PureInsight | April 30, 2006
[PureInsight.org] (Geneva Fahui 2006)
My name is T. and I am a Falun Gong practitioner living in Germany.
Three years ago, I moved to Germany by reason of marriage and started
to take language courses here. I happened to meet a Falun Gong
practitioner in my class and came to know more about Falun Gong from
practitioners. I was quite impressed by the solemn of Fa during our
conversation. Later I finished the book Zhuan Falun and decided to cultivate in Falun Gong.
At the beginning of my practice, I suffered many tribulations due to
insufficient Fa study and my arrogance. Step by step, I realised that
it is extremely important to study the Fa regularly. To ensure a clear
mind during the Fa rectification, I choose to study at least one talk
of Zhuan Falun
every day these days. Occasionally, when I slack off, I feel the
pressure is too enormous to deal with, and I become indifferent even to
the serious persecution happening in China. As time goes on, I
understand more about the responsibility of saving sentient beings, and
I am ashamed if I ignore studying the Fa.
I would like to share with you on my experiences in holding "Truth
Compassion Tolerance" painting exhibition in the city of Cham.
Difficulty in finding a suitable premise has not been a problem for us.
Because we have learnt how to break through the interference by explain
the persecution to people to clear the evil elements. This is how we
experienced during exhibition in the Holiday Inn of Passau.
The preparation work is, in my personal point of view, for us to
validate the Fa. For instance, the delivery of paintings needs a lot of
work and we have experienced some interference. Hardly had we delivered
the paintings to a new practitioner's home when she felt a great pain
in her back, seeming like she was being beaten violently with a
baseball bat. Every little movement might result in huge pain bringing
her to tears. Under this circumstance, we decided to sit together and
study the Fa. Soon the pain was released and she felt much better, and
this experience made her understand the meaning of validating the Fa
more.
Promoting the exhibition has been very memorable for me. The weather
seems to be always bad when we tried to put the posters on the walls.
Clouds and rain lasted for two weeks. Every time I was going to ride my
bicycle to put up the posters, I was stopped by the thunderstorm. I
could tell the pressure was accumulating in my mind. Finally I thought
that the evil would not retreat or just vanish unless I took action. I
put the posters and leaflets into my waterproof bag, dressed in my
raincoat and determined to promote the exhibition. The rain stopped
after I put several posters on the wall in several places.
One week before the exhibition, I was offered a temporary job to
distribute the newspaper. So I put both the paper and our exhibition
leaflets into the letter boxes. It sounds like a piece of cake, but it
took much more physical effort than it appeared. To make it worse, I
was still deeply puzzled by the less-than-indifferent attitude of the
newspaper's head officer who would not allow us put our advertisement
in the newspaper. I was so sad to feel that the paper appeared to be of
no value. I felt that all the sentient beings were disappointed with me
because of my failure. Later I decided to go back to the newspaper
office to explain the persecution and the exhibition. Later the
reporters understood my feeling and published a short notice in the
paper. I could not help my tears when I saw the editors turned a blind
eye to the persecution. When I looked back I realised that I could have
done much better if I could look at the whole issue from the viewpoint
of saving sentient beings instead of imposing my feelings on the
reporters because of the persecution. The whole experience also made me
understand that when we are trapped in our notions, the rescue effort
can be very difficult. However, if we can let go of the attachments we
will view things very differently.
We made some paper lotus gifts tied with a bookmark by hand. When we
put on the posters in the city centre, we gave them to people who were
interested. They were very excited and some hung the lotus up in their
shops as decoration. I told them that the lotus contains good and kind
information, and I left some leaflets about Falun Gong in the shops. I
remembered master wrote in his poems that for millions of years, people
have been waiting for the Fa to be spread in human society, and I
supposed some were expecting this opportunity to show their support to
Falun Gong. Considering this, I tried my best to give more posters to
the shop owners I met. Sometimes before I started to say anything they
showed great pleasure in helping me. Sometimes I met people who
accepted the posters but were not very keen to put them up. I always
spent more times there and explained the exhibition, the persecution
and Falun Gong. Most of them eventually showed their support and I also
tried to clear the field with my positive energy field.
It is a time-consuming task to put a lot of posters around and help was
needed from other practitioners. Through sharing we were more
determined to make the exhibition a success. Every one of us tried to
spread and promote the exhibition in our own ways. We also reached the
understanding that the exhibition is still at the beginning stage in
Germany and Europe, and our work and experience can help practitioners
in other European countries to achieve more and better effects. We also
asked for righteous thoughts and support from other practitioners via
email. When I received their replies, immediately I felt much pressure
disappeared.
To lead the people with predestined relationships to the righteous law,
I spent one night in finding out the information regarding television,
radio, mainstream media and magazines, and sent them the invitation
with my righteous thoughts. I also contacted the reporters working in
television whom I knew before. Although the editors decided not to
report our exhibition, the reporters in his team appreciated the
information I provided for them. Considering their busy work, I sent
email to explain the value and importance of the exhibition one week
before the official opening.
I chose the following methods to build up the contact with the media.
Whenever I obtained the latest news of Falun Gong, I sent emails to
inform them and visit them to talk face to face with printed materials.
Thus I received reasonable responses; several reports about Falun Gong
have been published with good depth. I always cleared the field with
righteous thoughts when talking with the reporters. With my appearance
the reporters could feel the importance of the meeting, and we could
talk more. If we put our foot on their boots, we could understand that
they would receive overwhelming emails every day and it would be
difficult for them to notice Falun Gong. However, they would be
affected by our righteous thought when we meet them and talked with
them. Although I felt that the space made by old forces has not yet
been cleared, and they were a bit numb on the persecution and Falun
Gong, our consistent explanation could give them more opportunities to
understand.
The exhibition was reported by both local media and newspapers in the
area. We sent a lot of invitation letters to the city council. I have
come to know the people of different departments in the council for a
while during applications for Falun Gong activities before. I myself
delivered the letters. Cooperating with a local human rights
organisation, we found out a good time to meet the mayor and handed the
invitation letter to him after explaining the whole situation of the
exhibition. The mayor turned up in the opening ceremony and made a
speech. I felt that every invitation letter played a important role to
clear the barriers in people's minds. Although some officials we
invited did not come, I feel, step by step, we could do better.
To maximise the positive impact, it is very important to give the
people a good guide. Before the exhibition, I held a biased opinion
that people will appreciate the paintings as long as they came to look
at them. Nevertheless, very often that was not the case in reality. We
later realised that we should explain and help people understand the
aim or meaning behind the paintings. I could not hold my tears when I
saw and heard the explanations guided by other practitioners.
Once I noticed that a couple came in, spent about 10 minutes walking
around and then were about to leave. I was quite confused when I spoke
to them and found they were almost not touched by our paintings at all,
and they still did not understand what Falun Gong is despite having our
leaflets and papers at hand. All at a sudden I realised the importance
of the guide. So I tried to guide them to the paintings again and tried
my best to explain and communicate with them. Things changed
significantly and they expressed their opinions regarding the paintings
which I felt very helpful. I also felt that my understanding of the Fa
has also been improved in the conversation.
The painting "Promise" contains the pictures of Dafa disciples in
heaven, which made me feel so pure and close. Although we understand
that we made promises and covenants with Master to behave righteously
in the Fa rectification, how can I explain it to the ordinary people?
So I decided to explain it as a legend or fairytale. I told them that
many immortals and fairies came from heaven to earth. Before they left
heaven they made covenant/promises. As a Falun Gong practitioner, I
understood that the covenant is to spread the law of truth, compassion
and forbearance, namely spread Dafa. Eventually, with the turning of
the law wheel, practitioners can return to the original beautiful
places where they came from. This painting depicts that scene of making
covenants. The lady was deeply moved and said, the unclean river looks
like the mundane world; once they come down, it will be very hard not
to be affected by the unclean. She mentioned she had suffered a lot in
her life. I told her, "We are in this mundane world and suffering, but
that is not our destination. The reason we suffer is to pay back our
karma and can finally find the righteous path to return our original
self." Her eyes was shining when she heard that, and she immediately
showed strong interest in Falun Gong and asked me if she could borrow a
book from me. So I lent her a copy of China Falun Gong. In the guest book, she wrote that she appreciated our talk and conveyed her best wishes to Falun Gong and practitioners.
We received a lot of help from some kind people at the end of the
exhibition. A man who attended nine days class came to the exhibition
and deeply impressed. He said he felt he was almost pulled up by a
force when he stood in front the statue of Master Buddha, and he almost
lost his balance. He kept murmuring, strong energy, really strong
energy. After the exhibition, he promised to lend us his van for free
for the painting delivery for another exhibition in Passau. I heard the
news that he was sent to hospital just one day before the exhibition
and I was so worried about the exhibition. Thanks to the help from
other practitioners, we rented another van and delivered the paintings
on time. Later I found out that the driver was not ill at all, but was
sent to hospital due to a mistake of his doctor. Obviously all these
were caused by interference, and I found out my attachment when I
looked inward. I actually did not take the exhibition in other cities
so seriously as in the city where I lived. That was due to my
selfishness and lack of compassion. I also realized that evil will
never miss any opportunity to interfere if we have loophole, but with
righteous thought and by studying the Fa, we can rectify a lot of
things around us.
In a word, by participating and organizing the exhibition, we all
learnt a lot from our experiences. We purified ourselves and provided
opportunities to save sentient beings.
The ‘Truth, Compassion Forbearance" painting exhibition is an important
issue in the Fa rectification period. My understanding is, it happened
when the time came. The paintings will not only rectify art, but also
give people opportunities to understand the Fa. We, practitioners
should cooperate with the arrangement and try our best to make it a
success, and the path will be wider and wider with our righteous
actions.
Thank you for your listening my sharing on holding the exhibition in
Kamu, and I hope my experiences can give practitioners some ideas and
help to hold more exhibition around Europe.
