(Clearwisdom.net) This article as prompted by the following incident.
In April 2006, the police from Changchun City Forced Labor Camp came to my parents-in-law's home to conduct a so-called "caring visit." My parents-in-law gave them a warm welcome and told them my wife's phone number and the company she worked for. They showed them my wife's recent photos and told them about her current situation. The police called my wife's cell phone from my parents-in-law's home. Later my wife called her parents and told them what kind of the police they were. They had committed the crime of murder and that Dafa practitioners had died in their hands. She asked her parents not to provide any more information to them. Her parents were shocked and immediately promised that they would never do it again. I was surprised and asked my wife, "Had you never told them about the evil crimes that the police perpetrate in the labor camp?" My wife said, "I was afraid they would be scared and worry about me, so I didn't." I told my parents about the incident. When I just started to mention that the police came to my in-law's home, my parents immediately interrupted me and angrily replied that the police had no right to do so. After I finished the story, my parents said, "You should tell them nothing. Just three sentences: Who are you? Show me your ID. My child doesn't live here and I have nothing else to say to you."
Several days later, my brother-in-law visited us. We advised him, "If someone from an international human rights organization asked you how your sister was treated in the forced labor camp, how would you answer him?" He said, "I would just say nothing special. It is not bad." After my wife then told him about what she had suffered in the labor camp, the brother-in-law said, "Under such a situation, if there were only people from the international human rights organization present, I would tell them the facts. If there were government officials with them, I would still say what I just told you." Looking at each other, my wife and I were left speechless.
Yesterday I went to a company that a fellow practitioner worked for. The practitioner was not there. I chatted with his partner, who was an older lady with righteous thoughts toward Dafa, and told her how the CCP set up secret concentration camps, and that their purpose was to harvest practitioners' body organs and to destroy the evidence by cremating the remains. The lady said it was hard to believe. I asked her whether her partner, the practitioner, told her about the persecution happening in China. She said, "Because he worried I would be scared, he didn't say much."
In the first incident, although my wife and I are both practitioners, one family member told about the persecution in the forced labor camp and the other didn't. Both of our family's attitudes to the persecution are totally different, one is to cooperate and the other is to oppose it. In the second incident, the brother-in-law didn't know the truth of the persecution, but even when he knew, he was still afraid to expose it. In the third incident, the older lady didn't know about the persecution thoroughly. The fellow practitioner's concern blocked the lady from knowing the truth. Maybe these are common phenomenon. Worrying people tend to be afraid, and some practitioners are unable to expose the evil. People are afraid to stand up to and expose the persecution.
As a practitioner, my first thought about those incidents was that we still have a lot of human attachments interfering with our clarifying the truth and there is much distance between our truly understanding the Fa.
We should oppose the persecution and save sentient beings. Clarifying the truth is the form this takes in the surface human world, which has the sides of both human nature and gods (righteous thoughts). If we just clarify the truth without righteous thoughts, we will not be able to dissolve the evil factors behind people and, therefore, be unable to save sentient beings. In order to truly save sentient beings, we should not only clarify the truth but also send righteous thoughts. The righteous thoughts are essential in clarifying the truth.
The premise is not letting our attachments be barriers to us. In the above cases, I think we should dig deeper into the reasons. There may be a sentimentality factor, or a factor in seeking personal interest. They are the direct, surface reasons that caused these people to not be able to thoroughly clarify the truth.
Moreover, we may not understand clearly why we should expose the brutal persecution. We should have concern and compassion in clarifying the truth to others. This is the deeper and fundamental reason. In "Teaching the Fa at the 2004 International Fa Conference in New York," there are such replies from Teacher,
"Disciple: Dafa disciples' efforts in New York City have changed the situation a lot, and many ordinary people have been moved by what they've seen at our anti-torture exhibits. But more and more Westerners have told us that they are seeing too many of those horrifying images, causing them to lose sympathy for us. Would Master please enlighten us on that?
Teacher: Maybe they say that the anti-torture exhibits you hold to clarify the truth are too shocking, but what I can tell you is that your actions are positive, and the energy is righteous and compassionate, so it absolutely will not shock people in any kind of negative way. Instead, the discomfort that some people feel must have been caused by bad thoughts in those people's minds. Don't people hang everywhere that graphic image of Jesus being crucified, with his hands and feet pierced by nails and bleeding? Haven't people been viewing that image for hundreds or thousands of years? So the problem doesn't lie in what is presented. Haven't Dafa disciples been subjected to similar ordeals in the persecution? You are not trying to use art to portray evil acts, you are saving people. There must be a reason why some people have negative reactions, there must be problems with their state of mind. Perhaps the evil is controlling their minds, or if not, then it's that their notions are not right. Even the people who sympathize with Dafa disciples have notions that have come out of ordinary society, and in terms of understanding, they may feel uncomfortable because of that. Don't worry, though, this can be resolved by a little more thorough explanation.
A human being may form different notions in the world. Some people think spicy food is good, some think sour food is, some like sweet food, and some like bland. Those are all tendencies of one's own making. Even if a comedy is playing in Manhattan, there are still a whole lot of people who don't like it and criticize it. That's how human beings are. There are people on both sides, positive and negative, and humans just live within the principle of mutual generation and mutual inhibition. They can't all be the same. Maybe there are more people out there who think the anti-torture exhibits are good, only they haven't said so. We can no longer keep making compromises to accommodate those with a lot of obstacles in their minds at the expense of saving good people. We are saving the world's people. Some can't bear to see these things, but there are more people who can, and who are moved, awakened, and saved. (Applause)
If someone thinks he can't stand it, well, let's think about it. With such a righteous field and the evil exposed so explicitly, and all of what is shown is actually happening in real life, yet there's this person who still raises issues like that, then doesn't that person have problems? He does, for sure. No matter how hard you work and how much you put into clarifying the truth, let me tell you, there will always be people in this world that you can't save. There is always going to be a portion that can't be saved. We can't be discouraged or demoralized because of those people. How could we be affected by and thus go along with whatever some people might say? We are here to change people, not to be changed by them. (Applause)
Everything we are giving people is wonderful, and we are saving people. We can't compromise to accommodate those who are no longer good and who obstruct the salvation of people, leading to good people not being saved. Of course, when we talk about those who are no longer good, they are not necessarily completely bad, and perhaps it's caused by their notions. But you have to stay coolheaded and rational when it comes to this. Don't be swayed by that small number of people and don't be affected by people. You should be very clear in your mind about what you're doing: you are saving people, you are doing the most righteous and most magnificent thing! (Applause) Our students have taken such great pains and overcome so much adversity in putting together the anti-torture exhibits. It's no small feat.
The key is actually that we ourselves be clearheaded. We should act with the power of conviction, not timidly or hesitantly. You can't see the fact that you are beings walking the road to godhood. (Applause) So you are different from ordinary people and you cannot be affected by them. The gods all admire you for the things you're doing in Manhattan, they truly admire you. Whether it's the gods that are playing positive roles or the ones playing negative roles, they all admire you. The world's people do too. The universal values of what is good and what is evil haven't changed."
I think what Master said here is very meaningful for us to expose the persecution, (especially those bloody, brutal crimes) to the world's people. My opinion is that the persecution has deepened step by step and is showing less and less human nature. The old forces' arrangements are evil. However, from the view of saving sentient beings, the more evil the persecution becomes, the more wonderfully Dafa manifests. The sentient beings may be saved in seeing these differences. Human beings have a kind side, which the evil persecution strongly impacts. With such an impact, people may stand up against the persecution. Of course, at the same time, we should send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the evil factors operating behind them. During this process, we should increase the intensity in our clarifying the truth and helping people recognize right from wrong and enable them to be saved.
Furthermore, during this persecution, many people have committed wrongdoing by keeping silent and even cooperating with the evil. On the surface, it seems that the attachments to personal interest, human intimacy, and reputation cause people to be unable to stand up against the persecution. Of course, there are many factors. However, how much do we understand about clarifying the truth in a righteous manner? It directly affects our actions and further affects the attitudes of the world's people. Master has entrusted us with the boundless power of the Fa and the great responsibility to save sentient beings. During the Fa-rectification, as long as we walk on the right path, nothing is impossible. If we are blocked by our attachments or we don't understand them clearly, it will be hard for the world's people to understand the absurd nature of the persecution, the brutal and inhuman means used, the evil shamelessness of those involved, the damage done to practitioners' lives, and the overall erosion of the basic human moral conscience. If we don't have a thorough understanding of the persecution, how can we make people realize the necessity of standing up against the persecution? Thorough, in-depth clarification of the truth is essential. It is directly associated with whether the world's people can stand up to expose the persecution and eventually oppose it. Master said in "Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Experience Sharing Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A:
"As I've said, everything that happens today in the ordinary society is the result of Dafa disciples' thoughts."
Think of those whom we haven't saved and the persecution that continues to happen! It may be the result of not doing well in clarifying the truth.
Secret concentration camps were recently exposed in China. The old forces have murdered so many of our fellow practitioners. We should treasure opportunities to clarify the truth. The cost of so many fellow practitioners' lives is too high.
The above is just my personal understanding. Please point out anything improper.