(Minghui.org)
Greetings, Master!
Greetings, fellow disciples!
In my earlier days as a practitioner, one day I was taking the subway in NYC with another practitioner. Seeing the other passengers on the train, she said that she felt so sorry for those sentient beings who hadn’t obtained the Fa. I thought she was really compassionate and wondered why I didn’t feel that way.
I knew I needed to get rid of human sentiments in order for me to have compassion, but I didn’t know how.
“I've told you before that Shan isn't something pretended, nor is it a state that's just maintained on the surface. Shan truly comes from within and can only be attained and embodied through cultivation.” (“Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Western U.S. Fa Conference”)
It took me a long long time to find my compassion. I’d like to share my path of cultivating compassion.
“with those people that you run into by chance, who you run into in daily life, and the people you run into at work, you should all clarify the truth to them. Even when in your daily life you pass by people so quickly that you don't have a chance to talk to them, you should still leave them with your compassion and kindness. Don't lose those who should be saved, especially those with predestined connections. Actually, a lot of Dafa disciples say when they're clarifying the truth, 'I'm going to go clarify the truth now,' as if at that moment they're going to clarify the truth, but they don't clarify the truth normally. Saving beings should permeate every single aspect of your daily lives at this time. If you can all understand and really see its importance, I think you'll probably save more beings.” (“Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Atlanta Fa Conference”)
Master said to save the precious Chinese people, but in my work as a mortgage consultant in San Francisco, I didn’t like Chinese clients at all, especially those from mainland China. I believed they had lower morals and typically wasted a lot of my time and then they went with another loan officer. I even came to the conclusion that those who insisted on meeting me on weekends were very self centered and the deal probably wouldn’t work out anyway. I got nervous every time a Chinese client was introduced to me, because I was not sure how to deal with them.
For the nicer clients, I typically clarified the truth to them at the end of our transactions when they thanked me for my work. But sometimes it took months before they found a house or the clients changed their minds about buying or refinancing, and I never got a chance to tell them about Falun Dafa. Why didn’t I clarify the truth to everyone who came to me in the first place? I realized I had fear. I feared that being a Falun Gong practitioner would scare them away; I feared that, if anything went wrong during the transaction, they would think of Falun Gong negatively; I feared putting my reputation on the line.
As my understanding improved, I realized that I needed to put the Fa ahead of self interest, and I made the switch. I realized these clients were coming to me to be saved, and whether I did business with them or not was not important. I thus started to make an effort to meet with each client in person, even on the weekends. During our initial consultation, after I talk about business, I tell them that they don’t have to work with me, but that they should make sure to find a real estate professional who will put their interests ahead of his/her own. I tell my clients how I do my business and the guiding principals of my beliefs, and then truth clarification just becomes so natural. The results have been very good.
Doing things this way, I've felt the power of true compassion. Some clients have never met a Falun Gong practitioner in real life, while others tell me they have friends or relatives who practice Falun Gong but they can’t comprehend the things they do. I then get a chance to clarify things further. I have become happier dealing with my Chinese clients, as I know more people are being saved, and it’s never a waste of time even if they don’t do business with me.
It has now become natural for me to integrate truth clarification into my daily life while doing grocery shopping, volunteering at my child’s school, and chatting with colleagues and neighbors. When compassion emerges, you see everyone suffering.
I also discovered that when I clarified the truth to government officials, it started to come more from my heart rather than the talking points.
I have to admit that I neglected government work for years. My human attachments were getting in my way. First I discovered that many politicians are not as truthful as they appear to be. When they want your vote, they pretend to listen to you, but when faced with the CCP’s bribery and campaign assistance, their position changes. Secondly, a few years back I got burned by practitioners’ not telling the complete story when seeking government officials’ support, and it took a lot of work to restore the relationships and to re-establish trust.
I learned the lesson that we have to be accurate in what we say; otherwise, people will perceive us as deceiving or exaggerating. I also realized that subconsciously I was putting too much hope in government officials. Then I thought, “Dafa disciples are the ones who are rectifying the Fa, not them.” So I went to the other extreme. After my child was born, I pretty much dropped the government truth clarification work. I felt my time spent on them had been a waste. I was very attached to seeing results.
A very powerful elected official in our area was also friends with one of the CCP's evil heads. I completely gave up on that official. The official had even repeated evil propaganda.
But compassion does wonders. After I found my compassion, I thought I needed to give that official and his staff another chance. So I dug out the email for the official’s local office director and sent him a request for a meeting. To my surprise, he responded right away. I remembered years ago it took over a month for him to get permission to meet us. The office director is of Chinese descent. He told me that he read the Epoch Times as well as other Chinese newspapers in the Bay Area. He was aware of a lot of things.
Because he was of Chinese descendant, I prepared a presentation showing the creation of China’s divine culture and how cultivation is a part of China’s traditional culture. I borrowed this from the Shen Yun presentation. At first he looked at the slides from the corner of his eye with a doubtful expression. By the time I was into the third slide, other practitioners noticed that his attitude changed. The slides continued to show the destruction of our divine Chinese culture and why Falun Gong is rooted in China’s traditional culture and nothing like the evil propaganda. In the end, he agreed to help rescue one of the practitioners from China.
We knew that our purpose was not to rely on her office to rescue our practitioner; we really wanted to give her and her staff a chance to be saved.
During this July’s Capitol Hill visits, I worked with a team of practitioners to further clarify the truth to Congress members and their staff. Even though practitioners have been visiting these offices every year for the past 13 years, I felt most of our supporters only support us based on human rights, but they still have misconceptions about us due to the CCP’s propaganda. As a group, we tailored our talks to each office depending on how much understanding they had of Falun Gong and clarified the truth and dispelled the lies and propaganda. Our team is continuing this effort on an ongoing basis.
By finding my compassion, it also helped me to save sentient beings more effectively through Shen Yun. In the first couple of years when I went to the mall to sell Shen Yun tickets, I felt it was my responsibility, but my heart was not there. I had very limited time between work, my toddler, and my non-practitioner family. I sneaked out for a couple of hours to stand at the Shen Yun booth, but I hardly sold any tickets.
In 2010 I started to go with a practitioner to reach out to the Bay Area rotary clubs. Even though I did good preparation, recited the key talking points of the dance, the orchestra, the backdrop, the celebrity comments, etc., it was not very well received. We typically only had two minutes to talk and that was considered a good result; the worst was spending two or three hours on the road only to find out that they were not interested.
At that time I felt people in the Bay Area were very complicated. What worked in other states might not apply here. Then in 2011 a southern California practitioner developed a Shen Yun presentation that was very successfully used in rotary clubs. I could tell that the practitioner had put his heart and soul into the preparation of the slides. I started to study the Shen Yun website and learn how to communicate the higher purpose of the Shen Yun Performing Arts. That year we got many presentation opportunities, and most of them were very well received.
After I got used to our Shen Yun presentation, our coordinator asked us to start using New York’s version. Without much time to study the new presentation, just by glancing through it, it seemed to focus a lot on the features rather than the benefits, so I resisted making the change and exclaimed, “If it ain't broke, don’t fix it.” It wasn't until another practitioner patiently pointed out that I should take a closer look at the new presentation, because it was not what I had perceived, that I realized I needed to broaden my perspectives.
Speaking of broadening perspectives, the recent Chinatown incidents have certainly taught me about that. Growing up under the CCP’s influence, I found that I was very competitive. When the beating incidents took place in June, I helped to fight the cases in court. During my first phone conversation with our practitioner attorney, I told her a little background about politics in San Francisco and the complicated connections between elected officials, the San Francisco police department, and the CCP’s Chinatown ally, and that we were not getting anywhere with the police or the district attorney. Our attorney said, “Show our compassion, and they will see we are good people.” When I had questions on how to respond to a situation, our attorney practitioner told me that she would study Fa for a while before responding to my email.
I saw a totally different approach from what I was used to – the protests, the appeals, the complaints, etc. I looked inward and wondered how many Chinatown folks really saw that our purpose for going there was to save them. Did they see my compassion towards them? Did the police see that we went to Chinatown to do something good, or did they perceive us as causing trouble?
To prepare for our meeting with the police department investigation unit, I realized it was not enough to just tell them about the persecution. To them, the persecution is happening so far away—what does it have to do with San Francisco's Chinatown? We needed to show our compassion and help them understand why we go to Chinatown. We needed to correct our critical and confrontational image, so that they would be more willing to work with us.
“When you're before sentient beings, as soon as words come out of your mouth and as soon as your thoughts emerge, they are able to disintegrate bad elements and the bad things that poison the world's people and that exist in people's minds. And then people will come to understand, and you'll be able to save them. Without the mighty power of true Shan at work, you won't be able to disintegrate those things, and you won't achieve anything in clarifying the truth. Those who do things in an extreme way, in particular, let me tell you that it absolutely won't have a positive effect. That's because the abilities you've acquired in cultivation won't manifest, and your Shan won't manifest. So, while doing anything, don't have any combative thoughts, that's wrong. Don't go to extremes, even when you go to the consulates and embassies. You should be compassionate to people. But it's different when it comes to evil beings. When we send forth righteous thoughts, we clear away the evil that doesn't belong to mankind, and the demons, ghosts, and monsters that have engaged in the persecution. However you handle those wretched demons and dark minions is fine. But you need to be Shan to people. Aren't we saving people? Since we are saving the world's people, how could you save people if you're not Shan to them?” (“Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Western U.S. Fa Conference”)
Although the meeting started rather tense, the atmosphere soon became more relaxed. Our practitioners introduced themselves and told their occupations in ordinary society. It gave them a sense of who we are that they could relate to. From the beginning, we set the tone of our meeting as appreciative and enhancing mutual understanding.
We clarified to them that the purpose of our going to Chinatown was not only to generate more public awareness in order to end the persecution, but also to help the Chinatown folks to have a better future. Chinese tradition believes one lives more than one lifetime, and we don’t want them to have any regrets because they were hurting good people.
With our intention to further improve ourselves and bring more harmony to Chinatown, the meeting ended on a very friendly note. I felt it was a great way to make friends, and we truly needed to make more friends with the SPFD in Chinatown and with the Chinese community.
In addition, practitioners in the Bay Area have given me a lot of inspiration. I have learned to see things from different perspectives and also have strengthened my righteous thoughts.
I used to worry that if I took too much time from my work, which is a very time sensitive profession, I could jeopardize my clients’ transactions. Now, with stronger righteous thoughts, I am trying to balance everything well.
The above is my limited understandings at my current cultivation level.
Thank you, Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners!
