Supporting Shen Yun in the Security Team

Dear Master!
Dear fellow practitioners!

It is a great honour to share my experiences with you. I would like to talk about helping in the security team for the Shen Yun performances. First, I will mention my understanding of our role as security assistants, and then proceed to describe three experiences from this year’s tour.

My Understanding of Our Role as Security Assistants

I have been helping in the security team for many years, and my understanding of our role has gradually matured. We have specific tasks, such as handling disruptions or copyright issues, and the typical activity of security team members involves stopping people from taking photos during the show and asking them to erase any they might have taken. But I have come to view our overall role more broadly, as guarding the performances with righteous thoughts, with the specific tasks being like anchors that navigate us.

It takes only a minute to explain the above principle, but it has taken me years and a lot of practice to learn how to do it better, and I still need to improve a lot. For instance, one needs to balance things well. On the one hand, we need to be ready to quickly address whatever disruptions might occur. On the other, we need to stay very calm and low-key. We are responsible for noticing if someone takes a photo, yet we shouldn’t “search for problems” in the audience. When talking to people, we need to be professional and firm in explaining the rules, yet very kind, polite, and pleasant.

I also realised the importance of de-emphasising ourselves. A clear example of this is the fact that we stand in the auditorium during the performance, but we should not watch it: our eyes are for the audience. Another manifestation of it is the requirement for us to be visible as little as possible, be it in the auditorium during the show or when walking among the audience in the halls. I think our approach and mindset should switch from “we have our jobs to do” to “we are here to serve others”.

Working on the security team gives us a great opportunity to cultivate ourselves, eliminate attachments and karma, and help save sentient beings. I see it as a grand blessing from Master to be able to participate in the Shen Yun project and experience that righteous environment.

In the article Stay Out of Danger, Master said: “Don’t mistakenly think that when you have helped to raise awareness about Dafa and the persecution, joined in Dafa activities, or participated in Dafa projects, you have done something for Dafa or for me. That is my providing you with ways to save and help one another, to rescue people together, and at the same time save yourselves; so during these latter days, beings are able to help save one another.”

Experiences From this Season

This season, I participated in the security team for performances in Vienna, Salzburg, and Prague. Each of them provided me with an interesting episode worth reflecting on.

Vienna: Genuine will to cultivate and follow Dafa

Despite working in the security team for many years, I never managed to handle one part of our job well. When we ask people to erase a photo, we should follow up by telling them to permanently erase it from the trash bin as well, since an erased photo is stored there for some time. For all these years, I never did that. I was insecure about whether I would be able to explain it well, given my limited German, and also whether I would be able to help the person locate the trash bin on their phone. So I was worried it might be too bothersome to people, and I let it go with the excuse that it gets erased on its own after a few days.

This year, before the first show, I calmly and rationally realised that this was a loophole, and decided that I wanted to overcome it. I put the fear and other emotions aside and learned how to locate the trash bin on various types of phones. With this determination and preparation, I went to the show.

The opportunity came during the first or the second show. A group of three people, presumably a mother with two daughters, came into the auditorium a bit late, and so they missed the reminders that taking photos is prohibited. After a while, one of them took a photo. They were sitting close to me, so I was easily able to approach them and tell them not to do it.

When the break came, I went to the young lady, determined to ask her to erase the photo, also from the trash bin. I was not forcing or pushing myself to do it: the will to do it came naturally from the righteous understanding, so I was very calm. To my surprise, the young lady spoke English very well, and she was completely understanding, cooperative, and pleasant. She even apologised, and we permanently erased the photos.

This experience went so smoothly that it was immediately clear to me that it was Master helping me. It reminded me, and deepened my understanding, of how important the genuine will to cultivate and follow Dafa is. It truly felt miraculous: the moment my genuine will to do well arose, Master opened all the doors for me.

As practitioners, we may sometimes feel a bit stuck in cultivation, knowing that we should do better but not knowing how to improve. In such situations, I have always been tempted to “do something”: study more Fa, do the exercises, send forth righteous thoughts, etc. Naturally, these are all things we should do and can always help, but if we stick to the mentality of “doing this or that”, I think we might be missing something. When I have tried to improve my situation this way, it usually had only a limited impact. What I think is key to making a breakthrough is the genuine will to cultivate, to change ourselves, and to follow Dafa.

Salzburg: Emphasising appearance over substance, the old forces’ trap

In Salzburg, an episode happened which revealed a fairly big loophole in my thinking and approach. Towards the end of one show, a fellow practitioner signalled to me that he would like my help. (When possible, we approached people in pairs, one talking and the other sending forth righteous thoughts.) As the curtain closed, I quickly joined the practitioner, and he explained the situation to me. He saw two photos taken near the end of the show: one photographer was close to him, the other far away and at the centre of the audience.

From the moment I joined him, I noticed he seemed a bit stressed. He is a diligent practitioner, so it perhaps surprised me a bit, and I thought: “Hm, he is always very calm. I have never seen him like this.” These kinds of thoughts kept reappearing throughout the whole process, as we went to both targets and erased the photos with them.

Afterwards, I thought the whole thing through. This practitioner faced a very challenging situation, but he remained determined to do his part no matter what. First, he went to the lady near him immediately when people had just started to leave. She was not very helpful and was quite reluctant to cooperate, yet he kept explaining, politely but firmly, and she then agreed. And without fear or hesitation he then asked her to erase the photos from the trash bin as well, and she did it. Even though this took some time, the practitioner then quickly continued to search for the second person, sitting at the very centre. Usually, it is very hard not to lose sight of people in the centre once the audience members stand and start to leave. Yet in this case, our target remained seated even after everyone around him had already left. We went to him, and he was perhaps even less pleased about it than the lady before. He was using various excuses, but the practitioner patiently kept explaining and, in the end, he cooperated.

In this process, the practitioner had to overcome several big obstacles. How would I have handled this situation? I think I would not have resolved more than one or two such obstacles. For instance, I would probably have decided to focus only on the lady nearby, thinking that the chances I could keep track of the person in the middle were minimal. Then I would have let her come out of the auditorium and tried to find a good spot on the side. But she would have said, as she did, that she was in a hurry and needed to catch a train. If I had at least managed to convince her to erase the photos, I would most likely not even have mentioned erasing them from the trash bin.

It is certainly good to remain very calm and try to handle the conversations as smoothly as possible, but this can’t become the only priority. It is easy to stay calm if you ease your responsibilities a lot. It reminds me of the principle Master mentioned in “Eliminate Your Last Attachment(s)” from The Essentials of Diligent Progress II: “They tell the students that the students have reached Consummation and no longer need to practice; that the students should conform to ordinary people as much as possible; that the students should turn in their books, and so on. With this nonsense, they have deceived some students who, in the midst of demonic ordeals, don’t want to stay in the human world and want to achieve Consummation as soon as possible. In the Fa, I have told you to conform with ordinary people as much as possible while cultivating. But I have never said that you should just conform to everyday people [as an ends in itself]. If you are no different from an ordinary person, are you still a cultivator?”

This incident gradually revealed to me several layers of understanding. At first, it reminded me that the cultivation process is not smooth sailing and that we can’t shy away from facing obstacles. Then, as I was writing this sharing, I realised how much this mindset of emphasising appearance over substance has been spoiling my mission as a Dafa disciple. As I dug deeper and thought about it more, I saw that there is even more to this.

Yes, since we are Dafa disciples of the Fa-rectification period, we shouldn’t focus merely on personal cultivation, and we have our grand mission of helping to save sentient beings. As I understand it, this means that we need to care about how others perceive our actions during cultivation, clarify the truth in a manner understandable to people, etc.

This led me to think about the term “validating the Fa”. I think this is key to what we should do, but what does it mean? Of course, I have no way of knowing what validating the Fa truly means, but I would like to share my very limited understanding of how it can manifest or what it may contain.

In “On Dafa” (Lunyu) in Zhuan Falun, Master says: “Dafa is the wisdom of the Creator. It is the bedrock of creation, what the heavens, earth, and universe are built upon. It encompasses all things, from the utmost minuscule to the vastest of the vast, while manifesting differently at each of the cosmic body’s planes of existence.”

Dafa created everything, and it has its manifestations on every plane. So I think a Dafa disciple can validate the Fa by always searching for Dafa in whatever situation he might find himself in. It entails having faith that Dafa will always provide us with a path we can walk. How to cultivate in specific environments, how to clarify the truth to various people: Dafa has answers to all questions. If we are flexible and truly seek these answers, instead of rigidly insisting on doing things “our” way, then I think we are validating the Fa and Master can use such practitioners well.

Then what went wrong in my case? How is it that, instead of validating the Fa, something so sacred, I often tend to slip into “conforming to everyday people” and barely cultivating? I believe the Fa from the article “Eliminate Your Last Attachment(s)” quoted above gives us the answer: in the article, it was the secret agents who were telling the students “… that the students should conform to ordinary people as much as possible; that the students should turn in their books, and so on.”

In my case, too, the deviated state comes from interference, and it is a form of persecution and an old forces’ trap.

Master concludes the paragraph quoted above with the words: “Dafa disciples—future Buddhas, Daos, and Gods—how can you let those evil, ridiculous buffoons take advantage of any gaps?”

Prague: Putting others first

Performances in Prague started this year on Friday, but I planned to go there on Wednesday to attend some meetings related to my ordinary work. At the beginning of the week, my wife started to feel unwell, and on Tuesday evening her fever rose above 40°C. In that state, she could barely take care of herself, let alone our three children.

I cancelled my plans for Wednesday and Thursday, but remained determined to leave on Friday morning so that I would arrive on time for my duty in the security team. My wife spent the whole Wednesday in bed, and I took care of the kids. I knew I shouldn’t stress my wife, so I didn’t talk about leaving and I tried to be supportive and calm, but internally I stayed firm and certain it would work out. By Thursday evening she had improved to the point where she could manage after I left.

I arrived in Prague on Friday afternoon and joined the team. Some hours before the show, I started to feel unwell, as if I was getting ill. Around 90 minutes before the show, I went to my position. I felt a bit dizzy and nauseous, and I worried whether I would be able to do my job. But I thought I should not disrupt others from focusing on Shen Yun with my personal issues, so I kept it to myself. I reminded myself that “this is not about me” and just kept sending forth righteous thoughts.

Once people started to come in, I completely switched my focus to assisting them, and suddenly all my problems disappeared. I think it was this simple decision that made all the difference: I didn’t wait to first feel better or to figure out why I felt unwell; instead, I unconditionally disregarded my own things and just did what was needed so that people could watch Shen Yun.

I believe that this switch from “self” to “others” reflects the difference between just personal cultivation and our mission of helping to save sentient beings. Of course, cultivation is always first, and it is the foundation of all we do as Dafa disciples. When we face problems, we should look inward and search inside. I think our main mission of saving others actually helps us to understand how to look inward. In my understanding, looking inward should not revolve just around ourselves, like when an ordinary person gets stuck in endless self-criticism or self-questioning. Instead, it should be based on putting others first and altruism.

Conclusion

At the time the above experiences occurred, I realised that they contained some hints for me, so I thought about them and remembered them. When I started to think about writing this sharing, these experiences reappeared and formed into a more coherent picture. But it was only after I truly put my heart into the writing that I suddenly started to see things much more clearly. At some moments, I felt bombarded with new understandings, and many of my loopholes were revealed to me with unusual clarity, and they suddenly seemed so connected to one another. I realised how far I am from validating the Fa in my environments, both at home and at work. I am very grateful for this Fa conference and the opportunity to put together my sharing.

Thank you, Master!
Thank you, fellow practitioners!

(Speaker at the European Fa-conference 2026 in Prague)