(Clearwisdom.net)
During the past year, Teacher has been, in almost every lecture, repeatedly reminding us of the importance and the urgency of clarifying the truth to the Chinese people and saving the sentient beings who have had their minds poisoned in Mainland China. However, I personally feel that quite a lot of practitioners living abroad still haven't reached a deep understanding on this issue. This has been manifested in our daily truth-clarifying effort. A lot of the work of clarifying the truth to the Chinese people residing in Mainland China has very often been interrupted or even stopped by various other kinds of projects. One reason for this is that the practitioners involved in doing truth-clarifying to the Chinese people haven't had a clear understanding of it. Another reason is that the practitioners who are responsible for coordinating other activities haven't had a clear understanding either. We have seen that these activities' coordinators have not been paying special attention to encouraging other practitioners to clarify the truth to the precious Chinese people. Moreover, in the current situation, in which we have limited manpower and resources, the coordinators have not arranged the appropriate format or scale for truth-clarification activities.
For example, almost all practitioners throughout the United States recently took part in their local Independence Day parades. Of course, that was a very good opportunity to display the demeanor of Dafa practitioners, but also prove to the world that Dafa has been continuously recognized and accepted by people even under brutal persecution in China. However, we have found that practitioners didn't take advantage of the conditions in their area and utilize their strengths. Instead, they imitated one another's actions and paid more and more attention to creating new styles in the parade. They neglected the deep meanings of the truth that we were to clarify. Mixed with everyday people's attachments, this way of doing work resulted in over-investing practitioners' human resources and time in these kinds of activities. In the past, for example, our local practitioners would wear clothing designed for practicing exercises and would only need one hour or so to rehearse before the parade. The results were very good. However, the past year, the costumes for "heavenly girls" and lotus flowers have become "must-have" items. Many practitioners put down their projects and spent much time in practicing the dance and making costumes and lotus flowers. In some areas, there were situations where some practitioners didn't even have time to study the Fa but spent a few sleepless days and nights to make the costumes.
Also, it seems many practitioners didn't fully consider the essential difference between the May 13th (the World Falun Dafa Day) activities and the July 20th (the date that Jiang officially started to persecute Falun Dafa) activities. Thus, around July 20th, they held too many activities such as concerts or dancing performances aimed for practitioners to express their feelings for Falun Dafa or to celebrate. These kinds of activities involved too much human resources and time, and the opposite result was achieved -- reducing the effects of using the July 20th event to clarify the truth and to expose the evil. On the contrary, practitioners in certain areas who have studied the Fa in depth took the opportunity of July 20th and held activities at a smaller scale clarifying the truth and exposing the evil. The result of the activities was excellent and the activities also displayed practitioners' wisdom, compassion and realm.
Practitioners living outside of China know that most people outside Mainland China, especially westerners, recognize and accept Falun Dafa. At least, they are not against Falun Dafa. It is good to help them understand the beauty of Falun Dafa. However, they aren't at the risk of being eliminated in the Fa-rectification period after all. Meanwhile, because of the slander and the propaganda being carried on by Jiang's gang, many people in Mainland China still hold hatred toward Falun Dafa and Falun Dafa practitioners. What a terrible future they are going to face! However, many of them have an extremely high-level origin. The only hope for these beings is that we practitioners find opportunities to clarify the truth to them within a very limited time period. Then why did so many oversea practitioners invest excessive effort in general overseas Fa-spreading activities and in meeting their personal hobbies? Why did they neglect the vital need of making the best use of time to clarify the truth to the Chinese people? Personally, I think it is for the following reasons.
1. Some practitioners, who are either coordinating or taking part in oversea Fa-spreading efforts, don't view the Fa-rectification process as a whole. They don't fully understand nor realize the positions and the interactions among different activities during the Fa-rectification period. Thus, they are often stuck in a state of doing things for the sake of doing things. Some practitioners who coordinated certain activities even held the everyday person's attachment that those activities were theirs. So, during the preparation stage, they overstated the importance of certain activities in order to attract more practitioners to join in. However, by doing this they unintentionally interfered with other Falun Dafa projects.
2. Compared to clarifying the truth to the Chinese people, especially to the Chinese people living in Mainland China, spreading the Fa outside China can receive direct and obvious results. Seen from an everyday person's viewpoint, it's more magnificent to do that than to quietly clarify the truth to the Chinese people living in China. So, many overseas practitioners would like to take part in the more magnificent activities. Actually, this is an issue of whether we can view clarifying the truth to the Chinese people from the perspective of Fa-rectification Dafa disciples. From another angle, this is also an issue of enlightenment and belief. That is, in a situation in which clarifying the truth to the Chinese people in Mainland China generally doesn't have obvious effects and is comparatively more difficult, how we should act according to the directions of the Fa that Teacher taught us? It's just as when we first started to practice. At that time, we couldn't see anything, yet we had to endure.
3. Not having solid Fa-study and solid individual cultivation resulted in mixing the attachments of personal hobbies and entertainment into Fa-spreading activities. Some practitioners didn't do things completely based on the needs of Fa-rectification and the needs of sentient beings. They didn't use the standards of the Fa-rectification period Dafa disciples to observe themselves strictly.
4. Some practitioners had correct understandings regarding how to use our resources in holding different activities to clarify the truth better. However, they didn't share their opinions because they were afraid of hurting personal relationships with other practitioners or because they thought they were not coordinators. So they just followed the majority's decisions. They didn't put the Fa at the foremost important position.
In this ordinary people's dimension, Fa rectification is mainly carried out by us Dafa disciples. Everything that we are doing is unprecedented, and everything we do well is making history. The better we can do, the fewer regrets we will have in the future. So, during the current stage when many Chinese people in Mainland China haven't accepted Falun Dafa, it is very important for us understand Master's Fa thoroughly, see clearly our own positions during Fa-rectification, not be interfered with by any means, and persistently clarify the truth to the precious Chinese people. I also hope that those practitioners who have been clarifying the truth to the Mainland Chinese people will share their understandings of the Fa regarding this matter and cultivation experiences with fellow disciples, especially assistants and those Dafa disciples who are not very busy.
