Greetings Master, greetings fellow practitioners.
My name is Yudong Gao, and I am a UK practitioner from London. Our 24-hour peaceful appeal outside the Chinese Embassy in London has been maintained for more than two years now. In the 700 days and nights, we have undergone spring, summer, autumn, winter, wind, frost, rain, snow and furthermore experienced tests and improvements in many ways in Fa-rectification cultivation. In total, more than half of the UK disciples, joined London’s 24-hour appeal at different times. Meanwhile in Manchester and Edinburgh, Dafa disciples appeal daily outside the Chinese Consulates. Here I, on behalf of all UK disciples who have joined the appeal outside the London Chinese Embassy, will share our experiences with everyone. If anything is inappropriate, fellow practitioners, please benevolently correct it.
Understanding the importance of righteous thoughts when appealing outside the Chinese Embassy
In 2002, during the period when the chief instigator of the persecution against Falun Gong visited Europe, in order to cooperate with Dafa disciples around the globe to eliminate the evil in other dimensions with righteous thoughts, a group of UK disciples started to send righteous thoughts around the clock outside the Chinese Embassy in the UK. Our original plan was to sustain it for two weeks, but when two weeks were about to pass, we all thought of the same question: Is this to continue? After sharing everyone agreed that, although there are lots of difficulties, it is the requirement of Fa-rectification’s progress that we should do what we can to keep it going.
We all realised that sending righteous thoughts opposite the Embassy every hour on the hour has a special meaning. Our Master told us many times the important function that sending righteous thoughts at a short distance can play. Chinese Embassies are homes of evil in different countries. If we stay and send forth righteous thoughts in front of the embassies we will stand at the most front line of the battle between righteousness and evilness. The Chinese Embassy in the UK is the place where evil in the UK is sent out. We must eliminate and cut off the evil from where it is sent out and make progress of the Fa-Rectification in the UK.
It has been proved that our 24 hours sending righteous thoughts has played an important role in stopping the evil. A practitioner went to the Chinese Embassy on business and a member staff told her what he disliked to see most was the 24 hours peaceful sitting opposite the Embassy. He also said that you can get the problem sorted through cross-governmental dialogues. This has actually indicated clearly that when cross-governmental dialogues cannot be the solution our sending righteous thoughts and peaceful sitting has really suppressed and eliminated the evil in other dimensions.
In more than 700 days of sending forth righteous thoughts every hour on the hour, we encountered lots of problems. Every time a problem occurs, it is also a test of our righteous thoughts and righteous faith. When we are short of people, different opinions are expressed. Do we have to appeal 24 hours a day and 7 days a week? If we have people appealing at the Embassy every day during the day, then would the effect be the same? Nevertheless through studying the Fa we understood: When persecuting Dafa disciples in Mainland China the evil does not recognise night or day. Our denial and elimination of the evil cannot be suspended for one moment. Once our righteous thoughts weaken, the evil’s conspiracy of the persecution could prevail. If we didn’t do 24 hours non-stop because of interference or trouble, then we haven’t completely reached the requirements of Fa-rectification.
This kind of discussion happened several times in two years. Each time more practitioners agreed that we should keep on doing 24 hours, each time everyone understood the importance of appealing and sending righteous thoughts at the Embassy more deeply. Our group righteous thoughts got stronger and stronger, and everyone cooperated better and better. Now disciples in London are taking part in more Fa-rectification projects than two years ago, yet at the appeal and sending forth righteous thoughts at the Chinese Embassy, there were less and less cases of shortages of hands.
Master asked us to do the three things well every day: Study the Fa, send forth righteous thoughts and clarify the truth. Two years of experiences tell us: The place of the appeal outside the Embassy is a very good place for cultivation for overseas Dafa disciples and it is a place where we advance very quickly. We send righteous thoughts everyday every hour on the hour, the rest of the time we do the exercises and study the Fa, sometimes when there are lots of people, we share, and when there are pedestrians we distribute leaflets to clarify the truth. The site was kept clean and tidy. Practitioners’ high spirits, peaceful attitudes and gracious actions are showing the world’s people Dafa’s beauty, and are validating Dafa. For each day when the three things were done well, every participating practitioner felt their obvious improvements.
“Eliminating the evil with righteous thoughts” versus “looking inwards”
Because of the importance of appealing outside the Embassy, interference from the evil has become a major possibility. How do we, in the western society, both solemnly eliminate the old forces and the interference of the dark minions, and also look inwards to correct our actions in time and to harmonise with the Fa well, as well as allowing more citizens to recognise and support us? On these aspects we have had lots of experiences.
One day a month after starting our 24-hour appeal, homeowners from the nearest residence building started to complain about how we interfered with their peaceful everyday life and prepared to jointly write a complaint to the council to take away the permission for us to appeal. Before they did that, some residents told us about it first. Facing this emergency, we began studying the Fa and sharing together. Our 24-hour appeal in front of the Embassy is an important thing in the progress of Fa-rectification which should follow Master’s arrangements; any interference or sabotage from the evil won’t be acknowledged. Looking inwards, if there really was something we hadn’t done well, we would certainly correct this unconditionally and absolutely not allow the old forces to demolish us using this excuse.
As long as we do things according to the requirements of Dafa and the demands of Fa-rectification, no factors can interfere with us and make us waver. “...each one of our Dafa disciples says that we don't recognize the old forces' arrangements, but that's not something you just say--you have to follow the requirements of Dafa and the Fa-rectification. ‘I absolutely will not acknowledge any of those things you arranged in the past, old forces. I don't even acknowledge you.’ When your righteous thoughts are very strong you can purge it and you can reject their arrangements.（Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia）This is our righteous thought on this incident. Having this kind of righteous thoughts, we were clearer on what to do.
Practitioners who come to the Embassy to appeal should strictly behave well. Meanwhile we should keep the environment clean and let all passers-by with predestined relationship feel our uniqueness. We came to realise, that to much noise from the music, talking and children did disturb some of the nearby residents. After talking to them we followed Master’s teaching and harmonised all problems.
Master tells us:“Wherever problems occur, that is the place where you need to clarify the facts and offer salvation. When encountering difficulties, don’t go around them”. (Lecture at Boston Conference 2001) Although the residents living nearby knew about the persecution happening in China, they still haven’t realised that this is a persecution aimed at the morality and belief of all mankind, and is closely linked to everybody in the world. If the principle of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance have been damaged, the whole world could not have genuine peaceful and a beautiful life at all. Western practitioners wrote a letter to the residents around the area, expressing our honest apologies and explaining further the persecution happening in China and why we appealed here. We hope they could understand and support us. One western practitioner will be a contact person; we will try our best to communicate with the local residents.
As we have enlightened and carried out the work, the environment has been changing. One morning, a practitioner met an old resident who used to complain quite often, and greeted him “Good morning” with a smile. He answered: “It is a nice day. The rain stopped for you. Nobody can stop you protest here.” A few days later, he met the practitioner in the morning again, “You came late today. The Prince passed here this morning. You should show him your beautiful exercises.” Another day, a local resident came to us cheerfully with a newspaper in hand: “The UK and America win the war with Saddam. Iraq is free now, and this place should be next.” He pointed to the Chinese Embassy on the other side of the road with his finger.
One morning a practitioner slept over after sending forth righteous thoughts at 5:00am and failed to tidy up the tent before 7:00am. Our appeal location is on the street opposite the Chinese Embassy and just in front of the main entrance of the Royal Institute of British Architectures (RIBA). The staff in this institute treat us very kindly. That day the chairman of RIBA just arrived much earlier than normal. When he saw our tent, he was upset and asked his employee to tell us he would not like to see our tent again. The practitioner who was on the night rota felt very bad and regretted it a lot. Other practitioners comforted him and said, “No problem, just do it better next time.” “..you fall, just get up and continue to do what a Dafa disciple should do.”(Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Vancouver, Canada, in 2003).Other practitioners should not have any thoughts of blame or complaint, otherwise the evil could interfere. We immediately informed the Dafa Association, and the Association wrote a letter to apologise and made sure such a thing will not happen again. The manager of RIBA replied quickly and told his staff to give us more help to reduce the hardship we were facing.
Every single word and single action are validating Dafa and clarifying the truth
Our appeal site is just on the route of the London tourist open-top bus and every day lots of the buses pass us, and the tour guides are often heard saying: “Here are Falun Gong people sitting here 24 hours a day to appeal at the Chinese Embassy. The world needs Truthfulness Compassion and Tolerance.” Two years ago, a London practitioner made the first invitation to the public: “Please sit by my side.” This appeal received an overwhelming response. Later, practitioners in many countries also made the same appeal to the public, asking people with righteousness to be on our side. Every day we sat there quietly, and there were no strong responses from the public, while as time flew its effect become bigger and bigger. Many practitioners told us, when they spread the Fa in their local areas they often heard people asking: are you the same Falun Gong appealing opposite the Chinese Embassy in London? Once a Parliament Member told the media: if you want to know what a peaceful appeal is, please go to the Chinese Embassy to see how Falun Gong do it.
With regards to clarifying the truth, almost every day there are many touching stories to be told. A British gentleman often passed our site, and he is keen on Chinese culture. One day he told us: the Chinese always emphasise the balance of Yin and Yang. I think your peaceful appeal sitting here everyday is not enough; you should have more Yang and more strong actions. ” We explained to him: all we do is aimed at stopping the persecution, and our behaviour is based on rationality and peace, while our hearts are firm. This is another kind of Yin-Yang balance.” He said, “The Chinese also have a saying: it is easiest to destroy your enemy from the inside. You should try to make conflicts among the Chinese leaders and let them attack each other, then this government will break down soon”. We replied: we came here only to tell people, including the staff in the Chinese Embassy, that Falun Dafa is great and the persecution of Falun Gong is wrong. We never get involved in any political issues. He did not agree with us and left. Another day when Jiang visited the USA, there was an unusual hurricane in London and it was quite difficult to stand upright. That day this gentleman passed us again. When he saw us doing the second exercise in the wind, he was moved, he stood there for a long time until we finished our movements.
One day a Chinese lady directly came to us and she explained that she is a professor from a famous University in China. She is now a visiting scholar in a university in the UK. When she first came to the Chinese Embassy to register half year ago, she saw us there under the baking sun and thought we were very silly. What is the use of this? During her stay in the UK, she learned, via the internet and newspapers, many truths that are unknown in China. She also read our truth clarification materials. Today she came to tell us, “I came to realise what you are doing will be effective like Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. You will succeed!" She carefully signed the petition calling for the end to the persecution and asked for some material to take back to China to show her friends.
Another time, a practitioner was meditating. A western teenager said to her, "I am sorry to interrupt you but I really want to tell you what I did today." He had received a Dafa leaflet from a friend before and he also often passed by the Embassy and saw our banner reading "The World Needs Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance", which he thought was really true. Today as he crossed the road, he saw an old lady trying to cross the road with difficulty. He remembered the sentence in our banner and went to help her. He really felt great. Before he only thought about smoking, drinking and playing cards but now he wanted to be a good person by following the principle of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance.
One evening, last winter it was really cold. We studied the Fa with small candles under the streetlight. A middle-aged woman came over asking for a light for her cigarette. After that she took off her cotton waistcoat and insisted on giving it to a practitioner. She said she lives nearby and often sees us. She wanted to give this waistcoat to the practitioner as a gift. Our practitioner accepted it and wore it for a whole winter. We felt like Master was encouraging us.
Another story also set the scene last year. A middle-aged man came to us and said he often drove past here but had no time to read our display board, so today he came here especially for that. After reading, he enquired about what the UK Government has done to support us. When he found out that we were suing Jiang in the USA, he suggested that we sue him also in the UK and he took out his business card to explain that he works in a famous public relations company and knows many lawyers and celebrities. He hoped to have a chance to help us in our future lawsuit against Jiang.
Improving ourselves opposite the Chinese Embassy
During these two years our biggest gains were that we could enhance our righteous thoughts constantly when we are there. Everybody has quite different feelings about the comparison of sending righteous thoughts at home and at the Embassy. For example, at the beginning most of us felt extremely painful when we sent righteous thoughts opposite the Embassy. One practitioner mentioned that when he sat opposite the Chinese Embassy, he felt that he was heavenly and holy, and he could realise clearly he is Master’s Fa-rectification period disciple. Every hour we send righteous thoughts and the rest of the time we do the exercise and read books. Our minds are so pure that no desires can interfere with us. We can feel we are gradually melting into the Fa and changing ourselves. Every time when we return from the Embassy, we felt we had been cleansed, our minds are clear and our hearts are calm. When we did well, we could feel Master’s encouragement.
In the winter of 2002, London had a rare spell of cold weather and several times it snowed heavily. At that time we had fewer practitioners who joined our 24-hour appeal. One day due to the heavy snow, transport collapsed and no practitioner came to the Embassy to take the place of the practitioner already there, so this practitioner stayed there for two whole days and one night. When another practitioner arrived, and found her still in a good mood and full of energy, she noticed the long period of time she had been there. She said when she did the meditation in the snow she felt her body was covered by a blanket so she never felt cold. At the beginning her feet became cold when she did the exercises, then she imagined herself standing on fire wheels. After she thought that, she immediately felt the cold flow away from her feet and could not enter her body anymore. During those two days some people drove to the site with hot soup for her, the staff in RIBA gave her hot tea and the pedestrians always gave her the thumbs-up and said well done. Once she even felt a big warm palm touch her head; she knew that it was Master’s encouragement.
Once on the hottest day in the summer, practitioners insisted on sitting on the pavement without any shade although there were trees not far away. It was about two to three o’clock, the hottest time in the afternoon, and we were sending righteous thoughts. Suddenly two young boys, about 12 or 13 years old, walked up to us. They sat on the ground and did the sending righteous thoughts posture with us. It was unbelievable that they sat there for forty minutes. Even when we sat on mats we felt the unbearable heat and were soaked in sweat. However, these two angelic young boys sat there quietly without moving at all. They did not care about the sweat coming down from their heads. When we saw this we were moved and felt very encouraged by Master.
One day last winter, I went to the Embassy after work to send forth righteous thoughts and do the exercises, the rest of the time I sat there reading Dafa books. Normally I sit several hours every day. Later, my hip bones started to ache. At the beginning I did not pay any attention to the pain, while it became worse and worse. One day I even felt I could not stand up. At that moment, I thought: perhaps it was caused by sitting for a long time so I got cold and next time I would wear more. But later I realised I should not think this way, I am a Dafa practitioner, and how more deeply could I more deeply get cold? So I laughed at the evil in my heart: “Do not use those false phenomena to cheat me. It does not work! I am Master’s Fa-rectification disciple, no matter how painful it is, I will go to the Chinese Embassy to send forth righteous thoughts, and nothing can stop me.” After I had that thought, my pain disappeared immediately, and it never happened again.
Cooperating well and encouraging each other to walk diligently in our cultivation
The 24-hour appeal opposite the Chinese Embassy has not only improved us as individuals, but also improved our whole group. During these two years, almost half of the UK practitioners attended our appeal in different periods. For example, there were some practitioners from Oxford and Cambridge - every week they spent their one day off work to come here to appeal. Other practitioners who live outside London would spend time on the Embassy appeal whenever they have chance to come. There was a western female practitioner over seventy years old who often travelled over two hours on the way to the Embassy. Another western male practitioner from Oxford came every Friday afternoon after work and stayed with us until midnight. Many practitioners with full-time work often joined us at the weekend. A practitioner’s wife and daughters would always prepare many meals for us. We feel like we are all in a family; when we come to join the appeal, we feel warm in our hearts, we help each other, we care about each other and we encourage each other. All these made the site opposite Embassy an important place of contact among UK practitioners.
In May this year, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao visited the UK. Practitioners held a press conference opposite the Chinese Embassy. We made an appeal to bring Jiang Zemin to justice and keep the human rights abuser Bo Xilai out of the UK. We used a microphone speaker to play the songs “Falun Dafa Hao” and “Coming for you” to the Chinese delegates and people who welcomed them. Although the welcoming group played drums etc, but all practitioners on the site felt the righteousness of our energy. Next day, a senior police officer came to our appeal site asking us to move away everything from the site immediately. It was a matter of emergency. Practitioners immediately contacted the department concerned and learnt that it was a decision by a new high-level official who thought our display boards were below the standards of public security and terrorists could leave something dangerous under them. We all understood that we must deny any interference and damage of old forces. Our 24-hour appeal and sending righteous thoughts can never end the persecution ends. We should clarify the truth to this new sergeant. However, not very long after, there was a disagreement among us.
Two Western practitioners who went to clarify truth made a cooperative agreement with the police after they clarified the truth of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China to the sergeant, i.e. to completely follow the security requirement by the police by removing all old big display boards and making new display boards. Some practitioners considered this as a lack of righteous thoughts and that it is equivalent to following the evil, while other practitioners thought we must be cooperative to the police and accept their requirements. We should let the police feel our cooperation and that we are the people who are concerned for others, consider others and take social responsibilities seriously. The police have not withdrawn their permission for our appeal yet, even though they were used by the evil to find excuses to restrict us. We must have mercy and use our compassionate minds to deny all this; do not consider the requirement of the police is interference and deny the old forces’ arrangement. We must completely trust and support those practitioners who contacted the police even though the agreement they made with the police was not perfect. As a whole group we must keep our promises.
When we find there is something not perfect we must make it perfect quietly and not blame or complain against others. Within three days, the big display boards were removed. A few days later, new display boards were made and installed. Looking back now, it seemed that our appeal had not been affected by the size of the display boards. Although the new ones are smaller, they are simpler and clearer. However, this incident gave us an opportunity to strengthen our righteous thoughts, reflect, improve ourselves and come together as a whole group. We came to realise that our previous environment was based on avoiding other people’s complaints and not really based on a high level of great enlightened beings without any selfishness. We should show the Zhen-Shan-Ren that we have cultivated to the people via every single speech and action of ours and everything surrounding us. While we cooperate with each other as a whole body, we should do better to let go selfishness, cooperate with each other well and use our wisdom to harmonise what other practitioners have not made perfect, without insisting on one’s own opinion and arguing all the time.
Finally let us use Master’s poem “Righteous Thoughts and Righteous Actions” to remind us:
Thank you.
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