(Clearwisdom.net) I had many illnesses in my childhood, which carried over to my adult life. My body was very weak and I often fainted. After I got married, I did not have a happy life with my husband and my family almost fell apart. On October 3, 1998, just when I was losing hope for my life, I learned Falun Dafa though a friend's introduction. That day became the most important day of my life.
After I obtained the Fa, Master started purifying my body. Many of the illnesses I had soon disappeared. As I improved in cultivation, I got rid of my hot temper, and my family became harmonious. Falun Dafa completely changed me and let my relatives, friends, and acquaintances feel the beauty and supernatural essence of Falun Dafa, which laid a good foundation for me to validate the Fa and clarify the truth later on.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched its persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999. I knew I had benefited from Falun Dafa and firmly believed in Master. Although I was not very clear in my mind when the persecution started, I had actually already started helping Master validate the Fa.
Don't Back Down Under Pressure, Cultivate Oneself and Save Sentient Beings
Seeing the CCP's overwhelming propaganda slandering Master and Dafa, I decided to step forward and tell the public how I had benefited greatly from Falun Dafa, both physically and mentally.
I sent letters to clarify the truth. I used my real name to mail the letters to all levels of authorities, including the appeals office of the state council. I once wrote a letter to the chief of the police department in my city and asked an official in the city police department to take it to the chief. The official worried about my safety and was concerned the letter would bring trouble. I said, “It's okay. I wrote the letter for his own good. If I was afraid, I wouldn't have written the letter at all. Please tell the chief that all of the news that slanders Falun Gong is lies. This letter tells him the truth and it is my personal experience.” One month later, the letter was returned to me. All sixteen pages of the letter were worn out and had a strong odor of cigarettes. The chief sent a note to me, “The letter was well written. It tells the truth. We all passed it along and read it.”
Master said,
“Clarifying the truth during the gigantic changes has already become the major way of saving all beings and the world's people, so in doing this, the wisdom that Dafa has given you and the enormous capability that the Fa has provided you with are manifesting.” (“Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Atlanta Fa Conference”)
When I first started to clarify the truth, I had a strong attachment of fear. Master used all kinds of methods to enlighten me to eliminate the fear. I can still recall that not long after July 20, 1999, I went to the bureau of justice with a practitioner to clarify the truth to the head of the bureau. When I walked to the door of the bureau, I was so scared that my legs were shaking and it felt like my heart would about to jump out. I was afraid to go through the door. I wanted to go back but I was afraid that I would lose face in front of practitioners. But then I thought that I had nothing to be afraid of since I was with Master and the Fa. I immediately had confidence and energy. At the same time, the substance of “fear” was eliminated by Master. It was truly as Master said,
“The cultivation is up to you, gong is up to the master.” (The First Talk, Zhuan Falun)
During the process of validating the Fa and clarifying the truth, I gradually got rid of the fear.
In 2000, five practitioners including me were arrested on our way back after we went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Dafa. On the train, I clarified the truth righteously. The whole sleeping car was covered with Falun Dafa practitioners' energy. Some of the people who learned the truth said that they also wanted to practice Falun Gong after going back home. Some shouted “Falun Dafa is good.” An armory police officer who had directly participated the persecution of Falun Gong in Beijing said that he would no longer do those horrible things. Many passengers offered their seats for us to sleep on, but we kindly declined. During the night, a railway policeman saw I was sitting in meditation in the corridor. He thought it was strange and shouted, “What's going on? The Falun Gong practitioners in the other car were wearing handcuffs. How is it that can you practice the exercise?” Another police officer who already understood the truth said, “If she wants to practice, let her practice.” One of his remarks impressed me the most, “One of my middle school teachers told me that if I think I am doing the right thing, I should keep doing it until I finish it. I should never give up halfway. I should not leave myself any regrets.” Master used this everyday person's mouth to enlighten me and encourage me to keep clarifying the truth diligently.
When we first started clarifying the truth to the public, many practitioners didn't understand the importance and didn't agree. Some practitioners thought I was not being rational since I was also responsible for other important projects and working with many different practitioners. They thought I was not being responsible to Dafa and fellow practitioners, since I was going out to clarify the truth face to face. A few coordinators came to my home in person and criticized me to my face. Some even said, “You don't feel comfortable at home, so you walk around the streets carelessly.” I did not feel happy when I heard this. But I thought about it again and realized that I should look inward during cultivation, and may have been caused by my attachment of showing off. I liked to hear good things. I had now heard some criticism and it mattered how I would react. There are factors that bring about improvement within Dafa related work. After realizing this, I was no longer angry and my mind felt broadened. I also thanked the practitioners for giving me the opportunity to improve my xinxing. We should also always pay attention to safety.
I later read how Master confirmed the importance of clarifying the truth,
“So no matter what excuses a small number of people and some people with ulterior motives in Mainland China use to stop the [Dafa] students from informing people of the facts, they are interfering, and it's the evil using human beings to interfere with you. People who do that either have a crooked understanding or have been used by the evil, or it's a case where some people with ulterior motives are playing a negative role. Clarifying the facts is something you must do, and you must do it to the end.” (“Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Chicago Conference”)
When I first started to clarify the truth, I did not clearly understand the Fa principles, and my foundation of clarifying the truth was not clear. I didn't have the compassion to save the people, but had a competitive mentality and the attachment of letting everyday people judge who was right and who was wrong. I definitely had attachments of showing off, zealotry, and fear. During my Fa study and truth-clarification, Master gave me the opportunity to eliminate these attachments and let me rectify myself step by step, and continuously improve myself. Master said,
“So I think that for Dafa disciples clarifying the facts has become a unique way of cultivation for you cultivators today.” (“Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Chicago Conference”)
Saving Sentient Beings with Righteous Thoughts
When we study the Fa well, we will have strong righteous thoughts. We send forth righteous thoughts to clean our own dimensions and not allow the evil to interfere. We also clarify the truth face to face with wisdom and rationality. Clarifying the truth then becomes easy to do. We should treat each person with mercy and kindness. All of the world's people are Teacher's relatives. We should not discriminate among them while clarifying the truth.
We had a heavy snow during the 2003 Chinese New Year. On New Year's Day, it was windy and cold. I carried a big bag of truth-clarification materials and DVDs, and rode a bicycle to clarify the truth in the early morning. I saw over 50 sanitation workers busy cleaning the snow on the east side of the Chang'an Bridge. I walked toward them with a smile and said, “Happy New Year! Thank you very much for your hard work. Please remember that in order to have a healthy body, you must remember 'Falun Dafa is good' and 'Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance is good'.” They thought I was some leader coming to wish Happy New Year to the them and they all gathered over to hear what I had to say. When they realized I was a Falun Gong practitioner, two males who were interfered with used the shovels to bang on the ground loudly. The others were afraid to listen to what I was saying. I just wanted to use this opportunity to clarify the truth and I did not think of anything else. I clarified the truth to them with compassion and told them how I benefited from Falun Dafa, and about all of the miracles which happened to me during my cultivation. I also discussed the current situation in society and about how all of the disasters happened. The wisdom that Falun Dafa bestowed on me gradually opened their hearts. Some grabbed the shovels and came closer. Some nodded slowly while in deep thinking. In the end, no one in the group of over 50 people was against me any longer. When I brought out the truth-clarification materials and DVDs, they came over to inquire, and soon all of the truth-clarification materials in my bag were gone.
Every person in mainland China is a sentient being we should save. We should just follow what Master told us,
“Also, with those people that you run into by chance, who you run into in daily life, and the people you run into at work, you should all clarify the truth to them.” (“Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Atlanta Fa Conference”)
After the persecution began on July 20, 1999, I used the opportunities I had of going back to my hometown in Shandong Province four times, to clarify the truth on the train back and forth.
In 2005, while clarifying the truth to people, I started to persuade them to withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations. Each time I was on the train going back and forth to my hometown, I almost did not sit down at all for the over-30-hour round trip. I always gave my seat to the passengers standing in the corridor, and picked up the garbage that passengers left and put it into the garbage can. My actions touched the passengers and crew members on the train. I then used the chance to tell them that I did it because I was a Falun Dafa practitioner. I used this method to effectively rectify the public's wrong impression on Falun Gong due to the CCP's lies. I then became easy for me to clarify the truth and persuade them to quit the CCP. When people knew the truth about Falun Dafa and the reasons to withdraw from the CCP, 99% of the people used their real names to quit.
The most memorable time was when I went back home in 2009. Master sent all of the people on the train who needed to be saved in front of me. I clarified the truth and I did not miss the passengers who were taking a short trip or got off early. The passengers politely shook hands and said goodbye to me when they got off the train. We must clarify the truth thoroughly. Master said,
“... so you have to do well clarifying the truth. Don't just go to talk for the sake of formality. Whenever you talk to someone you need to have him understand.” (“Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Atlanta Fa Conference”)
I forgot about hunger or thirst and I did not need to use the restroom. I used all of the time to clarify the truth. It happened that the train was an hour and a half late, and the passengers were anxious. But I was happy. I used every second to save sentient beings. Even so, the time was still not enough since there were so many sentient beings to save. When I got off the train, I found three passengers who had carried their luggage and followed me throughout the train because they wanted to hear more of my truth-clarifying information. Two of them were the director of the city's railroad sub-bureau and his wife. They were about to immigrate overseas and they had come to their hometown to visit their families. Another person was the owner of a business. When they learned the truth, they all quit the CCP and said goodbye to me with the amulet and Shen Yun Performing Arts DVD I gave to them.
We need to be more diligent when persuading people to withdraw from the CCP, and practitioners need to coordinate with each other better. During the past few years, I learned many good ways from a senior practitioner, while coordinating with her, to persuade people to quit. I learned from her strong ability to endure hardship and how she looked inward when having difficulties. We cooperated well in three years and we had no gaps at all. She also led her granddaughter (a young practitioner) and we worked as a group to clarify the truth in a big supermarket. It gathered a lot of sentient beings. Some had moved overseas and come back to visit their families. Some had come from all over the country to shop here. We found every opportunity to clarify the truth to them. Every day we persuaded around 40 people to withdraw from the CCP.
Even though there were surveillance cameras, every day we passed out copies of Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party and all kinds of truth-clarification DVDs and materials. No matter how interfered with a person was, we could solve it with benevolence through clarifying the truth. When people who wanted to report us to the authorities or wanted to have us arrested saw that we were doing this not for ourselves, but truly for their sakes, they were touched, and didn't report us. Most of the people used their real names to quit the CCP. During the 16 days of the Beijing Olympic Games, we let go our laziness and clarified the truth in the hot weather. We persuaded almost one thousand people to quit the CCP and its related organizations. But this number is still trivial compared to the large number of sentient beings who need to be saved.
Clarifying the Truth to Police Bureau, Procuratorate, and Court
Many of the world's people are remaining silent about the persecution, which is also a crime, especially for lawyers. If they can't use their rights to sustain justice, it is because they don't know the truth. In order to save them too, I visited all of the law firms in the city during the rescue of practitioners last year. After I clarified the truth to them, most of the lawyers understood the truth, and some of them withdrew from the CCP. But under the local CCP's pressure, they could not defend practitioners like the attorneys in Beijing did. This also reflected that there were many gaps in my truth-clarification.
Several times when I worked with the family members of the arrested practitioners, I truly felt that the righteous thoughts got stronger and stronger when we worked together as a whole. It allowed me to not be affected by the illusions and not be trapped by the police officers' tricks. I did not accept any arrangement of the old forces. Falun Dafa practitioners can only save sentient beings with compassion, no matter the situation. A police officer in the police station once shouted at me loudly to frighten me. He pointed at my nose and said, “Are you practicing Falun Gong? If yes, I will arrest you.” I smiled, “Yes. I came for Falun Gong.”
The deputy chief of the police station once heard the chief yell at us. He led the political instructor and a few female police officers wielding electric batons and surrounded us. Under their threatening and dragging, we were not moved at all. We just clarified the truth to them. In the end, they didn't know what to do with us and they all ran to other rooms to hide. It looked like the evil really lost their roots.
I went to the Procuratorate to clarify the truth a few times. I thought only of their own good and did not think about my safety at all. In the beginning, these people didn't want to listen to the truth and said that they hated Falun Dafa. In the end, they began to understand and politely asked me to sit. One guard said the police were hooligans. Some officials who handled the cases were touched and teared up. They said, “Unfortunately the CCP Politics and Law Committee and the 610 Office are in charge. If I was in charge, I would immediately release the practitioners.”
We clarified the truth further and told them that based on the announcement of the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, every person in the judicial system who has participated in persecuting Falun Gong will be tried in court. I expressed hope that the Procuratorate would not to accept any cases to persecute Falun Gong, since practitioners are all very good people and have not committed any crime. On the contrary, persecuting Falun Gong is a serious crime and violates the constitution and the law.
The above are some of my understandings and experiences of truth-clarification during my cultivation. It is also the progress of my cultivation on the path of helping Master rectify the Fa. Each time I didn't advance diligently, I recalled the dream I had the night I obtained the Fa. I saw Master send me a university admission notice and also two director sticks. Master told me solemnly, “Advance fast. Do not delay.” I knew that compassionate Master used these words to push me to advance diligently on the path of helping Master rectify the Fa. Master taught us,
“The path a Dafa disciple takes is a glorious history, and this history has to be created by his own enlightening.” (“Path,” from Essentials for Further Advancement II)