Clarifying the Truth in the Netherlands: Master Encourages Us to Do Even Better

Ever since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started the brutal persecution of Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) in 1999, Dafa practitioners have been holding peaceful activities around the world to raise awareness and save people from being poisoned by the CCP’s lies.

I have been blessed with the predestined relationship to practice Falun Dafa, which teaches one to live by the universal values of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance, and emphasizes the improvement of one’s moral character (xinxing). I would like to share a recent experience in clarifying the truth about the persecution.

After a recent online group Fa study, I felt an urgency to do better in helping sentient beings understand Falun Dafa and take a stand against the CCP’s persecution. For some time, we had been postponing our local public activities in the Utrecht city center to collect signatures to stop the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong and take a stand against the CCP’s forced organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience. Usually, my main reasons and considerations were like “there are too few people because of the lockdown” or “there are other more effective ways to clarify the truth now.”

After discussing with other practitioners, I decided to check out the area where we usually held public activities. To my surprise, there were quite a lot of people, and I realized that we may have lost a lot of good opportunities to clarify the truth because of my insistence on those “ordinary notions.”

Master said in “Greetings to the Taiwan Fa Conference” (Team Yellow translation):

“And as you work to raise awareness, you must be sure not to think or act too much like an ordinary person. Only by staying clear on what you are doing will you manage to not get caught up in things and do even better.”

I came to the realization that we should continue our public activities despite the challenges with the pandemic. Other practitioners shared the same view.

Last week we resumed our activities. As I walked to the square, an elderly man on a three-wheeled mobility scooter approached me, smiled, and said that he hadn’t seen us for so long. I couldn’t agree more and replied accordingly. Although I couldn’t remember this elderly man when he greeted me, he always remembered us. I think this must be a hint from Master Li (the founder of Falun Dafa) that sentient beings are all waiting to know the truth, and we should not lose any precious opportunities to fulfill our vows to help Master save people!

Improving Myself
During the activity, I found several opportunities to improve my xinxing. An elderly lady stopped to read our information boards. When I tried to start a conversation with her, she immediately replied that she didn’t want to hear anything from me, and continued reading.

I felt a bit uncomfortable inside and started looking within for why I encountered such a situation, why I felt like this, and if there was anything wrong on my part. I noticed that I had an intention of validating myself because of my ego, which resulted in my approaching her in an impatient way. She must have felt it. I started considering more about how to approach people with a benevolent heart and how to consider others before ourselves, as Master requires of us Dafa disciples.

Through this process of looking within, I also found that I had certain preferences for certain people’s looks. I started asking myself where the root of these notions lay. Soon after the thoughts of finding something or someone “cute” or “attractive” started occurring in my mind, I realized that these types of preferences were related to lust and selfish desires. I clearly separated these attachments and notions from my true self and sent more righteous thoughts to eliminate them.

Youngsters Offer to Help After I Become Considerate of Others
In the process of truth-clarification, I gradually felt myself beginning to focus more on considering others, and also felt my thoughts revolving more around others. As I looked around, I saw three middle-school-aged kids sitting near me. One of the kids told me that they would sign the petition, mentioning that they were good people themselves. “I appreciate good people,” I replied.

Later, they came to our petition table to sign. I gave them Falun Dafa paper lotus flowers and explained to them the meaning of purity and the special quality of the lotus flower. I told them the principle that good is rewarded while evil is punished. I also told them that ancient Chinese traditions believe that good people can be protected by the divine. They all happily accepted the lotus flowers, and one of them immediately tied it to his keys.

The kids soon returned, and two of them offered to help us hand out flyers. Though I felt a bit hesitant at first, I thought it would be an opportunity for them to do good deeds and accumulate virtue. I told them that we were doing something serious, and that it would be fine if they could do it with respect and not joke around. They agreed and started approaching people and handing out flyers.

To my amazement, they were able to reach many people and guide them to our table to sign the petition condemning the persecution in China. As one of the kids approached the table with another person whom he had invited, I told them that this was their predestined relationship, which they agreed with.

One of the kids is named Lieven. Lieven is 14 years old and lives and studies in Utrecht. Lieven found it unacceptable that people were being killed and tortured for practicing Falun Gong. He said he had an urge to talk to people and do something good. When I asked him about why he thought helping us would be a good deed, he replied, “That I collected petitions, and that eventually more recognition will be given by the government, could probably save lives, and the families that are involved wouldn’t have any sorrows anymore.”

He also shared with me that he found the Falun Dafa music very beautiful, and liked the exercise movements performed by another practitioner, which he found beautiful too. When I asked him what he thought about Falun Dafa’s principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance, he replied, “I find them all important, especially Tolerance, being able to accept everyone. Truthfulness too, to be honest with everything and to not lie about every little thing.” Lieven also shared that he would ask his friends and family to sign the petition too.

This time, we were able to clarify the truth to many people and collect a decent number of signatures. Even though there were a lot of restrictive measures in place, people expressed their gratitude for our activities and were quite warm and friendly to us. I truly experienced that people are waiting for the truth and that Master had arranged a lot of hints and encouragement to remind us of the importance of holding local activities on a regular and continuous basis.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank benevolent Master for his merciful salvation! I would also like to convey my respect to my fellow practitioners for all their efforts and kindness!