(Clearwisdom.net)
Build up Confidence
Buddha Law encompasses everything and omits nothing. If we have developed the habit of looking at questions from the Fa's perspective, we can adjust our approach according to the opportunity and situation when clarifying the truth.
Send forth Righteous Thoughts
The basic point should be always aimed at offering salvation to the world's people, so we should remind ourselves to keep a compassionate state of mind and mode of speech when clarifying the truth.
Use Wisdom
The way to clarify the truth is not limited by any specific formality; no matter what method we use, we need to pay attention to our own and other people's characteristics.
When talking to our acquaintances, besides promoting Dafa with discussion and truth-clarifying materials, we should also pay attention to promoting Dafa with our actions. Because people get a direct impression about Dafa from our behavior, we need to harmonize with Zhen-Shan-Ren (Truth-Compassion-Tolerance) at all times and in all situations, no matter whether it is a major or minor issue that is involved. If we behave well, we can double the results we achieve using half the effort.
The content of our speech should be focused on clarifying the truth, along with explaining the Fa's principles. We should adjust the content according to the listener's enlightenment quality and what the environment allows at that time.
We can start from the perspective of ruling the country with law when talking to everyday people. For religious people, we can generally focus more on clarifying the truth, finding similar beliefs and allowing for differences in law-principles while trying avoiding unnecessary disputes.
Generally speaking, we will encounter two kinds of people: The first kind changes their understanding of Dafa after knowing the truth; People like this are lucky. The second kind does not change even after knowing the truth, which can be the most difficult type to clarify the truth to. This second group of people can then be divided into two sub-categories. One group is those who are protecting their own self interests. Those who obtain material benefits from the persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners, or those who believe in the principle of "Stay far away from everything that has nothing to do with oneself," will behave like that. The second kind of person has developed a wrong pattern of thinking due to the long-term influence of the environment. These people share the same characteristic that they ignore the large amounts of truth and factual information that they have seen or heard. They also use reports from the media or stories of some individual practitioner's shortcomings to attack Dafa. For this kind of person, we could clarify the truth from the following perspective:
(1) Is Falun Dafa really like what media has reported? Have the understandings of Dafa gone through any thorough investigation and examination? Then how can one explain the following facts?
There is not any report about Dafa practitioners committing acts of "self-immolation" and "murder" in any country around the world other than in China. Why are there such reports only in China? And why were there no such reports in Mainland China from 1992 to 2000?
Why does Dafa receive numerous awards and so much support? Why did the UN IED (International Education Development) organization announce in February 2001 that the "Self-immolation incident" on Tiananmen Square was staged by Chinese President Jiang's regime and the crackdown of Falun Gong by Jiang's regime is an act of "state-terrorism"? Why was Beijing Mayor Liu Qi served with a lawsuit in US district court and charged with "crimes against humanity"?
In the last few months, several large groups of westerners protested on Tiananmen Square at different times against the persecution of Falun Gong by the current Chinese government, which was unprecedented. They returned to their countries with bodies injured by the policemen of Tiananmen Square. What moved them to do such a thing?
If Falun Dafa is really as it is described in Jiang's regime's propaganda, then why do so many countries and governments in the world act in support of it? Are they unable to tell the difference between right and wrong? Are all these countries and regions plotting a big scheme against China at the cost of the freedom of expression of their own people?
(2) History has shown that when the Chinese president started this large-scale persecution, Dafa practitioners followed the citizen's rights granted by the Chinese Constitution, and have always adopted peaceful and rational means to clarify the truth and never mentioned any word of politics. All Dafa practitioners are unwilling to verbally attack policemen who have brutally tortured and beaten them; how could they kill their own families? Aren't such lies too ridiculous and extreme? Dafa practitioners try to let go of all attachments to material gains and all bad thoughts; why would they have any political ambition? If you think they don't have political motivation now, but may have in the future, then it should be asked regarding such an issue related to the survival and well-being of hundreds of millions of families, who has given you the enormous power to make such a reckless assumption? A court of law could not sentence people with such unfounded assumptions or "fabricated charges," but today the whole society persecutes innocent people who cultivate "Zhen-Shan-Ren"; is it right to do so? How can those people who support such persecution be called kind and rational?
Please remember we need to keep a more pure and compassionate mind set to clarify the truth to this kind of person and at the same time we must send forth our righteous thoughts.
Keep a Compassionate State of Mind
We need to pay a lot of attention to the cultivation of speech during the whole procedure. If other people stubbornly stick to their own opinions and have extreme attitudes, we should stop the conversation and peacefully explain that it is always good to communicate regardless of whether we can accept others' point of view or not. If there is chance in the future, we could talk to this person again. The correct mind-set should be: "Do but pursue not-----Often stay in the Dao." (Hongyin)
Clarifying the truth is sacred. We should never turn it into a hurried and impatient dispute, or we might leave other people with misunderstandings of Dafa. We can do well in cultivation of speech only if we keep a compassionate mind-set at all times.
When the conversation finishes, we should send forth our righteous thoughts again and tell the other party that we clarify the truth to save the world's people, not to ask them to oppose the government. It is all right as long as he can remember that Falun Dafa is good and any human being should follow Zhen-Shan-Ren.
Lastly, I would like to talk briefly about my understandings of the relationship between clarifying the truth, sending forth righteous thoughts and studying the Fa.
These three things are consistent and mutually promote each other. The wisdom used in clarifying the truth comes from studying the Fa and the process of clarifying the truth is the process of removing our omissions. Sending forth righteous thoughts is eliminating the evil in deeper dimensions with supernormal capabilities and will be of great help in clarifying the truth and offering salvation to the world's people at the level of the largest surface particles (molecules). The deeper our Fa studies become, the higher our mind-natures, the purer our righteous thoughts, the more powerful our supernormal capabilities, the more precise our understanding of the Fa and the better the result will be in clarifying the truth.
The above represent my personal understanding. Please point out any inappropriate statements.