Clarifying the Truth to Colleagues at Work

(Clearwisdom.net)

(Shared at 2006 Canada Falun Dafa Conference)

Greetings, our respected Master! Greetings, all fellow practitioners!

I was very fortunate to obtain the Fa in 2002. During the past four years, I have been extremely fortunate to have changed from a selfish person to a Dafa disciple of the Fa-rectification period. I thank Master for giving me this precious opportunity to join the mission of saving sentient beings during Fa-rectification. In my following sharing, I would like to discuss how I have clarified the truth to colleagues at work. Please feel free to point out any inadequacies or omissions.

1. Handing Out Chinese and English Copies of The Epoch Times

I work in the Quality Assurance Department of a Toronto vehicle parts company doing CMM testing. At work, I distribute both Chinese and English copies of The Epoch Times newspaper every week. Everyone knows that I am a Falun Gong practitioner.

When I first started giving out newspapers, I only distributed them to offices near me. Later I realized that there were also a lot of Chinese workers on the assembly line, so I began making use of my lunch time to hand out papers in the company cafeteria. In order to attract more people, I told them that I was a volunteer for The Epoch Times and that I wrote articles for it once in a while. As a result, whenever I handed out the papers, they would ask me curiously, "Which article did you write this time?" I began writing fewer articles as time went by. Nevertheless, by then, they had already become "hooked" on the paper and it no longer mattered whether I wrote or not.

Currently, there is a group of people who wish to obtain both language versions of The Epoch Times. Some say that their husbands want to read the English version while others say that their neighbors are Chinese. Some also tell me that while they read the English version, their parents like to read the Chinese version.

Once, a male employee from Mainland China asked me, "How much money do you earn each time you give out this paper?" I replied, "Not every person regards money as so important." Embarrassed, he said, "Doesn't the U.S. government give you money?" I knew that he was a victim of the Chinese Communist regime's propaganda so I began clarifying the truth to him. Afterwards, he took a copy of the newspaper and said, "Since none of the other papers contain anti-Communist articles, I might as well just look at yours." After some time, he came up to me and said, "Now, not only do I take your weekend editions, I go to the supermarket and get all the daily editions as well! It looks like I have become more hardworking than you. You should be distributing daily editions as well."

There is also a Quality Assurance worker who works on the night shift and always asks me to save a copy of The Epoch Times in English for him. Once I forgot to do it, and he came to me the next day complaining, "Why didn't you save a copy for me? I had to search through all the garbage bins throughout the company and even then I could not find one!"

A Western colleague also once told me, "This paper is written so well! Why don't you charge money for it? You can start with me. I'll pay you for this paper. If you're embarrassed to collect money from others, I can do it for you, too!" When I explained to him the reasons behind the set-up of the paper, he looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, "You are truly great. If I could, I would like to say thanks on behalf of all the persecuted Chinese people."

Once, when I was distributing the special edition of The English Epoch Times, a Western colleague came up to me and asked, "Are you against the Chinese government?" I began telling him about the nature of the Chinese Communist Party and how the evil party has been persecuting Falun Gong. After he understood the truth, he said, "It looks like you are representing another voice for China."

There have been occasions when I collected the papers and distributed them on Mondays because I had to leave Toronto to participate in activities on Fridays. I would say, "I am terribly sorry. I am late in distributing the papers." Some colleagues would say, "No problem, that's fine. Your newspaper contains good information because what it contains cannot be found anywhere else. To me, whatever I have not read before is good news."

Another Western colleague also told me, "I have a double feeling of happiness whenever I see you." I asked him jokingly, "Why is that? I don't think I am that pretty to look at." He answered, "Well, first of all, whenever I see you, it means that it's Friday and so the weekend is just around the corner. Secondly, whenever you arrive it means that I will have another copy of The Epoch Times to read."

When I was distributing the newspapers another time, a fellow worker walked by as she was reading the paper and muttered to herself, "These are truly a group of compassionate people." I felt very touched, knowing that she has already understood the truth from the paper.

One lunchtime, I saw almost everyone in the cafeteria with their heads bent over their copies of The Epoch Times. The entire room was silent without any conversations at all. The only sound audible was the sound of flipping pages. It is no wonder that a colleague told me, "You have transformed our lunchtime into newspaper-reading time." I was filled with indescribable joy seeing the group of awakening sentient beings.

Due to the popularity of the newspapers, words of praise and gratitude flooded in and it was not too long before my attachments to joy and showing off surfaced. One time I forgot to distribute the papers during lunchtime, thinking that since everyone already loved the paper, distributing them during work should be no problem. After that, I began distributing the papers during work. On the second day, Colleague A came up to me and said, "Is Colleague B a good friend of yours?" I answered that she was. Colleague A continued, "Then how can she speak such bad words about you in front of everyone? She is telling people that you always do your own things when you should be working. She even said that she is going to complain to Human Resources. I think you should not be friends with a person like that anymore." I was stunned and started to cry. Colleague C is a good friend of Colleague B and me. When she heard about this incident and knew that I was very sad, she came to comfort me. After comforting me, she said to me suddenly, "Didn't you say you are a cultivator? Forgiving her should be no problem, right?" I was enlightened immediately, and from then on I treated Colleague B liked a good friend, just as if nothing had happened. Not long after, B came to me and said, "I only said it as a joke; I did not complain to the HR department." I replied, "To tell the truth, I should thank you. It was I who had done something wrong, or else you would not have had such thoughts. Thank you for your reminder. I will think twice about my actions in the future."

Master once told us,

"Your path is, and I think you've all seen this now, actually very narrow. If you deviate just a little bit you won't measure up to the standard of a Dafa disciple. There's only one very righteous path we can walk on, and we can't deviate even just a little bit, because this is required by history, and required by the lives of sentient beings in the future cosmos. The cosmos in the future can't have any deviation or errors due to your having omissions during the Fa-rectification, so it's important for you to walk each and every step well during your own validating the Fa." ("Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference")

After this incident, I truly became enlightened to the fact that our cultivation path must be walked righteously without any deviations. I thank Master for once again giving me an opportunity to walk my own path right.

2. Distributing Petition Letters and Petition Forms

During every petition event, I used the petition letters to clarify the truth at work. For instance, the letter to our Canadian Prime Minister and Member of Parliament to appeal to China to stop the persecution of Falun Gong, the petition to support New Tang Dynasty TV, etc. I always collected signatures at my workplace with these petitions.

A colleague said, "I would sign anything you asked me to. I know that you are always doing good things."

A Western colleague told me after signing his name, "I am not Chinese, nor do I speak Chinese. However, we all live on the same Earth, therefore, we should support anything that is righteous, right?" I answered, "Yes, you are truly noble."

A Vietnamese colleague asked me while signing his name, "Will I get arrested and thrown into prison if I sign this? My grandfather signed his name for a righteous cause decades ago and was thrown into prison by the Communists in Vietnam. He stayed in prison for his entire life as a result." Before I had a chance to answer, he answered himself, "But I know that nothing like that would happen in Canada. That's why I dare to sign my name."

A Chinese colleague asked me after signing his name, "Now you have a newspaper and a television channel, what's next?" I replied, "We also have a radio station called 'Sound of Hope.'" He was stunned for a moment before shaking his head and saying, "Then it looks like the CCP is really going to die out soon."

3. Sending Emails to Colleagues Encouraging Them to Visit the Clearwisdom and Epoch Times Websites

I have been using all my vacations to participate in Fa Conferences and Dafa activities. Every time I return from these activities, I tell my colleagues about what I have done.

After coming back from the L.A. Fa Conference this year, I used emails to communicate my activities to my fellow colleagues. This is what I wrote: "Greetings to all my fellow colleagues, I most sincerely recommend the following link to you. This is what I did over the weekend in Los Angeles. You can even find pictures of me on these web pages." The links that I sent out included both English and Chinese reports of the L.A. Fa Conference on Clearwisdom as well as The Epoch Times Websites. There were also reports on the Divine Land Band.

Initially, many colleagues were simply looking for me in the pictures. There were non-stop calls asking me where I was and which instrument I was playing in the band. I replied, "You can find me right after you finish reading all the reports and pictures." It was not until the end that I revealed myself by stating, "I'm in the picture taken in the Fa-Conference." My colleagues zoomed into the picture until they finally found a pin-sized picture of me. Nevertheless, by then they had already seen and read all the reports and pictures. They were already exclaiming, "Your band is utterly majestic!" Others said, "Maybe we don't have to wait for your newspapers so eagerly the next time, we could just read it on the Internet instead." Some colleagues walked over to my table and sat down, asking for a thorough introduction to Falun Gong. What's even better is that some colleagues have come in to ask some questions that they felt embarrassed to ask previously, and I answered all of them one by one.

The fact that they are my colleagues in this life shows that we have very strong predestined relationships. I will definitely try my best to save all of them.

After the incident of harvesting organs from live practitioners in the Sujiatun Concentration Camp was exposed, Toronto practitioners decided to go and appeal on Parliament Hill. I took a day off on very short notice to participate in the hunger strike and also made some reports. Before I left, I told my colleagues with tears in my eyes about the atrocities committed in Sujiatun. After returning from the hunger strike, I sent all my pictures and reports to my colleagues. When I was eating in the lunchroom, I saw a plate of good food that my colleague had especially made for me. I burst into tears. I was reminded of the thousands and thousands of fellow practitioners in Mainland China who are suffering tremendously, as well as the old practitioners who are on a three-day long hunger strike outside Parliament Hill. I could only mumble these words, "Thank you all for your concern. I'm terribly sorry but I don't have any appetite." Without a word, my colleagues silently began to get teary-eyed as well. One of them said, "Don't worry, you can eat it whenever you want."

The awakening and sympathy of sentient beings can only be obtained through our clarifying the truth. If our fellow colleagues, people that we see everyday, are not able to hear the truth and are left behind in the Fa-rectification, how great a let-down would that be? We have to make use of our time well and use all kinds of methods to clarify the truth to them.

4. Cultivating Oneself Well to Validate the Fa

I started learning Dafa for the purpose of curing my health problems. After practicing for two weeks, all of my sicknesses and health problems vanished. Afterwards, I began avidly telling my colleagues about the beauty of Dafa. Many of my colleagues have read Zhuan Falun and have learned the five sets of exercises from me. However, none of them persevered in continuing to practice. Once, a colleague of mine fell very sick, and I told her, "Didn't I tell you to practice Falun Gong with me? Then you wouldn't be in so much pain." Two weeks later, I had very strong sickness karma and was in a lot of pain. This colleague saw me and said, "Didn't you say that you would not fall sick anymore after practicing Falun Gong? Why are you in so much pain now?" I replied, "I am sorry I had such a grudge against you when you were sick, so I am repaying the bad karma now." As this colleague of mine has read Zhuan Falun before, she understood what I was saying and smiled back, "Then it looks like you are improving your xinxing."

I have three weeks of vacation each year, and I use them mostly for Dafa activities and Fa conferences. By November of last year I had used up all my vacation time, however the HR department in my company told me that I still had two more weeks of vacations left. I knew that they had made a mistake in giving me extra vacation time. I thought: Isn't it good then? I can use these two more weeks to participate in more Dafa activities. However, immediately after I had this thought, my righteous thoughts emerged. I have to walk my path straight for I cultivate Truthfulness. I notified the HR department immediately. The HR department knew that I was a Falun Gong practitioner and told me, "Many people come bargaining for more, I've not met anyone who gives vacations back. You have done really well." Later, when a colleague asked me, "Why don't you take it anyway? It's not even your fault." I explained, "You all know that I cultivate according to the principles of 'Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance.' I cannot take anything that is not rightfully mine." My colleagues smiled, "It looks like you are really truthful then!"

Sometimes, my work requires me to write a computer program for the quality assurance department, to use in conducting quality tests. Sometimes, the QA department workers deleted the program I wrote as a joke, and I had to rewrite the entire program in another one or two days. There were several times when I could not bear it any longer and complained to them. Once, a program of mine was deleted again, and the QA worker walked up to me timidly and said, "Sorry. I have deleted your program again. But today is Friday, you won't be mad, will you?" My initial frown dissolved and I smiled back. After re-writing the program, I sent an email to all my colleagues thanking them for their cooperation. That particular QA worker was very touched and replied with an e-mail to me saying, "Thank you so much for your understanding. You have truly kept to your principle of Tolerance in Falun Gong's teachings of 'Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance.'"

Master teaches us that,

"Human society is a good place for cultivation, since everything here can lead to attachments. Precisely because of this, a person who is able to step out of it and get rid of all his attachments to human society is magnificent and is able to reach Consummation." (from Essentials for Further Advancement II)

I will do my utmost to follow Master's teachings. Every environment is a good cultivation environment for us. To me, my work environment is even more special. All my actions and words are under the vigilant eyes of my colleagues, and so the demands on me are even greater. I will cherish this wonderful cultivation environment and do my best to save all these predestined colleagues of mine.

To end, I would like to share Master's poem:

"Where now are the gallant heroes of yore?
One after another they have come
since the spread of Dafa commenced
So long and drawn out the years--
hundreds, thousands, their measure
The predestination formed, with
true fruition, the many lotuses bloom "

(" Predestination Formed, the Lotuses Bloom" from Hong Yin II, provisional translation subject to improvement)

Thank you, our magnificent and compassionate Master! Thank you, everyone!