Western Practitioner: Learning Chinese - A Cultivation Process

(Clearwisdom.net)

When I started practicing Falun Gong, I had almost no understanding of Chinese culture and no knowledge at all of Chinese language or history. Learning Chinese has been a cultivation process for me. I would like to share some of the understandings and benefits I have gained through this process. I hope that my experience may encourage Eastern and Western practitioners to understand and learn from each other more.

When I first went to Hong Kong I could only speak a few words of Chinese, and most practitioners around me couldn't speak English. After learning Chinese, when I returned to Hong Kong a few years later, I was able to communicate freely with practitioners. Thus, some veteran practitioners from China, who had been through so much in their cultivation and had such incredible experiences and deep insights, were able to share them with me. I felt very encouraged and enriched, and my mind was opened to a different way of thinking.

I have also become more aware of culturally-based preconceived notions in myself and others. In Australia, about half of the practitioners are Westerners and half are Chinese, so one of the greatest challenges we have, I think, in working together well, is being understanding of each other. For example, I have noticed that Westerners are very open with their internal thoughts but value external privacy and manners. Chinese practitioners tend to take privacy and manners very lightly, but show that they are truly sincere and kind through their actions in other ways. Of course, having manners is a good thing, especially in dealing with ordinary people, but I've seen that some Western practitioners will get very upset when a Chinese practitioner does not exercise Western manners. I have also seen how some Chinese practitioners try to guess hidden intentions of other practitioners and make interpersonal relations un-necessarily complicated.

Once in Hong Kong, a practitioner invited me to eat with her and I turned her down. I didn't like practitioners always treating me and not allowing me to pay. I said I would eat some of my own food. This practitioner assumed from this that I didn't like her and this thought grew in her mind until eventually she felt uncomfortable even being in my company. I had no perception, at all, of the situation until it was already quite a big issue for her. She kept her thoughts private and didn't show much on the surface, so I assumed she didn't have such thoughts, as I wasn't accustomed to people keeping their thoughts so private. I realize now that I need to be more sensitive to others and their cultural conditioning, and to think more about the possible outcomes of my words and actions.

Learning Chinese is not necessary in order to cultivate well or to understand the Fa deeply, but I feel that being able to listen to Master's lectures, His expressions and tone of voice, as well as being able to read His words and understand, superficially, the specific meaning of the words in their original cultural context, has given me a deeper grounding in the Fa. Especially with respect to some cultivation terms, the inner meanings of which have evolved over centuries in the Chinese cultivation community, I feel that the superficial meaning is very difficult to translate accurately. I think those of us who can understand Chinese and are bi-lingual and somewhat bi-cultural have a responsibility to help fellow practitioners better understand the cultural context in which the Fa was originally taught.

I have always felt very strongly that I need to save many Chinese people. When clarifying the truth to Chinese people and helping them withdraw from CCP organizations, I feel very deeply that I am fulfilling my mission. Nothing compares with that feeling, no matter the suffering in the process. Although I am a Westerner in this lifetime, I don't think too much about the difficulties that my race poses in helping Chinese people withdraw from the CCP. I use my unique position to clarify the truth effectively from my perspective - I tell them how Falun Gong is supported and welcomed around the world, including in Hong Kong. Because I am a Westerner they can easily trust me on this point. I ask them to think: "If Falun Gong was how the CCP portrays us, would Falun Gong be supported around the world?" Many people know about the Tiananmen Massacre of 1989. I tell them that many foreign media reported on it, and around the world we saw the footage of many people killed. However, to this day the CCP does not admit how many fellow Chinese it slaughtered. "The CCP is obviously lying, so how can you trust what the CCP says? Why is it that so much information we give you, including photographs and video footage, you have never come into contact with in the mainland? Doesn't this mean that the CCP has been hiding the truth?"

I have shed tears several times just thinking about the Chinese people and the situation they find themselves in today. For many of them, it is the deviation of other beings that has put their very existence in danger. They don't deserve to be eliminated. They are those magnificent beings who have faith that Dafa disciples can save them. Just beginning to put myself in their shoes upsets me and motivates me to do whatever I can. Those who persecute Dafa disciples are persecuting the last hope for sentient beings. We cannot allow it.

I have done poorly in my cultivation and still have many attachments. I am working through them, but I have always been clear that I have this human body at this time for one purpose only, I have come to this world for one reason only. Doing anything else for the sake of doing it alone would be meaningless. So much suffering, so many lifetimes. ...we must do well.

I have learned that as long as our starting point is righteous and selfless, if we feel in our hearts that something must be accomplished or done, then we shouldn't let too many notions of how difficult it is get in the way, and we should just go about accomplishing it. Just like the Chinese tale about a silly old man that moved a mountain, the gods will be moved by your pure heart and miracles are sure to happen in the process. During a certain period of time, I was able to help about 100 people withdraw from the CCP every day. I hope my experiences can encourage practitioners to forge ahead together, regardless of the perceived difficulties or impossibilities. As our Great Master says, "It's hard to endure, but you can endure it. It's hard to do, but you can do it."

If anything I have shared today is not on the Fa, please kindly point it out for me.

Thank you.