(Clearwisdom.net)
Recently, many practitioners in New Jersey attended the local governments' council meetings or committee meetings. At those meetings, we appealed to the government to support Falun Gong, to help rescue Falun Dafa practitioners in Mainland China, and to condemn Jiang Zemin's criminal and brutal persecution of Falun Gong. We asked those local governments to send copies of their resolutions and petition letters to the officials in the Chinese Government as well as the Chinese Embassies and Consulates in America. We achieved very good results through these efforts. And during this process, we have some personal understandings and experiences that we would like to share with fellow practitioners. If you find something wrong, please correct us.
The practitioners in the City of Edison were the first to start clarifying the truth to the local governments. They did this because the City of Edison is a sister city of Shijiazhuang City of Hebei Province. Shijiazhuang City is a place where those lawless officials have tortured many practitioners to death. They have been working very hard to persecute Falun Dafa practitioners. The practitioners in the City of Edison requested to talk to the mayor and the city councilors. They sent truth-clarifying materials to them and attended the city council meetings. They talked to those councilors on multiple occasions. They were able to make the mayor aware of the mountain of evidence pointing to Jiang Zemin and his followers, as well as their role in the illegal persecution of Falun Gong. After seeing the sharp contrast between practitioners' compassion and Jiang's viciousness, the City of Edison took the lead in passing a resolution condemning the Chinese government's persecution against Falun Gong. This resolution represented the voice of justice. The resolution and the petition letter were then sent to the US federal government and congress, Shijiazhuang City, and the Chinese Embassies and Consulates. "Clarify the truth thoroughly, eliminate the evil with righteous thoughts, save all beings, and safeguard the Fa with determination..." (From Teacher's article "Dafa is Indestructible"), "Dafa is harmonizing all sentient beings, and all sentient beings are also harmonizing Dafa." (From Teacher's article "Expounding on the Fa"), "... all everyday people with righteous thoughts are standing up against this." (From the Speech by Master Li Hongzhi at the Western US Cultivation Experience Sharing Conference of Falun Dafa) In accordance with these Fa principles, all the practitioners in New Jersey started to clarify the truth to their local governments. Jersey City and the City of Newark soon passed resolutions to condemn the persecution. The cities also sent the resolutions to their sister cities in China and to many Chinese and American high-ranking officials to show their full support for justice and their firm opposition to the persecution of Falun Gong. We came to realize that this is a very good opportunity to clarify the truth, to awaken people's consciences, and to lead everyday people to stand up and condemn the malicious persecution. So we shouldn't just work on the cities that have sister cities in China. We need to clarify the truth to all the cities and townships.
Teacher told us, "Validate the Fa with reason, clarify the truth with wisdom, spread the Fa and offer people salvation with benevolence-this is establishing the mighty virtue of an enlightened being." (From Teacher's article "Rationality")
So we started to attend the council meetings of many cities. At those meetings, people would discuss topics related to the local residents, building houses, road maintenance, and welfare for senior citizens. However, we don't have practitioners in every city. Then how could we address this issue of Falun Gong that is seemingly unrelated to the local residents? The answer lies in "validating the Fa with reason." We need to state our reasons clearly. Then, people's hearts will be moved. Starting with the "September 11th Tragedy," we explained to them that the terrorists' loss of human nature caused a great tragedy among human beings. We emphasized that there is no dividing line between countries when it comes to fighting terrorism. We talked about the state terrorism of Jiang's regime. We offered the reasons why we condemn, and try to stop, the persecution against Falun Gong. We talked about the fight between right and wrong. We also told them that "Truthfulness," "Compassion," and "Tolerance" is a spiritual asset for any human being to have. We spent a lot of time and effort preparing truth-clarifying literature and our speeches for the meetings. Being in accordance with the Fa enabled us with the power of the Fa. Our speeches deeply moved the hearts of the kindly people. Some of them told us: "You gave a splendid speech. I was moved to tears." Some people asked us for copies of our speeches. They wanted to read them to their families and friends. And some local reporters wanted to publish our speeches in their newspapers. We came to understand that the Fa empowered us with wisdom and strength. Our speeches brought the universal principle of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance" to the hearts of those nice people. We also took advantage of the chance to hand out newspapers and fliers on Falun Dafa. People wanted to take them. Many city councils unanimously passed resolutions to condemn Jiang's persecution of Falun Gong.
We also realized that only when we kept a benevolent, peaceful, pure, and righteous heart and remembered our responsibility to offer people salvation, could we finish the tasks well. Those city council meetings were usually held at night and we were usually scheduled to be the last speakers. Sometimes it took the local residents several hours to talk about houses, lands, bridge construction, road maintenance, and other affairs. We could easily have gotten tired during those types of discussions. We remembered Teacher's words, "So from now on, whatever you do or whatever you say, you must consider others--or even future generations--along with Dafa's eternal stability. " (From Teacher's article "Non-Omission in Buddha-Nature") "... always maintain a heart of compassion and kindness." "... always be benevolent and kind to others, and consider others when doing anything." (From Zhuan Falun Lecture Four, "Upgrading Xinxing") So we need to be considerate. We should wait patiently for our turns. We can never forget that we are practitioners. Just think how many tribulations our benevolent Teacher has borne for us in order to save us. In light of that, it's silly to mention any of the hardships that we experience when we contribute such a small amount of time and effort to offer people salvation.
During the meetings, we needed to keep righteous thoughts and eliminate all of our attachments constantly. Sometimes, when we entered the meeting hall of a large city, we saw many important political figures and many residents sitting there. The practitioners that were about to give speeches would feel a little bit intimidated. They were afraid that the people wouldn't allow them to speak when they found out we were not local residents. Also, they might not understand our actions. The noisy crowd or those who were impatient might also distract us. When this happens, the most important thing is to keep strong righteous thoughts. Just as a practitioner said, "I don't see them as mayors or city councilors. Instead, I see them as sentient beings that we are trying to save. Why should we be scared?" Some other practitioners said, "I felt my body become tremendously huge when I spoke out the words 'Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance.' I was informing people of the principles of the universe and I was doing the most righteous thing in the world. I had nothing else but compassion in my heart." Some other practitioners said, "If they ask me why I wanted to speak there, I will say: 'This is not the only place we will be talking. We will travel around New Jersey, the United Stated and even the whole world to inform people of the truth. We will keep doing this until Jiang Zemin's regime stops persecuting Falun Gong.'" While some of us were giving a speech, the others would keep sending forth righteous thoughts to eliminate all the evil and to build a powerful field of righteous thoughts.
Clarifying the truth and spreading the Fa to city governments is not a job of everyday people; it's a part of our cultivation. By taking the Fa as our guide, and doing things without pursuit, we will achieve our goals without any attachments. We all know that there are still countless cities, townships, and rural areas where there are good people waiting for us to tell them about the great Fa of the universe and to clarify the truth to them. So let's keep going.
