A Letter to a Friend by a Practitioner from Northern Europe

Dear XX,

After having spending the day in XX’s house, I hurriedly said goodbye to you. However, I cannot forget our conversation about Falun Gong, which is embedded in my heart.

Though we are not in touch very often, I think of you as a nice and enthusiastic friend. So from one friend to another, please believe me when I tell you that I know the relevance of this subject to you in the future. Maybe you do not agree with what I say now, but you will understand one day. Since we’re friends I should not be irresponsible to you. After second thoughts, I decided to write this letter and hope that you will still treat me as your friend. Believe my sincerity and please be patient enough to read it through. Thank you!

Let me firstly begin with why I started to practise Falun Gong. I was at the rockbottom of my life at that time when I could not find the goal or meaning of my life. My heart had been hurt in the past dozens of years; and I, at the same time, also hurt others, which caused me great pain.

When I read the book, “Zhuan Falun”, I just felt that it was something special. However, I did not believe in many things said in the book, especially those descriptions about extraordinary phenomena, which was way beyond my knowledge and experience. Since the Cultural Revolution, we have heard too many fairy tales and seen too many cases in which people have said one thing and meant another. Who is going to believe others easily? It was just the three characters, “Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance”, that touched me. I thought that there was no risk in improving myself, with the goal of becoming faultless based upon such a standard. It should be this way. So, I started my cultivation in Falun Gong with various kinds of reservations.

What caused me the greatest shock when I started to practise Falun Gong was Master Li’s every single word and action. I have seen too many people who have said one thing and meant another. Master Li displays a level of genuineness in the book that he himself lives up to; also, what level a practitioner is expected to live up to is given with our Master’s earnest and kindly advice and was way beyond my expectations. I used to read and thought that it was to be discounted when someone said something and this was exactly my mentality in reading “Zhuan Falun”. I, however, soon found that everything said in “Zhuan Falun” contains nothing to cover up one’s mistakes; that a true practitioner is just like what is described in the book, and realised that cultivation is one hundred percent. (Of course I now realise how serious it is to practise cultivation. It is the most serious thing in one’s life. It cannot be faked one bit.) It is so perfect and noble that it strongly attracts me and opens up a whole brave world in front of me. When I realised that no one else in the world could tell me the truth, I then let down various guards and jumped into the practise of genuine cultivation. (Of course I am the same as anyone else, yet I have experienced a lot of extraordinary phenomena, which I did not believe in before.) These, however, are not the most important reason for my practising cultivation. Each person who truly practises cultivation puts all their effort into it to improve their character and moral standard. My five-years of genuine cultivation are unforgettable as I have set myself the standard of following “Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance” so that each step leaves its mark. It is a hard and painful process to improve one’s character as it’s not easy to get rid of bad behaviour or various habits accumulated over a long time. It is also a difficult task to treat others nicely at all times, to think of others before oneself, and to reach a level of selflessness. Cultivation begins with doing things without violating Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance to reaching the level of purifying every thought in one’s mind. Besides, along with one’s advancement in one’s cultivation, the standard becomes higher, in which it is a truly difficult purification process to become reborn. Such a process has penetrated me every day, every minute, and every second of my life. It is, however, also the happiest and most substantial period as I have found the goal and meaning of my life. Of course, those reasons that I became aware of over the past few years have made me seriously demand myself, from my heart, to behave well; and those reasons are not easily described clearly in this letter. My life, however, has truly had a dramatic turn. Looking at the surface, both my mind and physiology have both become healthy. I am not as sentimental as I used to be. When I have some conflicts, I have learned to think more about others, to find my shortcomings, and to resolve them with tolerance and forbearance, even when I have to pay for it personally. During the process, of course, I’ve fallen down many times and made many mistakes. Even today, there are still many areas for improvement and I still need to make corrections in myself. However, I am just as I have described above and have proceeded step by step to what I am today.

Falun Dafa is so pure and righteous. It is so true with tremendous benevolence and forbearance without anything phony or sham. Why do those genuine practitioners have no doubt when the Chinese government listed countless crimes for Falun Gong and splashed incalculable dirty water? As we ourselves are practitioners, I am the same as those thousands upon thousands of Falun Gong practitioners. We are the people concerned. We are the cases in point. We know what we think and what we do are merely based upon “Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance” in order to be nice people. We also clearly know that what our Master Li has taught us is the most righteous way in our lives.

We may certainly have different beliefs and goals in life; we may have different understandings and attitudes toward life. The reason why I write my cultivation experience is to ask you not to judge with prejudice a group of people whom you have not yet understood. However different their beliefs may be from yours, they are most trust-worthy people, as this group of people has no connection to lies, anger, or harmful and dirty selfish mentality.

Do you remember you once said that I am the only Falun Gong practitioner who did not say you are deceived by the Chinese government? As a matter of fact, it does not mean that I consider you are free from lies. For example: you said that Master Li Hongzhi gained tens of thousands of US dollars from American politics. When you consider Falun Gong to have a political purpose, I deeply sigh in my heart as these do not exist. However, you firmly believe it without a doubt. I saw the root cause of the lies that made you think so.

I am the same age as you and we have a similar family background. At the time when we grew up, we went through similar experiences brought by the storm of political struggles. Because of our families, it seems that we know more politics than others. Witnessing so many political tricks, methods, and deals, I saw the darkest side of human beings. After I grew up, I hated politics more and more as it does not have a shred of human virtues, such as genuineness, honesty, and justice but there is too much intrigue and cheating. So some people think that Falun Gong pursues politics, but how will people in the world know the heart of those who practice a righteous Fa? A practitioner is someone who considers reputation and self-interest as dust; and looks lightly at everything and can even give up what people in the world pursue out of various desires.

In addition to the likelihood of getting hurt inexplicably, people ’s hearts are twisted and have varied in the circumstance in which there are continuous political fights in China. People seem to “understand politics”. For the sake of political purpose and need, people in politics are not ashamed of unreservedly telling a lie. They can make up whatever they like and are not blamed when they turn black and white upside down. It is unbelievable that the fake show of “the self-immolation in Tian An Men Square” was made by such a great country. It is treated as understandable that so many nice citizens are locked up in prison and suffering from cruel torture, some of them having even lost their lives. People are so insensitive and cold as long as they are not involved. When everything falls within the excuse of “for the need of obeying politics” and “for the need of power”, the general public can only yield to authority however low the morals of a man in power; or it is said to be “against the government” or “making trouble with the government”. Thus, the man in power can start a fight using every possible method. When people accept such things, people’s hearts have already been deeply hurt. It is because what people have lost at this time is the root nature of benevolence, and justice. There exist no concepts of right or wrong, righteous or evil, nor good nor bad. In fact, those political tricks are useless matters that need to be abandoned as it will seriously result in spoiled morals in human society.

For a man, as a member of society in the world, he has to firstly position himself in his life. However great his power is, however high his prestige is, or however large his influence is, he is fundamentally a being, a human. When he was born, he was good and pure. In such a world with numerous and complicated things, a confusing life in the world, he firstly faces the issue of being a man – whether to live up to his conscience or to fall from virtue due to various desires and fighting in society. If he thinks that he can do whatever he likes, then he is sure to walk towards failure. As there exists a rule, which regulates humans in the world. One who behaves against the rule is to be punished. However great a man’s power is, he is to be regulated because history won’t be changed according to the will of tiny people on the tiny star in the universe. In Mao Zedong’s later years, he expected that the Cultural Revolution was to be overthrown. Isn’t that the best evidence for a man with power who had no way out?

XX, it’s not that “I do not understand politics” or that “I am too innocent or naive” but that I came to know the basis for a human society lies in the rise and return of morals. Even for someone who once enjoyed power, the most important thing to him is still his moral standard. When someone with power has morals, he will utilise power to do things for the public and always think of his people. When someone has a low standard of morals but a high desire for personal power, he will not tolerate anyone because of jealousy; and he will always have a fear of losing his power.

I wrote this letter intermittently within this month. I am not talking to you about belief but the basic topic of morals. No matter whether we are a believer in theism or an atheist, we firstly have to identify ourselves with the basic principles of a human being. We all should identify ourselves with benevolence and justice.

Translated from Chinese at http://www.yuanming.net/articles/200307/22367.html