Bulgaria: First Bulgarian Fa Conference Held in Sofia

Close to 20 practitioners attended the first Bulgarian Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference, which took place in the capital city Sofia on March 23rd, 2008. Bulgarian practitioners as well as practitioners from Austria, Holland, Spain, Greece, and the US attended.

Group photo after the first Bulgarian Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference

The practitioners shared experiences gained from working on various projects such as organizing the Divine Performing Arts Chinese Spectacular and working on the Epoch Times newspaper. Some talked about the attachments they discovered and the ways they tried to let go of them. Other practitioners talked about the importance of studying the Fa and having righteous thoughts.

Practitioners read opening remarks	During the conference

Zahari Petkov shared about the importance of studying the Fa with a pure and righteous mind as well as about the insights he obtained reading the Clearwisdom website. According to Zahari, practitioners have to place great emphasis on sending forth righteous thoughts (SFRT). "For a long time I neglected the sending forth of righteous thoughts early in the morning, since I had the habit of going to bed late. Moreover, I even did not compensate for the missed opportunities. After I understood the importance of sending forth righteous thoughts during the four global times, I organized myself to go to bed and wake up on time. I did not even need the alarm clock to wake up on time for SFRT. Waking up on time was not just a time-to-time thing--it was every day," shared Zahari. He also talked about the importance of our mental state when we study the Fa and mentioned situations in which he enlightened to how important SFRT was.

Zahari Petkov

Practitioner Ms. Maia Marinova lived in Spain for a long time. She shared how she started practicing Dafa, and how the practice changed her life, which at that time was in crisis. She also talked about the importance of sharing among practitioners, doing the exercises together, and sharing cultivation experience, as well as about the opportunities that the work environment gives for the improvement of practitioners' xinxing. Maia talked about a conflict that she had with another practitioner. Both came out of this conflict improved and more mature after they discovered their shortcomings, and now they cooperate well with each other.

Maia from Spain

Practitioner Vladimir Yavorov obtained the Fa in Holland, where he currently lives. He shared about some of the attachments he discovered in himself during the promotion of the Spectacular in Holland. He also shared that in the beginning when he started practicing Falun Gong, he paid more attention to the exercises than to the main philosophy of the practice, but later on he understood that he could not separate the exercises from studying the Fa. During his process of clarifying the truth, many of his attachments surfaced, and he had to cope with them. "Everyone was doing his/her work diligently and wholeheartedly. No one talked about cultivation; however, everyone was demonstrating it with his/her behavior. This experience helped me realize how to work as a Falun Gong practitioner, and that I do not have to apply the principles of how ordinary people work. On the second day of the show, I had a chance to see it. After the orchestra started playing and the curtain opened on the first scene, I cried and started to send forth righteous thoughts. After the end of the show, for a long time I thought over the things I had seen and the deep meaning behind the scenes, which evoked the wish inside me to work for the Fa and help validate the Fa more diligently."

Vladimir reading his essay

Practitioners also shared how they discovered attachments and shortcomings related to showing off, validating oneself, egoism, and of not being able to bear the criticism of others. Some practitioners shared about particular events that made them enlighten to certain truths and that also helped them get rid of attachments and emotions (qing).

The conference, a great success, concluded later in the afternoon after the closing remarks were read.