The Heart of a Falun Dafa Community!

My first actual contact with Falun Dafa practitioners was at the Dafa exercise practice site. It was there with the practitioners of Falun Gong that I started my new life. As was the case for many practitioners who began practicing before the start of the persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, the exercise site served many functions for a practitioner such as myself. Presently, looking back at the time spent at the practice site always helps me realize why I need to clarify the truth and be responsible to Dafa.

Whenever I would go to the practice site at my assistant’s apartment complex, I would feel as if entering into a pure and sacred place, and this feeling is just the same today as it was on my first visit there, that first Fall day of 1998. Every time I step into that circle of practitioners I experience something grander than my insignificant self. Participating in the group practice has constantly allowed me to perceive the purity of our purpose as Fa-rectification disciples. When I was a coordinator during that special time, being at the practice site gave me a clear understanding of my position in the boundless and immense Fav [law and principles in Falun Gong] process taking place. It also helped me overcome whatever trials I faced in society. As for the group study, it was like the vital blood that flowed through the heart (the practice site) of our Dafa community. It was here, at the practice site where I first learned how to let everyday people know the truth about the persecution.

When I first started at the practice site, we had no mats to sit on, no posters for people to read, and no flyers to distribute. At one park we sat on a slightly elevated wooden platform and getting burned by the strong Florida sun was a weekly occurrence. Then we moved to the shade of a nearby large tree where bugs crawled on us, ants bit us, mosquitoes stung us and the rain poured on our bodies during the rainy season. For those everyday people who wanted more than just a casual glance at the beautiful fluid movements, originating from the presence of gong growing in our bodies, we simply smiled and invited them to join us. I came to an understanding that notion by notion and cell by cell our minds and bodies where in a state of constant change for the better. The more I came to the practice site, the more tolerant I became.

This special place was the beginning of what can only be described of as the most wonderful event to take place in own our City, Orlando, which will now never be the same after the arrival of Dafa. Through much effort on behalf our City's first contact person, who came from New York just to help us, one site soon became two and two became three until there was a practice session going on six days a week. It was beginning to manifest how the public would first view our presence as the curtain raised on the stage of Dafa's existence in our quite southern community.

The practice site was the place where everything took place. It was there that we studied the Fa, made travel plans to other cities to spread the Fa, and learned about other Dafa practitioners’ activities around the state so that we could join them. Also it was there that we discovered what our real attachments were and how much effort it took to free ourselves of them. Slowly we learned to look within while the world watched us grow and mature. The practice site was our laboratory, figuratively speaking, kind of like a university but with the most extraordinary curriculum ever, that was presented in nine simple but profound lectures. I saw the practice site as my chance to join in on one of the greatest events to unfold in my lifetime and most of all it was free!

The practice site helped me establish a foundation; one of Fa study and daily exercise and this foundation has helped me through so many tribulations. The time and effort other practitioners took to help us understand the Fa provided me with an understanding enabling me to maintain my place in the Fa as difficulties where faced. It also provided me with invaluable opportunities to share my views with other practitioners, what a treasure! My perception of the world began to change through the informal discussions I had with others practitioners who were like myself. It was here where I first learned to temper my heart nature from reading the main text of Falun Gong, Zhuan Falun. In doing so I learned to taste the freedom that only comes about when a lifetime of living based upon ones self starts to dissolve. The practice site also gave me an environment to learn and interact with those other Dafa practitioners in our community and around our state who diligently practiced and strived for improvements. These people are the ones we refer to as the ever growing one body of Dafa we now know of today. The practice site is an environment worth maintaining and Masters fashen sit there for a reason.

I have come to learn that being an organizer of a practice site is a selfless service to Dafa and Master. As an assistant at a practice site I learned countless little things. One thing I learned was that I must show up on time, actually showing up ten to fifteen minutes early was a lesson I learned so many times from so many different people. One day I went to work in rainy weather. As the day progressed the weather continued to get worse. By the time I got off work the rain was coming down so hard, that even the traffic slowed down. I thought, "Why even go to the practice site, it seems pointless!" I arrived at the park of our site and saw nobody there. The park and even the parking lot were empty. I really wanted to leave and just as that thought entered my mind the rain poured down like a curtain of water. Just before I felt it was time to start my van and leave because the rain wasn't going to end, another practitioner showed up, so now there were two of us. We talked for a while, maybe a half hour while watching the rain wash the park clean, only the ducks in the lake where happy. Then off to the corner, through the pouring rain I saw an old blue station wagon approaching with fogged up windows. It stopped right in front of my VW van. The window rolled down and an elderly lady asked, “Is this where you practice Falun Gong?" I'll never forget that day! My responsibilities as a Dafa practitioner became crystal clear. We moved to a near by mall and talked to her and her husband for two to three hours about Dafa and the persecution.

Today I find those predestined relationships everywhere and I cherish each and every one of them. I try not to forget our purpose and reason for this great Fa and that the heart of every Dafa community is the practice site and the blood that flows through the heart. I will always remember how awkward and confusing it first seemed when I tried to explain the truth about Falun Gong, but it always got easier because there was so much help at the practice site.

To conclude I would like to quote Master's words from Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Atlanta Fa Conference:

"So I say that the most important goal for you in clarifying the truth is to save even more beings in the process."

The practice site is a wonderful place to offer salvation to all sentient beings!