Bulgarian Practitioner: Clarifying the Truth During the Pandemic

(Minghui.org) After the pandemic spread around the world, an important issue for me became how best to clarify the truth about Falun Dafa in such circumstances. What should I do?

It occurred to me that when people are isolated, they may spend more time online. There are a lot of films that tell people about Dafa and the persecution in China, one being the documentary “Hard to Believe.” I figured that during this pandemic period, it would be good to pay for the promotion of the film on Facebook so that it would get more views. But I thought that was not enough – I had to come up with a good text to present the film to people.

As a Falun Dafa practitioner, it is essential for me to be one with Dafa in my actions, thoughts, and everyday life. Following Dafa, I began to give up many of my attachments, such as desires to control, manipulate, and enforce. I thought the text which presents the film should be authentic and unobtrusive, so I wrote the following: “A film based on real events! It deserves your attention! You will not hear this news in any world media. Why? See for yourself – learn about the situation as a whole.” Тhe film thus reached 60,000 views in two weeks and received over 1,300 shares on Facebook, and over 1,600 likes. That’s how the spring went.

I became pregnant at the beginning of the summer. Тhe pregnancy was not easy. I couldn’t do my housework, nor could I work and make money for my family. I also could not help with human rights petitions. All of this made me feel down. Аt the time, every week there were human rights petitions in our capital of Sofia. In other cities in Bulgaria, they have also gained momentum, and there are often petitions throughout the country.

I began to recall from Zhuan Falun that as a practitioner, I should follow the natural course of events. It helped me accept my situation and remove the attachments that helped make me feel down. It also became important for me to have good cooperation for better teamwork. My understanding of what Master says is that as a practitioner I have to work well on a team with others. So I started working even harder on myself to achieve this standard – good teamwork.

I started getting involved in projects with other practitioners. One of the projects in which I participated is the festival “Hello, health,” which promotes different practices, healthy food, handmade items, etc. I told the coordinator that I could contact the media from home so that they could cover our upcoming participation. He approved my proposal.

I found practitioners to write an article and then sent it to the coordinator for approval. Then I started sending it to the relevant media. This collaboration between practitioners and the media helped me to think first about others when taking action, as Master teaches in Zhuan Falun. Later I started to get involved in the cities where the festival took place. I went to Vidin with other practitioners, and the event went very well.

Afterwards, I thought about doing more: distributing information about Falun Dafa on regional TV stations, informing the public about the practice and the exercises, and raising awareness about the persecution. With good teamwork with other practitioners from all over Bulgaria, we organized interviews with five regional television stations in different cities in a month and a half. Our work at this stage yielded a minimum of 80,000 views, plus those from Facebook.

As December 10 – World Human Rights Day – approached, I thought it was a good idea to broadcast the film “Hard To Believe” on regional TV stations in Bulgaria on that day. I turned to the film coordinator, and he welcomed the idea. I found practitioners to write an article about the film from the producers’ initial information. We formed a team for this project and communicated well. I worked all day to find the contacts of directors and editors-in-chief of TV stations. After a week of work, the article was ready.

When I received it, I started talking to the TV stations about broadcasting the film. It took me two or three days. With good teamwork, we convinced 12 regional TV stations to broadcast the film on December 10. Talks about the film opened new doors for more TV stations in new cities where we could air information about Falun Dafa in the future.

Around December 10, “Hard to Believe” received at least 180,000 views, along with those from Facebook. The TV stations showed reruns of the film over the next two weeks. Since the spring of 2020, the film has had at least 280,000 views on television and Facebook. Meanwhile, other practitioners worked to distribute the film “In the Name of Confucius” on Facebook – it is also a good film to clarify the truth, and in my opinion it’s worth the effort to promote.

I learned that when a video is shared from YouTube on Facebook and then promoted, its views are many times lower. If I upload a video directly to Facebook for paid promotion, it will generate many more views. It makes me think that there may be some censorship on YouTube, though I haven’t confirmed this.

Many practitioners came to the Chinese Embassy in Sofia on December 10 for a peaceful protest. We made a video report to send to the regional television stations. Several stations broadcast our event on the news, and one included us live after I invited their reporter to cover the event.

From everything that has happened, I really appreciate that I developed more virtues. The important thing is that we were able to explain the truth in a good way during such a pandemic. Of course we can do even better going forward.

Thank you for this opportunity to share my experience and the happiness of doing good work with other Falun Dafa practitioners.