My Two Years Overseas

It’s been over two years since I arrived here from mainland China. Looking back through the cultivation path I’ve taken over this period, there have been many things I’ve personally experienced and felt. I’d like to take the opportunity of this conference, to write and share these with other practitioners. If any of my sharing is inappropriate, fellow practitioners please kindly point it out.

I. To truly cultivate in the different environments we encounter

a. Overcoming the difficulty of taking public transport, cultivating myself.
When I first arrived here from abroad, comparing here and China I felt the cultivation environment was much more relaxed. I always reminded myself to treasure it and seize the moment to do well the three things that Master requires of us. Very soon I participated in some projects, such as the peaceful protest in front of the embassy, Hongfa, etc. Because of the language barrier, everything was so unfamiliar to me. Cars stayed on the left side of the road and people stood on the right on elevators. These basic rules were not the same as in mainland China. My first big problem I encountered was taking public transport.

Overseas practitioners are all very busy. It’s impossible for someone to accompany me wherever I go. When I had to validate the Fa and clarify the truth, most of the time I had to be independent. Quite often I’d run into problems like faults on the underground, changing onto the right bus and knowing where to go when I get off the bus. I wanted to ask someone but I can’t speak English. I’d get very worried and I’d waste a lot of time.

Once, after my rota at the embassy I went to my daughter’s place to ask her to buy an underground ticket for me (I don’t know how to buy them). It’s a half hour journey and I am required to change from one tube line to another. Unexpectedly, I mixed up my direction of travel, and remained in the underground for over an hour. I was hungry and tired, with nature calling. This whole trial made me so depressed. I wanted to be cared for and comforted; these human thoughts were rolling over and over inside of me. They manifested themselves such that I encountered similar problems continuously.

One day, I suddenly realized: oh, this taking public transport, isn’t it cultivation? It is testing you, making you endure in your cultivation, to see whether your heart will be moved, whether you can overcome difficulties and whether you will take a step backward. I thought to myself: I am a Dafa disciple, Master is here. With fellow practitioners’ help, I can pass this test.

With righteous thoughts, everything changed. I have since moved house twice, and I am required to take different public transport. I am now quite able to cope with taking public transport. Sometimes I use my journeys to study the Fa and memorize the Fa. I feel so glorified to walk the path in assisting Master in validating the Fa. Over these past two years, where validating the Fa is concerned, I never allowed issues with public transport to stop me.

b. Self-study in map reading, eliminating the attachment of reliance.
During this year’s Shen Yun promotion, most of time I helped with door to door leafleting. At the beginning when I saw lists upon lists of English words on the map, I was put off reading it, and didn’t even think of studying it. I solely wanted to rely on other practitioners who can read maps.

Apart from sending righteous thoughts at the ticket promotion areas, the rest of the time I did leafleting door to door. Sometimes the practitioners who came with me were not familiar with the map, hence we did it quite slow, and I thought how much better it would be if I could read the map. Once I overheard a practitioner saying that a mobile phone has maps that can pinpoint your location. My mobile phone had an internet connection, but I had no idea how to use it. Once during leafleting, the practitioners in my group were not familiar with reading the map. This time I remembered my mobile phone, and I began to try to use the phone to find the location. Soon I roughly figured it out.

Sometime after, when I was again grouped with practitioners who couldn’t read the map during leafleting, I volunteered to be the map reader, and used the mobile phone to direct us to the required roads. We completed the areas smoothly. While leafleting more and more, I was getting better and better at map reading.

Once I was requested to send righteous thoughts for Shen Yun promotion. Fellow practitioners couldn’t go with me. They told me the address and postcode and asked me locate the place myself. As a result I found it easily. I enlightened that it wasn’t an accident that I overheard another practitioner talking about phone maps. It was Master’s guidance and arrangement. Thinking about it, map reading wasn’t that difficult. I didn’t want to learn at the beginning because my notions blocked me. When a practitioner wants to learn something, and is willing to let go of relying on others and seeking human comfort, if we’re on the path of the Fa, Master will give us wisdom, enable us to gain the required skills and techniques, and do better at saving sentient beings.

During these last two years, I encountered all kinds of problems. They might not be an issue for those who can speak English, but for me, who had just arrived from abroad and did not speak English, the problems I encountered every time were all Xinxing tests. Sometimes I passed, and sometimes I would complain if things didn’t go according to my thinking, I’d feel this environment was difficult, even wanting to hide and avoid conflicts. Master would see I am not enlightening and give me hints.

During Fa study I read a sentence that felt like an obvious hint. In Zhuan Falun, Master said: “Thus, when you encounter a conflict, I would say that it is to transform your black substance into the white substance, de.” At that moment I was shaken up, suddenly those worries went. I now know any problems that arose were good opportunities to cultivate one self, it made me understand what master had said: “Whatever you experience during your cultivation--whether good or bad--is good, for it comes about only because you are cultivating.” (“To the Chicago Fa Conference”)

II. Looking inward, continuously eliminating postnatal notions

Master said in “Zhuan Falun”: “That’s just how people are these days—whenever they run into a problem the first thing they try to do is duck the blame, even if they’re at fault.” Before, I never felt it was directed at me until something happened that made me see myself better: I was that kind of person Master had criticized.

In 2011 during the Shen Yun performance, I held a ticket for a practitioner, she rang me and said she would be late. The show was about to begin and I had to go into the theatre. The practitioner rang me when she arrived, I went out after I received the call. During the interval, one of the practitioners said to me: the phone mustn’t be answered in the theatre. I really appreciated his frankness.

Afterwards when I heard the ticket could be left at the service desk, I started to grumble, and complained to the other practitioner: so many practitioners knew I was waiting for her, couldn’t somebody have told me to leave the ticket at the service desk? If I had known about this, I wouldn’t have made this mistake. Actually other practitioners may not know this, it was me using my own notion to judge things, and I assumed other practitioners must know. It was to find an excuse for my own mistakes.

Looking inward, why did I think that way? It is because that is how my thinking had been formulated. When running into a problem the first thing I did was to look externally. Even knowing it’s my fault, I still looked externally at others to excuse myself. The bottom line is, I refused to admit I was wrong. Isn’t this just like the bent evil party, never admitting it is wrong and always saying it is right in what is really just warped thinking?

Later on during Fa study and experience sharing, a practitioner mentioned this matter. Because of my mistake that brought her pain, I felt deeply apologetic. At the same time I wanted to explain the situation to her. In Hong Yin III Master says “Wanting to explain just feeds the attachment”. I knew I shouldn’t explain. Yet with my mouth closed my heart continued to churn, wanting to make clear on the situation, to the extent I felt I was hard done by. Suddenly one day I asked myself: why do I have to explain? What’s the purpose? The answer was simple: isn’t it only to prove that I am right? Isn’t it to protect myself?

Master said in "Teaching the Fa in the City of Los Angeles: "If a Taiwanese student hasn't done something well, he will listen to you if you point it out to him, and he won't be defensive. But when a student from mainland China hasn't done something well and others point it out to him, he will immediately say, 'You don't know what happened. The situation at that time was such and such.” Isn’t Master talking about me here? A mistake is a mistake, when it is realized and corrected, it is fine. Would I have improved in the Fa if I had explained my mistake?

Master also said to us all in Fa Teaching Given in Manhattan: “As gods see cultivators on earth, whether right or wrong is not at all important, whereas eliminating the attachments that come from human thinking is most important, and it is precisely your managing to eliminate those attachments rooted in your human thinking as you cultivate that counts as important.” Don’t conflicts that occur allow us to uplift our Xinxing? Doesn’t this allow myself to truly see my own heart? Stepping back from the situation and using the Fa to weigh things up is the acts of a cultivator! When one enlightens to this, there’s no need to explain oneself any more.

What’s more, there were many bad habits in my daily speech, my tone and what was said lacking in gentleness. Practitioners have kindly pointed it out when they hear this; some have reminded me more than once to pay attention to this. I knew it was Master using their words to point this out to me. I felt Master is looking after His disciples all the time, truly being responsible for His disciples’ cultivation. My attachments would be exposed at every opportunity, to eliminate them. Even if I can’t realize it, it’ll be pointed out through other people’s mouths.

Although now I have realized I need to completely change my everyday human notions, there are many things I still do with notions. Often a casual sentence that carries my notions could hurt other practitioners, cause misunderstanding, and create gaps, allowing the old force particles to enter me, and affecting me in doing the three things. I’d like to take this opportunity to express my sincere apology to those I’ve hurt. I’d also to say thank you to those who helped me.

III. Making phone calls on the RTC platform

Since the RTC platform was set up I wanted to participate. I think the platform is communicating with sentient beings in mainland China directly, which is a very important project for saving sentient beings. If I have time I’ll go to the RTC online Fahui to listen to other practitioners’ sharing, and I felt the platform provides a good environment for cultivation and improvement. The encouragement between practitioners, how practitioners kindly pointing out each others’ weakness when making phone calls, and the openness all makes me feel that here is a pure land.

After completion of Shen Yun, I started to join the RTC platform making phone calls. At the beginning, I first learnt how other practitioners made phone calls. I learnt a lot listening to others. I wrote down their brilliant sentences and good experiences as reference, and formed my own phone call script. After I listened a few times I built up confidence, in addition with my foundation in my previous experience on face to face clarifying the truth, very soon I picked up the phone and started dialing.

I remember the first call, I got nervous involuntarily, and spoke like a machine. The person who answered the call agreed to quit the CCP. Once I put down the phone, the platform host practitioner immediately gave me her encouragement. I said to her: I was sweating as I was so nervous. This made me realize that saving people through the phone isn’t as easy as I expected. Also I saw the gap between other practitioners making calls and me.

One day I made a phone call to a sentient being. At the beginning he was very weary and asked what my job was. After I answered him I started to persuade him to quit the CCP to ensure his own safety. There are 120 million people who have quit and many high officials quit; they know the end of the CCP is imminent. He laughed when he heard this, and said: don’t exaggerate, you can hang up now. I wasn’t moved. I told him about an ancient stone that was found in Guizhou that foretold of the CCP’s fall, I talked about good and evil and meeting retribution. He asked me: “why do you have such hatred for the CCP?” I then talked about the extraction of organs from live Falun Gong practitioners, the Wang Lijun event and the evils of communism.

I talked for more than 10 minutes, he was listening and asking me questions. Finally he said: “Thank you for letting me know about this. The CCP is so evil. I was going to join the CCP but after what you have told me, I won’t join.” He was a probationary party member. I said: I can help you quit under a pseudonym. He said: “OK. OK.” I also told him the facts of Falun Dafa and reminded him that Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance and Falun Dafa are good. He said: “Yes, yes.” A sentient being was saved. Encountering such a kind-hearted person was also encouraging me to keep making phone calls.

The process of making phone calls on the platform was also the process of my cultivation and improvement. During three months of making phone calls, I encountered all kinds of people, some listened some not, some who knew the facts showed appreciation, some who told me off as soon as I spoke. Some even wanted to call the police. All of this ignited my human attachments and notions such as my eagerness, my attachment to getting results, and my attachment to comfort. Just like a practitioner said: making phone calls on the platform constantly tempers one’s Xinxing.

Over these two years of my path in cultivation, I’ve had knocks and grazes and been through much xinxing tempering. Master’s Fa has lead me through step by step. Master’s benevolence is beyond description.

I’d like to thank fellow practitioners for their selfless help, enabling me to feel that Dafa disciples are one body. In my future cultivation, I’ll study the Fa well, truly cultivate myself, save more people, reach consummation and return to my origin with Master.

Thank you Master! Thank you fellow practitioners!