(Clearwisdom.net)
Greetings, Revered Master, greetings, fellow practitioners:
We would like to share our experiences of clarifying the truth to the City Councils in the Los Angeles area.
1. Overcoming human attachments and notions, taking the first step
Around the end of year 2006, one LA practitioner suggested to several of us who had undergone persecution in labor camps or prisons in mainland China that we step out to expose the evil, and let more people know about the truth of the persecution. She told us that there is a city council for each city in the Los Angeles area, and each city council normally holds a weekly public hearing session, mostly at night, and anyone can get up and speak for a few minutes on public issues. She thought it was a good opportunity to clarify the truth.
We thought the suggestion was good, and we decided to form a team focusing on going from city to city to clarify the truth at city council meetings. Because there are nearly 100 satellite cities in the Greater Los Angeles metropolitan area, we decided to start with the city where we reside and the neighboring ones. Right after we made up our minds to do this, various forms of interference followed. As exposing the evil itself is the process of eliminating it, the evil tried its best to interfere with us. It did that by taking advantage of our human mentalities and notions, otherwise, it wouldn't have any effect.
Some practitioners claim that their English is very poor, and doubt if they can give a speech in English in a situation like that. Some say, "There are hundreds of cities in LA county, when will we be able to cover all of them?" Some worry that we may not be allowed to give a speech if we are not residents of that city, some are busy with work, and are concerned about not having time to do that. Looking back, these all seemed to be laughable excuses, but they did hold us up for a few months. Come to think about it, it was a manifestation of our weak main consciousness, and we let our thought karma and post-natal notions take charge of us.
As we continuously studied the Fa, we slowly overcame these obstacles. Thinking clearly, those reasons weren't really problems. Clarifying the truth is the most righteous and most glorious matter, and we shouldn't be deterred by these trivial difficulties. If our English is not good, we can prepare the speech ahead of time, then rehearse it over and over until we have more confidence. We are going to the council meetings to spread the truth with our pure hearts, the audience should be more than grateful for us, how could they not allow us to speak? If there are many cities, then we should be even more diligent. Master indicated that Dafa disciples are the sole hope of salvation for the beings in each region and each nation, how could we shirk our responsibilities simply because there are a lot of cities to cover? Feeling too busy at work or worrying about not having enough time are also excuses to hide our attachment of seeking comfort.
After overcoming different attachments and human notions, we were determined to take the very first step. Each one of us prepared a speech based on our individual experience of being persecuted in mainland China. Upon hearing about our plan, a practitioner who is responsible for translation work became very supportive of us. He asked Western practitioners to help polish our speeches. We spent a lot of time in practicing giving the speech, just so we wouldn't get too nervous. Finally in February of 2007, we had our first stop at a city council meeting.
2. The process of clarifying the truth is also the process of relinquishing attachments.
The first time we went to a city council meeting to share our persecution experience, we attracted the attention of media right away. It must have been the encouragement from Master. The effect was quite good that day, both the mayor and city council members expressed their sympathy, and said: "Welcome to America, this is a free country." The Mayor said to us: "I have been the mayor for 6 years and this is the first time that we've had 5 women speaking about such horrific persecution in the city council meetings." One reporter present at the meeting was interested in our stories, and made an appointment with us for follow-up interviews. Later, the reporter's report was published by two large LA local newspapers, and hundreds of thousands of people read the article.
We thought we would have similar successes from that point on, however, we subsequently visited several other cities, yet didn't get much response, and no reporters followed us. We looked inside and discovered that we had developed the attachment of complacency after our initial success. It was truly difficult to break human attachments, we only did a little bit of what we should have done a long time ago, yet we quickly developed complacency, beings in the higher realm must have been laughing at us. The other attachment we discovered was the attachment of seeking results, as we only got excited if we got visible results, and quickly lost interest if nothing happened.
In fact, as cultivators we know that to clarify the truth, one must do this with a heart free from pursuit. One reaps whatever he sows even though the fruits of his work may not manifest in this dimension right away. Master has taught us all the principles of the Fa. If our hearts are only moved by superficial phenomena visible to our naked eyes, in essence, our trust in Master and the Fa is still lacking. If only seeing is believing, then do we not believe things we can't see?
Despite our attachments, Master always compassionately encouraged and protected his disciples, and patiently guides us to move forward. One time after we finished delivering our speeches, all city council members didn't say a word and emotionlessly jumped to the next agenda item. We walked out of the meeting room feeling disappointed. Suddenly one person caught up to us and said: "You did really well, very touching, well done! Keep it up!" We sadly said there wasn't any reaction from the city council. He then waved his hand and said: "Don't mind them, every meeting is broadcast live via television, many people didn't come to the meeting, but they watch it at home, and tens of thousands have heard what you said."
We immediately realized that Master was reminding us of the importance of our work, what we faced wasn't just 5 city council members, but there was a large TV audience as well. Each city council meeting session is shown to the local residents live on television, the facts about the situation can also spread through word of mouth once people learn about it.
We get to cultivate ourselves while we clarify the truth. We uncover many human attachments we need to discard. One time, we went to a city that had a large Chinese population. We were told that many Chinese residents had business dealings with mainland China, so we went to the council meeting early to send forth righteous thoughts. When the mayor saw the request cards we filled out, he stopped us from going up to the podium, and maintained that our topics didn't have anything to do with them. One practitioner explained to him that what we were about to say did concern them, but the mayor nevertheless ignored us and refused to allow us to speak.
On our way back, a couple of practitioners had an argument. We blamed each other for what happened. One practitioner accused another practitioner for falling asleep while sending forth righteous thoughts, and affecting the results of eliminating the evil; another practitioner complained that nobody took this matter seriously as we were all busy with our own things; some other practitioners murmured "Well, if we had known that we would not be allowed to talk, we could have not come here, what a waste of time!" After we had some arguments going back and forth, we suddenly came to realize that the evil must be delighted in seeing the conflicts among practitioners. Why are we doing such things that "sadden our friends and gladden our enemies"? How silly we are! Probably because of the conflict, it made us all see where our problems were.
Searching inside ourselves carefully, we discovered that we had strong attachments to combativeness and anger, and that was why sending forth righteous thoughts didn't have much effect when the mayor stopped us from talking. Even though all of us are not very old in age, we grew up under the influence of the evil Party culture, so we all more or less carry the gene of "struggle" from the evil party. Sometimes we argue over things regardless of how big or small they are. After we were persecuted in China, our human sides carried strong hatred towards the evil party, and all of these factors that didn't quite meet the standards of a cultivator had directly hindered our truth clarification. In addition, we tend to blame each other when problems arise, push the responsibilities to other people and even look down upon others, which are in fact the manifestation of our jealousy. Master told us long ago in "Realms" from Essentials for Further Advancement, "A wicked person is born of jealousy. Out of selfishness and anger he complains about unfairness towards himself."
Realizing our attachments, through studying the Fa, reading the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party and "Disintegrating the Party Culture", we relinquished many of them. The results we got improved, such that most people expressed sympathy to us, and condemned the persecution. After a while, we found out that the audience paid attention to us during the first and second speaker, then they gradually got a little impatient. Looking inside, we found out after we had done this many times, we started to treat it as a routine business, as if we were trying to complete the task. We also didn't think from the audience's angle, because the time is limited during the meeting, we shouldn't have 5 and 6 people share more or less the same experience. We changed our approach a little, we started to coordinate with each other, having one practitioner bring up the main point, and then other practitioners would cover other aspects of the persecution.
For example, practitioners who had first hand experience with torture focus on torture methods; practitioners who were unlawfully detained in labor camps talk about exported products made by prisoners of conscience. Some practitioners who have missing friends or relatives will mainly talk about organ harvesting and some will talk about rescuing practitioners. If there are practitioners in the city we visited, then we would invite them to join us and speak as local residents and normally, the results were even better. In short, we thought more from the audience's angle and spoke in a way that was more comprehensible to them. This is a manifestation of compassion. Furthermore, when practitioners cooperate with each other, the power as a whole body grows.
During the Chinese New Year time frame, we also talked about how the CCP destroyed traditional Chinese culture and told people about the Chinese New Year Spectacular show. So we not only let people know about the brutality of the persecution, but also the beauty of Dafa. At the VIP reception of the Chinese New Year Spectacular, we ran into a few city council members. They recognized us right away. They told us how they were impressed with our speeches, and how happy they were to see us again.
3. Sentient beings are all waiting to be saved - A few stories about our truth clarification
A. Passing the first city resolution
Last June, 3 months after we began clarifying the truth, we received a notice from one city we visited informing us of a resolution that was passed unanimously by all council members. The resolution condemned the Chinese Communist regime's brutal persecution of Falun Gong and the crimes of harvesting organs from live Falun Gong practitioners. It also called on the U.S. government to use all means to urge the Chinese Communist regime to release all imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners and immediately stop the persecution. A local practitioner went to the City Hall and accepted the formal copy of the resolution. As she exited the City Hall, she saw many residents gathered in the plaza in front of the city building celebrating a local festival, as if they were celebrating the passing of the resolution. Practitioners told people about the resolution, and also passed out flyers with information about Falun Gong, almost every person receiving the flyer showed great excitement and said "Thank you" Many people even bowed to the practitioner to express their gratitude. We could truly feel that all sentient beings were waiting to be saved, and they are eager to help Dafa and Dafa disciples.
B. The story of tissues
Almost every time we spoke about our persecution experience, we couldn't hold back our tears. Many times the audience would wipe their eyes along with us. One time, when one practitioner talked about her experience of suffering from electric baton torture and psychiatric abuses, her cheek was covered with tears, She started to choke with sobs when she talked about the organ harvesting. Everyone in the room quietly listened, and some kept on wiping their eyes. One council member sitting next to the podium opened up a pack of tissues and handed them to her one at a time. The practitioner was very much into her speech and didn't pay any attention. But when she was done, she realized that it was the council member sitting by her who was giving her the tissues she used to wipe her face.
C. Hug from the mayor
There was one time, a city mayor, a very beautiful lady, was quite moved by our speeches and she asked us if she could do anything for us. We were pleased to know that the city officials are making the right choices for their own future. We left the council meeting as they moved to the next agenda item. As we were walking out of the door, we heard someone calling us. "Ladies, please wait." We turned around and realized that it was the mayor, she rushed out of the back door, and ran to us. We noticed she had tears in her eyes! She came over and hugged every one of us and kissed our cheeks, thanking us for sharing our stories. She said: "I will do my best to help you." Later, she wrote to the congress member in her district requesting the congresswoman to support Falun Gong and to oppose the persecution.
D. Passing a resolution on the spot
Last October, we received a letter from the city council of one city, notifying us of an upcoming council meeting when the resolution we proposed would be discussed. On that day, many practitioners came to the meeting to support and send forth righteous thoughts. During the meeting, one council member spoke very seriously: "There are many large American corporations that have business interest in mainland China, so we should...." We held our breath, thinking they were going to vote down the resolution. Then suddenly, he smiled and said: "Oh, I was just joking, we all must support this resolution." Then all the council members pressed the green light button in front of their seat and unanimously passed the resolution. Practitioners thanked them with hand-made lotus flowers. The council members told us that they were very happy to be able to do their part and support our anti-persecution effort.
Out of the one hundred cities in the LA area, we have visited 40, and still have a long way to go. More than half of the cities haven't been visited yet. The journey of clarifying the truth to city councils is also a journey of saving sentient beings, purifying ourselves, and spreading the Fa. We will continue our work persistently, following Master, to cover every single corner, and let Falun Dafa reach even more people. As the song in the gala performance goes, "truth is salvation, truth is hope!"
Thank you, Master, thank you, fellow practitioners.
2008 Western US Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference (Los Angeles)