PureInsight | November 3, 2003
[PureInsight.org] Greetings venerable Master and greetings to all of my real brothers and sisters.
I wrote this paper because I felt that what I have to share might be able to help others. I must apologize in advance that this was written at the last moment, so please excuse any illogical chain of thought.
I want to first share a story of about the effects of complacency. Then, I want to describe my most recent project and how it clarifies the truth to even more people.
From September 24th to the 27th a few practitioners, my wife, and I exhibited a booth at the Congressional Black Caucus Conference in Washington DC. This is an enormous Conference where all of the African American Congressmen get together to discuss issues that mainly concern African Americans. Most importantly, it was an opportunity to display and introduce Falun Gong, meet and discuss the persecution with many VIP's about in an open environment. The results were absolutely incredible. At times people crowded our booth to the point that we could not effectively handle all of the people interested in learning about Falun Gong.
When we desperately needed more posters, a few practitioners worked through the night to prepare a beautiful poster featuring the image of Rosa Parks. For those who do not know Rosa Parks, she is the woman who started the civil rights movement in America by "breaking the law." In short, she refused to give up her seat in the bus she was riding to a white person and move to the back of the bus. The poster that was created caught the eye and the interest of chief employees of the Rosa Parks Foundation. They were so moved by her Chinese-American counterpart that they vowed to provide support however they can.
Our work in this conference (although sometimes physically tiring) seemed to be effortless. Everyone wanted and/or accepted information about Falun Gong, including the congressmen who passed by our booth. The Fa was doing all of the work.
I went to walk around the exhibit hall to see what other VIP's I could find when I ran into a very good friend of mine who also happens to be a very influential person in both the political and commercial world. We met in front of the booth of one of the participating vendors. We both stopped to talk to each other. We just happened to be within close listening distance of the owner of this particular exhibit booth.
Anyway, my friend was so surprised that I was practicing Falun Gong that she immediately introduced me to her VIP friend. We all started talking about the benefits of Falun Gong. Being aware that other people in the immediate area are usually listening to my speech, I increased the volume of my voice. I now realize that I was doing just that, just giving a speech. My heart was not in it at all. And why not? Master Li had been performing miracles all day long by sending important people to our booth and having them walk away wanting even more information! I was becoming arrogant and complacent.
So you can imagine my shock and horror when the owner of the nearby booth said in a loud tone of voice, "He is one from the cult group that bombed a train." I finally regained my senses after trying to figure out her train reference. I turned to quickly clarify the truth to her in front of my friends. When the woman refused to even accept my VCD or truth clarifying information, my friends began to laugh at both the situation and me. I quickly realized that the evil had taken advantage of my gaps. My first thought was to walk away from the area to try to reduce the damage to the Fa that could be done. But then I thought about all of the sentient beings that could be lost because of the poison that this woman was spreading.
Even though my influential friend was still with me, I focused my attention and all of the energy that I had back on the woman shouting the slander. With the purest heart that can recall ever having, I insisted that she listen to me and listen to every word that I had to say. I went on to tell her the truth of the persecution and that how every slanderous word she spoke was very dangerous. I was very forceful but very compassionate. She then willingly agreed to take the VCD and information and she then shook my hand acknowledging her new understanding.
I then suddenly had a fear. The conversation that I just had with this woman was not one that should really be shared by casual observers, including my friends. I do not like being in the position of having to defend Dafa. Additionally, when I become very focused or excited, my voice will sometimes increase in volume.
I was afraid to turn around. I was afraid that if I did I was going to see a crowd of people behind me waiting to see my face. To my surprise, I had quite a different experience. It was as if all time had stopped. No one had noticed me at all! Even my friends had not heard, or even, paid attention to a word that I had said to the woman in the booth. The only thing that my friends noticed was that the woman accepted the information that I had. It was then I had learned the power of a pure heart. Master Li wanted no one to see or hear my exchange of words with this woman. More importantly, I learned the destructive power of arrogance and complacency.
Now I would like to describe my current project. It is a little complex so please bear with me while I try to describe it.
Part 1 begins when my wife had started to work on a project to enable us to place an exhibit into the National Holocaust Museum for the display of the persecution of Falun Gong. She knew that an exhibit in this museum would gain instant recognition with not only the Jewish community, but also in political circles. This project was soon to be briefly derailed as it was determined that the exhibit policy of the National Holocaust Museum was to create a challenge.
The policy stated that in order to have an exhibit in the museum there must be a solid connection to the holocaust of WWII. This was certainly a challenge as the holocaust happened in 1942 and Falun Gong was introduced to the public in 1992 – 50 years later. I had no idea of any possible connection.
To begin my search for a connection, I spoke with my father. He vaguely recalled that China accepted refugees from Germany. Upon further research it was even more a grand situation than I could have imagined. The cities of Shanghai and Nanjing were the only two cities in the world that accepted the Jewish people without having to have a visa to enter the country. This unselfish action by the Chinese authorities saved the lives of thousands of Jewish people. Even more, these lives were spared at a time when the Japanese were persecuting the Chinese. You may have heard of the Nanjing Massacre. In this horrific event, over 300,000 Chinese lives were taken for no reason other than hatred and of course the cosmic arrangement of that time.
Although there were some incidents of some minor Jewish persecution, the lives were nonetheless spared. To this day there is a thriving Jewish community in Shanghai to the point that tours are even given. There are even famous Jewish people that came from this community to include the famous artist Peter Max and some U.S. cabinet-level officials.
While thinking about how we could get into the National Holocaust Museum, I started thinking even bigger. My mind started thinking about arranging meetings with Colin Powell and President Bush, as this has not yet been done deliberately and successfully. But how could this be done? I remembered Master's quote from Lunyu – "if human beings are able to take a fresh look at themselves as well as the universe, humankind will make a leap forward".
Well, it is time to make a leap forward.
I researched further and discovered that one of the most powerful lobbying firms in America is called AIPAC. That is the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. This is the lobbying firm that gets the billions of defense dollars for Israel. It was told to me that if you are a senator or a congressman and you receive a phone call from AIPAC you are doing one of two things a.) "jumping for joy" or b.) "shaking in your boots". One other quick anecdote that describes AIPAC's political ability is that they recently had a conference. The guest speakers in that conference were Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, the Senate Majority Leader, the Senate Minority leader, the Speaker of the House and the House Minority leader. It is impossible to get any one of these people to speak for you – they had all six. In short AIPAC has a lot of political power.
I was also told that if AIPAC simply makes a phone call on our behalf, a meeting with Bush or Powell would be virtually guaranteed.
I then thought that we should clarify the truth to AIPAC. But how? The answer to this question is the thread that binds everything that I have been talking about. Clarify the truth to the entire Jewish community! But how do we do THAT?
The answer to that became simple. I mentioned before that Shanghai saved the lives of thousands of Jews. Many Jewish businesses are thriving in China today because Shanghai opened its doors and its heart 50 years ago. Simply point out to the Jewish community that there is currently genocide going on under the nose of those whose relative's lives were spared an almost certain death.
I have already clarified the truth to many politicians and people in the Jewish community and received support and specific contacts to reach AIPAC. But I have not used these contacts yet. I must remember that the main goal is not simply to meet with Bush and Powell it is to clarify the truth to as many people as possible. So for now, I will continue approaching the thousands of Jewish organizations and temples.
As for the presentation in the National Holocaust Museum, the connection could not be clearer between Falun Gong and the WWII holocaust. The only thing that would make it even better is to find a Falun Gong Practitioner alive today that actually assisted in the "underground railroad" that saved the lives of thousands of Jewish people.
That is all I have to say about this project specifically and if anyone is interested in helping me, all you have to do is contact me.
My whole point in telling you about this project is that it is all right to find unconventional methods to accomplish our tasks. In other words (using my favorite metaphor) going through the front door is fine, but to get total coverage maybe we must also use the back door and all of the windows.
