Our Experiences and Sharing After the Southeast Van Tour

Greetings Masters and greetings fellow practitioners!

In order to promote an independent investigation of the Chinese Communist Party's live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China and call for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong in China, some of us practitioners launched a van tour. Our van tour lasted nine days and travelled to seventeen cities in seven states. Along the way, nine newspaper, ten TV stations and one Radio station reported our tour, which enabled many American people to learn about the long-term persecution of Falun Gong in China.

Quickly, the nine-day van tour completed. During those nine days, five practitioners became more acquainted after living and travelling together, helping and encouraging each other. Perhaps, it was what we vowed in the prehistorical time that we would go down to the human world to assist Master at the Fa-rectification time. On the road, every member took the attitude of giving up one's ego and putting Falun Dafa at the highest priority. This was the most important reason that we could successfully complete the tour. Besides, along the route, local practitioners of the cities we visited provided us a lot of help. And don't forget the two practitioners at our communication centre who contacted and followed up with media, reported our daily activities and translated the stories published in media of different cities. With all this support, the van tour truly became a journey to further expose the persecution.

Here are some experiences from the journey.

1. When we have the righteous thoughts, follow the cosmic change, and assist Master in Fa-rectification, we will receive support from Gods, Buddhas and Taos in other dimensions

During the trip, unfavourable conditions often occurred unexpectedly. But as long as we maintained righteous thoughts, things would turn to be favourable in the end. For example, sometimes it would rain. Though we couldn't see the evil factors in other dimensions, we could feel this was the interference to our truth-clarification. If we could keep righteous thoughts, Master's Law Body and other celestial beings would help us. As Master said in "The Master-Disciple Bond,"

"When disciples have ample righteous thoughts
Master has the power to turn back the tide."
(from Hong Yin II, provisional translation subject to improvement)

On May 5th, our van arrived in Columbus, Mississippi. It was still drizzling when we parked our van near the City Hall. The rain would destroy our display boards. How were we going to handle this? We sent forth righteous thoughts to ask the rain to stop and when the time for the press conference came, the rain did indeed stop. In another city, Tupelo, Mississippi, two local events, "Spring Walk" and "Antique Car Show" in front of the City Hall stopped half an hour before our scheduled press conference. The music stopped. The rain also stopped and weather turned to sunshine when we began our press conference. In Montgomery Alabama, a severe thunder storm hit the City Hall area only a few minutes after we completed the press conference and the reporter from a local TV station packed up his equipment. It was close.

On the morning of May 4th, we were about to leave Knoxville for Chattanooga. The time was quite tight. In a hurry, a practitioner locked the key inside the van. Even though AAA could dispatch a technician to help us immediately, it would take at least half an hour to open the door. It seemed that we would be late this time. The practitioners began to send forth righteous thoughts. Suddenly, a practitioner said, "it opened." It turned out that one practitioner was asking Master to help in his mind and then used his home key to stick into the car door. And the door immediately opened. It was a miracle! So we arrived in Chattanooga on time and reporters from five media outlets were waiting for us. Similar "luck" happened many times, such as display boards being brought to us just in time, printed materials arriving on time, and just-in-time support coming from local practitioners.

We understood that from the surface, it seemed we were lucky, but actually it was because we were doing the right thing, following the cosmic change and saving sentient beings, Master and all righteous gods were helping us, safeguarding us.

2. Remembering we are Cultivators and Maintaining a High Cultivation Level

In lecture four of Zhuan Falun Master said,

"As practitioners, you will suddenly come across conflicts. What should you do? You should always maintain a heart of compassion and kindness. Then, when you run into a problem, you will be able to do well because it gives you room to buffer the confrontation. You should always be benevolent and kind to others, and consider others when doing anything. Whenever you encounter a problem, you should first consider whether others can put up with this matter or if it will hurt anyone. In doing so, there will not be any problems. " ("Upgrading Xinxing," Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)

At Tupelo, Mississippi, the practitioner who was responsible for contacting the Mayor's Office for permission didn't have the time to do so. We had to directly ask for permission from the Mayor's office after we arrived. At the beginning, the permission manager repeated several times that we had to apply for a permission three weeks ahead of time. Now the Mayor was not in the office and we wanted to use the place today, she couldn't help us. We were anxious at first. But we realised that we are Falun Dafa practitioners, we must maintain our character, considering others first when doing anything. Besides, we must conform to the human society, follow the regulations and be peaceful. When we understood this, the permission manager's attitude suddenly changed. She took the initiative to talk to the police chief and found us the best place. From this case, we understood that the level of one's cultivation matters a lot in the truth-clarification.

Once, a practitioner tried to bring back the speech texts and catch up with the press conference so he parked the car in a "No Parking" zone. The press conference went well. But near the end of the press conference, a patrol car saw our van and the policeman issued a violation ticket. Although the practitioner apologised to the policeman, the situation didn't improve. From this case, we understood that the evil force is everywhere. We must be stricter with ourselves. In this case, the practitioner should have sent back the speech texts and immediately searched for a suitable parking spot. We must recognise the importance of obeying the law from our hearts and get rid of the mentality of "Wishing for luck" to avoid the evil interference and better clarify the truth. As cultivators, no matter if there is someone watching us or not, even if no one is watching us, we cannot reduce the standard for ourselves.

Later in a sharing we understood that validating the Fa and our personal cultivation are connected. When our behaviour or speech have a loophole, the evil in other dimensions will utilise it to attack us. So we must be careful with our behaviour and speech and be strict with ourselves in personal cultivation. When we are facing a problem, we must keep a peaceful and compassionate attitude, thus the truth-clarification will be smoother.

3. Interference Comes from Our Own Attachments. Ordinary People will Take Us Seriously Only After We Take Ourselves Seriously

When we arrived at the city hall of Shreveport, Louisiana one hour ahead of schedule, we started to relax and the complacency grew. We wanted to have a meal first and use the restroom. On weekends, all the shops in downtown Shreveport were closed. So we drove outside of the city to look for a fast food restaurant. Surprisingly, it took us about half an hour to find a McDonald's restaurant! When we went back in a hurry, reporters from two television stations were already waiting there. They interviewed our host for a few minutes, and then packed up their equipment and went away. The reason was that there were some sudden events to be covered someplace else. We were all regretful very much, because they did not listen to our press conference, and did not know the background of Wang Wenyi's event or the truth of organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners by the CCP. In these circumstances, they might not write out detailed reports!

We were enlightened to the following: the media's attitude towards us is the embodiment of whether we take our mission seriously. If we did not prepare carefully and well, the journalists would pay even less attention to it, plus there is interference from the evil in other dimensions. One fellow practitioner shared one story about Master. When He held the nine-day classes in China, Master always arrived at the place ahead of time and always ate some instant noodles after the lectures! But we were looking around for a restaurant before taking care of the more important tasks at hand! Recognising our shortcomings, afterwards we were more strict with ourselves. We made sure to arrive at the city hall one hour ahead of time, clarify the truth to the mayor's office first and ask for permission, then choose a location to arrange everything well and wait for the media to come. Only after all was done, would we go to have a meal.

We also found that if fellow practitioners have conflicts before the press conference, thinking differently and criticising each other, the evil would take advantage of the loophole to interfere. The manifestation in our dimension was that the wind got stronger, the sky turned cloudy, journalists who promised to come did not show up, or the cameraman who arrived early stayed on the other side of the building and could not find us. The holistic cooperation is really very important!

4. Let Go of Ego, Put Dafa at the Highest Priority, and Form an Integrated Body

From this car tour, we saw the importance of self cultivation and holistic cooperation.

Master said in the International Fa conference in New York in 2004:

"Some students have in fact gotten rid of many other attachments, and a lot of attachments are gone and won't show themselves, but those attachments that they haven't cultivated away still show up. Master will definitely have those come out and be affected in conflicts, and will for sure have everyone see that, and the goal will be to have them get rid of those."

This car tour was a process of letting go of ego and improving holistic cooperation.

One member of the car tour group said, "On the first day, I heard somebody else criticise me for being self-righteous. At first, I thought I was treated unfairly, and searched out reasons to argue with them. This is my old problem, always thinking myself to be right, and not listening to others¡¦ suggestions. I found my attachment, and then I will get rid of it. So I paid attention to fellow practitioners¡¦ suggestions, listened to others¡¦ thoughts, and communicated with others frankly, putting aside the ordinary way of thinking. Sometimes I also think some suggestion is not perfect, but I will cooperate with fellow practitioners and help others put their suggestions into practice. In the practice, we will improve it based on the initial results. When every practitioner's suggestions are being taken seriously, we can complete the journey together."

Once a Mayor of a city in Louisiana was very supportive of Falun Gong. He instantly approved our request to have a press conference either outside or inside the city hall. Some fellow practitioners thought that it was hard to come by such a Mayor positioning himself in the Fa-rectification process and we should not let down his good will. We might utilise this support from the mayor and let The Epoch Times and/or Clearwisdom.net report this news based on the indoor press conference. But other fellow practitioners insisted that we would get more visibility outdoors and be seen by more people. They argued that we should emphasise the real effect but not the short-term benefit. We had opposite viewpoints concerning the options. As limited by time, after brief disagreement, we went along with the indoor option. Then it turned out that all the reporters of the three media that promised to come did not show up. What did we do wrong? One practitioner summarised it well. "I know that whatever we choose, there should be only one choice. As we are one whole entity, once we have made our choice, we all must join in the common effort with our hearts of one mind. The evil opponent is everywhere and watching us closely, trying to find fault with every one of us to take advantage of our loopholes. Our whole entity must have righteous thoughts and actions and every one must regulate itself for the whole situation so as to harmonise the progress of our activity."

This incident reminded us of the earnest and tireless lecturing of our Teacher in "Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A." as follows.

"Dafa disciples, in your cultivation in the ordinary human world you all have understood something clearly that's based on the Fa's principles, namely, not to be attached to the 'gain and loss' of ordinary people. So when things related to validating the Fa are involved, there too you shouldn't insist on voicing 'my ideas' or on having things done 'my way.' It's not like only then can you establish mighty virtue in the cosmos. If you've got a good idea, well, you came up with it, you're being responsible to the Fa, and it's not important whether your idea is adopted or whether your approach is used. If another person's idea can achieve the same effect and you aren't attached to your own idea and instead you go along with his, then whether you've shared your approach or not, Gods will all see this and think, 'Look, he isn't attached, and he's able to be so tolerant and broadminded.' What do Gods look at? Isn't this what they look at? When you're attached to emphasising your things you are too caught up in it and the Gods watching above can't stand it. Even though you keep claiming it's for the good of Dafa, and that 'my approach is good' and can reach such and such goal--and maybe that really is the case--still, we shouldn't have attachments that are too much like ordinary people. If you can really do that, all the Gods will say, 'This person is truly remarkable.' It's not like Gods see that your idea worked and then they raise your level. Instead, they only raise your level when they see that your understanding of it has improved. This is a truth in the Righteous Fa. If you're thinking, 'I'll have XYZ happen to me if I've gained such and such amount of merit,' well, yes, that's how it works for an ordinary person, and it might be what's looked at as far as certain facets of the cosmos's Fa-truths go or in a particular situation. But true improvements come from letting go, not from gaining."

5. Paying More Attention to the Strong Qualities s of Our Fellow Practitioners

As one practitioner concluded, "I saw many shining qualities in us. One practitioner is nearly 70 years old. In spite of tiredness, she would rush to help set up things for the press conference at each and every one of the stops. An accompanying Western practitioner gave up her original return plan without any hesitation and went along with our changed route for an extended car tour." A practitioner wrote, "The Chinese practitioners have good understanding of the Falun Gong teachings - Fa and thus are of pure hearts and broad minds. From the bottom of my heart, I am touched by their unselfishness toward the Fa. I am fortunate to be together with them. Seeing them as precious wealth to the world, I am happy and wanting to take good care of them so as to let everyone of them make use of their strong points. With this thought in mind, I sensed my own changes to notice the minor details and see the good qualities of the fellow practitioners as well as their many strong points."

Together we completed the Nine-day Truth-clarification Car Tour. On the route, the touring practitioners, the local fellow practitioners, and other practitioners for media reporting as well as writing and translating willingly positioned ourselves and utilised our own skills. We really experienced the power of coordinating as a whole. As Teacher says in "Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference,"

"For Dafa disciples as a whole, in the process of validating the Fa, when you work together in concert, the Fa power is great."

Sometimes we did it perfectly well, while other times we might do it with regret. But each and every one of us feels that we made progress in our understanding of the Fa. In each and every chance of validating Falun Dafa, clarifying the truth, and saving the sentient beings, we the Falun Dafa practitioners constantly cultivated ourselves so as to become more mature.

Finally, representing all the practitioners in the Southeastern USA region, I would wish to express our thanks to our great and benevolent Teacher for time and time again giving us the opportunities to cultivate our hearts and save the sentient beings.