(Minghui.org) Greetings, Great and Compassionate Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
I started practicing Falun Dafa when a relative introduced it to me in 2007. Today I would like to share with you my cultivation experiences while talking about the persecution in Chicago's Chinatown.
After graduating with my Master's degree in 2012, I returned to Chicago. In May 2013, a fellow practitioner told me she wished to reopen the truth clarification site in Chicago's Chinatown. I participated in doing the exercises, displaying banners, and talking to people about the persecution.
Participating in this project was a great help in my personal cultivation. Due to the heavy workload at my job and lack of doing the exercises, I often felt exhausted. However, when I do the exercises in Chinatown, I often feel a huge energy field surrounding me, so I really like to do the exercises there. Many times I came to Chinatown very tired, but left filled with energy and with much stronger righteous thoughts.
Just as Master said,
“Our exercise sites are better than any other qigong exercise sites. As long as you go to our exercise sites for practice, it is much better than your treating your own illness. My fashen sit in a circle, and above the exercise site is a shield on which there is a big Falun. A large fashen guards the site above the shield. This site is not an ordinary site, and neither is it a site for an ordinary qigong practice: It is a site for cultivation practice. Many of our practitioners with supernormal abilities have seen that this Falun Dafa site is shielded with red light, and it is red all over.” (Zhuan Falun)
I realized that while many practitioners go to Chinatown to do the exercises, few distribute truth clarification materials or directly talk to people. The number of practitioners who can speak English is even fewer, so I try to go early and stay longer to talk to more people with predestined relationships, and to tell them about Dafa.
We talked it over and agreed that unless there are other major activities or a heavy storm, we will be at the Chinatown site. Even in the cold of Chicago's winter and in heavy snow, practitioners persisted, including many elderly practitioners. We have to shovel snow and ice, set up the banner, and then do the exercises.
While talking to people in Chinatown, I have met many kind, predestined people. Many Chinese students showed interest, and some returned later to hear more. I met young people who used to practice in their childhood. I met many people who already know about the persecution and expressed their support. I also met many people from all over the world who encourage our efforts and said they will definitely sign petitions after hearing about the CCP’s crime of live organ harvesting.
When I speak to Westerners, I find that after telling them what Falun Dafa is, it’s very important to tell them about the CCP’s forced organ harvesting from living Falun Dafa practitioners, especially the investigations by human rights lawyers and international medical experts. After hearing this, many expressed their willingness to help stop this persecution. I try to clarify the truth as much as I can to each person, and talk to them for 10-30 minutes.
The Chinatown practice site also provides a platform to help practitioners form one body. Many practitioners who just came from mainland China want to find local practitioners quickly, but have no way to contact them. Many of them find us through the Chinatown truth-clarification site and quickly join our effort. Several Americans also started learning Falun Dafa in Chinatown.
Through the few years I've participated in the Chinatown practice site, I've noticed that Dafa has also brought great benefits to the area. When we restarted the site in 2013, there were not that many people on weekends, and it was easy to find a parking spot. After a while, more people started coming to Chinatown on the weekend, and more activities are taking place. Now, it’s hard even to get into the Chinatown parking lot, and finding a spot is even harder. I think Master arranged for them to learn about Falun Dafa and the persecution.
Eliminating Resentment, Treating Sentient Beings with Kindness
Sometimes we meet hostile mainland Chinese who were poisoned by CCP's lies. Talking to them has given me many opportunities to cultivate myself. In trying to give people the materials and tell them about Dafa, I frequently remind myself that no matter what the person’s attitude is, I need to smile and treat them with kindness. It's pretty easy to have this wish, but due to interference from my own attachments, it’s not so easy to do.
One day, the weather was quite cold. I was also going through some physical tribulations due to a toothache. It was raining a little, and I wasn’t wearing warm clothes. After doing the exercises, I started to hand out materials. After a long time, not a single person accepted the materials, and the Chinese people were hostile. My attachment to saving face and competitive mentality surfaced, and I became very angry in my heart, but still reminded myself to smile. However, it’s very hard to do. No one accepted the materials, and I was cold, since my clothes were soaked by the rain.
The physical discomfort, combined with a competitive mentality and the attachment to saving face made it really uncomfortable, but I still had some righteous thoughts and wanted to persist. I tried hard to remember how Master said that everything one encounters in cultivation is a good thing, and that everyday people come from high levels. So, no matter how they act, we must treat every sentient being with kindness. I kept sending righteous thoughts, but many bad thoughts appeared in my mind, and I felt a great invisible pressure.
I told myself to smile to everyone who walked by. It was hard to do; the muscles in my face were frozen. I tried to control the bad thoughts and continued to hand out materials, asking the Chinese people passing by to learn about the truth.
I felt like this for a long time; it seemed like two hours. My righteous thoughts became stronger, and I no longer felt so uneasy. However, I was still mentally and physically uncomfortable. Soon, a Chinese woman walked by. I smiled and gave her a pamphlet and told her not to believe the lies made up by the CCP, and to learn more about Falun Gong. She accepted the pamphlet. A few other Chinese also started to accept the materials.
While I distributed these few pamphlets, a warm current swept through my entire body, and I wasn’t cold anymore. My teeth stopped hurting, and the bad thoughts also weakened. Soon, the sky started to clear up, and people started to accept our materials. Some even stopped to listen and learn more about Falun Dafa and the persecution. When it was time to leave, the road was still wet, but I suddenly realized that my clothes were inexplicably dry.
This experience made me deeply realize that what I have done is just the little bit on the surface, and that everything else was done by Master.
I've had similar experiences many times while clarifying the truth in Chinatown, but the requirements are different each time. It's just like what Master said,
“...there are different Dharma at different levels, and that the Dharma at each level is not the absolute truth of the universe. Yet the Dharma at a given level assumes a guiding role at that level.” (Zhuan Falun)
One day, I became upset when I heard some people repeating lies made up by the CCP, saying things disrespectful to Dafa. I felt resentful, wronged, and angry. But I didn’t look inward.
When I first began cultivation, if I met someone like that, I would feel wronged, get angry, and try to reason with the person with strong human emotions. As long as I was defending Dafa, I felt I was meeting the standard. However, when I encountered these situations, the more angry I became, the more my heart was affected, which caused interference from other dimensions. As a result, these experiences kept repeating themselves.
This is when I realized that the standard is now different, and that my heart must not be moved. I must not be angry at all; remaining completely unmoved by everyday people is the requirement I need to meet at my current level in cultivation.
Master said,
“When in your truth clarification you run across ordinary people who have listened to and believed the lies and propaganda spread early on by the wicked CCP via its media, they might have misperceptions about Dafa disciples, be harsh toward you, or not willing to listen to you. At those times, if your emotions are stirred up by them, and you feel wronged, get upset, and maybe even aren’t all that rational, then you won’t be able to clarify the truth nor save those people.” (“Fa Teaching Given in Manhattan”)
I also found that I still have a very strong attachment to saving face. I’m very concerned about how others think of me and their attitude towards me. On the surface, I’m angry because someone is disrespectful toward Dafa, but at a deeper level, I feel wronged because my reputation is hurt. This is something I still need to eliminate in my cultivation.
Eliminate Attachment to “Doing Things” and Attachment to Comfort
Recently, due to lack to Fa study and doing the exercises, I often showed a strong attachment to comfort and an attachment to “doing things.” I still go to Chinatown as usual, but I feel that I’m not as diligent as I used to be. Because I am doing a lot of different Dafa-related tasks, I found that I started to focus more on doing things and less on cultivation. I often find myself trying to use the methods of everyday people to resolve issues.
Master said,
“With any project to save people, if you stray from cultivation you will find that you become more and more like a non-cultivator and tend to think about matters and do things in an increasingly ordinary way. But if you can stay on the Fa all the way through, and not let up in your personal cultivation at any point, you will find that everything you do is truly befitting a cultivator. That is simply essential if a Dafa disciple is to complete his mission, and what ensures it on a fundamental level. So you cannot stray from the Fa, and at no point can you let up in your own cultivation.” (“Fa Teaching Given at the 2015 New York Fa Conference”)
I want to remind myself as well as other practitioners that we must not let up in our own cultivation. It’s the foundation of everything.
There are still many shortcomings in my cultivation and many areas upon which I need to improve. I want to share my cultivation experiences with fellow practitioners and hope that you will point out any shortcomings you see in my sharing.
Thank you, great Master!Thank you, fellow practitioners!
(Presented at the 2015 Mid-US Falun Dafa Cultivation Experience Sharing Conference)
