By a Dafa practitioner in Northeast China

(From The Second Mainland China Internet Experience Sharing Conference)

(Clearwisdom.net) Revered Master: greetings! Fellow practitioners: greetings!

At the time I write this article, I have just broken through a strong attachment to myself and transcended some hard-to-resolve conflicts and interference. At this moment I feel that Master's boundless compassion is calling out to me, a person clinging to worldly attachments, "My child, cease not your steps on the path of return."

Each Dafa practitioner has endured six years of tribulation and reached the current stage because of Master's compassion and protection. Now more than ever, I realize the painstaking effort Master has undertaken in the care of Dafa disciples. I obtained Dafa in November 1997 and studied the Fa and did the exercises with many other practitioners on a daily basis. This group environment enabled me to recognize my shortcomings and helped me make diligent progress in the Fa. In 1999, the evil acted in the most destructive manner by wrecking this cultivation environment.

Dafa was disrupted and Master was attacked. Like many other practitioners, I went to Beijing to validate Dafa and clarify the truth to people. Due to lack of a proper understanding of the Fa, I was "illegally arrested" and was later sentenced to one year of forced labor. At the labor camp, I was deceived by vicious lies and compromised with the evil. I awakened to my mistake a long time after I was released in 2001, and Master looked after me despite the things I had done wrong.

Several practitioners shared their understandings with me and constantly encouraged me to step forward and validate Dafa as a particle of the whole body. While cooperating as part of the whole, I was at first attached to my projects, but I was able to change my way of thinking and place more emphasis on the whole body. I also changed from being afraid of taking on responsibility, to stepping forward and shouldering the responsibilities of a Fa-rectification period Dafa disciple, from being attached to myself to thinking of sentient beings. During those three years, Master was behind every single step I took, and fellow practitioners forgave and understood me, and supported me with righteous thoughts. I gained experience and also learned some lessons that I want to share with fellow practitioners. Please, compassionately point out anything inappropriate.

In 2002, the Dafa truth clarification materials production sites in our area were destroyed, and it was difficult for us to even read the Minghui Weekly. By 2003, only a small number of practitioners in the local area were validating Dafa. With encouragement and trust from fellow practitioners, I started to learn to operate computers. During that time, I did not have a righteous mentality and did not regard the process as part of cultivation. More often than not, I saw it as learning a skill, so I didn't confront so-called technical problems with righteous thoughts. I did not bring into play the mighty power of Dafa. Because I was busy doing "things" and neglected Fa study and sending forth righteous thoughts, and also because I thought it was too difficult, I always tried to avoid problems instead of taking responsibility. I used the excuse of "maybe I'm not fit for the job" and did not improve my xinxing, as I should have. I did not yet have the concept of the whole body, so I inched my way forward without the benefit of other people's knowledge and experience. I think I was in the state of an ordinary person doing Dafa work.

The police abducted me less than three months after I started learning about how to use computers. Because I had daily access to the Minghui website, my first thought during the illegal police interrogation was to firmly refuse to cooperate with any of the evildoers' orders, commands or requests. Later at the detention center, I firmly negated the evil persecution and held a hunger strike in protest, because prisons and labor camps are no place for Dafa practitioners. The old forces are not allowed to test us, even if we have omissions, because we will continuously rectify ourselves through Fa study and through looking inward. Because I was determined based on the Fa, the perpetrators failed to sentence me to one year of forced labor as they planned.

Nevertheless, the experience was an indelible lesson for me. I realized that cultivation is central to Dafa's requirement for us. If we forget this fundamental issue and forget that Dafa practitioners can only improve by doing the three things well, the old forces will take advantage of our gaps. In fact, no amount of work for Dafa can replace cultivation, and solidly cultivating ourselves and improving our xinxing through Dafa-validating work is a basic requirement for Dafa practitioners. Many practitioners who are involved in technical work probably know that when we are diligent on the Fa and when we regard ourselves as cultivators, technical interference is minimal.

After the abduction incident I told myself that it's not a job but cultivation. In the two years that followed, I would make adjustments whenever I realized that I was not calm in studying the Fa, and the poor state I was in would quickly pass. We always studied the Fa with the office machines, because they also came for the Fa. Because we studied the Fa with a pure heart, our machines have steadily operated problem-free for the past two years.

When I was held at the detention center, I realized that I was not walking the path Master had arranged for me; I had my own ideas and had deviated from the righteous path. The path arranged by Master is meant for me, so why would I ask someone else to take the responsibility that I should bear? Why didn't I realize this before the illegal arrest? The only reason is that I had lots of human notions and was self-centered. I was very happy when I returned to the materials production site and saw the machines again. I said to them in my heart, "In the past, I didn't live up to my responsibilities; I won't leave you again, because this is the battlefield where I offer sentient beings salvation."

Regaining my freedom made me cherish the opportunities Master gave me to rescue people, so this time I voluntarily sat in front of the computer to do Dafa work. I was highly dependent on others, however, and relied on practitioner A for help with technical issues. I only knew simple operations and relied on practitioner B for word processing. I thought that practitioner B wrote good articles while I was not very good at expressing myself, and the wording of my sentences often came out backwards. Practitioner A kindly reminded me that I could solve some problems without always asking others, but I thought, "How much time would it take for me to figure it out by myself? If you teach me what you know, that would be enough for me to learn for a while."

To make things easy on myself, I often turned over all of the technical problems to practitioner A, and they took up much of his time. Once he was making a video and I watched him. I was overwhelmed by the complexity and thought, "This is too hard; it would take up lots of my Fa study time to learn it." I said to him, "It's enough that you know how to do it. I'll do something easier." Because of my selfishness, many projects fell to practitioner A. We already knew that we should involve more practitioners, so we established some in-home family materials production sites in the surrounding area. Because there were relatively few practitioners with technical knowledge, practitioner A often went to other cities to teach other practitioners. Sometimes I went with him, but we had less time to study the Fa. Later on, practitioner A didn't join us for Fa study because he was very busy. We didn't realize the power of a whole body. Practitioner B and I talked to practitioner A, but because our minds were not pure, he did not change. He was later abducted and is now incarcerated in prison.

Practitioner A's abduction forced me to take over the technical area. But I didn't even know much about making truth clarification materials, so I could not work independently. I regretted not sharing the workload with practitioner A, the work that I was meant to do. I sent forth righteous thoughts and pondered, "A, you must break free with righteous thoughts and come back. This time I will cooperate with you and I will learn everything so you won't be as busy as before." I didn't hear from him for a long time. Later it became clear to me that it's impossible for anyone to break through an evil environment without the guidance of the Fa. If we don't pay attention to cultivation and Fa study, and if we can't look at things from the standpoint of the Fa when confronted with sudden tribulation, it's very difficult for someone to overcome it, because this is not a situation of ordinary people persecuting ordinary people.

Before, when I thoughtlessly waited and relied on other practitioners, I was the cause of that practitioner's not being able to do all the work laid on him and not having time to study the Fa. This situation therefore gave the rotten demons excuses to persecute him. I could not forgive myself. As I now know, other practitioners' concerns are mine, too; I tried my best to help other practitioners with their work. After practitioner A was abducted I said to practitioner B, "From today on, we will shoulder the responsibilities together. Before, you and practitioner A did everything, but now I'll share the responsibilities because we are a whole body." At that moment, I truly enlightened to the responsibilities bestowed on us Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples, and I understood why "Fa-rectification period Dafa disciple" is the "foremost title" in the universe.

No matter what kind of project we do, we have only one goal, which is to offer salvation to people. We ought to think about how to utilize various approaches to help people who are deceived by lies to learn the truth, and think about the best angle to clarify the truth to people so that it is easier for them to accept it.

As we improved in terms of technical skills and our understandings on the Fa, we started designing truth-clarification materials for our local area. In November 2003, Master published comments on "Expose the Evil Happening Locally to the Local People." Before the Chinese New Year we compiled truth-clarification articles about the perpetrators in local detention centers and labor camps. We listed the facts of the persecution, such as torture cases, death cases and the story of one practitioner whose stomach bled due to brutal force-feeding, but we didn't think about how our materials might reveal the beauty of Dafa. One practitioner pointed out kindly, "Will we be able to rescue people with this flyer during the festive Chinese New Year holiday?"

Because we didn't have a clear understanding on this issue, we stubbornly clung to our notions and hastily sent the articles to the Minghui website. Several days later, the articles were published but all of the content was replaced except for one retribution story. We looked inward and judged this incident from the standpoint of Dafa. We realized that exposing the evil is not our ultimate goal. Rather, we are doing it to clarify the truth and rescue people. We didn't take into consideration the traditional holiday celebration and whether people would be able to accept what is in the articles. In order to help people learn the truth, we have to think from their perspective in choosing the "raw materials" and deciding the content of truth-clarification materials.

In order to better clarify the truth and save people, we authored different types of truth-clarification letters. We wrote more than 20 public letters to the city government officials, to representatives of the National People's Congress, to teachers, to the police, to the local people (on July 20, 2004, marking four years of the persecution), to the head of the Street CCP (Chinese Communist Party) Committee, to the district head who is in charge of persecuting Dafa, and to the street cleaner. We also used self-adhesive notices to expose the persecution, to rescue fellow practitioners, to reveal the wonders of Dafa, and to inform people about the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. We made torture demonstration exhibition boards. Some practitioners used too many colors on the notices and the layout was chaotic; some notices had too many numbers and small words on them, which made it hard for people to grasp the content, thus reducing the materials' effect in rescuing sentient beings. We learned from our mistakes and tried to make truth clarification materials from an angle that people can accept and understand.

We also made single-page flyers and pamphlets targeting the local situation, and we often changed the layout in different seasons. We produced special editions on holidays, such as the Mid-Autumn Festival and during the Chinese New Year.

We based our starting point on saving sentient beings and took into account the current phenomena and requirements of Fa rectification. In order to break down the barriers that obstruct people from learning the truth, we wrote notices on the Nine Commentaries and the withdrawals from the CCP and its affiliated organizations. We also wrote a public letter to the local people in the name of their righteous fellow villagers in which we advised them to quit the CCP. In addition, we distributed truth-clarification VCDs.

When making the VCDs, I remembered that I hadn't cherished the time I spent with practitioner A. If I had learned to make VCDs earlier, I wouldn't have waited until now to use some excellent materials. I tried very hard to find someone to take over the project so the raw materials wouldn't go to waste. I couldn't find anyone because there weren't many practitioners who knew how to make VCDs. I learned by using the tutorial while sending forth righteous thoughts and asked Master for help, because I wanted to save people. Miraculously, I learned the procedure and was able to make VCDs on my own! In fact, if we have the will to save people, Master can do anything for us, because cultivation is up to oneself and the gong is up to the teacher. We just have to have a strong will. Hereby, I want to say to fellow practitioners who have the ability to learn technology but are not seizing the opportunities before them: "Please, don't leave the responsibilities and difficulties to others like I did. Don't hesitate when we have found our position, because it is what we are supposed to do."

We also built a database to organize the daily truth clarification materials. We sorted telephone numbers by labor camps, prisons, police departments and districts, which made it easier for us to look up the information and to produce truth clarification materials.

In fact, truth clarification materials are the starting point for spreading the truth in any area. Why are the perpetrators always trying to manipulate us in this regard and destroy our truth clarification materials production sites? They are afraid of us forming a whole body through the production and distribution of truth clarification materials. Because we are able to deliver recent news to more practitioners and make corresponding flyers and stickers, more practitioners will cooperate in this effort, which I believe is forming a whole body. Not all of us are doing the same thing, but we are all thinking about how to offer salvation to people. Personally, I think we cannot delay in getting local news out, even if it's just a brief sentence, because if we follow the initial leads, we will find more details; we just have to look for them. We shouldn't wait or rely on others as I did. If we sit there and wait for more information to come to us, I think that is not considerate of sentient beings, because the situation is urgent and time is of the essence.

What we need to do most right now is to help everyone participate, to have widespread Dafa materials production sites so we can have more resources to rescue sentient beings. We should also help more practitioners learn how to make truth clarification materials. We never make truth clarification materials for practitioners in other regions; instead we teach them how to make them themselves, based on the adage, "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for life." It's therefore extremely important to share experiences in this regard. At first, some practitioners might not fully understand the purpose of making truth clarification materials, but they will understand in time. How many sentient beings will be rescued through the truth clarification information one practitioner produces! When other practitioners ask me to check the informational notices they have put together, I try not to alter them but only polish them. I add some graphics to make them look better. Practitioners will always do better next time, and they will gradually mature. I think this is the essence of quietly complementing each other's work and harmonizing with each other.

(To be continued)

Posting date: 11/11/2005
Original article date: 11/10/2005
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Translated on 11/2/2005
Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2005/10/31/112211.html

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