Shared at the 2005 Canada Falun Dafa Conference
(Clearwisdom.net) With righteous support from all Toronto practitioners, the first benefit concert for rescuing the children and orphans of Falun Gong practitioners who are under persecution was successfully held in Toronto. Organizing a concert is a complicated project. It involves many aspects, including planning, making materials, designing art programs, doing promotional work with the media and society, selling tickets and organizing sales of work, to name but a few. Within only two months, there were many touching stories, and, what's more, many of us experienced enlightenment from the Fa and improvement in our cultivation. Practitioners on the rescue team would like to take this opportunity to summarize our stories and share our understandings with all of you. We hope that we can "elevate as a whole, improve as a whole," and walk our path in clarifying the truth more righteously, more solidly and even better.
Break through the old forces' financial blockade; clarify the truth to mainstream society
In retrospect, during the past six years of Fa rectification, our Dafa disciples have had to deal with severe financial barriers and constraints produced by the old forces. Almost all Dafa projects have long relied on practitioners' own financial resources. Many practitioners have almost used up their entire savings. Nonetheless, many Dafa projects severely lack financial resources. With Fa rectification moving forward rapidly and moving to the surface and to the human level, our aim is to break through the financial blockade to make our public projects deeply rooted in society and to reach a positive phase so that more sentient beings can be saved in a more effective way and on a broader scope. And how do we bring to light the beauty of Dafa as well as the facts about the persecution to ordinary society? All of these present a difficult task, which all involved practitioners need to overcome. This is also a requirement for Dafa disciples at the current phase of Fa rectification.
For a long time, except for "clarifying the truth" to the government officials, Toronto practitioners didn't make much progress in clarifying the truth to other parts of mainstream society. Many times it was also because we did not use our wisdom well to tell the truth. Since we began working on rescuing the orphans, we have been discussing how to thoroughly clarify the truth to mainstream society. During our discussions, we have discovered that rescuing orphans is a very good angle from which to clarify the truth, because Westerners care about children very much. When people see that even small children cannot escape the persecution, they are shocked and want to express their sympathy. Then they want to know what Falun Gong is and why Falun Gong is being persecuted. So it is a very good starting point from which to clarify the truth.
We thought of organizing a benefit concert about two months ago. With a concert, we could spread the truth widely, and we also hoped that we could get in touch with certain social groups that we had never before been able to reach. It was a new thought, because it was the first time that we had used the name "Rescuing Falun Gong Practitioners' Orphans" to raise money from the population at large and to directly tell them the facts of the persecution. As to what kind of results we could expect and whether or not we should organize the concert at all, we did not know for sure. We faced many difficulties, starting with our lack of experience and not even knowing where to start. We had never set up a foundation or done much networking in society, but we realized that promoting a concert would be difficult. If we decided to hold the concert, we would have the added pressure to sell tickets. Furthermore, sometimes we worry that we do not seem to be professional. For example, most of us cannot speak English fluently and flawlessly. At that time, we had active and frequent sharing, and it helped us to be clear on our fundamental goal, which was to save sentient beings. A music concert is a very good angle from which to clarify the truth, so we decided that we would hold the concert.
Believe in Master, believe in the Fa, place our foundation righteously, and save sentient beings
Based on our limited resources, it seemed, from a human perspective, that there were just too many obstacles for us to organize a successful concert in only two short months. Once we were stuck in this kind of thinking, our confidence waned. It made us unsure about our work and made us easily pessimistic. During the process, however, we realized the importance of studying the Fa. If we want to break through these barriers, we must have the Fa as our guide. After all, we are not doing something ordinary. While we are using conventional formalities, the inner meaning and essential nature are fundamentally different from everyday people's work. Hence from the beginning to the end, we paid a lot of attention to sharing based on the Fa. During our weekly group study, besides things we needed to discuss, we always took some time to share our experiences, making sure that we were doing things from the perspective of the Fa and were not being confused by superficial illusions. We must do what we should do, because it is the mission of Dafa disciples. When we can see things from the Fa, we have a lot of confidence. This confidence is from our trust in Master and trust in Dafa. We believe that as long as we walk our path righteously and do everything according to Fa, we will find a way and be able to achieve it. It just like Master said in "Teaching the Fa at the 2004 International Fa Conference in New York,"
"With a lot of the Fa-rectification things, it's not that there is no way to do them. No matter how hard it is, there is a path for you to take, even though it is a fairly narrow one. You have to go down that path correctly, and it won't work if you come up even a little short or stray a little bit. Nevertheless, there is a path for you."
When we began to prepare for the concert, we understood that we must place our foundation righteously. The purpose of our foundation is to save people, and it's not about selling tickets and raising money. Everything is just the inevitable result after we clarify the truth well. However if we can't place our foundation righteously, it's easy to fall into conventional illusions, become confused about details, and be attached to how many tickets get sold and how much money gets raised. These would divert us from our direction and our fundamental goal to save people. Therefore we must walk our path righteously. Understanding this point enabled us, during the process of preparing the concert, to place our foundation righteously. Whether or not the tickets sold smoothly, whether or not we could get funding, and whether or not we were able to invite famous artists, our hearts would not be moved. We would just do what we should to save sentient beings.
After being clear on what we should do, we put our hearts and energies together, divided up the various tasks, and coordinated and cooperated with each other. One consideration was to get in touch with some affluent people. It is an area in which we hadn't been able to make much headway. On the other hand, we also needed to create momentum in society and let more people learn about us.
If our wish is in the Fa, Master and all righteous elements will help us. Within two short months, we contacted some VIPs we had not been able to reach before, including CEOs of international financial institutions, economic consulting experts, big philanthropic organizations, and people working in funding in famous children's organizations, famous lawyers, actors and other celebrities. Rescuing orphans gave us a very good opportunity to make appointments with these people. We were able to book appointments and meet people we had never been able to contact before. Within two months, we were also able to promote our concert at top grade shopping malls, where we hadn't been able to hold activities before. For the first time we also contacted over 100 community media. Several major media also published the concert information for free. During this process, we discovered areas we needed to improve on in our cultivation.
One time, two practitioners made an appointment with a prosperous banker at a coffee shop and planned to talk to him about rescuing the orphans. After they arrived, to their surprise, the banker took them to a club and told them that it was the most exclusive club in Toronto. The wealthiest people in Canada were members. At the beginning, the practitioners only wanted to talk to him about rescuing orphans and applying for funding and didn't plan to talk about the situation of Falun Dafa to him. They didn't even bring truth clarifications materials, just materials about rescuing orphans. However, the banker didn't know anything about Falun Dafa at all. His first question was, "What is Falun Gong?" The practitioners spent a lot of time clarifying the truth to him. When he heard about our "SOS Walk," an appeal for an end to the persecution, that went from Toronto to Ottawa several years ago, he was very touched. He wanted to know more about us. He said that if we wanted to raise money for rescuing orphans, we should clarify truth to the people in the club, because they were the wealthiest people in Canada. He thought that no one in the club knew what Falun Gong was. After he found out more about us, he said that he would be willing to help us contact people in the club as well as some big philanthropic organizations.
Through this meeting, we enlightened to the fact that clarifying the truth is essential. Master has said that many well-to-do people had actually vowed in their previous life to come to obtain the Fa, and some had wanted to contribute money to Dafa, but they lost sight of their purpose at the human level. We should find them and let them begin their predestined relationship with the Fa. When our hearts become purer and purer, we can grasp every opportunity to clarify the truth, and Master will guide us to find people with predestined relationships, too. When Dafa's seed is planted in people's hearts, the seed will naturally grow and become mature. We felt that we were gradually breaking through the door that was blocked by the old forces. The truth of Dafa is sown in peoples' hearts.
In addition, we have also realized the importance of the media. In order to let more people know about the concert, besides publishing our special column and ads in the Epoch Times, we also contacted the mainstream media about this event. One practitioner contacted over 140 media, including media in many different languages. Toronto is an incredibly diverse city, where different ethnic groups from all over the world gather. The percentage of minority population might be the highest of any city in the world. In our previous activities, we hadn't paid attention to these media. In fact, we didn't even know that Toronto had so many different ethnic media. Although we only had limited contact information on these media, and we were short of people, in order to capitalize on the media and spread information about the concert as widely as possible, this practitioner decided to contact each media outlet one by one. Several major media published our event information for free, and some ethnic media reported our event. When a reporter from a Hindu media reported on our concert, she told us she thought this was what God wanted her to do. Greek and Spanish media also published our news.
At the same time, we began contacting all the first class shopping malls and office buildings in Toronto. We hoped that we could have exhibits and distribute materials about rescuing orphans as well as other Dafa materials in these locations, which Toronto business people often visit and are also places we hadn't contacted before. Within two months, we got permission from several of the biggest and best shopping malls and some of the busiest places in the downtown to hold "Rescuing the Orphans" activities.
In addition, we also used our good judgment and went to all the possible places we could think of to distribute information about the music concert. Whenever there were concerts, big events or parties at top level theaters, we went to give out our materials. Every weekend we went to churches located in middle class areas to distribute materials and clarify the truth. On weekdays we went to the business area to distribute materials. Within two months, we had distributed over 80,000 flyers. More importantly, this opportunity enabled us to contact all levels of society and to clarify the truth to many who had never heard about Falun Gong before.
As we continued to thoroughly clarify the truth, we let more and more people know and care about the persecution of Falun Gong in China as well as the miserable situation of Falun Gong practitioners' orphans. People who knew the truth showed their support by giving donations one after another. We also received donations from many Chinese people. We also had repeated reports in the Epoch Times, which ensured the rescue activities received attention from people worldwide. We received requests and donations from America, Germany, Taiwan and other areas. One German lady said that she respected very much Falun Gong practitioners' tireless efforts for their belief and she had been thinking about doing something for us. She discussed this with her son, because originally she wanted to give him a perfect birthday party. Then she thought that they should donate the money to the event for rescuing orphans to show their support.
About 1000 people attended the concert, including many bankers, lawyers and artists. Many people from mainstream society also came. In the concert, we sang "Falun Dafa Hao" and other songs. The entire production was dignified and sacred. Many people were moved to tears after they watched the documentary about rescuing the orphans. Many expressed that they had gained a deeper understanding of Falun Gong after this concert, and that they liked our program very much. During the intermission, people who understood the truth came to our table to make donations. Within a couple of hours, people had donated about $7000. We are so excited seeing the support from all these sentient beings, and it's not because we raised some money, but because we are so happy to see people's awakening from the bottom of their hearts. The compassion, righteousness and conscience these kindhearted people demonstrated will always move us, encourage us, and remind us that, as Dafa disciples, we have the important mission of saving sentient beings on our shoulders. We know that the actual percentage of people in Western society who know the truth is not very high, so we must do better in the future and save more sentient beings.
During the whole process of organizing the concert, our deepest desire was to place our foundation righteously and coordinate well as a whole. Although we didn't have many people involved, what was critical was that we all put our energies and hearts together and helped and assisted each other. If one practitioner didn't do well, we didn't criticize or argue too much. On the contrary we tried to support and assist each other. So even if we didn't look very professional and there weren't many of us, everyone of us played his or her role fully as a Dafa particle, and we were able to work as a whole to save sentient beings. With everyone's support and righteous thoughts, we felt that the old forces were too weak to wield a blow. With the fast pace of Fa rectification, we are gradually breaking through their arrangements. We are confident that in the near future we will make more significant progress.
Although the concert finished with great success, we understand that it is only a beginning. There are many places we need to improve and harmonize. We also need to improve our own cultivation. But with Master and the Fa, we believe that we can do even better. We should not disappoint Master's expectations of us, and we should be worthy of the title "Dafa disciples in the Fa rectification period," which is the most supreme title in the whole universe. At last we want to sincerely thank Master's encouragement to us, and we also thank all practitioners in Toronto for their support and righteous thoughts. Let us have righteous thoughts and righteous actions, walk our final path to Godhood even better, and save more sentient beings.
