Participating in the Redemptive Work of Shen Yun with Compassion and Righteous Thoughts

Since Shen Yun dance and music tours began in 2006, practitioners everywhere have collaborated on every aspect of presenting the shows, trying their best to help Shen Yun deliver the greatest impact on saving sentient beings. Today, I would like to share my understandings on handling security during Shen Yun performances.

At the beginning, I thought that I only had to handle a few things, such as ensuring that things went smoothly during the performance, that backstage was secured, that props were looked after, and that nobody in the audience took photos. I didn't put much thought into these tasks, and I didn't truly understand their significance. Often, I even wanted to sneak off and watch the performance. Over time, however, I gradually came to realize that I was being cleansed through this assignment, and that if we are to save as many people as possible, we need to fully complement each other in every possible regard.
At first, I only asked security volunteers to arrive early so that they could get familiar with the seating and told them to stay at the designated locations for the whole performance. I treated it like just another job, and I never really communicated with people in terms of cultivation. Only when we encountered problems did I remember to send forth righteous thoughts. Back then my heart was not pure. I was doing it to solve a problem, with the attachment of pursuit. The results were consequently not that good. Before last year's Shen Yun tour began, I began to notice my shortcomings and began to realize the importance of Shen Yun for saving people. We had some sharing together with other practitioners. As the new season began, we took a different approach. Starting right from the first performance, we would study the Fa together and send forth righteous thoughts inside the theatre. Before the audience arrived, we would gather together to recite Lunyu and then huddle together, joining hands just like Shen Yun's performers do, and chant, "Let's help Master rectify Fa and save sentient beings!" I could feel that our collective voice came from the bottom of our hearts. I could tell that it echoed the great vow each Dafa disciple had made at the dawn of time.

Handling security involves a lot of responsibilities, be it unloading the stage props at the start of the day or doing the final check over after everyone has left the theater. Managing things backstage is especially important, because if even one prop is missing, it will affect the performance. Previously, I used to be lax about things backstage, due to human notions that I had as well as to my reluctance to offend anyone. One consequence was that practitioners who weren't at all related to the performance lingered around backstage. After my understanding deepened over the importance of Shen Yun, I realized that too many people hanging around the backstage could affect the performers. Thereafter, we tightened backstage security quite a bit. Although we may have upset some people in this process, I knew that it was only their human side that was upset, and not their knowing side. In the process, I tried to always remind myself not to be contentious.

Every performance is like a battle--a battle between good and evil to save people. Our compassionate Teacher took this approach to save people, so as his disciples, we should support the effort with all our hearts and might. Indeed, everything that everyone does is for the same goal, be it all the rigorous training that the performers undergo or the hard work that local practitioners put into promoting the event. And it all comes down to those two hours in the theatre. The performance must be perfect, every aspect of it smooth and free of interference. Only then can it best achieve the affect of saving people and avoid undercutting everyone's tremendous efforts. It is that critical.

The greatest challenge for people handling security is probably the need to focus on the audience and not the show. I used to repeat into our walkie-talkies, "Keep your eyes on the audience, not the show." It appeared some of the security staff would never listen, and I thought they were insubordinate. Now I realize that the problem was with me, because I had a shallow grasp of Shen Yun's significance. Looking back, although I was making demands on others, I myself secretly wished to watch the show. If that was my mindset, no wonder others in my team also wanted to see the show.

When Shen Yun started its tour, I asked Teacher whether any exceptions could be made regarding audience members taking photos during the performance. Teacher said, "Definitely not." From then on, we were strict about enforcing this rule. At first we were merely following Teacher's instructions. After Teacher gave a talk on promoting Shen Yun last year, however, I finally realized that the rule was put in place so that people could be saved more effectively; it was in place so that people who had not watched the show would not be affected by seeing the photos. I also came to realize that, with this rule, would-be photo takers would pay more attention to the performance; it would also ensure that nobody interfered with those sitting around them. Of course, the rule would also pre-empt anyone who harboured bad intentions.

In the past, I used to feel a sense of achievement when we caught someone taking photos. Indeed, people of every sort would try to take photos, and we had a lot of stories to share among ourselves. Yet, it didn't occur to me that maybe it was, in fact, our own desire to show off and our own competitiveness that led to people to always try to take photos. Still, I congratulated myself on stopping them. I eventually came to realize that what we should want is for nobody to take any photos. I came to believe that, as long as we put our minds together and had righteous thoughts, we could achieve this.

What happened in Washington, DC, this past year has left the deepest impression on me. We were at a nationally renowned venue in the city, and there were many private box seats reserved for elite figures, including even the President. The theatre had strict rules that prevented us from being inside the performance hall. We were told explicitly that we should not confront anyone among the audience who acted out of line.

Before the performance, I communicated with DC practitioners to see if we could get theater management to change their minds. We didn't succeed. We were left with no choice but to have our security team be seated in the audience. I had a lot of conflicting thoughts: Would we be able to refrain from watching the show, when in the past we couldn't even do that while standing on the sidelines? How could we do our job now that we would be seated in the audience? How many people could we monitor while sitting there? I even wanted to just let the DC practitioners handle the entire security issue and wash my hands of it. Fortunately, I detected these human notions and knew it was time for me to study the Fa better.
The first performance was a VIP-exclusive event. I reminded everyone to pay special attention. I was thinking to myself, "Everyone here today are VIPs. I'm sure they won't want to embarrass themselves by taking photos, since we have all these signs up saying 'No Photos.'" Lo and behold, however, right from the start of the performance, people were snapping photos left and right, be it the well-dressed gentleman in the private box or the tipsy military officers seated in the general audience. My subconscious fear was overwhelming. Although we ultimately managed to collect and erase all the photos they took, it was quite embarrassing for us.

Afterwards we did some reflection. Collectively, we came to understand that, although we have to follow management's rules, we should not use ordinary methods. Since we are cultivators, our best approach is, in fact, sending righteous thoughts. After coming to this conclusion, we had a new sense of the importance of sending righteous for both ourselves and one another. We thus made sure that we started by reciting Lunyu as we prepared for the audience's arrival and maintained a state of righteous thoughts throughout the entire performance. I felt that we became one. Whether it was those in front of the stage, those on stage, backstage, or by the orchestra--all of us practitioners were one body. I knew that by collaborating well as a whole, we could save people best.

We decided to use righteous thoughts to eliminate every element that could interfere with the performance. If any problem were to occur on stage, in the orchestra, or wherever, we would not blame any one individual, and, instead, take it as an omission of our team. I also reminded everyone not to gossip about any shortcomings or mistakes we might notice in the performance. We had to eliminate any such thoughts as soon as they appeared so as to avoid reinforcing them. As a result, we worked together really well as a team over the next few days and always reminded each other to keeping up righteous thoughts.

Almost every performance in DC was a sell-out; even the standing-room-only tickets sold out for some shows. Yet, with such a full house, there were many shows where not a single person took a photo. I really felt the impact of working together as a team with strong righteous thoughts.

Each venue has its own set of rules. Sometimes they can be rather strict, but we as disciples still must do what we must do. This means that sometimes we need to approach our task with wisdom and rationality. As long as we are firm in our righteous thoughts, we will be able to accomplish our goal; Teacher will help us. The staff at each venue always observe us. If we are truly dedicated, it will inspire them. For example, most ushers are mostly just interested in watching the performance, and even when photographing is prohibited, they are lax about enforcing the rule. However, after they see how seriously we handle photo taking or infant crying or heckling, there is a dramatic change in the behaviour of many ushers. I often remind our team that we need to handle problems with a friendly demeanour, but also with firm righteous thoughts, so that we accomplish what we must accomplish.

One time in New York near the end of the performance, we discovered that an individual had been taking photos with professional equipment. As soon as we located the person, we asked theater personnel to help us erase the photos. However, the three theatre staff members who were there tried to keep me from walking up to the photographer so that he could get away. Though it took me by surprise, I was firm about not letting the person get away. I told the photographer to delete the photos, even as the theatre staff kept me from him, and instructed other practitioners to not lose sight of him.

At first, the person couldn't move and tried to hide the camera in his coat. A few minutes later, the behaviour of the theatre staff changed. Instead of asking him to leave promptly, they reprimanded him for taking pictures and told him that he wouldn't be allowed to leave until he erased the photos. When we examined his camera, it turned out that all the pictures were already gone, including, even, old photos that he had on it. Just to be sure, I asked if he had switched the memory card, and he swore that he had not. I then realized that, because of my firm thought to stop him, Teacher had helped me to get the photos erased. This episode reminded me of another occasion when we caught someone taking photos with a disposable camera. We confiscated the camera and told him that we would develop the film for him and send him any pictures that he had taken prior to the show. When I developed the photos, however, it turned out the entire roll of film was over-exposed.

As I go about cultivating, I continue to sense Teacher's immense compassion. Teacher uses every method to save all people, not wanting to leave anyone behind. From my experiences with the Shen Yun event's security team, I have come to realize that we should not take it as a simple task. Whoever we come into contact with is someone we should save--whether it's theater staff that snap photos in the audience or whoever we interact with. We need to treat each life with compassion. From sharing with fellow security team practitioners, we have come to understand that we must avoid interfering with the audience's viewing of the show, regardless of what it is that we're doing. We should always deal with incidents between acts, during the intermission, or after the show, except for some special cases. Also, we have to always be sure that the person we confront is indeed doing something wrong; many in the audience turn on their phones just to check the time, send a text message, play a game, or to light up the program to read. There are many different gadgets that could possibly give off light during a performance, so we have to be careful not to unnecessarily bother the audience. Also, if we are constantly talking on our walkie talkies, it will affect the practitioners on the sidelines or backstage who are trying to send righteous thoughts.

One incident happened in New York. We spotted someone who seemed to be videotaping the performance. It looked like he was holding up some kind of screen that might be blocking the people behind him from seeing. However, the security people at the front of the theater couldn't see this "screen" that we were referring to. I didn't want to walk down to the front, since it would catch the audience's attention, so we asked a number of practitioners to look at it from their different angles. As it turned out, what we thought was a "screen" was, in fact, just the reflection of the backdrop on this person's cleanly shaved head!

Another time we were in a smaller city where the theater was placing a lot of restrictions on us. At first I thought it was ridiculous. With their procedure, we would have had to notify three or four levels of management each time we saw someone taking photos and never would have managed to catch the person in time. I told fellow practitioners that we would just have to do what we had to do, regardless. After the first performance there, the theater's management shared some comments with us, which I ignored. After I thought about it, however, it occurred to me that the management would think of our security team as part of Shen Yun, and, thus, any shortcoming that we seemed to have would be counted against Shen Yun. And on top of that, didn't we also need to save the theatre management? It was clear that we needed to treat them with kindness, too. So, even if it meant their approach caused us much inconvenience, we should still give it a try. That way we wouldn't leave them with a bad impression.

After reaching that conclusion, I held a meeting with the theatre's management to apologize to them. I promised to adhere to their rules and asked for their cooperation. I also reminded our practitioners to send focused righteous thoughts. After the run of performances was done, all of the management team came to shake my hand and express their satisfaction; they indicated to us how ready and willing they'd be to work with us again in the future.

Through handling security work for Shen Yun, I have also learned that if we are to do our best job of saving sentient beings, we have to let go of our egos. I have never been one to flatter people and have always been loathe to ask others to do things. But even this I had to change. If I was to get audience members to cooperate with us by erasing their photos, stopping their kids from crying, or working with us in other ways, I had to learn to work with people a different way. One time, for example, I had to spend a long time talking to an 80-year-old lady in order to get her photos erased. A practitioner later joked with me that I was becoming adept at flattery. Another incident had a big impression on me. I confiscated film from an elderly couple. The lady was so embarrassed that she wanted to leave the theatre and go home. It dawned on me, though, that they mustn't leave if they were to be saved; they had to go back to their seats and stay. I thus apologized profusely to her. The theatre personnel next to me were confused, since clearly she was the one at fault. But at that time, the only thing on my mind was convincing her to return to her seat. She did return to her seat finally, but the next second, when I began to relax, I noticed that a feeling of losing face began to surface in my mind. I quickly paid attention and reminded myself to reflect on the incident and see if I could have done better to prevent it. My conclusion was that I could have been friendlier when dealing with her.

There are over a dozen practitioners from New York and New Jersey who have worked with me these past few years on the security team. We formed a good team, and all of us have understood the importance of security duties. Each of them planned things with their family and jobs such that they could take time off to work all of the Shen Yun performances. But even with our good team, I have still found that notions surface in me when I see some people wanting to just watch the show. I would think it reasonable if they wanted to watch the show with their non-practitioner family members, but if that was not the case, I would question whether they had their priorities straight. I eventually came to realize that I was not putting myself in others' shoes, and detected that there might even be a tinge of jealousy on my part.

One time, after the first show, a practitioner said that he wasn't going to work on the security team anymore. He didn't say why. I was angry and tried to call him in order to scold him. He didn't answer his phone. Later, I was glad he didn't answer his phone, because I would have given a lot of my virtue! Looking back on the incident, I realized that my anger came from my human side. Even if something is important, I came to see, I should not impose it on others. I was still not being considerate of others. That practitioner might have had personal reasons or he might just have been tired and wanted to take a break, which are all reasonable. The next day, I saw that this practitioner was out in the audience. Instead of being upset, I felt ashamed. Apparently I was not nice enough that a person would dare to tell me he wanted to see the show. Afterwards, I joked with him that we would allow him this one day of vacation. He replied with a smile and said, "I won't shirk my duty again."

This past season, Shen Yun toured the world with three dance groups and two orchestras. I have heard reports of photo-taking and theft that resulted from security lapses. I have felt unsettled hearing this. That's especially so, since in some cities, you could say it was because we didn't have enough manpower. In those cases, I believe our righteous thoughts are all the more important. The truth is, every one of us is a member of the security team, a guardian of Dafa. Each and every person is responsible for ensuring that Shen Yun's performance is incident free and achieves the effect of saving people.

I am lucky to have been part of the security staff for more than 30 performances this past season, and I have benefited much from it. In this process, I was cleansed and elevated. While integrated rightly with the body of practitioners, I could feel Teacher cleansing me with his gong (cultivation energy) as the performance unfolded. I have seen how the attitudes of theatre staff change, and I have seen the audiences standing to applaud. All of these things have encouraged me to do better and be worthy of being a Dafa disciple.