(Clearwisdom.net)
Dear Esteemed Master, dear fellow practitioners!
I am honored on behalf of our group to share our cultivation experiences of clarifying the truth in front of the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles.
1. Never Slackening
Some of the practitioners in Los Angeles are older, in their 70s or 80s. Following Master's teaching, everyone in our group tries his or her best to diligently come to the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles to clarify the truth. The Chinese Consulate is a good place for us to clarify the truth and save sentient beings. This also provides us with a good cultivation environment
We are usually there from Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to noon. We split into two groups, and each group has three to five persons. The first group is responsible for hanging banners such as "Falun Dafa is Wonderful" and "Stop the Persecution of Falun Gong," and sending forth righteous thoughts. Of course, we also practice the exercises in front of the Chinese Consulate. The second group is in charge of handing out flyers, and engaging in face-to-face conversations with people to clarify the truth, introduce them to Falun Dafa, and help people quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations.
Many Asians and Westerners visit the Chinese Consulate every day, and they are all beings that we need to save. Though we may be old in years, we are not willing to fall behind the younger practitioners in doing the three things.
We have been clarifying the truth to the visitors in front of of the Chinese Consulate for a long time. During this time, we have overcome a variety of obstacles and have cultivated through many difficulties. As a result, our xinxing has improved greatly.
In order to do this, many of us need to commute three hours by bus or subway from our homes, and some practitioners may have to travel even a much longer time. Wang Zhongwang's case is an example.
Ms. Wang, 78 , comes to the Chinese Consulate once every week. To do this, she spends six hours on her round trip. She said, "I, as a Dafa Disciple, must do the three things well. This is my responsibility. That's why I must come to hand out flyers and clarify the truth to people." She also distributes flyers around her community.
Ms. Ren is already 81 years old, but she also comes to the Chinese Consulate once every week to clarify the truth. Before she obtained the Fa, she suffered from many illnesses, the most serious of which was glaucoma, which almost cost her her eyesight. After cultivating Dafa, not only did all of her illnesses disappear completely, but her eyesight was restored as well! Falun Dafa is really wonderful!
Dafa can heal illness. Many people have had their health restored after cultivating Dafa. Falun Dafa can change one's philosophy of life as well. Most practitioners feel completely rejuvenated after practicing Falun Dafa. Ms. Ren is a good example. Ordinary people are sincerely convinced after listening to her true story when she clarifies the truth to them.
Ms. Lin, already in her 70s, is our group coordinator. She comes twice every week. She is responsible for the truth clarification arrangements in front of the Chinese Consulate.
To ensure that there is always at least one practitioner to distribute truth clarification materials, Ms. Lin usually invites those practitioners who rarely clarify the truth in front of the Chinese Consulate to take over a shift for an absent practitioner, who may have left to participate in a Falun Dafa experience sharing conference. Normally, the practitioners who are asked will actively follow the arrangements, since as practitioners, everyone thinks of the needs of others first.
Nothing can impede our clarifying the truth in front of the Chinese Consulate. Regardless if we had to take an overnight flight and just came back from a Dafa experience sharing conference, or if we had to stay up an entire night doing Dafa related jobs, if necessary each of us in our group will diligently head to the Chinese Consulate.
We always help each other in the face of great difficulties. But the evil has never given up trying to interfere with us. In order to interfere with our clarifying the truth, the Chinese Consulate has left no stone unturned. They fenced in the lawn, which faces the consulate building, by planting a stand of many tall trees. Their intention was not to leave any open spaces for us to stand and hold banners. With the planting of those tall trees, we were forced to move onto the walkway, which is merely three square meters.
The vibrant banner adorned with "Falun Dafa Is Wonderful" in bright red letters greeted the staff at the consulate. It frightened them, and they tried hard to stop what we were doing there by asking us to hold the banner poles.
At one point, we nearly fainted because of the heat. But we believed that this was the evil's persecution, and that we should deny it. We looked to a local police sergeant for help. After we clarified the truth to him, the police sergeant expressed his support for us and requested that the Chinese Consulate provide us with a space to sit and also allow us to drink water and use the restroom inside of the consulate. This time the evil was defeated and they also had to withdraw their stipulation requiring us to hold the poles by hand.
In June 2006, we placed our banners and poles inside the trunk of the car of a practitioner who works just opposite the consulate. In the morning, we discovered that all of our things had been stolen. Ms. Hu comes to the consulate four to five days each week. After she learned about this, she bought replacement poles right away. Since we had a backup banner of "Falun Dafa Is Wonderful," we hung it up immediately without any delay that day.
In order to avoid having our things stolen again, we decided to carry our items home by ourselves. Ms. Hu is 78 years old and she always carries everything by herself. She also made a bag and packed everything inside. It's not easy for her to carry five pole pieces, each five inches in length, in one hand and also carry banners in a backpack and truth clarification materials in her other hand. It's hard for her to get on and off the bus. Mr. Xia and his wife have to walk about 20 minutes from the bus stop to their home.
Ms. Gao is in her 70s. She goes to the consulate five days every week, carrying the double-decker-sized poster about quitting the CCP, which is two by three feet. In this way, everyone in our group has overcome a variety of difficulties in order to go to the consulate on a daily basis to clarify the truth, all the while carrying cumbersome materials. Now we have even made another banner - a waterproof one which reads, "Falun Dafa Is Wonderful," which can be used even if it rains.
A year later, another practitioner got a job working inside the building next to the Chinese consulate. This practitioner was aware that this was all due to Master's arrangement, so she ardently asked if she could store our truth clarification materials at her job site, and this reduced our burden greatly. Thanks to Master and Master's compassion toward us, we as one body just passed this test and so negated the evils' persecution once again.
The consulate wasn't ready to give up however. They watered the lawn twice a day in winter, and chose the time to do this to be the very moment that we raised our banner. The first time is at 9:10 a.m. and the second time is at 10:00 a.m. They never warn us that they are about to water the lawn.
Once, when Ms. Hu had just raised the banners the sprinklers came on and soaked Ms. Hu and the truth clarification materials. On the second day, they did the same thing, to force us to leave. We are Dafa disciples, and that is nothing to us. We just covered the truth clarification materials with plastic bags and placed them a little further away from the sprinklers.
The Chinese Consulate attempted to force us to leave. But to walk away from the battlefront is not what a Dafa disciple should do. We just follow our Master's teaching, and we shall continue to stay and maintain this field to save the sentient beings until all evils are dissolved.
2. Saving Sentient Beings, Doing Well with Truth Clarification and the Three Withdrawals
Besides the truth clarification activities mentioned above, we also focused on handing out flyers and face-to-face conversations to tell people the true facts. The truth clarification materials that we hand out includes copies of the Epoch Times (Chinese and English versions), books, DVDs of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party (Chinese and English versions), VCD/DVDs of the truth about Falun Gong, Insight China, Investigation into the Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners, Quit the CCP to Save One's Life, etc. There are on average, hundreds of copies passed out on a daily basis, and sometimes even more.
We tell ordinary people how the CCP persecutes Falun Gong practitioners in China, and how it harvests the organs of Falun Gong practitioners. We stress to them just how severe the persecution against Falun Gong practitioners, happening in China today is, and how many people are being tortured to death, and how many people are still being detained in jail. We tell them how many families have been broken up and how many people have been forced to leave their homes, and are now homeless and wandering. We explain why we cultivate Falun Gong and how the CCP made up the Tiananmen story and lied to the world.
As time passed, some people changed their minds as they learned the truth. For example, there is a gentleman who works in the tourism industry. At beginning, he wouldn't speak to us, but one time he stopped and said, "You guys made money, the US government gave you money." We responded to him patiently, "You can think it over. Who would want to pay people in their 70s and 80s?" Some passersby suggested that we were making 200 dollars a day. I told them, "We are not only not being paid to do this, but I also pay the printing fees from my own pocket. If you really want to know who we are and what we are doing, please read these truth clarification materials and make your own decision. It's good for you."
For those who misunderstood us, we kept asking them to read our truth materials. Normally they refused to accept the first several times, but later, when they finally realized that we were sincere and only wished them a better future, they accepted everything completely and often took our truth clarification materials to read.
After people learn the truth, they will often help tell others the truth and also forward several copies to their friends. When we learned that certain people were about to visit China, we asked them, "Do you have any friends in China? These DVDs will make the best gifts for your friends." Normally, they will take the DVD and express their gratitude to us.
Those who go to the Chinese Consulate to clarify the truth need to first remove the attachment to fear. Mr. Xia and his wife went to Chinese Consulate in October 2006. They were in charge of sending righteous thoughts, practicing the exercises, and handing out the flyers.
However, they were afraid of having their pictures taken, since there are a lot of cameras installed in the Chinese Consulate. At the beginning, they only went once every week because of their attachment to fear. They turned their heads to avoid eye contact as soon as they met with the staff of the consulate.
Once, the ceiling in their house leaked. They wondered where the water coming from, as it hadn't rained. After they studied the Fa, they realized that it was their attachment to fear that caused this problem.
They also understood that they could not achieve Consummation if this fear attachment was not eliminated.
After enlightening to this, they began to go to the Consulate three times per week. With the attachment to fear removed, they found it easy to do the three things well. They also helped one person withdraw from the CCP and its related organizations. From then on, no more water dripped from their ceiling.
We treat all sentient beings in a friendly fashion. We greet them by saying, "Good morning, here is today's Epoch Times. Please read it. Good afternoon, here is the DVD of the Nine Commentaries. You can watch it at home if you have a DVD player." Many people accepted our materials and were pleased to take them home.
Some people have first hand experience of the evil CCP's persecution, so they know that what is revealed in the Nine Commentaries is true. One day in July of last year, when we handed the Nine Commentaries to a gentleman, he told us that he had already read it and thought that it was a marvelous book. He said he supported us because the Nine Commentaries put into words what everyone wanted to say, but didn't dare to.
He also told us a miserable story about what happened in the summer of 1942. There were three young men in his village who refused to join the CCP military, so these three men were buried alive. He stated that he only survived because he was ill at the time. He said indignantly, "The CCP is brutal! The CCP is a terrible killer!"
Last October, we met a news analyst who had just returned from China. He said, "I was the right person you should hand these truth materials to. I could feel your truthfulness and compassion." When asked what he thought about the CCP media, he summarized it in three words: False, aggrandized and inadequate. Just before he left, he commented, "You are doing the right thing and doing it well. Please keep doing this--I support you!"
On one windy, cold day, we met a man who was accompanied by his daughter to apply for a visa. The father told us he supported us because he thought that we were just and righteous, and doing a great job. He also said that he knew nothing could stop us from doing this, even on such a chilly day. Several days later, his daughter came back to pick up the passport and asked us to give her one more copy of the DVD. "My dad loved it and I did too," the daughter said excitedly.
Many Christians were not willing to take our truth clarification materials. They announced, "We believe in Jesus." I explained to them, "It's good to believe Jesus. I do not intend to persuade you to change your belief, I just want you to know the truth of how the CCP persecutes Falun Gong in China." One older gentleman bowed to a fellow practitioner and said, "I've been in the US for more than 10 years, and I am a Christian. I was deceived by the CCP's lies about Falun Gong, but now I know the truth. I admire you and I consider you to be heroes."
Sometimes we go to a restaurant where there are many Chinese travel groups. We clarify the truth to them and help them to quit the CCP.
In the second half of November 2007, we went to hotels to hand out truth clarification materials, including the Epoch Times, Renminbao Newspaper, Secret China, and some VCDs. Almost everyone in this travel group took one copy of everything.
We went to the Chinese Consulate to clarify the truth in the morning and to Chinatown, the subway, and supermarkets to hand out the flyers and posters during the Chinese New Year Spectacular performance in the afternoon. We don't consider the fact that we are old, but just that we should do what we are supposed to do as Dafa disciples.
3. Helping People
We often keep quarters in our pockets, because people always ask us if we have small change. We are very happy to help people. Sometimes, we gave the quarters to the visitors to pay their parking fees, lend them our cell phones, or direct them to where the bank is, or the bus stop. There was a girl who came from another state, and she couldn't find a taxi, so Mrs. Hu drove her to the shuttle station, so she only had to pay $3.00 to ride the shuttle to the airport.
We always remind people not to park in the restricted areas, so 10 more people each day avoid being towed or fined. Some people have tried to to reward us for this help, but we refuse absolutely. One travel bus driver, who had never talked to us before, was touched by our behavior and praised us, "You are good persons because you always consider others' needs first. I admire you." There have been a lot of instances like these, so we are not going to mention more of them in detail.
In return, we have often been praised, "You're doing a great job!" "We appreciate your help!" "Take a rest and wear warm clothing!" Some people have tried to give us money or gifts, which we always cheerfully refuse. One time, a gentleman wanted to give us 20 bottles of fruit juice to express his appreciation. We thanked him for the offer, but said we couldn't take it.
Encouraged and convinced by these responses, and we always remind ourselves, "We cultivate 'Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance.' Falun Dafa is wonderful! We hope you also can remember it." Master told us in "Greetings!" "Save your sentient beings, fulfill your great prehistoric vows, and make good on the pledges you made!"
Thank you, Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners!
