Being a University Student and a Dafa Practitioner

I came to Toronto in 2007 for my undergraduate studies and now, several years later, am about to graduate. I'll share a few experiences I had coming to school here with regards to clarifying the truth to Chinese students, being a good student, and gaining the right understanding of my everyday environment.

In the summer of 2007, I was at first hesitant as to whether I should move into a university residence hall, afraid that I'd be putting myself in a dangerous environment of parties and bad morals, but I had a feeling it was the right choice for me, and I knew that if I stayed close to Master, everything would go fine regardless of my environment.

As you can imagine, if modern-day students can't impose restraints upon themselves, the living environment in a university can easily lead them to do many harmful things and indulge in very bad behaviour. I still remember clearly the first Thursday night after I moved into residence. The door of my dorm room was open; I was working on my computer and chatting online with a practitioner at another school. People were running up and down the hallway, some drunk, preparing to go out clubbing. My unwillingness to drink and party led me to associate with other students that were not party-prone. Of course - it was meant to be - they were Chinese students, and the ones that had to be saved.

Many of the Chinese international students at the university are from wealthy families in China. Some of my good friends were the sons and daughters of Chinese entrepreneurs and bankers, and my best friend turned out to be the daughter of a high-ranking Chinese diplomat. Since I could speak some Chinese and had interest in and knowledge of Chinese affairs and culture, they would ask me where my interest stemmed from. I would usually explain to them how I learned Falun Gong as young teenager and how I then got interested in Chinese spirituality, culture, and then human rights, politics, and history.

I remember clearly the first time I hung out with my friend whose father is a Chinese diplomat. A neighbour of mine in residence had introduced us because she spoke French, which is my first language. She called me to set up a time to do homework together at the library. She knew I was a practitioner and I was waiting for the moment she'd bring up the topic. As I expected, she was aggressive in telling me that I didn't know what Falun Gong was and that I had just stumbled upon it foolishly because I had an interest in China. I was very firm in telling her that I had already been practicing since I was 13 and I knew full well what I was doing.

Showing determination in my beliefs despite my Chinese interlocutors' hostile feelings, yet without expressing animosity towards them, often earned me their respect. In fact, it led to them being saved. This friend, in particular, went from criticizing Falun Gong the way the CCP (Chinese communist party) does, to sharing with me how she hated the CCP and how it had ruined her family.

This helped me understand how we have to appropriately cherish our predestined relationships with people in order to save them. For example, if I had pushed to change this girl's views about Falun Gong, she may have stopped talking to me. Instead, I was conscious that we'd mix for a year at least - it turned out we still talk three years later - and therefore that I should show I was firm in my belief in Falun Dafa, but that I was rational and not pushy. It is through my good behaviour and our friendship that one day she told me, "See how good Falun Gong is for you!"

In early 2008, I invited her to see Shen Yun at the Sony Centre. She was laughing at the emcee's jokes and seemed to be enjoying the show. After the show, I asked her, "Which was your favourite piece?" She said, referring to dance about the young Falun Gong practitioner who loses her mother because of the persecution, "The one with the little girl!" I was happy.

Similarly, I was anxious as to what my relationship would be with my professors since, on the one hand, I wanted to save them, and, on the other hand, I wanted to do it nicely to keep a good relationship with them and make sure that they took me seriously as a young scholar. I remember in the first months of my studies in the fall of 2007, I was trying to get some of the faculty to attend our first Mid-Autumn Shen Yun show. The faculty didn't know me and I didn't feel right in approaching them. It turned out my efforts were in vain.

I learned with time that it was inappropriate for me, as their student, to clarify the truth to them in the same way that I did to passersby on the street. This showed a failure on my side to understand how I was linked to them. Our predestined relationship was not limited to one minute; it was a relationship that would build over the long term. I had to save them by showing how good a student I was, and I had to find ways to incorporate truth-clarification in an academic and scholarly way in my research projects and in-class questions.

For example, I took two classes with the university's foremost China scholar. I got A's in both and had the chance to speak with him in depth a few times. While it is clear that years of working close to the CCP, having many friends that are professors in China, and being treated to big dinners and karaoke nights throughout his career have softened his views on the CCP, I understood that this does not mean he cannot be saved. In the 2007 lecture to Australian practitioners, I understand that Master states that the defining line between being saved or not is whether one understands that Falun Gong is good and the CCP is bad. I believe my professor knows this, but poisonous CCP notions simply make him apathetic to opposing the CCP in an outspoken manner or to see the CCP close to its demise. The most outspoken and most righteous scholars will criticize the CCP publicly and voice support for Falun Gong. The quieter ones will say that the CCP is bad but will qualify their statements and soften them. My understanding is that as long as they deplore the persecution, they are saved.

I recently completed a major research paper on Canada's relations with China. I was able to reach out to many of Canada's China experts, because I understood that writing the thesis was part of my mission as a practitioner. One day I conducted one of many interviews over the phone while at the library. After I was done, I started feeling really overwhelmed and annoyed, so I decided to go for a walk. I walked across downtown to a park I knew and sat down to read the Fa. At one point, it hit me, "I'm not working on this research project to get an A, to build up my credentials, to go to graduate school, but rather I should see this as producing truth-clarification material! I'm doing this work for sentient beings!" My writing process thus became much easier as I understood I wasn't doing it for myself, but to save others.

I now would like to share a little bit about the importance of building a good cultivation environment.

In Zhuan Falun, Master says in Lecture Six,
"From a high-level perspective, everyday people are playing with mud while in society without realizing that it is dirty. They are playing with mud on earth."

I have often found that, living in a university environment and being surrounded by other young people, I had mud all the way up to my neck!

Throughout my three years in university here, it proved to be quite hard to stay unscathed and unaffected by my surroundings.

In my second year, I would wake up every day in time to send righteous thoughts, study Fa, and do the exercises, but last summer, my will started to waver. I became bored and started seeking what ordinary people my age seek - girls, friends and fun. While I kept up with my work on our media projects, those worldly pursuits were my main preoccupations. It's quite embarrassing, but I have to admit it lasted for about half a year.
In Zhuan Falun, Lecture Four, "Upgrading Xinxing," Master says,

"Cultivation practice must take place through tribulations so as to test whether you can part with and care less about different kinds of human sentimentality and desires. If you are attached to these things, you will not succeed in cultivation."

Instead of seeing those worldly pursuits for what they were - worldly pursuits - I indulged in going after them. I eventually began feeling quite depressed, lonely, and lost in this world. It was just like Master said in "Fa Teaching Given in Manhattan 2006,"

"With such an enormous Fa here, the Fa will be with you when your thoughts are righteous, and this is the greatest assurance. But on the other hand, when your righteous thoughts are inadequate and not in line with the Fa, you will be cut off from the Fa's power, and it will seem like you are alone and getting no help. Even if the things you are doing are Dafa things, you still have to conform to the Fa or else the Fa's power will not be there."

I was doing all this work and going to Fa-study, but my heart wasn't there, my righteous thoughts were impure, and I was walking down an evil path. This became such a problem that it almost led me to commit the worst mistake a practitioner could make.

This was largely due to my failure to secure for myself a good cultivation environment. Last summer, I would see practitioners on a regular basis, but we'd mostly go watch movies, go shopping, hang out, and talk about those worldly attachments of ours - not in a way that sought to get rid of them, but rather we were indulging in them. I was only able to see through the tribulations and get my cultivation back on track by asking Master for help.

I felt like I had failed to abide by the standards of the Fa, that I had failed Master by following the old forces' arrangements, indulging in behaviour that was making people around me and my family happy - going out, having a girlfriend, being close friends with non-practitioners. I felt isolated, though, because my roommates, friends, classmates, professors, and family members are all ordinary people.

Many times when I felt confused or uncomfortable on the inside, I asked Master to guide me with the right understanding, because I simply didn't trust anyone around me anymore. I escaped it all by going to the library to do my homework away from anyone else. I would mingle with others in class and with my roommates when it was time to go to bed, but not much more than that.

In the past, I failed to understand the bond between a practitioner and Master. I would hear other practitioners talk about it, but I had the wrong understanding of, "No, I want to be able to do it myself, I don't want to ask Master for help. I don't want to bother him with my worries and failures."

However, I now understand that a disciple's relationship with his Master is a core element of cultivation practice.

In Zhuan Falun, Lecture Six, "Martial Arts Qigong," Master says,
"Think about it, everyone: Eighty to ninety percent of the people from this class will not only have their illnesses healed, but will also develop gong--the genuine gong. What your body carries is already quite supernormal. If you practice cultivation on your own, even with a whole lifetime you will not develop it via cultivation. Even if a young person were to begin the practice right now, in this lifetime he would be unable to develop what I have given, and he would still need the guidance of a true, good master."

Thus, it was through understanding the preciousness of my bond with Master that I could get through it and that, once again, I am able to see my everyday environment for what it is: It is neither my hub nor the place where I belong, but, rather, it is my cultivation environment.

In my daily life, I now constantly remind myself of what Master says in "Fa Teaching Given in Manhattan 2006,"

"Here amidst the secular world, it is all up to you to walk the path correctly and to go beyond ordinary people when immersed in this complicated setting. Everything that ordinary people seek; everything that ordinary people want to gain; everything that ordinary people act on, say, and do--all of this is, for you, what needs to be cultivated away. But, since you still need to remain among ordinary people until your cultivation meets with Consummation, you have to reach a state in which you have such things but have no heart for them, in which you can do such things but without attachment. Or seen from another perspective, all of these things that ordinary people do serve to provide you with a cultivation setting."

In closing, I hope these thoughts about young people's environment can help my fellow young practitioners see through the difficulties and temptations of their environment. I will always be available to share about it and provide support and advice if needed.

These are only my understandings at my limited level. Please point out anything that is wrong.