Last weekend I helped out at a Falun Dafa booth at an outdoor Asian-American festival. Our booth was one of the most attractive ones at the festival. We had everything from posters about Falun Dafa to balloons around our canopy. Many people signed our petition forms, read the literature we were handing out, and wore the buttons "I Support Falun Gong" with pride.
Near the end of the activities, a group of four to five local kids rode up to our site. I heard someone yelling and I looked over and saw one of the kids shouting and flailing his hands trying to distract the practitioners who were demonstrating the exercises. I looked around and saw the other practitioners watching, but nobody was doing anything; I wasn't quite sure what to do either. I then thought, "These practitioners are righteously practicing the Falun Dafa exercises for the world to see. This kid is disrupting that which is righteous, therefore he must not only be stopped, but he also needs to learn the truth."
Not long after this thought came out, a woman from another booth (not a practitioner) came over and took this kid by the hand to show him the posters of the practitioners who had died from the persecution in China. I walked over and the woman asked if I could explain the situation in China. I began to talk about all that is happening in China to the group of kids. That seemed to spark their righteous thoughts and dispelled their misunderstandings. They began to ask many questions and wanted to learn more. The kid who was shouting said, "If they can't practice outside, why don't they just do it at home." I replied, "If they practice at home and play the exercise music, their neighbors will hear it and call the police." He said, "Why don't they just practice without the music." One of his friends said to him, "How would you like it if every time you played your music the police would come and arrest you." He paused and then said, "Yeah, that's not right."
They asked many more questions and looked at most of the posters. The kid that was originally shouting then told me that when he grows up he wants to be a soldier that protects freedom and he wouldn't let bad people hurt good people.
They then put on some of our buttons and rode away. About five minutes later though, they rode back, looked some more at the posters, and wanted more buttons to wear and put on their bikes.
Though we helped these kids by letting them see the truth of Falun Gong and the end result was good, I saw one major shortcoming of mine in the process. Though I had a righteous thought in the beginning, I didn't back it up with a righteous action (it was an ordinary person who had the righteous action). Instead of just standing there waiting for something to happen, I should have acted on this righteous thought and initiated the process of clarifying the truth to these kids. In the Teacher's article "Dafa Disciples' Righteous Thoughts are Powerful" it states, "The crux of the matter is that you have attachments. If not, do not endure passively, and face the evil people with righteous thoughts at all times." In the beginning I was just standing there passively, it wasn't until a righteous thought came out that the situation began to change.
Though I have never heard or seen anything of other dimensions, and no supernormal abilities have manifested in this surface dimension, the Teacher's newest article says, "Actually, every Dafa disciple has abilities. It's just that the abilities do not manifest in the surface dimension, so they think that they don't have supernormal abilities. But regardless of whether they can manifest in the surface dimension or not, when a person's True Thoughts come forth, they are very powerful."
"Dafa Disciples' Righteous Thoughts are Powerful" also states, "Since we cultivate in the righteous Fa, we should care for and save the beings and people of the world who are good. So we should act with goodness in everything we do. Yet removing the evil beings that manipulate people to damage humankind is also protecting humankind and sentient beings." The situation changed once I had the true and righteous thought of "These practitioners are righteously practicing the Falun Dafa exercises for the world to see. This kid is disrupting that which is righteous, therefore he must not only be stopped, but he also needs to learn the truth." Though I can't see what happened in another dimension, in this dimension not only did this kid stop his actions of disrupting Dafa, he also came to realize that Dafa was good, and wanted to do what he could to support Dafa (wear our buttons and become a soldier that protects good people).
In the future if a situation like this occurs again, I will be sure to actively expose the evil and explain the truth with true and righteous thoughts.
Category: Journeys of Cultivation
