PureInsight | August 9, 2004
[PureInsight.org] My name is M. I study Computer Science at Harvey Mudd College in Southern California. I want to share a bit about my experience cultivating and clarifying the truth at school.
My college is one of five adjacent undergraduate colleges, each with separate student bodies and academic focuses that form a university system, with a total student population of about 5,000. It is fortunate that there are two other practitioners at the university. I want to share some of the things we've done together to make our schools' environment better, as well as some cultivation issues that have arisen from being at school.
Last year, for nearly a whole semester, we set up a table outside a different dining hall every Thursday night. All we had to do was tell each dining hall manager what we wanted to do that night, and ask for a table and a couple of chairs. Everyone was helpful once we clarified the truth to them. Most students eat at the dining halls, and our goal is to allow everyone at school to learn about Dafa. To catch people's attention, we draped a big yellow "Free Charles Lee" signature cloth across the table. Many people stopped to talk to us, take a flyer, sign the cloth, or sign our "Free Charles Lee" petition. By sending a petition, they would be showing their support for Dafa. This allows for the accumulation a great amount of virtue so that they will have a bright future. Even if they don't sign, at least they have the opportunity to learn that Falun Dafa is good. After collecting 34 pages of signatures, we went into the office of our US Congressional representative and presented all the petitions to his aide, who was very impressed. We'd visited him several times, and he eagerly took materials such as the Compassion magazine, practice site flyer, and VCD.
Another thing we've done, that seemed very simple, is to have an outdoor practice site, because having a practice site is one way Teacher arranged for people to obtain the Fa. We have seven practice sites a week. Monday through Friday we practice out on the lawn in the morning before class. We also have a practice site twice a week in the afternoon, so that people who sleep late can still see us and come to learn. We have a big sign so that everyone can see that it's Falun Gong. A man from the community and one of my professors has recently begun to regularly attend the afternoon practices. Teacher said, in "Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Europe," "I think people with predestined relationships will want to learn [the Fa] once they hear about it."
Having a regular practice site also keeps me motivated and diligent. One day, an employee at my dining hall told me that he had been watching us practice for a year, and had always wanted to learn, but was too shy to ask. He starts work at 7 a.m., so I told him we could meet at 5:30 a.m. the next morning to teach him the exercises. He liked it so much that he wanted to come every day. We changed our practice site time to begin at 5:30 a.m. Monday through Friday. Sometimes when my alarm goes off at five, I feel lazy and don't want to get out of bed. But then I realize: "This new practitioner is already awake. He got on a bus at 4:30 just so he could arrive on time, whereas I just have to step out of my dormitory." No matter how I feel when I wake up, I know I have a responsibility to spread the Fa, set a good example, and establish the path for practitioners in the future.
Everyday we make a point of studying the Fa. Teacher told us in "Lecturing On and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference," "No matter how busy you are or how many things you have to do, you can't neglect your own Fa study and cultivation. It's the fundamental guarantee that you will be able to do things related to validating the Fa well. It's also a guarantee that you'll be able to make it to the last step. Many, many things appear ordinary, but infinitely wonderful and magnificent special honors are all contained in there."
After our morning practice, the new practitioner goes to work, and another practitioner and I often have breakfast together and then read some of Teacher's new lectures. By the time class begins, we have already practiced and studied Fa for many hours, and are ready to begin the day. I also try to read one lecture of Zhuan Falun every day. If I'm really busy and don't have any time, I still read a few sections before I go to bed, even if it's already two in the morning. The new practitioner who comes in the morning doesn't speak English very well, so I ordered two copies of China Falun Gong in Spanish and I try to read with him a little bit every day, even if we only have time for a few pages, because I feel this is the best way to encourage him.
Another thing we do is pick up and deliver a newspaper to our school library, local Asian Markets, and nearby Chinese restaurants. Many Chinese people have been poisoned by lies from the Chinese media. Only by reading a righteous newspaper can they learn the truth about Dafa and thereby avoid being weeded out when the Fa rectifies the human world. We have already had a good effect on the local Chinese community. Many Chinese students and professors at our school now read the newspaper. One time we were late delivering it to the local Asian Market, and there was an elderly Chinese man standing there patiently waiting for us. The employees of all the local Chinese restaurants know us, too. Our community is very spread out, so to deliver the paper we usually spend over three hours driving, and during that time one of us will read Teacher's scriptures aloud in the car, so that we can make the best use of our time for Fa study.
Another simple way to spread the Fa is to host workshops. To make the arrangements, I go to the school's facilities and maintenance department office to reserve a space. One time, after clarifying the truth to the secretary, she expressed interest in attending. Since we are conducting a workshop we can put up posters all over the school and the city to advertise. Hundreds of people see them. On the workshop posters, we write a description of Dafa and have pictures so that people who don't come can at least learn about it so that in the future they will have another opportunity. Many people do come to the workshops, and one time the local newspaper covered the story. The journalist interviewed me and decided to write a feature article about Dafa, in which she discussed the many benefits of Dafa and the evilness of the persecution. Thousands of people read the newspaper every week, and they all learned the good news.
Through these efforts, many people at our school and community now know what Dafa is. The last time we held a table at a dining hall, the majority of the students who came by already knew about Falun Gong. Often, I'll run into someone I've never met before and they'll say, "Hey, you're the Falun Gong guy, aren't you?" Like Teacher says in Zhuan Falun, "Everyone knows that this person does qigong practice. People in his workplace know it, and it is known throughout the neighborhood as well as by those who live next door." I feel it is very good for everyone to know Dafa practitioners, and it also motivates me to maintain a high level of conduct and raise my xinxing so that others will tell their friends, "Look how well Falun Gong practitioners behave." When people see us behaving well, they also want to behave well. This helps society and allows more people to have a positive image of Dafa.
Another project that we worked on was getting the student councils at our schools to sign resolutions supporting Falun Gong and condemning the persecution. We have tried several times, but have not been as successful as we had hoped. I want to talk about what we did well and how we could have done better.
First, the reason we wanted to have our student governments sign resolutions is that we feel it is really good for them. Teacher said in "Teaching the Fa at the Western U.S. Fa Conference in October 2000" "I'd also like to take this opportunity to really thank the various levels of government in the United States and Canada for the honors they've bestowed upon us and upon me. Under this special circumstance, I can't thank them individually, but I will bring them a wonderful future. On the surface, we're seeking support for Dafa from the world's people. This is the thinking of the worldly human side, manifest in this human place. Yet it's reversed on the other side. Whoever supports Dafa or advocates for Dafa is establishing for himself his being's existence in the future and is laying a foundation for obtaining the Fa in the future."
In my understanding, since the student councils represent all the students at the school, they also represent a large number of beings. If they have a good attitude towards Dafa, it can align everyone they are responsible for with Dafa and the Fa-principles.
We began by going online to find the names and email addresses of the student body presidents at each school. After sending righteous thoughts, we wrote them each an email explaining what Falun Gong is, the persecution, and that we wanted to speak at their next meeting about a resolution. We kept the emails brief because people are sometimes impatient, but we also made sure to clarify the truth, so that whether they responded or not they could at least learn about Dafa.
We were invited to speak at the student council meetings for three of the schools over the course of a few weeks. In one case, the student council had more than 30 people in an auditorium. Many of them had not heard much about Falun Gong before. After sending righteous thoughts outside, I went in and spoke. They asked a lot of questions, and they said they would put the resolution on their agenda for next week. Afterwards, I felt the meeting went pretty well, but a week later, they voted the resolution down. They said that even though what we were doing seemed good, they didn't want to get involved in a political issue. The student councils from the other two schools later rejected the resolution for the same reason. I felt upset, "But we told them Falun Gong isn't political!" Later, I realized that this was due to a gap in my own understanding. How confident was I that Dafa is not political? I realized that ever since the start of my cultivation, there has been a gap in my understanding on this issue. It has taken me a long time to realize how Dafa's appeals and interactions with politicians are different from ordinary people's politics. Ordinary people do things out of self-interest, whereas we do them to save beings. From the student resolutions to the Congressional resolutions, they are all done for others. This is not a political issue because only evil people support the persecution; thus, politicians' constituents will support them for speaking out against the persecution. In retrospect, I could have done a better job of explaining to the student councils that Falun Gong practitioners are not asking for money, economic sanctions, or a change in leadership in China. We are simply asking that they return to us our most basic right as human beings: to live peacefully and practice our beliefs. This is not politics, and as a university we need to support freedom of belief. They might have thought that there wasn't enough student support for the resolution. Looking back, we should have brought the big yellow "Free Charles Lee" banner and the hundreds of student signatures to the meeting. In the future, if they do finally pass a resolution, we will send it to all levels of the American government, because this has the effect of showing our elected officials the powerful support for Dafa. During the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War, American university students played a key role in social change, and politicians recognize this. On the other hand, I feel our success is not measured by whether they pass a resolution or not, but by whether they have good thoughts about Dafa. I feel the depth of our understanding is the determining factor.
Now I want to share an experience related to schoolwork. Sometimes I find being at school very difficult. My classes are quite demanding, and I frequently feel like I spend the entire day doing homework, even on the weekends. Sometimes I feel depressed, like I spend too much time doing ordinary work instead of clarifying the truth. Many attachments come up. Sometimes I look at other practitioners who are students and think, "Their school is so much less demanding than mine! Why can't my school be a little easier? Maybe I should drop out or transfer to an easier school so I can have more time to clarify the truth." Actually, these are the attachments of jealousy and laziness. When my thinking is this way, the old forces take advantage of my gaps and make my work take even longer. Teacher put me at my school for a reason, and I need to do well on the path he arranged for me. If no one works hard at school in the future, will that be human society? I need to be less selfish and blaze the proper path for the future.
One of the major problems that I have is being attached to doing my homework. When I get back from class I sometimes immediately start my homework, without sitting down to read Zhuan Falun, because I'm afraid that I won't have enough time. By midnight, the whole day has gone by, and I haven't spent even one minute clarifying the truth. What about the three things Dafa disciples are supposed to do? When it goes on like this for days, it also weakens my righteous thoughts, because I am too engrossed in human things.
I have to stop and think, "Why do I do my homework?" The reason I should do my homework, and do it well, is because it validates the Fa at the human level, and establishes a path for the future people cultivating in Dafa while conforming maximally to society. It is not to validate myself. A diligent Dafa disciple should be able to do his work much faster than an ordinary person. Teacher said in "Explaining the Fa during the 2003 Lantern Festival," "Studying the Fa well definitely won't affect anything of yours in your cultivation, and on the contrary, it will help you get twice the results at your job or with your schoolwork with half the effort." I have realized that problems arise precisely when I do homework out of human interest and without having the Fa in my heart. Teacher says in Zhuan Falun, "What's not a right mind? It refers to a person's inability to always treat himself as a practitioner." No matter what I'm doing, be it homework, sitting in class, or eating a meal, I have to keep in mind who I am and what I came here for. When I am truly in this state, everything is smooth, and I am able to balance everything.
I hope that my sharing can encourage everyone to do even better. Please point out any attachments or gaps in my understanding. Thank you all.
