(Minghui.org) During the Chinese New Year break, several friends vacationed in Taiwan. I read a news report a few days ago, which stated that today, a growing number of mainland tourists are visiting Taiwan due to the new, easier travel policy. For example, Shanghai residents can obtain a travel visa for Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan using an automated process which takes only an hour to complete.
A friend in Taiwan also told me that many tourists from China really enjoy visiting Taiwan, and want to make return visits. These changes occurred after Master gave the “Fa Teaching at the 2013 Western U.S. Fa Conference.” A significant and growing number of people are traveling to Taiwan in order to listen to the facts about Falun Gong, which also means that the responsibilities and burden on Taiwan practitioners are also increasing.
Last year, I went to Taiwan on a business trip and also visited several key tourist sites. I witnessed Taiwanese practitioners clarifying the facts with righteous thoughts and actions, and also experienced the state of mind of mainland tourists when they listened to the persecution facts. I would like to offer some suggestions from this perspective in order to help us improve upon these tasks.
Importance of Looking Inward
Right before the Chinese New Year, a relative who'd just returned from a Taiwan vacation informed me, “The tour guide told us that the people standing in front of the site talking to visitors are Falun Gong practitioners, along with others who sit and meditate in the back – and they're being paid.” I explained, “They're all Falun Dafa practitioners. Practitioners cultivate Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and thus will not take part in false activities, nor will they allow others to impersonate practitioners.”
The relative said, “A Taiwanese tour guide told me this – how could he be wrong?” Reviewing previous Minghui sharing articles, I realized that Taiwan practitioners have made much effort to correct this situation, and have clarified the facts with many tour guides. As a result, many tour guides have changed their understanding and attitudes, and some even began helping practitioners. However, as practitioners, we must also look inward.
At some tourist sites, I observed some practitioners' exercise movements which weren't quite precise. While sending righteous thoughts, some were sitting slumped over or with their heads down as if asleep. I would like to share that, doing the exercises at public tourist sites is validating the Fa. When people watch practitioners doing the exercises, this beautiful site full of dignity and harmony, they acquire their first and most direct impression. Simultaneously, the righteous field generated from the exercises has the effect of eliminating bad thoughts in people's minds. When people recognize that every practitioner is like this, any tour guide's slander will leave a question in their minds: “How could they possibly find such great people to hire? Can people for hire fake such a state?”
I think it is also important to purify our minds before clarifying the facts at the tourist sites. During my visit, fellow practitioners informed me that in addition to the practitioners who have been there for many years, there were also some who didn't start coming until after Master gave the US Western Fa Conference lecture.
However, purifying our minds is a never-ending process. I think that the practitioners who started to come after the Fa conference should also look inward. Perhaps there's a mindset of being afraid of falling behind, or maybe, they're only following Master's words on the surface but not trying to understand the Fa principles' deeper meanings. The energy field will get progressively stronger as long as we continuously correct every thought. If we all do this, we will form a great energy field as one body, and the evil slander will not be able to approach, or even form.
Clarify the Facts Rationally
I went to visit the Taipei 101 skyscraper around 4 p.m. Many mainland tourists were waiting for their buses in the rain near the main entrance. After one group left, another group immediately followed. Fellow practitioners were doing the Falun Gong exercises in the rain which presented a strong contrast for the visitors.
Suddenly, an individual in uniform stepped in front of the practitioners, asking them to leave. He then turned around and stood next to the entrance, while waiting for them to leave. One practitioner was preparing to speak to the mainland tourists but was stopped by him. The practitioner said, “This is a society that cares about human rights. You do not have the right to stop me.” I also said to him, “Please don't stop him. We aren't allowed to hear the truth in mainland China. We are fortunate enough to hear things like this in a place where freedom and democracy exist. These people are doing great things!” He saw that I was a tourist and stopped interfering. The practitioner then clarified the facts to the other tourists, even though they were quite cold. After the practitioner left, they made some rather negative comments.
The person in uniform was standing next to me, chatting with another person. He said that someone had complained about the practitioners. I wanted to know what was going on and to explain the facts to him, so I took the initiative. “Hello, can you tell me why you wanted them to leave?” He explained that he was a security guard for the Taipei 101 building, and a tourist guide had complained that practitioners were harassing the mainland tourists.
I replied, “You can't just act on something you heard from one perspective. It is difficult for you to imagine the harsh environment in mainland China. Even though it seems very prosperous on the surface, people have no freedom. All the news comes from one government source. All kinds of persecution have never stopped. The Falun Gong practitioners here are doing a very good thing. The mainland tourists have come a long way, and we should let them hear the truth, so you really shouldn't ask the practitioners to leave – you should support them.” We chatted for quite a while and he seemed to have understood.
After he left, two tourists watching practitioners doing the exercises commented, “At first, the Falun Gong practitioners were pretty good, but then they started to do self-immolation.” I jumped in on their conversation, “That's actually not what happened. The self-immolation was staged by the government.” I began to explain, and within seconds, I was surrounded by a big group of people all eager to listen. I truly felt their sense of urgency to listen to the facts, wanting to understand what really happened. This was my first experience in clarifying the facts in a larger environment overseas. I tried to calm myself, then continued to talk about the staged self-immolation. After I finished, they scattered again. I regretted that I didn't explain more, and didn't talk about the need to quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The experience at the Taipei 101 building made me really think about these things.
Taiwan and mainland China are fundamentally different. Taiwan does not have the CCP culture; its politics are based on democracy and freedom. Although the security guard believed the lies that someone else told him, he didn't say or do anything excessive to the practitioners. He was quite calm, and basically didn't know the facts about Dafa. The way we communicate with him has to be fundamentally different from the way we treat the police in mainland China. We want to treat him as our brother and just share with him. With the limited time we have with him, we need to explain the key points and help him to understand the facts.
I noticed that most mainland tourists seem to project a “protective coating” as they visit the various sites, and use this to isolate themselves from the truth-clarification activities. I am very familiar with this kind of mindset, which is only found in people from China. It is a self-protective instinct developed from the intense fear of persecution by the CCP. This negative mindset can prevent them from hearing the persecution facts. I suggest that practitioners add an extra thought to their sending righteous thoughts to completely eliminate this.
Mainland tourists tend to guard themselves against practitioners. However, when they were listening to me – a tourist just like them – they were really interested in this information. However, if we were in China, they would be very cautious instead. We need to utilize this special mindset in a positive way, and help them understand the persecution facts according to their situation – more from their personal perspectives, and with different methods and forms. I think that Taiwanese practitioners can share the specific activities at the tourist sites to come up the most effective methods to reach the people from China.
The Taiwanese possess a general dislike for the evil nature of the CCP. This feeling has also transferred to tourists from CCP-governed China. I don't know if Taiwanese practitioners also have this “dislike” in their minds. Of course, no one likes the evil CCP culture, but those who are persecuted by it are actually quite pitiable, and need practitioners' compassion.
The trip to Taiwan was a milestone for me, from the perspective of developing compassion for people in China. When I experienced how they behaved in an environment devoid of CCP culture, I immediately realized what Master meant when he told us how people in China have been deeply poisoned by the evil CCP.
In the past, I felt that it was very difficult to clarify the facts in China, and I sometimes even despised the CCP. Outside of that environment, I was able to see the contrast between that difficult, harsh life, and how they were most pitiable, so I truly want to give my best effort to help them. For those practitioners in Taiwan possessing similar negative thoughts that I used to have towards people in China, or maybe do not yet feel compassion for them, please try to open your minds and embrace the people from China with compassion. The distance between you will disappear under the power of great compassion. They will then approach us more easily.
Taiwan is a democratic country where people have the freedom of belief and religious practice. Not all people in Taiwan understand what Falun Dafa is or have righteous thoughts towards it. The Taiwan government seeks fast economic growth, and devotes great effort to developing tourism. As a result, many tourists from China now visit. On the one hand, they come to hear the persecution facts, but before they obtain understanding, they carry their bad notions and negatively affect Taiwanese people's attitude toward Falun Gong. The Taiwanese do not understand mainland China very well and some think that the CCP deserves credit for the fast economic growth. They also want to grow their own economy through mainland China, and sometimes these material interests can make people shift in the wrong direction without realizing it.
Therefore, I think that practitioners in Taiwan should not only clarify the facts to the tourists from China, but also to the people in Taiwan. This way, a positive reinforcement cycle will form as more people in Taiwan come to understand the facts of Falun Dafa. A righteous field will become stronger, and the things brought into Taiwan by the mainland tourists that don't align with the Fa will be repressed.
Mainland Practitioners' Righteous Support
All Falun Dafa practitioners in the world make up one body. We need to cooperate well in the projects to assist Master in Fa rectification. Master arranged for people from mainland China to hear the persecution facts overseas; I enlightened that this is a phase in Fa rectification. Besides the three things that we normally do as practitioners in China, we can also actively cooperate with oversea practitioners.
We can encourage those wanting to travel overseas to go, and especially encourage them to visit locations where there are many practitioners. I also suggest that when we send righteous thoughts, we add a thought to support the practitioners at the overseas tourist sites and eliminate the evil factors in other dimensions that are blocking people from hearing the facts and quitting the CCP. The overseas practitioners' activities are quite difficult and they need our cooperation and complementary support.
The above is only my own understanding. I would like this sharing to provide a starting point for this discussion and hope it will have a positive effect for practitioners at the tourist sites in Taiwan. Taiwanese practitioners can utilize these suggestions to form their own and better methods. Please kindly point it out anything that is not appropriate in my understanding.
