(Minghui.org) I began practicing Falun Dafa in 2006, when I was still a university student. Ever since childhood I have always been studying and playing a lot of music, and since I still don’t have a regular job, I have had the chance to continue this hobby in my spare time.
I have participated in many projects raise awareness about Falun Dafa and the persecution, but music has offered me an extra opportunity to interact with more people. In addition, those with whom I have had musical collaboration have naturally had a chance to support my efforts to raise awareness. I'm not very talented in talking with people, but by means of music I have naturally been able to let more people know about Dafa. This project has offered me a constant reason to bring up the subject. I'd like to share some of my experiences with this.
Righteous Art
Before becoming a practitioner I used to play in heavy metal music bands, but soon after starting the practice I studied the Fa lectures on this subject and I left everything behind all at once. I have gradually increased my understanding of the Fa as to what kind of music is righteous, and the journey towards it has really felt like returning to my roots.
Because song writing is creative work, I need to be constantly careful not to let any bad elements get involved. Therefore my cultivation state must be good. There have been many lessons that if I don’t cultivate well, everything else gets messy right away.
Finding a balance has been a continuous cultivation process for me. In order to be part of ordinary society and do normal work, I need to also compose songs with ordinary entertaining content. But I want to create a healthy perspective in them, to at least offer people a good example for themselves. The feedback from people has been very positive, and many of them can sense an exceptional peace and beauty in my music. Someone even started to ponder what the “secret” behind my music is.
Taking the Lead and Showing the Way
We are practitioners, so we should be the ones to show people the way. As a musician I constantly need to be in cooperation with people in society. I understand that it’s crucial for me to take the leading role, so that the elements in my music remain righteous.
Once I had the opportunity to record a CD of my music, which was produced by an ordinary record company. I kept in mind this thought of being a practitioner, and so I have constantly had the chance to control the record making process. It hasn’t always been easy, though, because those collaborating musicians and other art professionals have particularly strong emotions. I have faced many attachments of emotion in myself. The behavior of people around me, of course, immediately reflects my inner state. Managing people hasn’t been very natural for me either, especially because of my strong attachment to pleasing others. This project has allowed me to identify and abandon many such attachments, like fear of losing face, fear of offending others, jealousy, impatience, etc.
My record company has given me entire freedom to make all the artistic decisions, which is quite rare nowadays. In order to utilize this chance to raise awareness, I wanted to print an inscription in the cover insert of my CD, that the album is dedicated to Falun Gong practitioners who have died in the persecution in China. My record company approved it, and they even improved the wording of the text.
On my CD I also have a song about the persecution. Just before recording the album, I got an exceptionally talented musician to play in my band. After hearing this song she was so impressed, that she made some quite stunning piano and orchestral arrangements for the song. With her help, the song artistically rose to a whole new level, which I couldn’t have accomplished myself. Unexpectedly, on their own initiative, my record company wanted to produce this song as a single from the album. This all happened naturally without my specific involvement. I understand it was people’s knowing side at work when they heard the message of truth in the song, and so I got help from above.
I also had the chance to shoot a music video for this song using some documentary video material about Falun Gong and the persecution. I showed the Free China documentary to the music video director and told him more about the persecution, and he had a good understanding. I also met the director's wife at their home, and she became very interested in Falun Gong. Right after our conversation she wanted to go to her computer to try out the exercises with the exercise video.
The director was really enthusiastic and helpful in many ways. However, it quickly became clear to me that non-practitioners do not have enough virtue to lead such a project. The video didn’t turn out well, nor could did it clarify the truth about Falun Gong well enough, so I had to eventually take the lead and take care of the video editing and artistic realization by myself. I got support from fellow practitioners, as well as from my husband (not a practitioner), who had just recently learned the technical skills of video editing.
This process has helped me in my cultivation, as I got the chance to let go of the attachment to pleasing people, which has been one of the most fundamental attachments and obstacles for me. In order to safeguard the Fa, I had to hurt the feelings of the video director, because I couldn’t approve his work. I was worried about telling him this, since I wanted to save him and not to give him a bad impression, and he had already given so much support to this project. But at the same time I knew it was not good for him to unintentionally damage the project.
Maybe because of my worrying, I had an intense test, since the video director became offended and started to accuse and criticize me, even trying to manipulate me to accept his views. But since I kept a calm and kind attitude towards him, he finally seemed to regret his behavior and was actually impressed by my determination. This incident also convinced me even more that anything that seems superficially bad or unpleasant is actually a good thing, or at least it can be changed into a positive result, as long as we can cultivate ourselves up to the standard of a practitioner during the process.
Predestined Relationships
We met once more at the video director’s home, when I went to pick up the video files from him. His wife told me that she had often done the exercises after we met last time, and she immediately felt more energetic. However she gradually slacked off and didn't keep doing them. After seeing me again, she was inspired once again to continue the exercise with determination.
On the same visit I also met a friend of theirs, who told me that he had run into Falun Gong in some other country in the past but he had not finished reading Zhuan Falun. However, he had been impressed by the little bit he had read. Now he thought that as Dafa was already knocking on his door for the second time, he should finally start to practice for real.
Many people have been impressed by the music video, and some have even been moved to tears. Some people have also wanted to share the video and forward it to their friends. I can also notice that after seeing the video, my family and friends have also got a better understanding of what Falun Gong is all about. I hadn’t been able to verbally tell them about it well enough in the past.
It’s a kind of miracle and a very strong predestined relationship, but my music has actually also found its way to Mainland China without me doing anything. There have been very long discussions of my music on Mainland Chinese online music forums, and their comments have been really positive, even though they don’t understand my lyrics. They just feel the harmony in the melodies.
I also received an interesting email from a businessman from my country. He told me that he had just been on a business trip to Mainland China. He visited a big company with over ten thousand employees. During a break, the manager of the company invited him to his office and he played him a song, wondering whether this song is from his country. It turned out that it was one of my songs from my CD. The Chinese manager told the businessman that he liked the melody of the song very much and the sense of peace he gets from it, even though he cannot understand the lyrics. The manager also said that he listens to this song at the airport to relieve his fear of flying, as well as on long car rides with his wife. The businessman was so impressed that he then contacted me and asked if he could send my CD with my autograph to this Chinese manager as a gift.
I want to thank Master for this opportunity to tell more people about Falun Dafa using music. I also thank fellow practitioners for their help and support.
(Presented at the 2014 European Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference)
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