(Clearwisdom.net) I was illegally imprisoned in a forced labor camp because I went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. I was released on bail for medical treatment in late 2001, but I was only home for three months before personnel from the local 610 Office and guards from the labor camp attempted to illegally arrest me again. Thanks to Teacher Li Hongzhi's protection and my own righteous thoughts to resist persecution, their scheme failed. I was forced to leave home, however, and I began to work at a truth-clarification material production site.
The production sites in our area had been ransacked several times during the past few years. Dozens of practitioners who've worked at the production sites have been illegally arrested one after another. We've suffered great losses. The police once ransacked and looted several multi-function printers and other property from a materials production site, which cost us a few hundred thousand yuan. Looking back on the painful experiences, many practitioners have realized why the materials sites were destroyed again and again. Minghui.org (the Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net) has repeatedly promoted "small materials sites blooming like flowers everywhere," but we failed to heed the advice. We had a few smaller materials sites, but they weren't popular. Instead, we kind of allowed things to take their own course. Practitioners who weren't forced to leave their homes would donate the money. The big materials sites produced the truth-clarification materials to be distributed to practitioners. Everyone seemed to get used to this way of doing things, and it became a barrier to creating many smaller production sites. A contributing factor to this situation was a tendency to rely on other practitioners, but the major issue was a lack of understanding on the part of the main coordinators about the importance of having smaller materials production sites. As long as the main coordinators are clear and persistently promote smaller materials sites with clear minds and rationality, we can achieve it. I believed we should spare no effort to establish smaller sites. I shared my understanding with a few coordinators and they all agreed, so we began to work on it together.
First we organized a few meetings with practitioners and shared with them how Minghui.org had advised us to establish "small materials sites blooming like flowers everywhere," how practitioners in other areas did it, and the painful lessons we'd learned at our own sites. Those practitioners then shared with the other practitioners in their local areas until all the practitioners understood the situation. As the practitioners volunteered, we established new smaller materials production sites, and practitioners in charge of technical support organized training sessions. We also arranged to buy equipment and office supplies and provide technical support. In a few months many small materials sites were established in nearby areas.
During the transition we found that some practitioners didn't pay enough attention to safety issues and didn't cultivate their speech. Others were attached to comfort. They stopped producing materials after a while and waited for materials to be delivered from the larger sites. Some practitioners had an attachment to relying on others, and waited for others to deliver office supplies, and even after a long time they still couldn't operate independently. Some coordinators didn't allow the materials sites to operate independently when they were ready, and they ended up taking care of several sites. To resolve these problems we organized several meetings to share experiences and lessons, and now most of our small materials production sites are well run.
Even after we established the small sites, we kept the big sites going. They complement each other, and we've gradually reduced the workload at the big sites and use them to support the needs of other areas.
In November 2004, The Epoch Times published the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. It was a sharp weapon to disintegrate the evil party. After reading the Nine Commentaries I realized that it was published to comprehensively expose the evil nature of the Communist Party and eliminate the poisonous factors the party had instilled in people's minds over the years and help people renounce it as soon as possible. Our goal is to save the sentient beings, so we must not delay delivery of the Nine Commentaries to the sentient beings. The big materials sites play a major role in producing copies of the Nine Commentaries.
The practitioners at the materials sites have been working in a tough and isolated environment. For various reasons some of them met unexpected challenges communicating with their families and harmonizing family relationships. In most cases the only contact the practitioners at the sites have is with local coordinators, and few other practitioners know about them. Teacher Li Hongzhi said, "The next person's things are your things, and your things are his things." ("Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. Fa Conference") As parts of the whole, practitioners at the sites played a very important role. As coordinators we should be more considerate and proactive in helping the practitioners in these special environments. We should selflessly help them resolve their problems, especially in harmonizing their family relationships.
In 2005 a young female practitioner was working at a materials site. Her husband didn't understand the truth about Falun Dafa and interfered with her cultivation. She was unhappy with her husband. After being forced to leave her home (to avoid persecution), she didn't contact her family for a long time. Her husband looked for her everywhere but couldn't find her. He was quite angry and filed for divorce. He wrote a lot of negative comments about Dafa in his filing. When we heard about it, we talked to the practitioner. We shared with her our understanding on the fundamental difference of personal cultivation and cultivation in the Fa-rectification period, about how to better fulfill our mission to safeguard Dafa and save sentient beings, about maintaining our image to better clarify truth and save sentient beings (including our family members). The practitioner immediately realized her shortcomings and understood that she should change herself, eliminate her dissatisfaction with her husband, and try her best to save her family. Several of us managed to meet with her husband. He was quite resentful and refused to talk to us. We sent forth righteous thoughts and tried to talk to him. At lunchtime the other practitioners went to lunch and I stayed to talk with him privately. I clarified the truth and shared my personal experiences with him. I told him how I'd benefited from practicing Falun Dafa, how Dafa was supported and how many proclamations Dafa had received from all over the world, and how I was persecuted for persisting in cultivation. I told him about the evil nature of the party, prophecies and modern scientific discoveries. He listened to me quietly, and told me earnestly, "I really didn't know about these things. Now I understand." I asked him, "Are you still going to divorce your wife?" He said, "No, no!" He changed his attitude toward his wife immediately and withdrew his petition for divorce. A few days later the practitioner went back home. Someone reported her to the police. They surrounded her home the next morning to arrest her. In the critical moment her husband lifted her over the wall and helped her escape. Now the two get along very well.
Another senior lady in the materials site had been away from home for several years and was faced with similar challenges. Two practitioners and I went to visit her husband and clarified the truth to him. We cleared up his misunderstanding of Dafa and her. A few days later the practitioner went back home. Her husband told her that he understood the truth and the reasons for her actions. When she returned to the materials site a few days later, her husband didn't interfere.
February 19, 2007