(Clearwisdom.net)
On June 16, 2002, a very strange fire occurred in the Lanjisu "Internet Cafe on Haiding District's College Road in Beijing City. Within a day, all internet cafes in Beijing were shut down. Then a nationwide campaign of "condemning" and "cleaning up" internet cafes was carried out. Internet cafes were "demonized" and internet cafes all over the country were shut down. This extreme action has directly harmed many internet cafe owners and users' interests.
I would like to discuss some of my understandings from Fa-rectification and cultivation standpoints.
- The Chinese authority's real goal in making use of this internet cafe fire
Nowadays, the internet is a very important information pipeline. Since July 20, 1999, in order to block Chinese people from knowing the truth, the Chinese authorities have been increasing internet restrictions and official censorship. Because the internet connects Dafa practitioners from overseas with practitioners in China, it has been an invaluable resource for the precious Chinese people to learn the truth of Dafa in spite of the evil's attempts to block information. Undoubtedly, this crackdown on internet access has created a huge obstacle in our efforts to clarify the truth. I think this is the real reason that Jiang's political group tried to make use of the Internet cafe fire -- to further block the truth and to control the people.
- The reasons for the events that happened in Germany, Iceland and Hong Kong
- What should Dafa practitioners do about the evil blocking of the internet?
Those are the so-called devastating "tests" arranged by the old forces. Because we still have gaps in our cultivation they can be used by the evil forces to interfere with Dafa practitioners.
I think that the many recent tribulations suffered by numerous practitioners were aiming at Dafa practitioners as a whole. The evil also focused its forces on sabotaging key events in key areas. The recent incidents in Germany, Iceland, and Hong Kong are all examples. I think this nationwide internet blockade triggered by the Beijing internet cafe fire was also for the same reason. Facing such sabotage, we Dafa practitioners should act as a united body to eliminate the evil.
However, we still have many shortcomings in participating in the Fa-rectification and in advancing together as a whole, which provided opportunities for the old forces to "test." For example, in the beginning when Dafa was persecuted in China, some practitioners overseas thought that tribulation was for those practitioners in China and they could not do much about it; when Jiang was in Germany, practitioners in other countries were not as dedicated as the German practitioners; when overseas practitioners were stopped in Iceland, practitioners in China did not send forth powerful righteous thoughts in time to help; practitioners who were not working on the internet almost never sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil internet interference. I think those kinds of shortcomings were used by the evil forces, causing the incidents in Germany, Iceland and Hong Kong as well as the closing down of the internet triggered by the Beijing internet cafe fire.
Also, some practitioners have not understood enough about experience sharing and advancing together with practitioners from different countries all over the world. When they made progress in their cultivation, they did not write articles about their righteous understanding, enlightenment, experience, or lessons to share with practitioners worldwide. Some practitioners have a narrow understanding of truth-clarification. For example, when some overseas practitioners realized the importance of clarifying the truth to Chinese people, they gave up the work of clarifying the truth to local governments and media. Some practitioners in China felt that there was so much work to do to clarify the truth to the surrounding people that they forgot to cooperate with the Fa-rectification work overseas. Actually, our truth-clarification should be an all-around effort by all practitioners: practitioners in China break the information blockade to expose the evil persecution and practitioners outside of China use those real examples to clarify the truth to local governments and people; practitioners in China provide the addresses and phone numbers of those vicious people and practitioners overseas make the phone calls to suffocate the evil; etc. Also, the good image of Dafa created by practitioners outside of China and the existence of well-known people and experts becoming Dafa practitioners could be used by practitioners in China to clarify the truth to the general public. Teacher told us,
"Clarifying the truth is what we need to do at this time. Do it on a large scale, do it with all the wisdom that you can, and as long as something can save the people, go do it. It doesn't matter if what you do is expose the evil, or if you use all sorts of approaches, be they direct, indirect or from different angles--as long as you can have people recognize this persecution, you are saving them, and you are extraordinary." (Fa-Lecture at the Conference in Florida, USA)
If all practitioners in the world would consider things from the overall situation of Fa-rectification and form an indestructible whole body, the evil would be completely eliminated, and the old forces would have no excuse to "test."
We should realize this is a sabotage aiming at all Dafa practitioners as a whole. The purpose is to prevent Dafa practitioners from communicating with each other and to prevent people from learning the truth. I suggest practitioners all over the world use righteous thoughts to create an environment for all sentient beings to know the truth.
In the meantime, there are many suspicious elements surrounding the closing of all the Internet cafes by the evil forces. Many people have questioned the way the Chinese government dealt with this issue. All kinds of evidence indicate that the so-called "Internet Cafe Fire" incident was very likely another staged event, just like the "Tiananmen Immolation" incident. I would hope that people who know the truth reveal it, providing a great benefit to the Chinese people.