Respected Master Li and fellow practitioners, I would like to take this opportunity to report my experiences about my cultivation and spreading the Fa during the past year.
I remembered when I was in elementary school. There was a text called "The Emperor's New Dress." In the text, the emperor was showing off himself in a parade where he was naked. Yet nobody dared to say that he was not wearing any clothes. People thought if someone mentioned it, others will think that he was an idiot. A little na ve child without any of an adult's worry and self-protectiveness said loudly, "Uncles and aunts, why does the emperor not have any clothes on?" People suddenly realized that the emperor really did not have any clothes on. After finishing reading this article, I felt that this was such a lovely child.
Today, I'm a Falun Dafa practitioner. Some evil people have slandered Dafa. Those "emperors" and many adults have not dared to tell the truth because of their selfish concerns. Only those brave Falun Gong practitioners dared to risk their lives to tell people the truth. As an overseas Falun Dafa practitioner, I should learn from that naive child and forget about my selfish concerns and just tell people the truth.
On July 7, 1999, the news came. Zhao Jinhua, a Falun Dafa practitioner, was tortured to death because she refused to give up her Falun Gong practice. Master Li quoted Lao Zi in his Essentials for Further Advancement: "If the populace fears no death, what good would it do to threaten them with death?" Today, the honest and kind Dafa practitioners are risking their lives to wake up people. What a tragedy this is to our country! Is this because the moral standard has dropped? Is the whole Chinese nation in danger? As I was reading "Zhuan Falun," I thought about the process of Master Li teaching the Dafa and of the Fa rectifying the universe. It is just like the process of rotating Falun of this universe. In this process, the false appearances, rumors, dirt and foolishness will be purified on the earth. People's moral standard will elevate. To promote the Fa and to let people know the truth of Dafa is just like rotating Falun.
As for us overseas practitioners, although promoting Fa and telling the truth to people does not seem as great and heroic as the practitioners in China who have given up everything to rectify the Fa, it is also a part of rotating Falun and helping in Master Li's work off rectifying the Fa in the universe.
Then what should I do? Last July, the Chinese Government decided to ban Falun Gong. Many Dafa practitioners from other states and countries came to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. to tell the truth and to protest the Chinese police's brutal violation of the law. After two weeks, many practitioners went back to their homes. I got the idea to keep going to the Chinese Embassy to practice Falun Gong and show support for the Chinese practitioners, to tell the Chinese officials that Falun Dafa is good and that it is not cult. Some people may ask, "Aren't you blackening the Chinese government's face?" In my opinion, it is the most shameful thing for the Chinese government to ban Falun Gong, to spread rumors to the world and to deprive millions of Falun Gong practitioners their freedom to practice "Truth, Compassion and Tolerance." I want to tell the Chinese government that what they did was deadly wrong and I don't want them to make the same mistake again. Some people may say that what you are doing does not benefit China's stability. We all have seen that before Falun Gong was banned, it brought good health and high morality to millions of people. It enhanced the true stability of the society. The ban of Falun Gong forced practitioners to appeal. That was what caused the instability.
If I don't tell people the truth, it is just like if I saw killing and arson but did not bother to interfere because it did no harm to me. My wife supported me. She said, "I would go to the Chinese Embassy with you even if our child is only less than half a year old." Since October 20th of last year, I have continuously gone to the Chinese Embassy early every morning for 2 weeks. It took me 30 minutes to get there. I stayed on the lawn in front of the Chinese Embassy with two display boards. One has "Heaven will not allow you to persecute innocent people" written on it and the other sign said "Release Falun Gong practitioners." I did the meditation and practiced the movements. At the beginning, I was a little bit scared. I was afraid that people from the Chinese Embassy would hire someone to kill me and what I was doing would cause trouble to my relatives in China. But when I thought about the suffering of Dafa and Master Li as well as the practitioners in China, I felt ashamed about my fear. If someone came to kill me, it doesn't matter. Let me shoulder some hardships for Dafa. I was able to sit in deep tranquility during the meditation even though cars were running back and forth. I did not feel them at all. Occasionally, some drivers supported me by sounding their horns. My body was like a huge mountain. The evil force became small worms.
Later on, my wife brought our child to the Chinese Embassy to do the exercises and read the book every afternoon. In the meantime, I would put some newspapers and flyers at nearby shopping centers. My wife and I really wished to do our best to let people know the truth of Dafa. Yet, we did not know what really to do. Perhaps, God saw this sincerity of ours and guided us to opportunities for Hong Fa.
One afternoon, we went to a nearby library to borrow books for our children. We asked the librarian if we could have a session to introduce Falun Gong there. We told the librarian that the session would be free to the public. The librarian said it was OK. The only thing we needed to do is to register for the time. We were given an information sheet of the Fairfax county library system with information about all 19 libraries in the county. After that, we went to a different library to run introductory workshops every weekend. Sometimes we have more people, and sometimes less. How can we get more people involved? We know some people came because they saw the ad we put on the local newspaper, and others came because they saw the announcement in the library. We thought if we can put announcements in other places, even if people could not come to a session, they would know something about Dafa. Once I was shopping at a Korean grocery store. I found that they had several free newspapers there for people to pick up. I thought maybe we could put some materials there too. I asked the store manager and told him that we were planning to run free workshops in the nearby library. He saw the printed materials and agreed. I know that there is a grocery store in every mall and I can go to each one of them and ask if they can distribute the materials for us. This is also a good opportunity to introduce Dafa to the store managers. In fact, if we have a pure heart in Hong Fa, we will have all the opportunities in the world to do so.
Since grocery stores can help us to distribute Dafa materials, why cant we try all the other stores such as barbershops, CVS, restaurants, clinics, and health clubs? As the result of our effort, 80% of the places happily agreed to handle the Dafa materials.
One morning, my wife and I took our child to a park to do the exercises. While my wife was doing the exercises, I took my child to a playground. This is the place where the parents who live nearby take their children to play. In a short while, there was about a dozen of them, all innocent and lovely. I thought if their parents can receive Dafa, they might provide opportunities for their children to get connected with Dafa. Therefore, I took some newspapers and gave them to the parents while my wife was practicing. This was very effective for them to see and learn. Ever since, I have gone to the playground every Saturday morning and teach people to do the exercises for free. All the parents there eagerly accepted the newspapers I gave them.
Sometimes, hardship does occur but I found the difficulties present me the opportunities to cultivate and improve myself. One day at noontime, I planned to send materials to a mall. Since I was not studying well during this period of time, I felt sleepy whenever I read "Zhuan Falun." So when I was sending the materials over, I took it as a routine work, and thus it was not successful. Most shops refused because I seemed too much like a salesman. Afterwards, I calmed myself down, and studied Fa. When I felt sleepy, I stood up and paced back and forth until I could concentrate. After that, when I sent materials over to shops and talked about Fa, my tone was calm and my voice was soft. When I spoke, there was smile on my face and I felt pure in my heart. As a result, most shops welcomed the newspaper I delivered to them.
Whenever I was refused, I would explain to the store manager in detail that what I was doing was not for my own personal gain but for others benefit. Even if the store manager refused again to help us distribute the materials, my altruistic feelings would compel me to continue my work. Maybe the next store manager would help. One never knows. How can we get disappointed and stop trying?
One day, while I was going to a store to ask the manager for help with the Dafa materials, I thought about the monks who go around asking for food. We were doing similar works to get connected to people. This is truly part of the cultivation process. In this process, we need to put up with some people's refusal and their looks of disdain. I need to be kind to any one that I come across and let them know what I know. In doing this, I feel that my altruistic feeling is increasing and my tolerance level is much higher.
Nevertheless, there are still weaknesses in me. One day, my wife and I took our child to the Capitol to collect signatures for releasing Dafa prisoners in China. At the time, there were quite a few Chinese delegations at the Capitol because it is a famous tourist spot in D.C. We had a lot of literature about Dafa with us and tried to distribute it among the Chinese delegations. However, they refused to take it and some of them referred to it in a derogatory manner. As they only recently came to the U.S. there was still the Chinese governments propaganda in their minds. Therefore, they were afraid of reading our literature.
I felt very sad and thought there was nothing we could do to help them. So I did not give out any more literature to the Chinese delegations ever since. Later, I saw the article on the Ming Hui web site and I realized it was very important to let people inside and outside China know the truth about Dafa. I now know how great and altruistic our Master Teacher is. We need to help those who have been deceived the most by such indoctrination. Opportunity should be given to anyone to distinguish right from wrong and good from evil in this process.
I felt so ashamed that I did not tolerate the intolerable and do the undoable, and that I was not able to overcome such hurdle. There is a binding force between one's determination to tell the world about the truth of Dafa and the level of one's xinxing. If we cultivate ourselves in a high level, we would have altruistic feeling in our heart and have high tolerance level. We can put aside our self-interests and have the wisdom to make greater progress. May all the people in this world know the truth of Dafa.