my fellow practitioners to save people, I promised to do what they asked. However, in my heart, I felt timid because I did not have any experience with clarifying the truth via phone calls. But there was no easy way out, I had to brace myself and do it.

In the beginning, when the phone call couldn't get through for any reason, or was hung up on the other end, I felt a kind of relief because I had dialed the numbers as promised, and it was not my fault if the phone calls were not taken or connected. Even when my phone call went through, I could not clarify the truth well. When I spoke to the people over the phone, I felt nervous, my body trembled unconsciously, and my voice quivered. Eventually, with a lot of effort, I finished the phone calls for more than a dozen numbers I received. After I gave my feedback to a mainland fellow practitioner, I got more numbers. This time I had to tell her that I could not make so many phone calls, and I would have to send some of numbers to the Minghui website.

Master arranged my fellow practitioners to encourage me to save people via the platform

In the past few years, I have spent most of my daytime at home. Clarifying the truth via phone calls should be very suitable for me. Because of my poor xinxing, I did not pay enough attention to this. Perhaps Master saw me wasting my time, and arranged a fellow practitioner to push me to pick up the phone and clarify truth to Chinese people. After a short period of time, a practitioner in the UK encouraged me to join the global RTC phone calling platform meeting to improve in clarifying the truth by phone to China. This is an online meeting where practitioners discuss and train one another and can even make a call to China while other practitioners at the meeting listen. Again, I felt nervous, and a bunch of human thoughts came up. Would I be competent enough to do this? If I couldn’t speak so well on a private phone call no one else would know. But speaking on the platform in front of so many people, if I could not perform well, then I would lose face.

Considering this for a few days, I decided to visit the platform and to see how other practitioners were doing things. Other practitioners on the platform had different styles and clarified the truth from different perspectives, which inspired me a lot. On the platform, I was deeply touched by fellow practitioners’ encouragement along with their pure attitude of no distractions and focusing on saving people. After several days, I gradually gained righteous thoughts, and suddenly felt, in fact, that it was not so hard to clarify the truth on the phone. What they talked about were very simple principles, and mainly focused on quitting the communist party and telling people the truth about Dafa. So I gathered together truth clarification information provided by our fellow practitioners and made my own truth clarification presentation. A few days later, I made a call on the platform in front of other practitioners. The other practitioners told me that I did a good job, which made me feel more confident.

Experiencing a xinxing test with my family

During the next month, I visited the platform to make phone calls almost every weekday. As there was no internet phone at home, I used my landline to make calls. That month’s phone bill was higher than I ever expected. How could I explain this to my husband? I had never told him that I was making all these phone calls. I was in a total mess, and started trying to find a way to bypass him.

At first I thought that I might tell the phone company that I would pay for this bill myself so that my husband would never find out. But later I realized that our phone bill was automatically deducted from my husband’s bank account so this would never work.

Thinking it over and over, I still could not find a good solution. I consulted another practitioner regarding this matter. I realised this was a xinxing obstacle that I should overcome through cultivation, and that I must go through it rather than taking a short cut. Thinking about the matter in this way, I started to search my internal world. I feared my husband finding out because I thought he would get very angry and I didn’t want to disappoint him. I had been going through xinxing issues with my family for a long time. Though my husband was not really opposed to my participating in Falun Gong activities, he still did not understand the truth. A lot of the time when I took part in an activity I just didn’t tell him.

In this situation I had no choice and had to face the matter head on. I decided I would rather bring up the matter first than wait for my husband to find out and rebuke me. While my husband was away on business trip overseas, I made a sincere apology while chatting to him on an instant messenger: “Sorry, this month I made a lot of calls to China, and did not realize the phone bill would be so high. The reason that I made so many phone calls to China was to clarify the truth to Chinese people and tell them the Tiananmen Square self-immolation was set up to frame Falun Gong. In the future I will not use our landline to call China.”

After sending the message, I immediately felt relief. He read the message and did not comment. On coming back home, he looked at the phone bill and asked me: "Why did you spend so much?" I explained: "The phone calls could not get through, so I set it to auto redial." He answered: "If it could not get through, then stop dialing." Then he did not say anything else, and the matter was over. Soon, I switched to Internet based phone calls.

After that, I visited the platform for 2 hours every weekday, and sometimes I could persuade 4 or 5 people to quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations. Though compared with my fellow practitioners, this number was too few, I really felt solid and content when I sent the name lists of the people who had quit to the Tuidang (Quit-the-CCP) website. I really felt that I had made good use of my time that day and made a difference to the few people who had quit. I often wondered why I hadn’t started using phone calls to save people sooner.

Moving experiences during phone calls

During my phone calls to China, the situations were really varied. You would encounter all types of people, some shouting abuse, some saying nasty words and even some threatening to call the police. Some people were too frightened by the evil party to speak when answering the phone. There were also some people who admired Falun Gong, and wanted to join us. Here I'll share two touching examples.

1. A gentleman, after learning the truth, was very grateful and told me that he was a friend of Lawyer Gao Zhisheng. He admired Falun Gong practitioners for their tireless efforts for freedom of belief. We have kept in touch with each other since then.

In his email he wrote: “Human beings were the essence of creation, absolutely not a kind of average life in the world for only a few decades! If we are without soul, why can Confucius still influence the whole world even 2000 years after his death? I believe that the value of a human being’s life should not be not limited to decades. I so wish to do something for religious freedom and human rights in China! Being able to be a friend of a Falun Gong practitioner could be the greatest joy in my life, allowing me to find the right direction and to understand the value of life. I hope that we can keep in touch with each other more, and let us become good friends!”

He also said that he used to read our articles by using Freegate software. Later, when I sent him Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party and a lot of information, he said that he would surely read them carefully, and repeatedly expressed his hope of doing something for us. I answered to him that if he could pass the message and the informational material to friends and family, that could be an extremely important thing to help. He replied: "Yes, I certainly will. "

2. There was an elderly gentleman, who, when I first called him, said, "I am busy now, please call me another day." A few days later, I called him again, and he was catching up with his friend for a drink. I told him the phone call was from overseas and he spoke very kindly to me. After a few pleasantries, I asked him if he was a party member and he said he was. I told him I could help him to quit the party using a pseudonym. He agreed then he asked his friend to talk to me. I briefly talked about quitting the communist party and asked whether he was a party member. He said yes, but he was very happy to withdraw. This phone call made me feel that they were there together simply waiting for me to save them.

Getting rid of the fighting mentality

Recently, I called a number and it was answered by an old man. Initially his attitude was very polite, saying that he did not join any organizations and believed in Buddha. But then his attitude suddenly changed, and he started to curse me. I answered calmly: "Do not curse, aren’t you a Buddhist? Buddhist cannot hurt people with such nasty words." He kept cursing and I had to hang up the phone. I remained calm. I told myself not to be affected by him, and that this could not affect my next phone call. Then I continued to dial other numbers.

The following day, another test appeared. I talked to a young man about quitting the CCP. He listened all the time and asked me some questions in the middle. Then he asked me whether I practiced Falun Gong. After I said yes, he began to curse. But I was not affected, and kept sending forth righteous thoughts to clear the evil elements behind him. He continued to curse and I hung up the phone. At that time, I did not hate him; I only felt pity for him. Truth clarification has been happening for so many years, but he still could not understand the truth, and was still so hostile to Falun Gong. I really hope one day he meets a fellow practitioner who can open his heart.

After both tests, I found that I had gradually got rid of my once-strong fighting mentality. I remember back when I first started making calls on the platform, I was affected and fought back. One time, I called a policeman in a local station who kept hanging up on me. When I phoned him back, he began to curse at me, and I swore back. After doing that, I realized how strong my fighting mentality was. I quickly apologized to the fellow practitioners on the platform, and they were very understanding. Most of the practitioners who just started work on the platform experienced a similar process.

After a couple of months of regularly joining the platform I faced a similar situation and my reaction was very different. I found that during these months of spending time on the platform, my fighting mentality was unknowingly reduced a lot. And now at home, when my husband criticizes me, I argue with him less and less. In the past, if he criticized me, I would immediately fight back and argue with him.

Persistence is the key

Although I use only two hours every weekday to make phone calls, and though my success cannot compare with other practitioners, for me, this is a huge achievement. During the past 4 months, I have felt happy. Because of my human mentality, I did not make phone calls on Saturday and Sunday. But these 2 days of rest could make me complacent and I would feel lazy on Monday morning with thoughts of not making phone calls and a lot of excuses. At that moment I often reminded myself of what a practitioner on the platform told me, "The key is persistence."

If I do not want to make phone calls, then being at the platform and watching is not a bad idea. After listening to several phone calls made by practitioners, the negative idea of not making phone calls disappears, and I immediately start to dial the numbers. I realized that the platform was a strong righteous field that purifies my own dimension. My righteous thoughts are restored very quickly when I join the platform.

In fact, before I make phone calls every day, there is always some interference in my thoughts and I do not want to do it. But I realize that this is not my own thoughts, so I just persist. No matter how many people I persuade to quit the CCP, no matter whether the phone calls go smoothly or not, I just persist in calling and clarifying the truth. Then more and more people will be saved.

The above are my experiences in making phone calls to China for five months. I really hope more practitioners can join us.

Thank you!