(Clearwisdom.net)
Greetings Master!
Greetings Fellow Practitioners!
I am so glad that I could come to the Chicago Fa Conference again this year. I learned a lot from last year's Chicago Fa Conference, especially the sharing on clarifying the truth in work environments.
Today, I would like to take this opportunity to share my experience of clarifying the truth at my work place.
Background
At the beginning of 2008, I moved to a new job in a different company. The new company had a lot of Chinese employees working there.
Soon after I started my new job, I began looking for the Asian Employee Resource Group with a hope to participate in their events or activities so that I could have a platform to explain the truth about Falun Dafa. Deep in my heart, I knew that I may run into blocks with those Chinese people in charge of the Asian ERG group. But I thought: regardless, I need to approach them to open the door for all the employees to know more about Falun Gong.
The Asian Heritage Celebration was the first event that I signed up to help at the China table. If I were in my old company, I would have signed up to do the Falun Gong exercise demo. However, since I just joined this company and some Chinese people who also volunteered for the event had seemed concerned about what I would do at the table (some of them knew that I practice Falun Gong), I thought I could approach them indirectly with the Falun Gong information. I told them I would fold paper lotus flowers at the event.
After several prep meetings, the event finally came and we were all dressed in traditional costumes sitting by our table. As people started coming in, I took out some pre-made lotus flowers to pass out and also told people what Falun Gong is. When we were not busy, we folded more with other helpers. I was very thankful that I could fold the flowers while talking with other helpers about Falun Gong. They seemed to be okay with it, and were happy helping me fold the flowers. However, it was not long before the lady-in-charge, who is also Chinese, came over, stopped me from folding the flowers, and said I was not allowed to spread Falun Gong info at the event. I asked her why, but she did not answer and then threatened she would ask people to escort me out of the event if I kept folding. I felt discriminated against and, after the event, I reported the incident to the HR department.
One year later on Oct. 1, 2009, I was called into a meeting by the new Asian ERG group leader and the HR rep. I prepared some truth clarification materials and a couple of lotus flowers for the meeting. After I clarified the truth to them, I was told that I was not allowed to spread Falun Gong inside the company. I was shocked and went home after the meeting. I did not know what to do at that point except cry very hard. The more I thought about their future, the harder I cried out. I was sad from the bottom of my heart.
Clarifying the Truth
I had to come up with new ideas to keep clarifying the truth at the company. I called several practitioners to let them know what had happened. We had a good sharing to set out a plan. Initially I had firmly decided that I would go the legal route and sue the responsible persons for discriminating against me at work. But an experienced practitioner shared with me that if I took this legal path without making much effort in clarifying the truth using other means, I would be pushing the sentient beings away. Even though I might win the case, I would not win their hearts. For a practitioner, it would be a losing game.
After the sharing, I wrote an email to the HR rep to request a copy of the company ethics policy and meanwhile requested a meeting with the senior VP in charge of the ERG groups. The meeting was arranged. This time, I asked a local practitioner to come with me, and we had a good conversation with the senior VP who agreed to make a decision after he read some Falun Gong informational materials. We kept our righteous thoughts for the entire meeting.
While I was waiting for the decision from the senior VP, another incident happened. Over one night, all Falun Gong related websites, including the Epoch Times website, were blocked by the company's firewall system. I was puzzled by it. I printed the blocking message and went straight to the security department. The security director told me that they just switched to a new firewall system from a third party vendor and, by default, Falun Gong and the Epoch Times websites were categorized as inappropriate websites.
At that moment, I could feel that I was surrounded by all the evil forces that were trying hard to stop me from clarifying the truth at work. But I told myself that I was not going to quit this battle.
After work, I started searching for the background of the third party vendor who owns the firewall software. What I found out was 810f the Fortune 500 companies from the world are using their software. The impact of their categorization of Falun Gong websites is enormous: if every company that uses their software takes the default setting from the recommendation, it would mean that none of the company employees could read Falun Gong materials or the online Epoch Times. Worst of all, their blocking message was worded in such a way that it made people think that the blocked sites were dangerous and inappropriate.
What would those Chinese people think when they get on these sites? What would they share with others? I remember teacher has said in "Teaching the Fa at the 2004 International Fa Conference in New York" that:
"There are Chinese employees in Manhattan's many big corporations, and even in some of the small corporations and establishments, and the majority of those Chinese people have been deceived by the falsehoods spread by the CCP's slanderous propaganda machine, and those things in their heads have not been cleared away all this time. So they have become people who spread venom in American society. It's not that those people are evil by nature. But indeed, while Dafa disciples are clarifying the truth in one place they are over there spreading the slanderous things from the CCP in some other place."
Now with the company starting to block Falun Gong and the Epoch Times sites, they would have more evidence to back up their slanderous things learned from the CCP.
The more I thought about the consequence of this software switch, the more urgent I realized it was to take some action to open up the sites again. I contacted the security director again the next day, and asked him to help me find a contact person from the vendor. Meanwhile, I shared with other practitioners my understanding about this incident. Through sharing, it was confirmed that the same problem was also happening in a company in Australia.
I wrote a letter, under the name of a Falun Gong practitioner, to the vendor manager to report the incident. I explained to him the damage their products had brought to other companies and also included truth clarification materials along with the recommended categorization for Falun Gong websites.
A couple of days later, I received a reply recommending that I resolve the issue internally within my own company, because their product is configurable. I forwarded the reply letter to the security director and he said he had to check with other departments before he could ask the IT department to configure the software differently from the default. Again, I sent him more information on the US Congressional resolutions related to the Falun Gong persecution. I sent him articles about awards earned by the Epoch Times, and I sent him the State Department human rights report to confirm the ongoing persecution. I also told him the importance of learning about Falun Gong. While I was waiting for their meeting's outcome, I asked all informed practitioners to send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the impact from this firewall software and to strengthen my company to make a good decision.
A week later, the security director told me that more than 30 decision makers from the HR, Legal, Security and IT departments discussed the issues related to the new firewall system release and they also discussed the Falun Gong issue and online Epoch Times. All together, they made the decision to configure the software to allow employees to view the Falun Gong websites and the Epoch Times websites. It was a big relief on that day. My tears came out again when I was able to access the sites again at work: I have kept a door open for the Chinese people working in our company to be able to access Falun Gong info and uncensored news at their break time at work.
One day toward the end of October 2009, I was again called in to a meeting with the new Asian ERG leader and the same HR rep. I was told at that time that I could share and socialize about Falun Gong at work freely.
Conclusion
Today is the Chicago Fa Conference again. I feel honored to have this opportunity to share my experience with everyone. I really thank teacher for arranging the opportunity for me, and really thank fellow practitioners for their patience and their support throughout this short but intensive process.
I would like to use teacher's Fa from "Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. Fa Conference," to end my sharing article. I hope we will all do better in our cultivation paths and create more opportunities for sentiment beings to be saved:
"Wherever there's a problem, that is where you need to clarify the truth and save people. Don't take a detour when you run into difficulties. When you see something that does us harm, or when you see something blocking our validating the Fa, don't take a detour -- you should face it, and clarify the truth and save those beings. This is the compassion (cibei) of a Dafa disciple, and it's our saving lives. At the same time, when you're clarifying the truth you can resolve the problem of many people having been deceived, the misunderstandings, and the prejudice. After all, the lies in the propaganda from this evil persecution that's happening in China have misled sentient beings. They have covered up the truth with a deceitful show. When met with the truth, people will think things over carefully, and how people respond to all this is their own choice." ("Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. Fa Conference", July 22, 2002)
