PureInsight | February 7, 2003
[PureInsight.org] When our aircraft unexpectedly landed in Calgary on our way to Thailand, no one knew what to expect. We only knew there were two unidentified bags aboard our plane that had to be taken off. Before landing we had to get rid of our fuel so we could land. When we finally landed we were on the ground almost 5 hours inside the aircraft, unable to do anything but wait – what a perfect opportunity to clarify the truth. There was a Chinese lady who was a U.S. citizen sitting behind me. She was highly educated and knew about Falun Dafa and that we were good people. I explained more about the persecution and about the practice. She was very kind. The Chinese man next to her didn't know about Falun Dafa and neither did a man sitting across from us from Thailand. Nothing happens by accident. It ended up they overnighted us in Calgary, thereby arriving Thailand a day late, missing the first day of our tour. (Good lesson in forbearance!)
We caught up with our tour and throughout our time in Bangkok I tried to talk to as many people on our tour as I could about Falun Dafa. I was amazed how open and receptive all these Americans were. Given that Thailand is 98% Buddhist, these Americans seemed very educated about the ways of Buddhism, which made it easy to explain our practice to them. Early one morning about 8 of us got up to go experience the Thai people doing their Tai Chi and other exercises in a famous park in downtown Bangkok. I had talked to most of these people ahead of time about Falun Dafa. I was really looking forward to this as I found out from the Internet that Falun Dafa practitioners practice there every morning. When we got there we looked all around and could not find them. Our tour director, who is Thai, asked some locals if they knew where they practiced. He was told that Falun Dafa doesn't practice here. I was disappointed but then one of our tour members asked if I would teach some of the Qigong exercises I knew. I asked our tour director and he thought that would be great. I got to teach all of them the exercises, which they seemed to like and thanked me afterwards. Again, nothing is by accident. Two people in that group said when they got back home they were definitely going to find practice sites to start practicing. It's amazing how perfectly everything turns out when you let things flow.
When we were in the mountains of Thailand one of the ladies on our bus had lost her conversion table for finding out what Thai money was worth compared to U.S. money. I immediately took out a Falun Dafa bookmark and wrote out a little conversion chart for her. Before I gave it to her I told her a little about Falun Dafa and then I handed the bookmark to her. I watched her closely as she was looking at it in her seat. She kept turning it over and reading and looking at it for the longest time, like she was trying to digest what this was. I was happy that every time she looked at the conversion chart she would see truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.
There were many opportunities to clarify the truth in Thailand. I hope I didn't miss too many that were presented to me. The Thai people are very warm-hearted and spiritual people. Their spiritual life is very important to them. I'm so grateful Master gave me these opportunities to clarify the truth to these precious people.
Sometimes it's difficult to keep up with Fa study and practice when on a trip. I did well in some aspects but not so well in others. I would get up in the middle of every night to do my meditation. Most of the time I got my studies in, either by listening to the lecture series on my CD player, or by reading my pocket version of Zhuan Falun. What I was not diligent in was sending forth righteous thoughts. I figured out the times just fine but it was very difficult to send forth concentrated righteous thoughts when we were so active and busy. Consequently, when my husband caught a cold, I got it afterwards. I didn't feel that bad but had a terrible cough that was hard to stop once it started. The evil forces had found a loophole through my not being diligent. It wasn't until I got home when I could really send forth concentrated righteous thoughts that the cough immediately went away.
It was interesting at one point on our trip when we were in the Golden Triangle area where Burma, Laos and Thailand come together. Our guide said we were only 210 miles from China. I was a little taken aback. I thought about my fellow practitioners who are being tortured and killed so close and there was nothing I could do about it. It was kind of an eerie feeling, being that close to China.
It seems you never know for what reason you are drawn to do something. I have come to the conclusion that whatever happens, I should not try to fight it, even though it's not what I expected, but turn it into a positive in spreading Dafa as the situation allows.
