(Clearwisdom.net)

Greetings respected Master! Greetings fellow practitioners!

Three years ago, our whole family moved to Berlin. After settling down, I began to think about how to clarify the truth to two congressmen in our district. When we lived in Heidelberg, I was in college and had no child yet. At that time, we did not have that many Dafa validation projects. Therefore, I had more time to visit congressmen. We visited every congressman in Heidelberg and we even met some of them several times. We kept up regular contact with them. However, after arriving in Berlin, the situation changed. My son was only one year old. My husband seldom stayed at home due to his job. I was the only one taking care of my son. Moreover, I began to work as an interpreter. One year later, we had a second child. Therefore I had less spare time. In addition, with the advancement of Fa-rectification, we had more new Dafa validation projects. In the meantime, we still needed to expand our existing Dafa validation projects. All these needed more manpower and time. Therefore I could not visit congressmen as often to clarify the truth as before.

Finally, I chose to write letters every two to three months to two congressmen in my district. Sometimes when there were more events happening, I would write a letter every few weeks. One year later, the assistant of one congressman called me voluntarily and said the congressman wanted to make an appointment with me. I was very surprised because before it was me who would ask the congressman to set up an appointment. No congressman had ever invited me to talk to them before. Later on, we went to his office and spent about one hour talking about Falun Gong. He asked a lot of questions.

A few weeks ago, the assistant of another congressman called me and we talked for over half an hour. I had written a letter telling the congressman about the assistant director of the Chinese Department of Deutsche Welle spreading some pro-CCP (Chinese Communist Party) reports. Therefore the congressman asked his assistant to do a thorough investigation on that event and the response from the German Congress. His assistant asked some detailed questions about that event and also told me about her investigation. She said she would let me know of any further developments in her investigation. We also talked about Falun Gong, our jobs and children, etc. She said in the future I could write to her directly and she would forward my letters to the congressman.

Why was there no response before when I wrote letters to congressmen?

When I first decided to write letters to congressmen, I thoroughly thought it over. Before that, I did not think it would work. Most of the time I seldom get any responses from those politicians, or if I got some responses, they were all very routine responses. Other fellow practitioners also said it was no use to write letters. I never thought it over why it was no use to write letters. But this time, since I really had no spare time, I had to think about using other method to clarify the truth. I thought to myself ,"Is it true as everyone says that it is no use to write letters?" According to the Fa principles, what we do all contains energy. Therefore, the letters we write also have energy. But why isn't there any response? The problem exists on our part. But where is the problem?

I recalled those letters I wrote to the congressmen before and felt that they lacked something. For instance, we did not do any research on what the congressmen were interested in. Instead, we only focused on telling them what we knew. Moreover, there was no systematic consistency. Whenever we thought about something or when we needed their help, we would gather some materials and send them that. But when something happened, we might be very busy and not thinking about writing a letter to the congressmen and helping them gradually get to know how evil the Chinese Communist Party is and details of the CCP's evil persecution of Falun Gong. Actually, we did not truly put ourselves into [the role of] saving sentient beings and we were not persistent in clarifying the truth to congressmen.

This time, before I wrote letters to the congressmen, I visited their websites and browsed through their biographies to see whether there was any starting point. For instance, one congressman was actively against persecution of Jews. Then I used this as a starting point and wrote that in China there is a severe crime of genocide happening, which is also very severe. Then I listed a few recent cases about Falun Gong practitioners being persecuted to death. I told them that the persecution still continues in China and is extremely brutal.

The congressmen were very helpful. Putting myself in their shoes, when I was very busy, I would not spend much time reading a long letter. So the letters I wrote to the congressmen looked like a short piece of news and contained only one topic. If two events happened at the same time and I wanted to tell the congressmen about both, I would send them one letter containing one topic first and then a few days later I would send another letter talking about the other topic.

In the first paragraph of the letter, I would point out the topic using brief summary sentences. Sometimes, in order to write a very short letter, I would browse through many related articles published on the Clearwisdom website and the Epoch Times website. I analyzed whether these articles had a very clear explanation of the event and whether they could attract readers to continue reading. Then, I would consider what viewpoint would be easy to draw their attention. Finally, I would write a letter that could explain the event clearly but briefly. Then, I would also attach one or two articles as an attachment. Every letter was not long and did not have too many attachments.

I had been thinking about the method I used before: if a congressman was interested in Falun Gong, he must also be interested in other types of human rights in China. Should I give him what I want him to see or what he is interested in? When I first clarified the truth to politicians, I never thought about this issue before. I only told them about the persecution of Falun Gong. However as I began to think about others, I gradually understood that if you want others to pay attention to your matters, you have to first pay attention to their concerns. And it is not that, because I wanted others to pay attention to my concerns, I pretended to care about theirs. It was not like that. Caring about others should truly come from the bottom of our hearts and be genuine. Therefore, not only did my letters to the congressmen have information about Falun Gong, but I also included articles about China that were published on German Epoch Times and other media in order to help them to have more understanding about China from different aspects. If the congressmen had a deeper understanding about China's situation, then they would have a better understanding of why Falun Gong is being persecuted in China.

In addition, I would express my approval of a congressman's righteous action on certain events. For instance, one congressman once helped promote a law on banning smoking in café areas, but it did not pass. I just happened to see this news in a newspaper. I thought to myself that it was not an accident for me to see that. Therefore I wrote him a letter and said that although this law did not pass, as a mother I truly appreciated him promoting that law because several times when I went to a café, I saw people smoking there which was not healthy for children. We should support ordinary people's righteous deeds. I think that is also a manifestation of our kindness. As a result, the congressmen feel that Falun Gong practitioners are also members of the community.

The final point, which is also a very important, is that we should be persistent. We should not write letters only when we have the time or interest to do that. Instead we should be persistent in clarifying the truth by writing letters. I think that the entire aspect of clarifying the truth is not only demonstrated in one letter we write. Instead, it combines the content of all letters which can give people a better chance to get to know Falun Gong and get a more full-sided view of us.

I also had times of slacking off. For instance, I should have used some current event to clarify the truth to congressmen. However I did not do it because I was busy with other projects. Later on, other events happened which also called for writing letters. Especially in recent years, more and more major events happened that were related to Falun Gong. Under such conditions, I would not mention an event in the letter after its time had passed. Instead I would focus on a recent event, as ordinary people think less about events that happened in the past.

Every time I wrote a letter, I always held a firm righteous thought. As long as I used a kind heart cultivated from practicing Dafa and patience to write the letter, I felt that at least those who read my letter would understand the truth of that specific event, no matter whether he/she is a congressman, an assistant, or an intern in the congressman's office. Although for a long time I did not get any response from them, it was this kind of righteous mind that made me continue writing the letters.

Treating other's issues as mine

Two years ago, a practitioner from Heidelberg told me that one congressman we contacted before still did not have a good understanding about why Falun Gong is persecuted in China. Therefore, I wrote him a long letter. In the letter, I explained the details of why the evil CCP is persecuting Falun Gong, within the framework of how the party has been eliminating traditional Chinese culture over the past 50 years. The following day that congressman called me and we talked about that issue. He told me that in recent years Falun Gong practitioners did not visit him anymore. I left Heidelberg in 2003. Before that, we met with this congressman three to four times. One time we even went to his home. After 2003, I did not have any contact with that congressman in Heidelberg, but I suggested to practitioners in Heidelberg to keep up our well-established relationship with him. After talking with that congressman on the phone, I called a practitioner in Heidelberg and learned that after I left Heidelberg they did not have much contact with him. Later on they were only delivering the German Epoch Times to his office. Direct contact with him became even less. After hearing that, I became quite unhappy. I thought to myself, "How could that happen? When talking about clarifying the truth to government officials, everyone says it is very important. However when it is time to practice with our actions, we cannot see how important it is. Now that I have left that place, I could not handle that anymore." I complained to my fellow practitioners and told them that they should be responsible to save those congressmen who live in their district, "It will be your problem if you do not think of a method to save them."

Later on in my Fa study, I read in "Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. Fa Conference, in 2002:"

"Now when we clarify the truth to others you all feel that we should treat sentient beings with compassion, then all the more so should you be compassionate among our Dafa disciples. You're all disciples in the same practice, and you're giving your all for the cosmos' Fa-rectification, so you should cooperate well with one another. Don't approach things with too many human attachments, and don't cause unnecessary conflicts and arguments by interacting with each other with human attachments. In these situations your conduct should always show Dafa disciples' tolerance, kindness, and niceness. The next person's things are your things, and your things are his things. "

I thought to myself that when I dealt with the Heidelberg issue, I was patient when I tried to clarify the truth to the congressman, but I was not patient with my fellow practitioners. Moreover, I did not treat others' issues as mine. Instead I blamed others. How could that form a whole body?

Later on when I wrote letters to the two congressmen in my district, I also wrote letters to that congressman in Heidelberg. He called me several times and we discussed the content of my letters. Although he mentioned Falun Gong being persecuted in China during his several visits to China, he still did not have a clear understanding about the evil party's true nature. Therefore, every time we talked, he raised some questions. We would talk for a long time. I felt that he constantly thought about China issues. He also hopes that we can give him more information. He is very slowly adopting a different way of thinking about China issues from the influence of my letters and talks with him on the phone.

Using less time to do more things

If I added up the time I spent in preparing a letter to a congressmen, it was not very long. If I was very familiar with an event, for instance, the media reports about the harvesting of human organs, it might take me about 15 minutes to write a short letter. Then I took another 15 minutes to look for appropriate articles as attachments to the letter. Even for an event that I might not be so familiar with, it would take me from one hour to at the most three hours to get a letter ready.

Although the time was not very long, it has been really difficult for me to continue doing that during the past three years. Several times, I had to conquer my doubts about the effectiveness of writing letters, and conquer the thought of wanting to give up, the thought from laziness, and remind myself that I should think about the person who is reading my letter. I also need to let go of the attachment of personal gain, because at present these three congressmen have not publicly stood up and spoken out for Falun Gong. I understood that when clarifying the truth, we cannot use this as a standard. Instead, we should put clarifying the truth as the first priority. Their not stepping out means that we still need to clarify the truth to them. Even if they stand up and speak for Falun Gong, we still need to continue with our truth-clarification effort. Thus they will have a firm righteous thought toward Falun Gong. In the past few years, although the time I spent on writing those letters added up, it was still not that much. I felt that being persistent in writing those letters has been a huge test of my patience and genuineness.

Once I did not write any letters for over six months. I used a very good excuse for myself saying that "I have two kids and an ordinary person's job. I am also very busy with other Dafa projects. I even do not have enough time to sleep." But I finally braced myself up and reminded myself that it is not accidental that I live in this district. It is also not accidental that I had set up such a good relationship with that congressman in Heidelberg. Then I think these congressmen might be among those people I should save. However, time is still an issue for me. I thought to myself that in my career is an interpreter, if someone asks me to do an one-hour translation job, I have to focus on that job and put aside other jobs. Why can't I spare one hour to save those congressmen? Therefore I decided to spare one hour on a specific day and focus on writing letters to those congressmen. I marked my schedule on the calendar on which I also had appointments for my translation job. Thus I could put down what I was doing and focus on writing letters. This is how I continued the task of writing letters.

Teacher once said, "Of course, one of you is a match for ten or a hundred people." (Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference, 4/20/2003) When I read this sentence at that time, I thought to myself, "This is a pretty high requirement. Not only should we match ten people, but we should also match one hundred people." As new projects came out such as NTDTV and Divine Performing Arts, etc. which really needed manpower to support them, we were also expanding our other truth-clarification projects. I felt that at such a time when everyone of us became more and more busy, how can we do more things with less time and achieve a better result? This is a test of our Dafa practitioner's wisdom. It also requires us to let go of many old notions, let go of human sentimentality, different attachments and have stronger trust in Dafa.

Thank you Master!

Thank you everyone!