Turkey: First Middle East Experience Sharing Conference

The First Middle East Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference was held on October 24th, 2009 in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. Practitioners came from Turkey, Iran, Israel and the United Arab Emirates to participate in the conference. Twelve practitioners went to the front and shared their experiences in the practice.

The first Middle East Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference

A Turkish practitioner talked about how she balances between the practice and her family. Her husband was against her practising Falun Gong. Later he had a stroke and became paralysed. She took care of him and their children and shouldered the financial responsibility alone. In her sharing, she said, "Now I am not as afraid. My courage and confidence increases by the day. For a practitioner, I believe it is the most important to have righteous thoughts. With righteous thoughts, there is nothing you cannot achieve."

A nine-year-old practitioner said that he was invited to play violin in a concert in March 2009. He chose the song "Falun Dafa Is Good". On the day of the performance the theatre was full and over 1000 people came. "I was the youngest performer," he said, "When I started to play the song, it was dead silent in the theatre. As soon as I finished, I heard loud applause. Everyone asked me what song I played when I went backstage." He was happy that so many people heard this song that praises Dafa.

An Iranian practitioner practises in an unique environment and he went though the process of how to eliminate the attachment to fear. "Every time I worried about my safety, I felt tremendous pressure because it was a serious problem. Recently I came to the understanding that letting go of life and death is the attachment that every practitioner needs to let go in the very end. I asked myself how I can do well facing the issue of life and death if I could not even give up the attachments to greed, personal gain, lust, desire and laziness."

A practitioner who owns a fast food restaurant in the United Arab Emirates has many opportunities to do business with China. He often gets offered commissions from his business partners in China. "I turn down the offer every time and tell them about Falun Gong and the persecution," he said.

A practitioner from Turkey shared her experience of raising awareness about the human rights abuses against Falun Gong practitioners in China at her workplace. Her boss has a terrible temper and many before her left because they couldn't stand the boss. "I try to do my best at work and clarify the facts about Falun Dafa to the customers. I often put up Falun Dafa fliers and paper lotus flowers in my office. I wear my Falun emblem to catch the customers' attention so that I can talk to them about Falun Dafa when they ask me about the emblem. I give the customers paper lotus flowers before they leave. One day my boss came to me and said, 'I found the customers very happy when they received lotus flowers from you. I will pay for the paper. You should make more when you have free time and let's give every customer a flower when they come.'"

More than 20 practitioners from Iran who attended the Fa conference for the first time were pleased to meet practitioners from other countries of the Middle East. They cherished the opportunity to exchange understandings and insights with practitioners in other countries.