(Clearwisdom.net) Nihao LiLaoshi. (Hello, Teacher.) Hello to all my Falun Dafa Family here in Hong Kong. In 2001, I came and exercised with you and also visited Lantau Island. Now it is a precious time to be here with you again.
SI NIENG HAO! (Happy New Year!)
This is a new year of amazing change! Miracles are happening!
An older gentleman who practiced Falun Gong for many years in Toronto had a stroke near the end of last year. His body was left half paralyzed and in much pain. This year when he heard Master's words not to acknowledge the old forces' arrangements, he drew his painful hand into the Righteous thoughts position and declared with emphasis, "I do not acknowledge old force arrangements. I absolutely do not acknowledge the old forces themselves" and suddenly he was healed. His face was not paralyzed anymore, and he could laugh and smile and speak. His mind and body were strong again. His laughing face even had almost no wrinkles - like a baby's. It was truly a miracle!
Last month in January 2003, in Toronto Canada we celebrated the Chinese Lunar New Year with a dinner party for 1700 guests accompanied by a Falun Dafa Concert of movies, songs, dancing, speeches from officials and an abundance of delicious foods. It was amazing to watch on that bitter freezing- cold night how an empty warehouse was miraculously transformed by the cooperation of the whole body of Toronto practitioners into a cozy, warm comfortable place filled with the colorful beauty and peace of Falun Dafa. Happy guests from all walks of life filled their plates to overflowing from a wide variety of dishes lovingly prepared by our practitioners and grandly displayed on tables that lined both sides of the gigantic room. Some people had little contact with Falun Dafa before and I saw suspicious and inquisitive faces soften into smiles, heads nodded in time to the music and songs and laughter mingled with the joyful entertainment. It was a spectacular celebration of the accomplishment of Dafa particles working as one body! Everyone there was changed by the miracle of the Fa!
Fellow Western practitioners had asked me to sing with them but every time I practiced the songs at home, I couldn't stop crying. Tears flowed down my cheeks like a waterfall. The words tugged at my heart. The song is called "Coming for you" and it says,
"Traveling thousands of miles over oceans, I'm coming again and again for you because I love you Precious Chinese people. Please, listen to my heart's meaning: Falun Dafa is good, Falun Dafa is great. Don't believe the lies they tell the whole world.
Facing to the dangerous violence, I keep coming again and again for you. I come because I love you Precious Chinese people..."
On that Lunar New Year's night the power and radiance of the Fa filled me, as a fellow practitioner gave me the music and I just followed her on stage... no thoughts... no judgments. Surrounded by all those devoted Dafa disciples my voice joined in with their voices and all of our feelings were shared with the audience. I saw tears in some of their eyes as they smiled and clapped. I felt the power that together we disciples can do anything!
I remember last year in January 2002 when the power and the radiance of the Fa also filled me and protected me. Following in the footsteps of the 36 Westerners and the thousands of Chinese who before me stood up for "Truthfulness Compassion Forbearance", I also stepped onto that gigantic great stage of Tiananmen Square wearing a Falun Dafa TruthWalk Banner across my chest. With the dignity and peacefulness of a Dafa disciple I sang the song "Falun Dafa Hao!" so everyone would know the truth. My voice sounded vibrant and operatic on that day too. It echoed all around the Square and up to the Heavens. I think the enlightened beings made the sun shine more brilliantly and all the little substances filled the air with a golden glow of joy! The police captured me, kept me under guard overnight and sent me home but more Westerners came to China in February and March and May to keep telling about the goodness of Falun Dafa.
But they didn't hear us! The persecution did not stop! It escalated, with more torture deaths reported, more kidnappings and more families torn apart by the brutal manhunts and violent orders to kill the Falun Gong. My heart felt broken. I liked all the Chinese people I met in China. I felt grief that this once honorable and magnificent country was being tricked by one man's jealousy to create hate. I couldn't understand it. How could kindness and peacefulness be brutally attacked?
Throughout the spring of 2003 I visited Russia, Latvia and Lithuania, some of the countries that the evil clown visited and we tried to eliminate the turmoil and confusion of his deceitful tricks. People were so happy to meet us and find out the truth about Falun Dafa. They said they had been waiting their whole lives to meet such good people. They were angry that the persecution was allowed to continue. We held parades to display the beauty, the peacefulness and the goodness of Falun Gong Our candlelight vigils illuminated photos in memory of our dear ones whose tortures and deaths were still increasing in China. We exercised with all those predestined for the Dafa.
In August we learned of the yearly APEC meeting in October. Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation is a group of 21 countries that want their business to become good. There was time to present the goodness of Falun Dafa and the facts to the leaders before their meeting in Mexico. We explained that the values and ethics which APEC stands for namely 'transparency' which means truthfulness, 'mutual benefits' which means compassion/kindness and 'co-operation' which means tolerance/ forbearance, these APEC principles were also outlawed in China when in July 1999 the Chinese president personally outlawed "Truthfulness Compassion Forbearance," the principles of Falun Gong. The APEC package also included an economics paper indicating how Falun Gong is actually the renaissance of China, bringing honor and virtue back to help all Chinese people. I hoped that the APEC countries' leaders sincerely cared about virtues and would help China's leaders to stop deceiving their whole country and trying to trick the whole world.
During this same time groups of practitioners kept visiting Mexico to inform the gentle people there. It seemed as though they were waiting for the Fa and to learn the exercises. Everyone supported goodness and made friends with us. Falun Gong practitioners were welcomed as they gathered from all over the world. A tropical storm that threatened to strike the area passed by without any destruction -- just dark clouds and rain only where the evil arrived. The rest of the area was windy but stayed dry. We peacefully sent Righteous thoughts as one body, day and night. After the APEC meetings, as the Chinese delegates'cars sped past heading towards the airport, 3 of us were walking along the highway and waved a golden banner which said Falun Dafa Truthfulness Compassion Forbearance in English and Chinese. We kept walking in the desert sun even though the cars were out of sight. Our righteous thoughts met the righteous thoughts sent by our whole group at the end of the highway. As we formed one whole Righteous thought body the evil was crushed in between us no matter how fast his cars went. We watched the cloudy grey sky turn bright blue behind us. When it seemed too hot to go on, the scorching sun felt cool. When we were hungry we found strawberries gently placed beside the road. When were thirsty, cars stopped and strangers gave us water and their good wishes. It took us 7 hours and it was dark when we reached the end of the highway. The other practitioners who were there earlier sending righteous thoughts had gone. We three sent Righteous thoughts again and sang "Falun Dafa Hao" as we watched the sunset together. The next day a taxi driver who took me to the airport said it was impossible for anyone to walk that far. Dafa disciples can really do the impossible.
I'm 63 this year. I felt I was too old to learn computers. The first time I touched the computer "mouse," the mark it makes disappeared off the screen and I couldn't find it. It took me 3 months to learn how to use the mouse properly. Because I have a huge Dafa family scattered around the world, I wanted to keep in touch with them. I also put my trust in Master's words to read others' experiences. Now I find the answers to my questions by comparing a few articles each day from our websites. I notice that a lot of us folks "over 50" are learning to email, fax and read the Internet. We are rejuvenating our brains too.
As I follow Master closely, steadfastly cultivating Dafa, I'm reading the book more. There's still interference, but I keep trying. I'm enjoying the exercises more too, even though the energy sometimes feels too powerful. I notice that the more people I tell about Falun Dafa, the more I myself realize. For example, the words about changing your mentality written in Lunyu used to puzzle me. One day I enlightened to it. I noticed all my ordinary thoughts were rooted into human things: things of self, emotions, worry, pursuit, etc. I recognized the chainlink effect - how interest for myself led to competition and led to jealousy and led to tears of self pity, on and on. I realized thoughts are matter and can form patterns to keep me trapped in the past. One day I watched as others were reading the speeches I used to do in front of the consulate. I felt sad. It was as if something of me had died. I knew that wasn't me anymore, I had changed. I look at myself differently, as not so important to protect or to think about or to worry about or to be negative about. I realize that Master is taking care of me and I try to keep a pure clear mind with the "Mie" word (Fa rectification verse). Lately I had the thought that " rising together as one body" means the opening of the Heavenly circuits and actually being one whole energy body myself. Then the substances surrounding me will allow me to rise to meet others who also have become "one." We will then join together as one great Fa body. As I read the book more and more it gets so exciting I don't want to do anything else. But of course Master's words encourage us to do what we should.
I couldn't realize before how evil the evil really is. Teacher said in "Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.," "Poison is just poisonous, and if you want it to stop being poisonous it can't do that." I kept hoping everyone would see the goodness of Dafa and stop their evil ways. Now I understand the meaning of Compassion in a Righteous way. My heart is filled with mercy to defend and protect the Fa. When I repeat Master's "magic words" from Philadelphia "I don't acknowledge the old forces arrangements. I absolutely don't acknowledge the old forces themselves", the persecution does not exist and cannot poison the innocent anymore. Those who harm themselves and others must stop.
As I look back I see a golden glow from all the places I have traveled to: all across and around the world, including China. The cosmic flashes as we send Righteous thoughts together as one body are getting brighter, longer lasting and reaching farther and more powerful day by day, shaking the Heavens and the earth, demanding justice and evil's end. This is a factual miracle! Falun Dafa practitioners are shining the Buddha Law Light everywhere in the cosmos, no more darkness remains for the evil to hide behind.
I know I am only a particle. Master, for the moment allows me to be in his one thought, which is to save sentient beings of which, He says, I am one too. Sometimes I feel like I am only a smile.
My heart knows a poem:
It is almost time soon,
Righteous thoughts
Cleanse my mind to diamond
Sacred exercises
Polish me brilliant gold
Zhen Shan Ren beats
My heart into heavenly blossoms
Master's precious "Zhuan Falun"
Guides me home.
Thank you.