(Minghui.org) Close to 130,000 visitors attended the 2014 Quito International Book Fair in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, from November 22 to December 1. Local Falun Gong practitioners participated in this annual event for the first time. Besides being an opportunity to reach out to the people of Ecuador, participating in the event was a good opportunity to improve in our cultivation.
It is not easy to reach people from all walks of life in Ecuador, but the book fair was an ideal occasion to let more people know about Falun Gong, which was the main reason we participated.
An video introducing Falun Gong ran continuously and many people stopped to watch.
Police and security officers came to learn about Falun Gong and organize exercise sessions for themselves and their colleagues at work.
A copy of Zhuan Falun in Spanish was exhibited and available for sale. A copy of Zhuan Falun in Chinese was also on display and proved to be of considerable interest.
To inform people about Falun Gong and the persecution, copies of the 2014 Minghui International were printed and distributed until the end of the second day, when the organizers told us that we had to stop handing it out because someone had complained that it said “bad things” about China. They even said we would have to leave if we did not withdraw the Minghui International.
A Chinese publishing house also had a booth at the fair and had been invited by the Ministry of Culture to participate. We surmised that was where the complaint had originated.
Our hearts were moved and we weren't sure what to do. We knew that the representatives of both the Ministry of Culture and the Book Chamber were beings wishing to be saved and that we needed to keep on good terms with them.
In retrospect, I believe that we went about it the wrong way. Instead of going to where the issue presented itself to clarify the truth directly, we accepted the old force arrangements and stopped distributing material that talked about the persecution.
We proposed replacing the Minghui International with a brochure that would have information only about the practice of Falun Gong. A practitioner worked late into the night to produce a flyer just that didn't talk about the persecution. The next morning, the draft went off to the printing shop, and the staff there printed the new flyer in two days.
We talked about the incident and tried to look inside to find where our hearts were not righteous for this to be allowed to happen. One practitioner mentioned that she had given a copy of the Minghui International in Spanish to a Chinese official when he passed by our booth the day the incident happened.
Was it perhaps wrong or careless to have given him the material? More likely, we needed to clarify the facts more thoroughly to the organizers. We had already sent them a great deal of information and spoken directly to some of them. In any case, we were aware that if we did not improve in our cultivation, there was bound to be interference.
Despite the interference and our acceptance of it, many people visited our booth. The new flyer was a wonderful introduction to the practice, so we were then able to spend all our time and energy clarifying the facts about the persecution of Falun Gong in China to people directly.
Most of the visitors asked if Falun Gong was a kind of yoga or Tai Chi; it was as if those two systems had paved the way for people to listen patiently to us explain Falun Gong.
People had a variety of responses to Falun Gong. Those in search of a way to gain inner peace seemed eager to listen. Others who seemed initially very skeptical started to read about Falun Gong, and their faces lit up and they wanted to know more. It was clear that people came in search of Falun Gong. Quite a number were interested in learning the exercises and wanted to go to our local practice site.
Towards the end of the fair, we ran out of flyers and had to improvise materials.
The greatest benefit we derived from this experience was the understanding that it is imperative to continue to improve and upgrade our level of cultivation. To save more sentient beings, our hearts need to be pure so that we can avoid anything that could hinder the realization of this great and noble task.
We didn't do well with the issue of following Master's arrangements rather than those of the old forces when it came to the selection of materials we distributed. We will take this to heart and try hard to do better when such interference arises again in the future.
This event, indeed, offered us a precious opportunity to reach thousands of people and to improve our cultivation level.
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Category: Improving Oneself
