A Western Practitioner's Insights Gained Through Participating in Rescue Efforts

(Clearwisdom.net) Yesterday, I participated in the 2^nd Rescue Walk in my city. The themes of the walks have been "Rescue our Family Members and Rescue All Sentient Beings from Deception." Our rescue activities carry a powerful clear message, helping society grasp the extent of the persecution, and also with profound significance for we cultivators, as well.

On one hand, our rescue efforts are a bridge to the hearts of society, the media and government. While learning the plights of our family members, who are in fact their neighbors here in the West, local citizens are touched while learning the true situation about the horrific unjust persecution in China. Rescue activities also save people from deception. After reading our family member's stories, even some of those most poisoned by the evil propaganda ask with tears in their eyes: "Is this really happening? Are your families truly being torn apart and tortured like this?" "What can I do to help them?"

On the other hand, our rescue efforts afford us an invaluable opportunity to harmonize our cultivation environment and raise our levels together. Even our most hidden attachments surface and are quickly exposed during the process of coming together to coordinate and participate in these events. Since we are all focused on cooperating while maintaining hearts of great tolerance and compassion for each other, our environment is becoming increasingly supportive and encouraging. Each event has been more easily handled than the previous and the outcome even more wonderful because of Dafa cultivators' efforts to improve our environment.

The following are some insights learned through participating with heart and soul in some of the latest rescue efforts. These are only my personal perceptions and understanding of the events. I'd like to encourage fellow cultivators to share so we can learn from each other.

Chinese People Wonder: Westerners Practicing Falun Gong?

Letting Go of Who I Used to Identify Myself As

What We Think Happens

Layers Of Deception

Letting Them Expose The Poison

Negating The Isolation Arrangement

Compassion Arising?

Precious Chinese People Learn TheáTruth Through Rescue Efforts

It's All Connected

Letting Go

We Form The Environment Around Us

The format for the last two Rescue Walks was different from the parade format used previously. Instead of walking together in one large group, we were organized into small groups of 6 to 8 practitioners. Each group was assigned a specific area to cover. With this format we had more time to speak with each person we met, and also were able to get to know the other practitioners in our group better. I'm now finally getting to know practitioners whom I had seen for years but never had a chance to talk to.

Chinese People Wonder: Westerners Practicing Falun Gong?

Many practitioners have said that Westerners can have quite a positive impact in rescuing those deceived by Jiang's lies. As a Westerner, I had taken their word for it before, but today I saw this principle in action. While I walked down the street wearing a yellow Dafa scarf, carrying Chinese flyers and with my Western face, many people looked at me. They looked at my scarf and buttons, and then looked at my face again with a puzzled expression. Even when they didn't take my flyer, it was clear that part of the lies didn't make sense anymore in their minds. One man said, "I thought that Falun Gong was something practiced only by uneducated Chinese people." One time in Chinatown, a man approached me and said: "Isn't Falun Dafa persecuted all over the world?" He didn't know that Jiang is the only leader that persecutes Dafa.

Letting Go of Who I Used to Identify Myself As

By joining in rescue efforts, practitioners are transcending many barriers together. When I first started to practice, cultural differences between myself and other cultivators were very noticeable. I firmly identified myself (and was even proud of) my nationality and background. My limited physical body in this dimension was also a strong part of who I thought I was. As I travel to different locations to participate in rescue activities and get more in touch with other fellow cultivators, I've been able to gradually let go of these notions and it's truly been a remarkable change. When it used to be "me and them", now is sincerely "us". Before, when practitioners on the other side of town were organizing an event, for example, I thought, "that's not my area" or "it's too far for me to go there and support them". My perception of "events" has also changed dramatically. Instead of simply thinking of several practitioners meeting together, the feeling is now much more solemn and real - magnificent beings representing many different cosmic systems, assembling together to accomplish a very important mission.

After yesterday's experience, I realized that Dafa particles go where they are most needed. Many practitioners echoed the same thoughts. One cultivator said that she saw her attachment of jealousy surface because she wished the event had happened in her area, but she said that she quickly realized that this was an incorrect notion. I think deep inside, at one time or another we share similar incorrect notions that stem from forgetting who we truly are, where we truly come from and why we are here.

Another Western practitioner shared her experience. She said that when she first began to practice, she felt uncomfortable around too many Chinese cultivators because she couldn't understand what they were saying. Yesterday, she went to lunch with three Chinese practitioners and even though they spoke Chinese for most of the time, she felt completely at home with them. It was completely ok. They were together in Dafa.

As we use our wisdom to transcend barriers and let go of our "selves", we are forging a diamond-like body. We truly bond together and form a field that is very righteous and immensely compassionate. Identifying ourselves with our current human bodies, where we live and our human notions can only limit us. Shedding these thoughts empowers us to rise above the arrangements that have kept us from coming together.

What We Think Happens

Master has taught us that a cultivator's thoughts are very strong compared to ordinary person's thoughts. When handing out flyers, especially to Chinese people, I sometimes think, "This person will take it," or, "This person will be upset if I give him a flyer". Most of the time I'm right. This is because my notions interfere and actually in the end determine the outcome. When I have these human notions, I interact with ordinary society in an ordinary way and I am unable to get through to their divine knowing side.

Yesterday it was quite different. The environment at my local practice site was extremely pristine yesterday morning and I found myself enjoying an unusually peaceful and quiet state of mind. During the exercises, I felt as if I was under a huge waterfall that was vigorously washing away my every thought. This feeling remained with me throughout the day (even now I feel it). I sent forth-righteous thoughts all day, and observed that when I handed a flyer, I noticed an unusual absence of thought, hope or pursuit. I simply felt purity in my heart, with Zhen-Shan-Ren I looked at each person's eyes and handed my flyer with a smile. Without human notions or judgments, the power of the Fa touched many people today who had been waiting endless ages just for that one moment.

"So, in order to do Fa-rectification more effectively, while you clarify the facts you have to take sending righteous thoughts very seriously, and in a timely manner purge the evil and your own problems so that you won't be taken advantage of by the evil." "Righteous Thoughts"

Layers of Deception

Practitioners shared that a few people who at first didn't want to take our flyers, accepted them after being kindly encouraged. Another shared that while he was telling the facts to one person, a man next to him was eagerly listening. He offered some literature, which the man promptly refused. But he kept listening to the conversation attentively. Later another practitioner walked by him and he accepted the flyer.

One man brushed by me and said, "I don't need anything from you", making negative gestures. About an hour later and 5 or 6 blocks down the street, I saw him standing by a store. I approached him and smiled. We began talking and the conversation lasted a long time. In the end, he said that now that he knew the truth he could tell his friends. It seems like the obstruction that keeps people blocked from wanting the truth is like a thick substance that exists in layers. Sometimes it can be eliminated all at once and other times it may take more time and is done layer by layer. This depends on how righteous our minds are, how poisoned the person is and many other factors that I don't grasp yet.

Letting Them Expose the Poison

A few times yesterday it became obvious that I was providing too much information, forgetting to stop talking and let the other ask questions. I felt selfish and lacking compassion, while realizing that a two-way conversation is a lot more interesting to the other party. When we allow them to talk too, they feel respected and that we are interested in what they have to say as well, not only in what we have to say. Forming a personal bond also seems important, giving them some personal facts such as my profession, where I'm from and asking them similar types of questions.

Most importantly however, truth clarification was much deeper and thorough when the person had the opportunity to speak because they had the chance to express the exact point that needed to be clarified. They helped me by exposing the area of their thinking that had been poisoned -- without this interaction I couldn't tell.

Negating the Isolation Arrangement

A practitioner shared that the Rescue Walk was the first time that she handed out flyers on the street. She said that she is very shy and that it took a lot for her to do this but now she feels she can do it on her own. Another practitioner shared that we should encourage other cultivators to step out and join these efforts because many practitioners have been practicing in their homes and have not been very active during the Fa-Rectification period.

Practitioners as a whole are very busy and it is easy to forget that others may need encouragement and support to step forward. Encouraging more practitioners, new and veteran, to get involved and establish their own mighty virtue is in itself an expression of a cultivator's compassion and of practitioners elevating together as one body.

"Now when we clarify the truth to others you all feel that we should treat sentient beings with compassion, then all the more so should you be compassionate among our Dafa disciples." "Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. Fa Conference, 2002"

Often, practitioners have isolated themselves after encountering difficulties and going through conflicts with other practitioners. Many who were particularly good at very important aspects of Fa-Rectification activities have stopped. I think it is time to negate this isolation arrangement, to let go of any differences that may have existed in the past, and to reach out to our fellow cultivators. Let's not allow the old forces to use our attachments to isolate our fellow cultivators.

Compassion Arising?

Some family members have expressed "a fear of having sentimentality". Sometimes they are unsure whether they are participating in rescue efforts out of their sentimentality to their family members or if they are using their situations and predestined relationships to clarify the truth and awaken people. One shared that reading Clearwisdom on a daily basis has been very helpful to overcome these thoughts. It was also a very good way to connect with the reality of the persecution. Some family members have shared that they themselves sometimes feel distant "I felt blocked, I didn't feel compelled from my heart to help. Now that I'm reading Clearwisdom more often, I feel a big change. I really get into the Clearwisdom articles, everyday. When I read, I see that practitioners in China are really great. They follow the Fa closely. That's why they are great. And on the other hand, I must do something to support them too. Not because they are my mother, father and brother and because they are in prison. But because it is what a Dafa disciple should do at this time. When this kind of heart comes out, we will be able to do anything."

Precious Chinese People Learn theáTruth Through Rescue Efforts

A practitioner who was released said that her family used to have very negative notions about Dafa because of the many problems she and her family encountered. After she was released, they were truly amazed by the power of Dafa and the righteousness and compassion displayed by Dafa practitioners that worked together to release her. When deceived Chinese people see their family member being rescued, they change their mind about Dafa and many even want to practice.

It's All Connected

I think that the public voicing it's feelings can help our government and our media awaken to the severity and magnitude of the persecution and its spread overseas. When people from all walks of life express their concerns, they take more action. Nowadays, even reporters are calling government officials themselves to find out what they are doing to help end the persecution.

Letting Go

The process of carefully studying each other's ideas certainly has its usefulness since our human and material resources are precious and often scarce. It helps us to think our ideas thoroughly and carefully consider if they can truly achieve the objective in mind. However, I've been seriously taking to heart the Fa Master has taught us in Philadelphia, 2002:

"When another God proposes an idea, they aren't eager to reject it, and they aren't eager to express their own ideas and they don't believe that their own ideas are good. Instead, they look at what the end result of the other God's proposed approach will be. The paths are different--everyone's path is different--and the truths that beings validate and enlighten to in the Fa are different, too, but the results might very well be the same. That's why they look at the results, and if the result of a God's idea can achieve the goal, if it can truly achieve it, then all of them will go along with it. That's how Gods think. Also, if there's something lacking in it they'll unconditionally and quietly supplement it to make things more complete and perfect. That's how they handle things."

Especially after Master's latest lecture, I now find it important to support other practitioner's ideas even when they don't make complete sense to me. First, even if they spent hours explaining their reasoning behind the idea, I may never fully grasp it since they've enlightened to certain principles that I may not have. Secondly, in cases where I completely understand the idea but I still happen to disagree (happens less and less now), I find it equally important to support them fully from the moment it was decided to move forward with it, not just by going through the motions, but wholeheartedly and in the exact same way as I would if I had originated the idea myself.

We Form the Environment Around Us

It is true that big cities give us a complicated environment and as such there is a sense that the evil arrangement is very strong there. However, to seek for causes to our problems in "the complex environment" is in fact not accepting that the quality of our environment is a reflection of our cultivation state. There are many arrangements that have been imposed on us in large cities, however, we've also learned that ultimately it is only because of our attachments that they can continue to play out. To realize that it is our collective responsibility to harmonize our environment is a good first step, however, now I find it no longer sufficient. In DC, July 2002, Master taught us:

"People's different grasps of and comprehension of the Fa lead to different perceptions of the current situation, and all that's happening is targeting different human thoughts. Those who do well will change the environments around them, and those who do poorly will make the environments around them change according to their states of mind."

My understanding of this Fa principle is that I am responsible for my cultivation environment. My previous thinking regarding collective efforts didn't encompass this Fa principle, instead it allowed for the continuous postponement of my own personal responsibility and for gaps in my diligence while I relied on this collective external and remote entity called "us" to change instead of each one of us, including foremost, myself.

We had realized that our cultivation environment, study and sharing sessions have become more like work meetings. With practitioners becoming increasingly busy in the midst of Fa-Rectification and with so many projects requiring coordination, we seemed to go right into "project" mode and skip the sharing about our cultivation. Dafa disciples are enlightening to this situation and we are now making an effort to share about our cultivation openly and to listen to each other with much compassion. If another of us has a problem, it is our problem too. This righteous thought is bound to contribute immensely towards upgrading our precious environment .

These are just some personal thoughts. Please kindly raise any incorrect notions.