PureInsight | August 9, 2004
[PureInsight.org] Greetings Master. Greetings fellow disciples. My name is B., and I am 15 years old. Today, I am sharing my experiences of clarifying the truth and also representing Pedals of Peace.
"I'd rather save others than think about myself." That was what K., my fellow pedaler, said when asked why she decided to continue on this trip, enduring and sacrificing the comfort of her home. K. is a 16 year-old, a non-practitioner before the ride, but now a diligent practitioner of two months. A pure yet simple reply, but her words were the epiphany of why we went on this trip, the Save the Kids' Ride. We, the Pedals of Peace, rode nine days and 800 miles from Washington D. C. to Chicago with one goal in mind—to clarify the truth on a larger scale.
This project was the opportunity I had been looking for to finally be able to do something for my fellow practitioners suffering in China. When I realized the full potential of this project, how great of an opportunity it was to save sentient beings, I put aside all of my worries, or, in simpler terms, all my attachments, and fully committed to this project.
The preparations proved to be harder than expected, juggling schoolwork, Pedals of Peace, Fa-study, exercises and other miscellaneous affairs. My late nights went later as more and more work was piling onto my shoulders. With my own laziness and procrastination added onto the little effort put in by the other teenagers at the time, my frustration built up into stress. Soon I found myself sacrificing one thing for another, as I sometimes didn't bother doing homework or more importantly, doing the three things that all Dafa disciples should do: studying the Fa, clarifying the truth and sending forth righteous thoughts. I gradually transformed into an everyday person doing Dafa work. My righteous side finally shone through the cloudiness that hindered my cultivation as I re-regulated my Fa-study. Master tells us to look within ourselves to find areas that we need to improve and to always, always study the Fa. Looking inward and realizing my flaws, I was able to alter my mentalities for the benefit of not only myself, but also the project.
Another obstacle that came in our path were all the negative viewpoints about this project. Many people spoke out against the project and the fact that it was carried out by "younger" practitioners, as they, mainly parents, had the notion that teenagers weren't capable of bearing responsibilities and that leaving during school would give a bad impression to sentient beings. In essence, they showed little support and righteousness towards this project, their own beloved children and their fellow practitioners. Many parents chose to prevent their own kids from joining this magnificent opportunity to clarify the truth to so many everyday people, giving an array of excuses ranging from schoolwork to previous commitments. I felt that this was similar to family members holding a Dafa disciple back from going to Tiananmen Square to appeal the persecution in China. In other words, they used any excuse they could think of to mask their own attachments to their children, their inabilities to let them go and their inabilities to see their children as fellow practitioners in this Fa-rectification period. But actually, the parents were challenging our righteousness to step out to save sentient beings.
Naturally, I wanted to speak out for my peers. I wanted to tell their parents that Fa-rectification is fast approaching, and there may not be opportunities like this for us kids to save sentient beings. Master said in the Boston lecture in 2002:
The immense force of the whole Fa-rectification is doing its final work at an even more forceful speed, which transcends all times. Now it's only a little bit away from catching up with the speed of the surface's expansion.
(From "Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Boston") But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this wasn't my issue, and the more I realized that arguing, especially with parents, isn't a good idea, and that it wouldn't solve anything. I learned the wisdom from the Fa of letting go while doing Dafa work, understanding that their involvement was up to their own righteousness to make it happen for themselves, not mine.
One issue that needed to be resolved was getting excused from school for the duration of the ride. Master said that clarifying the truth is:
…like a master key, unlocking that old-force factor that seals the world's people off and prevents them from learning the Fa.
(From "Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Atlanta Fa Conference") So, the first thing I did was to clarify the truth to my father, convincing him to support the project. He in turn, made a few trips to my school and clarified the truth to many of my school's staff, including my principal, but he wasn't able to meet with my grade's administrator, the very person who ultimately had the power to excuse my absences. But I kept up my righteousness and clarified the truth at every difficulty faced, just like Master said in 2002:
Wherever there's a problem, that is where you need to clarify the truth and save people. Don't take a detour when you run into difficulties. When you see something that does us harm, or when you see something blocking our validating the Fa, don't take a detour -- you should face it, and clarify the truth and save those beings.
(From "Teaching the Fa at the D.C. Fa Conference") But even if they didn't excuse me, I was determined to go, despite the risk of losing all my credits, which would have prevented me from moving on to the 11th grade. Persistent, my father and I kept clarifying the truth until it seemed like my whole school knew about my ride except the 10th grade administrator, until my dad finally met with her, during which she made it very clear that the county only allowed 4 days of excused absences, half of what I needed. But through the power of clarifying the truth, and with a little convincing by my supportive principal, she finally excused me for the eight school days I needed, telling us that she excused me just as if she were excusing a student representing the school in a national project or competition.
Next was the issue of the schoolwork I would be missing during the trip. With the Pedals of Peace brochures on hand, I made the effort to clarify the truth to every single one of my teachers, though with the facade of asking for my make up work; actually, I was seizing every moment to clarify the truth to other sentient beings. Many of my friends also learned about the project as their own natural curiosity brought them to the truth. During this stretch of time, I regularly wore my yellow Dafa t-shirt which helped me prompt conversations about Falun Gong and the bike ride. Even the school newspaper decided to interview me and write an article about Falun Gong and the journey. After a while, I was able to fit my bike ride into everyday conversations with my classmates. How simple it is to just say, "Oh yeah, I'm riding my bike to Chicago to raise awareness of the persecution." From the early stages I just knew that this trip would make truth clarification easier. This was only the beginning.
Being the teen coordinator, I found out, basically made me one of the spokespersons for the group, which meant that I would be giving statements and speeches in front of actual people and media. Not long ago, I had just finished public speaking in my English class, and I remembered that I didn't do so well. This was because of my attachments of fear and fame as I was afraid of risking my "image." But I soon realized that this was no coincidence that I just happened to be learning public speaking skills; it was Master's magnificent arrangements all along.
The day before the kickoff I worked feverishly to write up a press statement, trying to implement the arranged skills I learned in class. After completion, I read it over once and thought to myself, "Good enough." The next day rolled up as I soon understood that "Good enough" wasn't good enough. I struggled to give a good presentation as I was forced to look down at my speech more often than I wanted to, oftentimes finding myself reading my paper with my lips, not my compassionate heart. However, instead of looking within myself and correcting my mistake of not being prepared enough, I preoccupied myself with the feeling of relief as I was able to make it through the kickoff alive, not even thinking about the 800-mile commitment ahead.
After a few hours of bike repairs, interviews and photo ops, we finally were off on our long voyage. With our police escorts we rode smoothly, without tribulations, for about 15 minutes. And then it began, "Where is he?" One of our following cars had gotten lost within this short 15 minute period. What seemed like moments after our grand departure, we ran into interference. That's when you know you're doing a righteous Dafa project: when it takes you but 15 minutes to run into interference.
We were set to leave on the real bulk of the journey with one thing to deal with and that was who's riding first? Naturally, with the label of teen coordinator in my head, I had the mentality, "OK let me deal with this," taking out my notepad and grouping people, making the situation much more complicated than needed. The problem came when I thought of myself in a leadership position, above the other riders. Master said, in "Teaching the Fa at the Meeting with Asia-Pacific Students:"
Make sure you don't pose as some kind of leader.
Understanding this, I found my place in the group, revolutionizing my mentality from a control-freak perfectionist to one of the group members. I understood that was wrong as I recognized that in order for this relationship to work, for this project to work, we needed to be one family with everyone equal, we needed to be one body. Tossing my notepad aside I quickly asked for volunteers. Literally every hand shot up. I couldn't help but smile at the sight, as I knew that this trip was going to be grand.
All seemed well as we made it down the dusty trail, but the environment we created with our group separated into the different cars and the cars being separated from the bikers caused problems within our group members. The further we progressed, the more tiresome it was for the adults who were on this trip. Without much time during our pit stops to use the restroom, eat and rest, the adults suffered physically. This, added on to our lack of Fa-study and experience sharing as a group. Thus, disharmony was inevitable. To some degree, we weren't willing to recognize our issues, but after running into many problems as well as a tree, we finally pushed ourselves to get together and lay everything on the table, and to hear out all the complaints. All the parents (adults) really criticized the pedalers' mentalities. They complained that we were playing around in the recreational vehicle, and that they felt cut off from the group. Naturally, I fought back internally, as I did whenever someone complained about me. But instead of blowing up and arguing, I took a step back, assessed the whole situation and actually listened to the essence of their complaints. Some of us really were fooling around, deviating from the sacred mission of clarifying the truth and raising awareness of the persecution. We didn't study the Fa together and our journal entries weren't even started. Our hearts weren't pure and our ride was less solemn than it should have been. We took their words to heart and with the help of an adult practitioner, we were able to regulate a group Fa-study. Even though once in a while we still played around (we are still teenagers), our group discussions happened more often as we talked to each other about this trip and its significance. We truly bonded and melted into one body. Every one of our hearts shone with righteousness and the desire to help our peers in China.
We were faced with riding through a thunderstorm. Driving through the low visibility and wet roads of the heavy rain was hard enough. Just imagine biking through it in the nighttime. Factor in the mud, and the fact that it was nighttime. The parents were bound to protest this option. They argued that it was dangerous, that in the nighttime people didn't see us, and that we should wait until the rain cleared up. But we were determined to ride through the interference because we knew that even if everyday people didn't see us, the rest of the universe was watching. If going on this trip, we expected only to ride in sunshine and with people cheering for us every inch of the way, it would have been like going to Tiananmen Square expecting the Chinese police to escort us and having the pedestrians cheer as we pulled out our banner and shouted, "Falun Dafa Hao." We knew that this voyage was going to be hard, just like every other Dafa project.
When we got into Pittsburg, K. was faced with an early exit due to her previous commitments. Keeping up her righteousness, she worked vigorously, talking for what seemed like hours on the phone to find some way of being able to stay. After much deliberation, she was happy to announce that she was indeed staying. It was great watching K. who, at the time, was still in the process of becoming a practitioner, work so hard to remain a part of this journey, a part of Dafa. She genuinely wanted to raise awareness of the suffering kids in China, and it was her compassion and the good environment we created with our Fa-study that transformed her into such a noble person that even she, herself was surprised to see. Master told us:
Everything Dafa disciples are doing at present is creating the future, and right now everything in the Three Realms exists for Dafa
(From "What Are Supernormal Abilities" in Essentials for Further Advancement II) I witnessed this when we met three teenagers along the journey who, upon hearing about Falun Dafa and the persecution, wanted to join immediately, giving no thought to school work or even their parents' consent. Unfortunately, we weren't able to physically receive them like our hearts already did, due to lack of space.
After a few days, we finally reached Chicago. Through all the doubts and tribulations, we were able to come together as one body and proficiently clarify the truth on a larger scale. This trip matured all of us, not only individually, but also as the youth community among the DC practitioners. More and more adults are finally looking at us as fellow practitioners capable of doing Dafa work as well.
With speaking up for the voiceless children in China in mind, the Pedals of Peace team met two weeks ago and merged our righteous thoughts to organize a Save the Kids Ride during our DC July events. Most of us made a list of our classmates, friends, neighbors and relatives and called upon them one by one. Through clarifying the truth to hem and inviting them with our pure and compassionate hearts, we were touched that so many local children came out and biked for Falun Gong on Thursday, positioning themselves well. On the average, each youth rider in DC successfully invited two ordinary kids and their bikes as well, to join this magnificent event. To my memory, this was the first time we, the little disciples of DC, were formally assigned the task of truth clarification. I want to say that we basically met the challenge.
Through the course of these two events, our ride to Chicago and the ride with the ordinary kids through DC, we realized more of our responsibility in the Fa-rectification period and we learned of our power of truth clarification. I think young disciples' clarifying the truth is very powerful for three reasons. First, kids doing good deeds for others is very rare in our moral declining society today, which sparked a lot of media coverage and people's interest. Secondly, ordinary people face kids with less barriers and young disciples generally have less notions than adult practitioners. Lastly, persecution of children for whatever reason is totally unacceptable in any society.
We are thankful that the adult practitioners in DC had enough faith in us to give us this precious opportunity to step out once again and clarify the truth to sentient beings while cultivating through this Fa-rectification period. My only regret, if any, through these experiences is not being able to include every single little disciple. Master keeps telling us what little time we have and how urgent it is for us to be clarifying the truth at every opportunity we come across. This experience has paved the road, built a foundation for other practitioners to develop from. I can only hope that those who weren't so fortunate to be a part of these experiences can realize the importance of seizing every opportunity in this Fa-rectification period to save sentient beings.
I would like to conclude with Master's poem, "Hurry Up and Tell Them."
As Dafa disciples tell people the facts,
It's like sharp swords shooting out together from their mouths,
Shredding apart the rotten demons' lies.
Lose no time and save them, hurry up and tell them.
