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Thoughts after a Conversation with a Friend

Sept. 26, 2013 |   By a Dafa practitioner outside of China

(Minghui.Org) I recently had a conversation with a friend who has lived in Canada for many years. I talked to her about Falun Dafa's principle of teaching people to be kinder and its positive health benefits.

She told me the first time she heard of Falun Gong was in 1999 from a Chinese media outlet with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Her understanding of Falun Gong later changed after she witnessed practitioners' peaceful protests in front of Chinese consulates. She thought that Falun Gong practitioners were a political group persecuted in China. Other than that, she didn't know anything about the practice.

After our conversation, she came to understand that Falun Gong is actually a way of cultivating, and has many positive benefits.

From her feedback, I thought of other overseas Chinese who may have the same understanding as my friend: that Falun Gong is only a group being persecuted by the evil Chinese regime.

I hope that practitioners can include the beauty of Falun Dafa in their truth-clarification sites outside of China instead of just focusing on exposing the persecution. This way, people can first read about what Dafa is and see the beauty of the practice before reading about the persecution.

At the truth-clarification site at Harbour City in Hong Kong, I saw many banners such as, “The collapse of the CCP is Heaven's mandate” and “Falun Dafa is good.” For everyday people who don't know much about the practice, maybe we can have banners that read “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good”? This may be more effective.

I understand that fellow practitioners have put in a lot of effort to showcase the beauty of Dafa. However, could it be more effective to awaken people's conscience if we first show them Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and then the persecution of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance?

If they only know that practitioners are being persecuted, but don't know the reason of the persecution and what Falun Gong is about, they may think, “They are being political. I should stay away from politics.” They may then miss the opportunity to hear the truth.

Please kindly point out anything inappropriate in my understanding.