(Minghui.org) I live in a northern city in China and started practicing Falun Dafa in June 1995. After the persecution began in July 1999, our group practice environment was lost. Due to the overwhelming media propaganda, my coworkers, neighbors, family, and friends had a negative view of Master Li and Dafa. To rectify the situation and clear Master’s and Dafa’s name, many practitioners started to clarify the truth. They focused on spreading Dafa's health benefits by word of mouth since there was hardly any printed material.
One day a practitioner brought me a few copies of a truth clarifying newspaper and told me to hand them out after reading it myself. I thought I needed more, so I took the newspaper to a copy shop and made a few dozen copies. Soon after, the local police started to investigate the sources in the community. No photocopy shops dared to make copies for me. That was the moment I realized that I must not wait and depend on others, but start making my own materials to distribute.
A Little Flower Blossoms
As an older woman, I knew little about computers. It would be easy for me to sew or cook, but when it came to using a computer, mouse, keyboard, and printer, I was seriously challenged. Master saw my heart and good intention and arranged for a fellow practitioner to help me buy a computer, a printer, and necessary consumables.
At the time, that practitioner's husband, who was also a practitioner, was imprisoned and her mother was at home, unable to care for herself. Her two children were in school and her salary was meager. Still, she overcame all the hardships and held my hand, starting from how to power on a computer and how to use a mouse.
Guided and care for by Master, I finally learned everything after a long process of practicing. I could make the Minghui Weekly newspaper and the Minghui Weekly magazine by myself. My initial effort to establish my own production center saw early success.
When the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party was published in 2004, fellow practitioners suggested that I make it into a booklet to distribute, and I took the task on without giving it much thought.
I learned how to print and bind. Then I ran into a problem, namely, how to cut a big pile of paper in half and make it into two books.
Another practitioner and I first tried to saw the paper with a kitchen knife. It took us half a day just to cut through a few pages. Then I tried a machete but with little luck. Eventually, we used a razor blade and made it work. Our first copy of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party was born.
It happened that a fellow practitioner was traveling to Beijing on business and wanted to take a copy for his relative. Thus, our first book traveled to Beijing. Afterward, I was determined to find a faster way to mass produce the book.
The next day I ran into a practitioner who was skilled at making books. Three days later, to my utter joy, he sent me a large, professional-grade, brand new paper cutter. I bought a second printer to speed things up. To my disappointment, the two printers were not able to finish printing one box of paper on the first try. At times they skipped sheets of paper. Sometimes I fed the half-printed paper in upside down or mixed up even and odd pages. I grew frustrated and impatient and started to sweat. At the time I was not clear what was wrong in my cultivation.
A fellow practitioner well versed in computer technology happened to stop by. After looking into it, he told me, “Nothing is wrong with either the computer or the printers. Maybe you should look for other reasons.”
He was not blunt enough to tell me the problem outright, but intended for me to find room to improve. After he left, I calmed down and thought, “When the new paper cutter was brought in, I was overly joyful. Isn't that zealotry? I was also too absorbed in the work and that is out of the attachment to doing things. Then I grew frustrated and impatient.”
I was shocked at these cultivation issues and could not help but appreciate Master's thoughtful arrangement and guidance. I was grateful for the other practitioner's help to improve.
Along the way, I also realized how difficult it was to make books. The standard was higher, it took more time and effort, and few practitioners made books. I decided that I would dedicate my material production center to making books.
Growing Robust and Sturdy
As the Fa-rectification progressed, the books became more diverse. We were able to produce Disintegrate Party Culture, The Real Story of Jiang Zemin, and The Ultimate Mission of Communism.
When practitioners were arrested and their homes ransacked, many Dafa books were lost. Also, after learning the truth from practitioners, many people wanted Dafa books.
After many years of heavy use, some practitioners' copies showed a lot of wear and tear to the point of hindering Fa study. I told myself that what Dafa needed was what I should be doing, and I started to make Dafa books. I knew it was a solemn responsibility, so I said before Master's photo, “Master, I know this is the Fa of the entire universe. It is a sacred task. I will do everything I can to do it well.”
It took more care and attention to detail to make Dafa books compared to other books. Following the instructions I found on the internet, fellow practitioners' suggestions, and examining every step of the procedure, I figured out a suitable method.
For example, when I put the paper in the tray, I had to use a whole pack at a time for a well-aligned printing. The binding holes had to be at the exact distance from the edge of the paper or it would be too hard to turn the pages to read. The photos of Master and the Falun emblem had certain brightness and color tones that had to be calibrated according to the online instructions to minimize potential variation.
Every step, including paper quality, font size, binding, cutting, book covers, putting on the plastic protective covers, and so on, must be given proper attention, and each part is influenced by my cultivation.
I owe special thanks to the practitioners who contributed so much to the growth and strength of the production center. One provided consumables and helped fix problems; a female practitioner my age made book covers without complaint; a young practitioner helped us all with our computer and mobile phone issues on short notice and with patience; some focused on attaching the book covers without seeing it as a menial job.
The production center was located in my home, but it belonged to the entire local group and to Dafa. Its robust development was a result of all of the fellow practitioners' selfless contributions. They were all indispensable components of the operation, which existed only because of Master’s protection and care.
Weathering Difficult Times
In May 2015, practitioners in our area started to sue Jiang Zemin using their real names. The local police arrested many of us in July. Suddenly, all I heard every day was that someone else was arrested. I was so afraid that I could barely sleep or eat, and my hands kept shaking when I sent righteous thoughts. All I thought about was how to protect myself with ordinary people's means. I knew it was not my true self, but evil interference. However, I was not able to control and suppress the bad thoughts.
Seeing the state of my cultivation, fellow practitioners moved the paper cutter and the printers to other practitioners' homes, leaving me only one smaller printer. They also distributed the consumables. In the following year, I printed pages, carried them to another practitioner's home to cut, and then brought them home to attach the book covers. It took at least half a day, wasting time that could have been better spent saving more people. I knew it was not ideal, but I still harbored fear.
One day a relative said to me, “What are you doing, carrying things back and forth? You are so busy, yet get little done.” The question got my attention and I thought, “It’s true. Why am I doing this? He’d never cared about what I did before—why did he ask me that? It must be that Master is worried about my cultivation state and using an ordinary person to wake me up.”
Master said,
“The Fa can break all attachments, the Fa can destroy all evil, the Fa can shatter all lies, and the Fa can strengthen righteous thoughts.” (“Drive Out Interference,” Essentials for Further Advancement II)
I lacked righteous thoughts because I did not study the Fa enough. So I started to seize every spare moment to study the teachings. I had never read all the Dafa books. This time I managed to read all of them once and some of them twice. The Fa strengthened my righteous thoughts and eliminated the fear in my heart.
In the past, fellow practitioners had reminded me, “The printer and paper cutter are not excuses for persecution. It all depends on where your heart is and how you view it.” I did not agree in the past. Now I truly got the meaning of what Master meant when he said, “Just by staying unaffected you will be able to handle all situations.” (Teaching the Fa at the Conference in the Midwest-U.S.)
Soon my heart became steady and free of fear. I realized that the printer and paper cutter were magical tools that I used to save people, rather than evidence and an excuse for the evil to persecute me. I decided to bring them home and behave like a righteous Dafa practitioner.
Never Withering
Master has exhorted practitioners in China to pay close attention to safety issues. That applies to all aspects of our production center, including the buying of consumables, the printing and making of the materials, transporting them out of my home for distribution, and disposing of the waste. We have to consider the environment, timing, and the people involved.
When new consumables come in, I discard their original packaging and put them in packages for other, ordinary items. Depending on the season, the packages may be for rice, wheat, moon cakes, eggs, and so on. I send large quantities of printing paper in boxes to other places, such as a separate empty house or an unused garage, and bring reams home as needed, so as to avoid unnecessary attention.
We have to pay close attention to the noise of the printers, and the binding process was especially troublesome. If we used a hammer to drive in the binding pins, it was too loud. If we used pliers, our hands would tire very quickly and the quality wouldn't be as good. Eventually, someone thought of a new method: we wrap thick cloth around a piece of marble (barely larger than A4 paper) to use as the base, then we put it on a thick mattress and hammer the binding pins on top of it. That muffles the noise very effectively. If a TV or radio is on, nothing can be heard from outside.
The disposal of our trash was a problem. The cut paper edges were thin and unnoticeable to unsuspecting eyes. But experts would be able to easily discern from the cut edges what was going on. A practitioner in his 80s, who started practicing just a few years ago, takes the waste to the suburbs to burn.
The practitioners in charge of transporting the books and materials have agreed not to bring any mobile phones to the production center. They communicate by email. Those who pick up materials are in contact with each other on a one-on-one basis, and none of them knows more than one other person in the group. I schedule their pickup times separately so that they do not see each other either. They also do not tell other practitioners where the materials come from. We do things this way to protect the production center from potential damage and interference.
In addition to handling matters safely in this dimension, we always send righteous thoughts and clean up our own dimensions before doing major work. We search within when difficulties arise. Our little material production operation has weathered the years and matured. With everyone's care and protection, it has grown deeper roots and become more robust than ever.
