Collecting Signatures to Petition Against Article 23

By a UK practitioner

Upon hearing about the serious harm and consequences of Article 23 being mentioned by some practitioners, we decided to grasp the remaining time to collect signatures at every major Chinese supermarket and restaurant to appeal. In the meantime, we also launched a campaign to collect signatures on university campuses and in the city. From Monday to Friday, we went to the Chinese supermarkets every afternoon. We first said why we were there and the hazardous nature of legislation of Article 23 to the proprietors and their staff. After hearing our explanation, they all signed their names. With the proprietors’ consent, we stood in front of the supermarkets’ entrance to collect signatures from passers-by, especially the Chinese who came there for shopping. The overwhelming majority of Chinese were very supportive. In particular, the immigrants from Hong Kong were very concerned about this incident. Almost every westerner also signed their name.

On the weekends, we went downtown to introduce Falun Gong and to clarify the truth of the persecution. After that, we walked along the streets to visit the Chinese restaurants one after another, and collected signatures from people there until we had walked through all the streets in that area. During the day, we also collected signatures from the people around us. For instance, practitioners who are students solicited signatures from their teachers and other students on university campuses during the breaks or after school; practitioners who were working collected signatures from their colleagues in their workplaces; still others collected signatures from those who came to the exercise sites to learn the practise. As we made sure that we did this everyday, the effect was very good. On the one hand, we collected signatures; on the other, we also mailed the signatures we had collected to Hong Kong.

The following are my understandings to share with fellow practitioners:

1. Use "righteous thoughts and righteous actions" to dispel any interference:

There was often quite a lot of interference during our activities. The most common situations that we ran into was bad weather and we also wasted a lot of time waiting for buses. Once, a practitioner wanted to carry a desk to the street to facilitate the collection of signatures. Right before he left home, it suddenly rained. He perceived that it must be interference, and thus immediately intensified his righteous thoughts so that he would be able to take the desk without being affected by any phenomenon. Another time, when we were collecting signatures on the street, we noticed that the sky was clear, but that some dark clouds were just above us and would occasionally release some raindrops. However, the rain didn’t fall until we had finished our activities. During the first two days, we didn’t see many Chinese people shopping at the Chinese supermarket. The proprietor was also surprised by the sudden decrease of customers. We persisted and sent forth righteous thoughts [using upright thought to purify oneself and the surrounding environment] while collecting signatures. In no time, we saw more and more customers coming to shop at the supermarket. We also experienced personal barriers that we needed to overcome like physical discomfort and worrying about whether people would sign their names.

2. It is important to coordinate as a complete body and improve holistically:

Almost all of the practitioners involved in this area actively participated in the campaign. Every practitioner took advantage of his own capabilities to collect signatures from the people around him. The western practitioners and Chinese practitioners who had just started to learn Falun Gong also volunteered to give us a hand. They took some blank signature forms back home, and the forms were full of signatures a week later. Even the Chinese people who we came across on the streets also wanted to take a copy of the form, saying that they wanted to push their schoolmates to pay attention to this incident, and promised to mail the signature form to Hong Kong by themselves. Through this campaign, I realised that Dafa practitioners’ participation and cooperation are very important. As a matter of fact, our Falun Dafa activities should not always be carried out by one or several practitioners. With more practitioners’ participation, including non-practitioners' assistance, everything will go much more smoothly.

As Teacher Li mentioned in the poem, "Just a Play": “Everything through the ages has happened for the Fa,” let’s treasure this period of time, and cherish every opportunity to do Dafa activities even better.