When I set Aside Fear Master Arranged My Path To Validate the Fa

(Minghui.org) I am a young practitioner and I live in the United States. I first started practicing Falun Dafa with my father when I was less than 4 years old, and I feel extremely fortunate to have practiced for more than 20 years. Today I would like to talk about my experiences of clarifying the truth at school and removing my attachments.

Overcoming Fear

The first few years after I came to the U.S. I was very afraid to talk about Falun Dafa and the persecution, after living in China for many years. I didn’t even tell my best friends or teachers about Dafa.

What helped and encouraged me to start clarifying the truth was a concert I attended in the summer of 2015. That year, 30 kids from around the world biked across the U.S. to raise awareness of the ongoing persecution and rescue orphans in China. They were the Ride to Freedom team members. When they finally arrived in DC, they held a concert in front of the Lincoln Memorial. I was very touched by their courage and their selflessness. Many of the riders were younger than me. As I sat in the audience, I asked myself, “These kids rode bikes across America, but why can’t I even tell my friends about Falun Dafa and the persecution?” Afterwards, I started telling my close friends my family’s story, and why I practice Falun Dafa.

I attended graduate school in a small town. At that time I wasn’t involved in any major truth clarification projects and I only knew the few practitioners in my city. I sometimes wondered why I went there instead of a school in a big city with more practitioners and more projects to participate in.

While on vacation with my best friend’s family, I had a vivid dream. The Falun Dafa coordinator in the nearby city told me I should be doing more, and I could clearly feel that many practitioners were helping me.

I woke up crying. I knew Master was trying to wake me up and encourage me to be more diligent with truth clarification. That day, I decided to tell my friend’s family about Dafa. I had talked with my friend’s parents about the persecution before and they saw the Shen Yun show. However, I hadn’t talked with my friend’s grandmother or her great aunt about Dafa. I knew the grandmother was a very devoted Christian. When I met her previously, I hesitated to tell her about Dafa because I was worried she might ask me challenging questions. However, after the dream, I had the courage to talk to her first thing in the morning. To my surprise, she was very open and said she found a lot of common values between different schools of religion. To my even greater surprise, that day, all six family members learned all five exercises with me. During the few remaining days of vacation, every morning, my roommate’s mom, her grandmother, and great aunt woke up early in the morning to do the exercises with me. Thank you Master for the encouragement!

Validating Dafa at School

Having had the encouraging experience with my friend’s family, I decided to show fellow classmates the exercises. As the only practitioner in my school, I couldn’t start a club yet. So, I began by organizing meditation workshops for students and staff in my department.

For the first workshop, local practitioners came to help. After that I mostly organized them by myself. It’s been almost three years since the start of the weekly workshops, and I continued organizing them. During the pandemic the workshops were online. Sometimes a few new people came, other times no one showed up. But the key was to persevere and continue organizing them. After almost three years, more than 50 people learned the exercises during the workshops, and many came more than once.

Organizing the meditation workshops also helped me to have a better understanding of why I cultivated. When I was young I just followed my father and he taught me to be a good kid and be guided by Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. During the meditation workshops, my friends started asking me why I cultivated. I started by talking about my experiences growing up. I explained that learning the principles of Falun Dafa and meditating helped me. But I soon realized that I hadn’t figured out why I cultivated. Was I cultivating because my father told me to, or was it because it was part of me for as long as I can remember? Then a local practitioner reminded me: the reason we practice is to return to our celestial homes.

During that time I had the opportunity to organize seminars that focused on discussing virtue-based cultivation for health. By talking to an older practitioner about traditional Chinese culture, I started to realize virtue-based cultivation for health had been part of Chinese history from the very beginning (e.g. the Yellow Emperor). To truly achieve physical health and mental wellness, one needed to focus on improving his or her character and removing attachments. This realization made it easier to talk to my friends about Falun Dafa, especially the moral values.

After organizing meditation workshops for a year, I began looking for opportunities to start a student club because it would help organize larger events. Two staff members and a graduate student who participated in the meditation workshop frequently agreed to join as officers, so we had enough people to start the club.

At first, I had some fear in my heart since I was the only practitioner at school. Previously I had heard stories of pushbacks on Dafa clubs by students who had been deceived by the CCP’s lies. When I had my doubts, a local practitioner reminded me of my responsibility. He said, “The people at your school were perhaps once gods, and they came down to this Earth to be saved. They chose to go to your school because they knew you would be there. You are their only hope.” His encouragement helped me strengthen my will to start a Dafa club so I could reach the broader campus community.

To avoid any potential pushbacks, I thought that it would be best to clarify the truth to school officials and staff members before submitting the club application. That weekend, I had the opportunity to join a local experience sharing about truth clarification at airports and tourist attractions. Seemingly by chance, western practitioners asked me to translate for them. After two hours of translating Chinese practitioners’ experience sharing on truth clarification, I started to understand how I could clarify the truth to my school officials. Thank you Master for this kind arrangement.

The following week, I went to the office of staff members who oversaw student clubs. As I was walking, I kept sending forth righteous thoughts and I could feel my heart become very calm. When I went to press the doorbell at the office, the staff member who came to open the door happened to be the head of that department. She was on her way to water her plants. As soon as I gave her a Dafa flyer, she said “Oh, I know about Falun Dafa. My husband practiced it several years ago and read Zhuan Falun.” I almost couldn’t believe my ears. I knew this was Master encouraging me that I should start a student club at my school. I had the opportunity to share my family’s story and the persecution with this staff member and another staff member who was more directly in charge of the student clubs. After hearing my story, the second staff member told me I should definitely start a student club, and encouraged me to share my story with the broader campus community. She said, “People in the community will welcome your story with open arms and this is a very important story to share.” The registration for the Falun Dafa Club at my school was soon approved.

In the last year, I had the opportunity to collaborate with young practitioners across the U.S. and Canada to organize film screenings online. Each time I decided to organize a new event, there were opportunities to remove a new layer of my attachment to fear. As I let go of the attachment more, more doors opened and I was able to connect with faculty, staff, and students in many departments across campus. I also started to realize the importance of the weekly meditation workshops. Many people who helped me during the film screening promotion were people who had attended the meditation workshop previously. Their positive impression of Dafa and knowledge of the persecution helped them play an important role in sharing the events with their colleagues, and even via campus-wide listservs.

When I first came to graduate school, I didn’t know which path I should take in truth clarification. I want to thank Master for giving me the opportunity to introduce more people to Dafa and to save sentient beings at my school. Sometimes when organizing larger events, I tend to focus too much on the logistics for the event and not on my own cultivation. In the movie screening promotion, it became very clear to me that when I was diligent with Fa study, a few emails opened new avenues for the movie promotion; whereas if I slacked off in my cultivation, I wouldn’t get any replies after sending many emails.

Master said,

“If a Dafa disciple's heart is unsteady, it will cause changes in his or her surroundings. When you have fear, for instance, you will find that the sentient beings around you are not quite right. When you change such that your presence is refreshing and uplifting to people, and your mind becomes broad and full of optimism, you will find the things around you to be correspondingly different. When clarifying the truth, when validating the Fa, and when encountering challenges as you do things, adjust yourself and look at things with righteous thoughts. It might just prove to be effective.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2009 Washington DC International Fa Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. IX)

Additionally, I found organizing the weekly meditation workshop very important. Even though I couldn’t reach as many people in an hour in the meditation workshop compared to the movie screenings, sharing with the campus community about meditation exercises and introducing them to Dafa could help people better understand the films about the persecution and help rectify abnormal conditions in other dimensions. I am very grateful to Master for guiding me to walk my own path for Fa validation at school.

Conclusion

Over the years Master helped me find a path for truth clarification at school. In the process, I gradually removed my attachment of fear. However, as the situation became better around me, I slacked off in my cultivation and developed attachments to comfort and laziness. We are so fortunate to become Dafa disciples, and we made vows with Master to help him during Fa rectification. It is a vow I must fulfill.

I would like to to encourage fellow practitioners to cultivate diligently, save more sentient beings, and fulfill our vows with Master!

The above has been my personal understanding. Please kindly point out anything incorrect.

Thank you Master! Thank you fellow practitioners!

(Presented at the 2021 Online International Young Practitioners Experience Sharing Conference)