(Clearwisdom.net) Practitioners outside of mainland China have done a lot of work to clarify the truth to people in Beijing recently. Many of those practitioners are already doing multiple projects, yet they use what little spare time they had to save people in Beijing.
They rarely get any feedback from the recipients because they use mass emails, recorded messages and faxes to send information to Beijing. Other practitioners have talked about how to clarify the truth to people in Beijing. I also want to share what I experienced when I was living in Beijing, as my experiences may be helpful to practitioners overseas.
The situation inside China is very different from what it is outside of China. Some ideas that are easily accepted overseas are not easily accepted by people in Beijing. People in China, especially those who live in the evil's center, Beijing, have been living under high pressure and tight control from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for many years, so their ways of looking at things are quite negative. I think that when we write a truth-clarifying article that explains a principle, we need to ensure that related principles are clear, so the people in Beijing can accept them. In many cases, we need to elaborate on a less obvious principle even when we are trying to explain a principle that we, ourselves, find to be clearly logical.
Take the issue of bringing lawsuits against Jiang. If we tell people in Beijing about the lawsuits around the world, many of them will focus on whether or not the lawsuits will succeed. They judge things from their experience of being controlled for so many years, so they naturally conclude that the lawsuits won't succeed. They may even think that we are wasting our efforts and doing something meaningless. If we first talk about some related issues that they can easily identify with before we bring up the issue of the lawsuits, we might have better success. For instance, we can talk about the principle that "the prince receives the same punishment as an ordinary person for his crime," the fates of other tyrants, or the awkward situation Jiang faces in the international community. Then, people in Beijing can see the meaning behind the lawsuits themselves, and focus less on the chance of success in the courts. Because Jiang is so unpopular among people in Beijing, when they hear the above points, they clap their hands and cheer.
Some practitioners worry that if the content of the truth-clarifying material relates to the current political situation or to the CCP, the people in Beijing will not accept the materials well and will think that Falun Gong practitioners are involved in politics. I think we don't need to worry about that. My understanding is that in "No Politics," Teacher has clearly indicated that Dafa has no elements that are related to politics. We don't get involved in politics, and we are not afraid of being accused of being "involved in politics" and thus avoid all things related to politics while clarifying the truth.
In the poem Just a Play, Teacher said,
"Everything through the ages has happened for the Fa."
Currently, everything in the world is related to the Fa. Although the examples we use to clarify the truth may contain degenerated political concepts, we are only using the examples to demonstrate the element of justice. We don't care about benefits to any group or political power. We inspire people to think about the relationship between the persecution of Falun Gong and the fates of our country and every individual therein. The power of Dafa is manifest in our words and the examples we use to illustrate our points.
Beijing is the political center of China, so the people there care more about the current situation than people elsewhere in the country. For example, say a person went to Beijing on a business trip, and while there he noticed that everyone was talking about Saddam Hussein's arrest in Iraq. The person might be very surprised and might even ask, "What does Saddam Hussein's arrest have to do with your life in Beijing?" Indeed, people in Beijing care more about what is happening in the outside world than do people in other cities in China. We can use that as a starting point to clarify the truth to them.
Teacher told us that we can "explain things to them by following the logic of their attachments," ("Touring North America to Teach the Fa") when clarifying the truth to people. So we can utilize the enthusiasm for politics of people in Beijing to explain the facts about the persecution. When Teacher was lecturing to us in the past, although he was facing a group of degenerate human beings created by modern science, Teacher did not avoid talking about science. Instead, he utilized the science we were attached to. In the end, he helped us break away from the notions of science. In the process, Teacher was talking about the Fa, not about science. Following the same principle, we can also utilize the logic of politics to clarify the truth to those people who are attached to it. Yet we are clarifying the truth to them, not talking about politics. For me, using this way of clarifying the truth to people in Beijing has had a very good effect.
For example, soon after the war in Iraq broke out, the state-controlled media in China chose sides. They exaggerated the incidents in which the US troops accidentally killed Iraqi citizens, yet talked very little about Saddam Hussein's brutal persecution of the Iraqi people for so many years. When clarifying the truth, I sometimes first said, "The media in our country chooses the news they will report. In fact, Saddam Hussein has secretly killed numerous dissidents in Iraq. Yet the media in our country does not care about the lives of those people; instead, they only report on the bombing of the US troops!" People in Beijing would usually laugh and agree with my point. Then I would continue, "That was because the people in power in China are like Saddam Hussein: they have also killed innocent people over many years. Of course they don't want to point out crimes that are so similar to their own." I then talked about the people unjustly killed during the Cultural Revolution and immediately followed that with the truth about Falun Gong practitioners being persecuted in China. This way, people in Beijing naturally sympathized with practitioners and condemned Jiang Zemin.
Regarding the CCP, we have never avoided the topic when clarifying the truth in Beijing. Beijing is the capital of China. People in Beijing have a lot of inside information and are very knowledgeable about the corrupt government officials. They have also been the recipients of the most brutal suppression and persecution from the CCP. As a result, most people in Beijing are filled with hatred of and indignation towards the CCP, including those people who utilized the CCP to make a fortune. People from all walks of life denounce the CCP in private, including the CCP cadres and cadres inside the army. Although a tiny fraction of people agree with the actions of the CCP, compared to other areas of China, there are very few such people in Beijing.
Over the past several years, I frequently said, "The CCP suppressed the landlords and became the biggest landlord ever; it suppressed the capitalists and became the biggest capitalist ever. It asked everyone to "submit the land and money to the 'country' so that 'people' can have the power to use them." Who is the "country" and who are the "people?" People in Beijing usually say, "That's right!" I also said, "In a capitalist country, one needs to compete for the position of president, and the person can be dismissed if they don't do a good job. In a feudal society, although one person, the emperor, dictates the laws, at least he wants to turn the power and the country over to his own son. The emperor treats the people like his own children, and is not too wasteful. Plus, some emperors have been great leaders with much wisdom. The CCP not only appoints people and shows favoritism, it also has the notion of, 'If you do not use your power while you have it, the power becomes invalid after the due date.' As a result, there is nothing but corruption left!" Again, the people in Beijing agree with me. Sometimes I used a third party approach to talk to them, "On July 22, 1999, our work unit organized us to study the issue of the CCP persecuting Falun Gong. Our party secretary read from CCP documents: 'The Truthfulness, Benevolence, Forbearance of Falun Gong is anti-truthfulness, anti-benevolence, and anti-forbearance.' It was ridiculous to me: have they been to school at all? It's sheer nonsense. Following that logic, the corrupt officials of the CCP are all big honest officials!" Many people in Beijing laughed loudly, "Yes! You have a good point! That's what they meant!"
Of course, the preceding are all just opening words. After pointing out the brutal and selfish character of the CCP, I immediately talk about the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong. In this way, people in Beijing have no difficulty in sympathizing with and supporting us. Some of them said, "Falun Gong practitioners are great! People in China have been suppressed so much that we are all numb. We need people like the practitioners to wake up the consciences of the Chinese people with their blood and lives. The CCP uses violence to persecute a group of benevolent and unarmed people. The perpetrators are beasts!"
Recently, the Epoch Times published Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. The articles were very popular in Beijing. I think we don't need to worry that people will not accept related topics. As long as we follow Teacher's words and disclose the persecution of Falun Gong by the CCP, there should be no problem.
Some overseas practitioners said, "I became worried when reading the truth-clarifying materials I had prepared, suspecting that these materials will not be acceptable to the people in Beijing." I think we don't need to worry. First, our goal is to save sentient beings. The thoughts in our minds are very important: they can change the effect of the truth clarifying materials. So I think our minds must be calm and free from excessive worries. Second, I think few people in Beijing become completely clear about the truth after simply reading the information, so we don't have to expect the materials will have an immediate effect.
What I mean is, we don't need to put too much of a psychological burden on ourselves. I don't deny the effect of sending truth-clarifying materials to people in Beijing -- the situation is a result of their characteristics.
People in Beijing are pitiable because they have been deceived and hurt so many times. After their experiences, they are unwilling to believe anyone. People outside Beijing are simpler. Although they believed the CCP propaganda about Falun Gong, after we clarified the truth to them, they immediately woke up to the truth. People in Beijing are not like that. They don't believe the CCP's lies, yet many of them don't believe the truth-clarifying materials even after seeing 10 different kinds of materials. They only regard the materials as someone's opinion. They don't totally believe what they have read.
Because of this, many practitioners in Beijing who had been doing really well in distributing truth-clarifying materials have shifted their focus to clarifying the truth face to face in the last year or two. Some practitioners from outside the area think that maybe these practitioners are afraid to distribute truth-clarifying materials, as they fear they will be persecuted. In fact, practitioners were able to persist in distributing materials in the center of the evil for years, during which time they have built up unusual amounts of courage. It is only because they are clarifying the truth face to face according to the above situation: this way they can break through people's shells quite quickly. Although fewer truth-clarifying materials are seen on the streets, with help from practitioners overseas, the amount of truth-clarifying material in people's email accounts and their voice mail boxes has increased. Although these materials can hardly break the shells of people directly, they can eliminate the evil elements in other dimensions. Also, these materials provide people in Beijing with more information, so that when practitioners clarify the truth face to face, people can understand the truth faster and more easily. In this way, practitioners collaborate and function as one body, which maximizes the effect.
Another thing is that many people in Beijing like to read the written materials and think about the contents themselves. Some people told me that they would rather read facts and make their own judgments than listen to commentary. Commentary makes some people suspicious, wondering if the facts are made up. So in my opinion, if truth clarifying articles are not about the author's own experiences, it is better to use the kinds of articles that contain few opinions. When clarifying the truth to people face to face, I have never encountered this problem. Maybe it is because we get immediate feedback when talking to people, and they don't feel we are trying to force our ideas on them in an interactive conversation.
My last point is that practitioners overseas don't need to worry about the number of people in Beijing who have been deeply poisoned by the lies when clarifying the truth to them. If practitioners have compassionate thoughts, and think that whomever is listening to the truth in Beijing must be a precious being, I think the results will be the best. I have clarified the truth to many taxi drivers in Beijing, and almost every time I found the driver I talked to did not know the truth. Yet as time passes by, their reactions after hearing the truth are improving.
In 2000, the taxi drivers extended their hands to take the fliers we distributed. If a group of them were resting together, and I gave one of them a flier, the other drivers would ask for one too. In 2001, when I clarified the truth to them face to face, they agreed with what I said. In 2003, after hearing the truth, they not only agreed with me, but also added, "I have not heard enough. Next time I will listen to you again." In the first half of 2004, after I clarified the truth to a taxi driver, the driver wanted to charge me a lower fare. I said, "That won't do. You drivers work hard for your pay. Now the gas prices are soaring but the taxi fees have not gone up. If everyone pays one or two yuan less, then you will be in financial trouble." The driver said, "You are really considerate and think about our pains." "Of course, Falun Gong teaches people to think of others." In the second half of 2004, some drivers stopped the mileage meter before reaching the destination after hearing the truth. I couldn't stop them from doing that. After the taxi reached the destination, I wanted to give more money than what the meter showed, but they insisted that I only pay the price on the meter, saying to me, "On this trip, I have learned so much. Your words are truly great, I hope I can meet you again some time!"
The old forces wanted to prevent the kind-hearted people in Beijing from understanding Falun Dafa. They have arranged the biggest obstacles for the people according to the "mutual-generation and mutual-inhibition" principle of the old cosmos. Yet the people in Beijing came from very high levels, and thus correspond to many beings. So we need to work as one body to save these precious people.