Presently, should we as true practitioners concentrate on quickly reinstating Fa study groups that are unaffected by any other specific matters? Places where three or five, eight or ten people, every week set a time to study the Fa and exchange experiences together just like it was before the crackdown of Falun Gong happened in China in 1999. Let our Fa study groups blossom like flowers everywhere, where every practitioner has a chance to exchange experiences.

Seeing a puzzled expression on Laura’s face, I said: “If every time you forgot something, and mum brought it to you, you would form the bad habit of forgetting everything. Whenever you forget something, you wouldn’t care much, knowing that mum is always there to help you. Now that you know mum won’t bring to school the things you have forgotten, you will try your best to remember to bring them.

I told him that Falun Gong teaches people how to be good. There are rich people and poor people and some of them definitely want to be good people. But how can you be a good person in today’s society? They found the answer in Falun Gong, and that is to follow the characteristics of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. This is the most precious help that Falun Gong had given to them. I also said that it is not only the rich and poor people in China that need the help of Falun Gong, but the people of the whole world needs Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance because it is the hope of the world.

My experience is: persistence is important. To let people hear the truth repeatedly is a powerful way to change them. Some practitioners may feel disappointed when people do not listen when we clarify the truth to them, but let's think about it, they have been poisoned by lies from Jiang's regime's media, isn't it necessary for us to clarify truth to them continuously? Gradually, those people will change. Many fellow practitioners have heard people say: "I heard of it before, but I'm not convinced. Now after hearing from you, I believe it now."

An elderly practitioner said that she had set a standard for herself that she would try to endure the pain for as long as possible to meditate in the “Double Lotus” position. One day, she finally managed to sit in the “Double Lotus” position, and she clenched her teeth and endured the pain. Even when she collapsed due to the pain, she refused to put her legs down. Another fellow practitioner said that, as soon as she had put both legs crossed on top of each other when Practising the sitting meditation, she would ask her family to leave a bowl of water on her head to prevent her from moving or twitching until she finished the meditation.

In the market, at school, on the road, in the farm field, no matter where I met people, I tried my best to clarify the truth to them. Many people in the rural area understood that natural disasters are in fact man-made disasters. So I chatted with them about these things. I talked about how to be a good person and about "Zhen-Shan-Ren" [Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, the main principle of Falun Dafa]. I told them the facts about the persecution of Dafa. Finally, I would hand them the truth-clarification material.

However, Jiang Zemin ignored numerous reports about the positive influence of Falun Dafa on Chinese people’s health and morality and started to officially persecute Falun Dafa on July 20, 1999. Obsessed with the desire for absolute power, Jiang ordered persecution against tens of millions of innocent Falun Gong practitioners who are ordinary citizens in Chinese society. The persecution against Falun Dafa is the largest and the most appalling persecution in Chinese history.

For a long time, many practitioners, including myself, have not been able to continuously send forth righteous thoughts four times a day. Especially in the early morning, I usually could not get up to send forth righteous thoughts. Just because of our laziness, a lot of bad things still exist. It is our own individual problem.

All of you are either police or people assisting in enforcement of the law, but you break the law. Who gives you this privilege? If your answer is ‘the government’ then please tell me the definition of government and show me a legitimate document. OK, you do not have any document with you, that means that your action is not legitimate. I am going on a hunger strike to protest this illegal action, since this is the only way I can protest.

In the beginning I encountered a test that required me to hold a Dafa display board in front of a line of tourist buses. I was conscious of how people would see me and whether they could understand what it was I was doing. With adjustments from time to time, I sent forth righteous thoughts while holding the display board. I also eliminated my mentality of being laughed at and kept the thought that I would let them know the facts no matter how they saw me.

I also realise that in many cases, it seemed as though I was helping others, or that conflicts occurred because of the other person's problems. When I truly looked within myself and cultivated myself under any circumstance, I could look back and see that all these things occurred because of my own heart. The others indeed helped me. Whatever happens around us is truly due to our own attachments.

In a few days, we became familiar with the other prisoners in our cell. We shared with them some of our experiences that we had encountered in our cultivation, including the miraculous stories of how Falun Gong improved our minds and bodies. We told them what Teacher Li taught us, including how to be a good person. Two prisoners, Ms. A and Ms. B, began to learn Teacher Li's poems in Hong Yin from us. They were afraid they wouldn't be able to memorise them, so they asked us to write Teacher Li's poems on the only paper they had, that is, on the back of the court verdict.

The foreman of the construction team assigned the practitioner to lead a project. After the project was completed, the project owner paid him a special bonus in addition to the regular payment. The practitioner turned in all the money to the foreman, who was surprised because nobody before had ever turned in so much money. The practitioner said, "I am a Falun Dafa practitioner, and I cultivate Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance and try to be a kind person.

Over the past four years, all the first-hand information about the persecution's facts are from Minghui/Clearwisdom. In particular, when the persecution first started in 1999, Dafa websites were resisting the evil propaganda from a whole country. The truth-clarifying materials from Dafa websites have been continuously sent back to China; they are also translated into English, so that people all over the world know about the truth. Dafa websites have a special and important role in the truth-clarification. The stable running of these Dafa websites have made the evil scared and helpless.

Other practitioners and nearly gave up cultivation altogether after they experienced some frustrations in cultivation or changed to a new environment. Later they recalled the gloomy period of time after they returned to the path of cultivation. They said that they knew that they should not fall behind, and they were in tears each time they looked at Teacher’s photographs, but for some reason they just could not pick up a Dafa book to read and they had no desire or interest to do Dafa work. They thought that they had done a lot of things badly and they were far below the standard of a Dafa disciple. They thought that they were hopeless.

It may seem that terrorist activities are far away from our Dafa practitioners, at this human level, we always hold the view that terrorism is none of our business or I wouldn’t be bothered. From the perspective of the Fa, we haven’t reached a clear understanding of how terrorism can have a bad effect on what we are doing today. Instead of using our righteous thoughts to clean away the interference of terrorism, we just ignored it.

The second person was a policeman. One night he came to me and said, "I have read all of the flyers and booklets you gave me last time. I have read all of them and passed them on. Now I realize that Falun Gong is good." Then he said with embarrassment, "Would you give me the book Zhuan Falun to read? I know you Falun Gong practitioners don't think policemen are good." I said, "No. We practitioners treat everyone equally. Practitioners of Falun Gong cultivate benevolence in their daily lives without concern for any gain or loss.

The Dafa practitioner said to him, "Yes, it is indeed like this. This is precisely the reason why after four years of persecution and suppression, Falun Gong still stands strong. Actually this persecution is happening on a global scale. On the surface, people can only see the physical and mental suffering endured by Falun Gong practitioners. On a deeper level, the persecution has brought about a much bigger disaster, as it destroys humanity and human conscience and ruins mankind's morality..."

By the end of my college education I had grown tired of those bad things and started to search the world for something to set me free, or at least to help me see the truth. Then, in December of 2002, while searching around on the Internet for meditation information I came across the web site, falundafa.org. Suddenly I felt as if I had been waiting all my life for that moment. I trust that I truly had been waiting for it, for a long time - longer then my life in this society can account for. Soon I finished school and moved back home to Louisiana.

On another occasion, I called a corrupt person who was with the “610 Office.”* I called his home phone number and a girl picked up the phone. She hung up the phone three times, but she didn’t hang up the fourth time. She silently listened to me until I finished speaking. She then asked me, “Why did you all go and surround Zhongnanhai [the headquarters of the Chinese Central Government in Beijing]?” She asked many more questions about Falun Gong. In fact, she kept asking questions until I had to leave home to pick up my daughter from school. So I asked for her QQ account number, and we’ve since chatted a few times online.

I remember one early morning, in the beginning of October 2000, when I noticed a yellow banner in the park that displayed the content of “Lunyu.” As I was reading “Lunyu,” I became excited. This was the first time I had encountered Falun Dafa. I immediately went to a bookshop and purchased a copy of Zhuan Falun. I know many people who have read that book more than one or two hundred times in just one year.

The true meaning of literature should be to motivate people to search for, and become closer to, the truth. Since ancient times, countless renowned scholars have been searching for the truth, but to no avail. Right now the truth is made available to us, and that truth is Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong. It follows then that Dafa practitioners’ literary efforts during this period ought to revolve around Falun Dafa, the truth of the universe, as well as Teacher’s immense compassion.

In November 2000, I went to Singapore, and I was fortunate enough to attend the Singapore Experience Sharing Conference. After I heard the experiences of practitioners in Singapore and started to read a lot of truth clarification materials, I came to understand. I was shocked when I realized that the propaganda was all fabricated. Through the help of fellow practitioners, I once again stepped back onto the path of cultivation.

Recently, at the election for the president of the University of Minnesota Friendship Association of Chinese Students and Scholars, (hereafter referred to as MUFACSS), the Consul of the Chinese Consulate in Chicago, Jiang Bo, and his assistant, Chen Jiacai, used underhanded tricks to prevent a third year undergraduate student, Falun Gong practitioner Wang Xiaodan, from selection.

At the same time, I also witnessed and heard about many other practitioners’ miraculous phenomena. Many had suffered from terminal illnesses, or illnesses that were hard to diagnose and hard to cure; yet they miraculously recovered and became healthy again. These are all mysteries that cannot be explained by modern science. People find these amazing phenomena beyond belief. Every day, there were more and more people beginning to practice. I also brought the wonder of Falun Dafa to my family: my two daughters and my grandson all obtained Dafa. My friends also obtained Dafa after I introduced Dafa to them.

I also tried making phone calls but had never been really involved since in most cases when I called they usually hung up or cursed at me. Then, I didn't take this as an opportunity to improve myself. On the contrary, my common people's mentality rose up. I regarded it as a setback and made up a pretext that I had other clarifying-truth jobs to do to cover up my attachment of not having the courage to pick up the phone to clarify the truth. By acting in this manner, I had lost time due to my hesitation and fear. Then, when I did make an attempt, I could not pick up the phone as if the phone were very heavy.

One day, Sakyamuni traveled to a seaside village to beg for food, a little girl suddenly ran towards him and mischievously put a handful of sand into Sakyamuni’s begging bowl. His disciples were very angry at the little mischievous girl, but Sakyamuni accepted the sand in a very pleasant manner. Later, Sakyamuni explained to them that the girl would be reincarnated as a Chinese girl and become a Chinese Empress. If Sakyamuni didn't accept her offering of sand, she would destroy Buddhism in China when she became the empress.

Every time when I sang, I had to go to the mountains. Otherwise, my friends would complain about it. However, when I heard about the training session at Rüdesheim, Germany, I felt a strong desire to attend. I was very happy to attend the training. I have changed my everyday people’s notion about being good or bad at singing. It is because I sing with my heart and I sing on behalf of Dafa practitioners. Therefore, I am able to sing in a very tranquil and peaceful manner. I sing as a bass in the choir.

It is very good for Falun Dafa practitioners to remember to send forth righteous thoughts at set times daily. However, except for those times when we are in front of Chinese Embassies, I think we should pay special attention to conforming to the specific environment we are in at the moment. At the very least, our actions should not cause misunderstanding or cause the people around us to have a bad impression of Dafa.

My wife and child also practice Falun Dafa. Compared with our fellow practitioners, our income is quite good. However, our tendency is still to put more money into our savings and use less money for validating Dafa. We hope to lead a comfortable lifestyle and to cultivate Dafa at the same time. We address the solemn responsibility of Dafa practitioners with the mentality of ordinary people. This is like wanting to become enlightened without letting go of our attachments. Of course we should do our best in the ordinary human society without going to the extreme. However, the basis of this mindset is selfishness.

With the enlightenment from this story, I dug out some deep rooted and dirty attachments. For instance, I pay too much attention to my appearance. I often thought that if I have good complexion, it would help me clarify the truth of Falun Gong to people. However, deep in my heart there existed the attachment of showing off. See how well I have cultivated, my skin is healthy and delicate. The more I became attached to it, the worse my complexion became.

We should help people learn that the persecution of Falun Gong is in essence destroying human nature since it targets human being's virtue. Therefore, the persecution is destroying people. We need to let them be aware of the principle of the cosmos that good will be rewarded with good. We need to tell them that bad things happen when people have no virtue. They'll then come to realize that they are the true victims of the persecution. Then they'll have proper thoughts towards Falun Dafa and be saved.

US practitioners mentioned that practitioners in Canada and North America regularly hold large group gatherings in different cities. Beside this, practitioners in every exercise site are also keen on group Fa-study and experience sharing. Because they emphasise group Fa-study and experience sharing, they can not only enhance as a whole, but can also avoid conflicts between practitioners, so that they can fully exert the power of the whole. Therefore, practitioners can successfully accomplish the goal by mutual coordination, even though there are many specific items for truth-clarification and they lack manpower.

Before becoming a Dafa practitioner, she once wrote a poem entitled: “I am a child of the universe”. The poem goes: “I am a child of the universe, who forgot her own home; I am a guest on the Earth, and a guest of the world. What is the best gift for the guest…” As soon as she encountered Falun Dafa, she immediately realised that Dafa was the best gift for her.

At first, some of our practitioners were kind of nervous because; they are decent citizens and had never been treated like this in the past; moreover, they were shocked at this occurrence as Falun Gong has been awarded and commended in many peaceful countries. Nonetheless, through reminding each other, we soon thought of our responsibility as a Dafa disciple, our reasons for coming to Paris and of the urgent things we should have been doing at that precise moment. Therefore, we adjusted our own mentalities quickly.

I am visiting Geneva during the 60th session of the Commission on Human Rights, the annual UN human rights conference. Many Falun Gong practitioners visit Geneva at this time of year for a reason: to call attention to the human rights violations committed against Falun Gong practitioners in China. Today, practitioners will man five information booths, located at different locations in Geneva, to inform Geneva’s residents and visitors about the persecution of Falun Gong in China, a persecution that has already caused hundreds of deaths.

Participants benefited from the rich and valuable experiences shared by practitioners and they also benefited greatly from the proposals that were a result of the collective thoughts and the process of encouraging practitioners to overcome difficulties and attachments and join the great tide of the Fa rectification. They deeply felt that it was worthwhile making the trip.

Sharing experiences in and of it self doesn’t mean you are forcing others to accept your opinion but rather speaking out to allow others to know how you view a particular matter. Any practitioner who holds views on a matter reflects their cultivation state. It is not an objective discussion and conclusion of the matters at hand. Because of different cultivation states it is natural that there are different opinions of the same matter.

As the Fa-rectification proceeds unceasingly, the number of Falun Dafa activities that I participate in has gradually grown. During this process, I have found that some common problems and tribulations have repeatedly occurred. After I had thought about these issues I came to realise that they are tricks used to consume Dafa practitioners’ energy. This is what I have enlightened to recently and is what I would like to share in this article.

As I approach Geneva to go to the headquarters of the United Nations I came to realise that this trip will have been the seventh for many practitioners among us. The earliest trip would have been when Master personally taught the Fa in Switzerland in 1998. After that, and since the beginning of the persecution of Falun Gong in China on 20 July 1999, each trip here has been made to appeal to the Human Rights Commission which convenes in March and April of each year.

The other day I heard a practitioner say that reporters from nearby cities like to get in touch with her. Having clarified the truth for a few years, she has been contacting reporters about every event. She even lets reporters know when she is going to Falun Gong Experience Sharing Conferences in other cities. Every time she meets with them she is again able to reveal the true facts about the persecution of Falun Gong in China. Now those reporters get on so well with her that they aren't willing to leave when they have finished interviewing her at her home.

A Dafa practitioner should, of course, do well in his work and validate the Fa with his actions or words. However, it is not completely right for a practitioner to consider that he has validated the Fa and clarified the truth just because he has done well in his work and has harmonised his surroundings, and that all his neighbours or colleagues consider him "a good person." Here is an actual example that describes how Dafa practitioners in a certain rural area of China deal with the issue of being good people and harmonising the environment. I wrote it out to share with fellow practitioners.

In the past, when I wrote reports, I frequently submitted the articles in the name of “Dafa practitioner in Great Britain” because I felt that whether we have fulfilled the requirements of Dafa disciples or not should be judged by Master, not proclaimed by ourselves. As a practitioner, being modest should be correct. Furthermore, it is just a matter of a title, not a big deal. Not until many incidents recently occurred around me did I start to realise the inherent distinction between being a practitioner and being a disciple.

"I found that the materials squeezed in the door by the Falun Gong practitioners sometimes fell to the ground and got trampled. I felt bad and so I put a small table out so the materials do not get dirty." I asked, "You have collected so many materials to show other people. Are you afraid?" He said seriously, "What is there to be afraid of? I am in my 80's. The Falun Gong practitioners are not even afraid of being arrested, imprisonment, even death. Why should we be afraid for just reading the materials?"

We began to fight on the ninth day of our marriage. By June, our fighting had become so violent that we began the divorce process. Our marriage was less than 100 days old and was being dissolved. It often seemed that he wanted to beat me to death. I could no longer tolerate the abuse and wanted a divorce but he refused. He gathered together our parents, officials from our work units, and friends to persuade me. Song swore many times in front of many people that he would no longer beat or curse me...

If the whole body of Dafa disciples can send their purest righteous thoughts, which have enormous effects, then whatever we do we can do it well. Besides, the evil field will be eliminated to the highest degree. The United Nations consists of 53 countries in the world, so it is the international commissary in this human dimension. Each country is facing the issue of positioning themselves well and having a good future, so the responsibilities of each Dafa practitioner are immense.

What’s critical is not the form or manifestation on the surface, but the effect underneath. If our xinxing level is upgraded, our energy will naturally be uplifted; if we stand in a higher position, we can see further and thus we are able to tackle problems with more wisdom. After all, as long as we do well in the three things Master Li asked us to do, everything will be covered.

There was a discussion amongst German practitioners on whether we should go to Geneva and why we should go. Some disciples said: We went there on so many occasions, the people there already know the truth, so there is no need for us to go any more. I think there is a question we need to think about here, how should we clarify the truth?

'For the truth-clarification activities associated with the annual meeting of United Nations Human Rights Commission (HRC) in Geneva, we have to bear in mind that this is a major project for the global Fa-Rectification. It is a joint effort of Dafa practitioners as a whole body. Therefore, we need to create opportunities so that more Dafa disciples can participate...'

When I saw my brother in the hospital, he looked so different. His head was swollen and his eyes were bulging out of his head; his arms and legs were swollen and distorted too. When I realised that he could not even recognise me, the pain and sorrow I felt was immense. I calmed myself down and sent righteous thoughts to eliminate the interference. Later, I read Zhuan Falun to him in the hospital's emergency room day and night. With Teacher's help, his head soon became clear.