(Clearwisdom Net) We went to meet a member of parliament (MP) today. His secretary told us that he had been sick for two weeks and would need another week off for treatment before he could come back to work. He had to cancel all of his appointments. I felt a little shocked upon hearing this. I thought about my conversation with him four weeks ago.
We have been contacting this MP for a long time, since July 1999. We have been kindly telling him about Falun Gong and everything happening in China. Although he kept expressing his sympathy for us, he had never shown any action. Even so, we are still working hard to encourage him to come out truly. In the past, he had promised to do this or that for us. Although he never fulfilled his promise, he had always been polite to us. Recently, many Canadian MPs came out to support Falun Gong. We found his attitude hardening; he seemed to fear that we would ask him to step forward as well. Whenever a practitioner called his secretary for appointment, there was always an excuse not to see us. Several times, I connected with him by phone. He would ask me to wait for a while. After ten minutes of waiting, I would hear him hang up the phone. Such tricks of apparent tactfulness, consistently applied, seem to be his way of avoiding us. I think he felt that we were trying to seek something inappropriate from him. I feel such an attitude towards Dafa and Dafa cultivators is reckless. But he is a MP and we sought his help. I had always been hoping to change him through my effort, but it looks like that wasn't going to happen. Many other Canadian MPs support Falun Gong. Through two years of promoting Dafa and clarifying the truth, we know he already knew a lot about Dafa. But he still had this worsening attitude. He is a MP. What could I do? I felt frustrated.
I thought, if the tribulation is against me personally, I should endure it. But his attitude is disrespectful of Dafa. I should not encourage such behavior. Otherwise it would be the same as my giving him chances to commit a sin. Master said in "Expounding on the Fa", "For a long period of time the sentient beings in Dafa, especially the disciples, have had a misunderstanding of the Fa at various levels regarding xinxing improvement. Whenever a tribulation comes, you do not see it with the side of your original nature but view it completely from your human side. Evil demons then take advantage of this point and inflict endless interference and damage, leaving practitioners in long-term tribulations. As a matter of fact, this results from an inadequate understanding of the Fa by your human side. You have humanly restrained your divine side; in other words, you have restrained the parts that have been successfully cultivated and prevented them from rectifying the Fa. How can the uncultivated side restrain your primary thoughts or the side that has already obtained the Fa?" (Falun Dafa --Essentials for Further Advancement)
I feel that cultivation individually and cultivation during the Fa rectification are two concepts. Dafa is sacred. On the surface, we are seeking for help and support from all classes in the society. But our ultimate goal is to save them. If they treat Dafa recklessly, we not only cannot save them, but they might even commit wrongdoings against Dafa. Indeed we shall treat the ordinary people with great compassion and tolerance. But it doesn't mean that we could keep accommodating them. Even if the ordinary person is a MP or other important figure of society, we cannot feel helpless about him. Otherwise we are subtly deceiving him about Dafa, which is not Fa rectification. In Fa rectification, we must first rectify people's minds. If his mind doesn't change, any outward show of support is of little help.
I called his secretary again. Both his secretaries were as worldly as he, and seemed good at tricking constituents without causing offense. They felt that they would do whatever was beneficial to them, and cope with something if there was no gain in it. They just put us off, using such outward politeness but inward disdain. For the sake of their future and their true goodness, I decided I had to change my way of approaching them. I told the secretary, "During my two years of contact with the MP, I continue to get the impression that he is not an honest person. Many others in his election district have the same impression. We feel that he is thus not qualified as a MP..."
The secretary became silent for quite some time. She had never imagined that I could say so today, since I had always been very polite and easy to handle. She said several times "OK." Two days later, when I picked up the newspaper in the morning, I saw his name on the front page of the local major newspaper. It said that among the parliament members in this area, he had spent the most public money. In the middle section, the newspaper used almost a whole page to criticize him. His picture was there as well. He has really met trouble. I thought since such a person was not good, his bad deeds were exposed. Today, when I went to his office, I was told that he had been sick for two weeks and needed another week's treatment.
We talked with his secretary for about half an hour. We told her, "Because of the vicious persecution of Falun Gong, we are not just clarifying the truth of Falun Gong to this MP. We are clarifying the truth to everyone we meet. We are not seeking them to do anything. We just want to tell them how good Falun Gong is. The magnificent stories from Falun Gong practitioners' lives are for the people, not for ourselves." I saw that the secretary listened carefully with her heart. She said she would arrange the appointment as soon as the parliament member came back to work. We told her, "Good is rewarded with good. This is a heavenly principle." The sly and reckless look in her eyes disappeared. Once the bad element behind her is eliminated, her true nature shows. At an earlier time, I swore to myself not to meet this MP again. Then I realized that this was a human emotion and an unfitting impulsive notion, not an act of wisdom or rationality.
Now I expect we will go meet him when he come back to work next week. But we will tell him openly and above-board that Falun Gong is sacred, and that he was wrong to treat us that way before. He didn't need to do anything for us. We just want him to be a better person. We will also tell him that we do so because we care about him, and because those behaviors were not good for him at all. I believe that this is the true great compassion and great tolerance. We don't accommodate his poor behavior. Only when his mind changes, can he have good future, and can his support of Dafa be valuable. This is the meaning of our clarifying the truth to the people.
