(Shared at 2001 European Conference)
Greetings honorable Master Li, Greetings fellow practitioners,
My name is Igor Jancev. I'm 30 years old, I come from Bosnia-Herzegovina and I've been living in Vienna for 7 years now. I obtained the Fa one and a half years ago. Since the beginning, I've felt that Falun Dafa was something special, and as I was reading the introductory book for the first time, I realized that I could suddenly understand things which I had never understood before.
At this beginning point, I still had a quite superficial understanding and it took me a couple of months before I could truly consider myself a practitioner. As time went by, I began to understand the Fa better and thus, I spent more and more time learning the Fa and practicing the exercises. I also realized that many things I did failed to meet the principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance." I am self-employed and I used to seize every opportunity to save on taxes. For example, I used to declare expenses for my private apartment and garage as expenses for my firm, in order to reduce the amount of tax I would have to pay. One day, as I was thinking about this, I came to the conclusion that as a Falun Dafa practitioner, I shouldn't do this any more, because this money doesn't belong to me. When I gave up doing this, I felt relieved. The worries that I had felt because of this disappeared as well. It gave me strength to give up other bad habits and attitudes.
At that time, other practitioners had already started to actively tell people the truth about Falun Dafa. For example, some practitioners had begun to distribute Chinese Falun Dafa newspapers to Chinese restaurants. Their experiences were quite good, as almost everyone took the newspapers, and some even wanted to know more about Falun Gong. Some people were surprised to see that there were Falun Gong practitioners in Austria, and other had never heard of Falun Gong before.
Even though I had realized that it was a good thing, I continued to find excuses to stay at home. Sometimes I thought that I was not good enough as a cultivator to tell the truth about Falun Dafa, or I would become worried that some activities could be considered political. I thought, it's enough to practice diligently at home and spread the Fa by occasionally speaking to some of my friends about Falun Dafa.
Through conversations with other practitioners and by reading the experience sharing articles on the Internet, I gradually understood, along with other practitioners, how important it is to tell people the truth about Falun Dafa. Some of us started to practice the exercises every day in the morning in a park near the university, in addition to our weekly practice on Sundays. At the beginning, there were some disturbances. Once, there was a homeless person who started to yell at us while we were practicing the standing exercises. He also kicked the CD player with his foot, but the music continued to play. As he began to see that he couldn't disturb our practice, he tried to splash us with water, but he was unsuccessful, as the hose was too short and the water didn't reach us. After we finished the exercises, he came to us again to ask for some money. I gave him some money, and ironically, he said that now he could start a new life with it. In the end, he thanked me and went away. We never saw him again.
As time went by, good experiences happened more often. Once, when we wanted to start practicing the exercises, a policeman came over to us to ask what we were doing there. We told him what Falun Gong was and he found it very interesting and took a flyer with him. Often people want to get more information about Falun Gong, and some even want to join in and decide to learn the exercises right away.
Nevertheless, my doubts had not all been removed yet. When a practitioner heard that the Chinese who work for the U.N. in Vienna were invited to dinner on the first of October, the Chinese National Holiday, he asked me if I wanted to go with him and other practitioners in order to offer information about Falun Gong. He said that it would be good if more Western practitioners could come, so that the U.N. employees could see that practitioners are not only Chinese. Also, these Chinese employees would have the chance to learn that Falun Dafa is good. I wasn't sure if I should attend or not, and in the end I didn't go.
A few days later, I heard about the good experiences of the three practitioners who went there, and I regretted that I hadn't gone with them. Many of the Chinese people had been interested in the Falun Dafa information material, but most were afraid that someone would see them, so they quickly put the material into their pockets or their cars. We again experienced that some of the Chinese were surprised to see Falun Gong practitioners in Austria. There was also a Chinese man from France. He had been practicing some kinds of qigong, and had also heard of Falun Gong, but because he was frequently travelling around, he had no opportunity to learn about Falun Gong. When he saw the practitioners offering Falun Gong newspapers, he eagerly accepted one.
After that, my desire to spread the Fa and to help with Fa rectification grew, but I was unsure of what to do. I felt that I couldn't possibly go out on the streets and tell passers-by about Falun Gong. When we heard that practitioners worldwide had begun to collect signatures to speak out against the persecution of Falun Gong in China, I knew that my chance had come.
In the beginning, I was quite unsure of myself, fearing that I wouldn't be able to clearly explain about Falun Gong, or that people would not understand me. First, I told my parents and my sister about the signature collection. My sister read the slip of paper and returned it to me without comment. My parents couldn't understand why I would do something like that, and they thought I might get involved in political activity. I tried to explain it to them, but I wasn't able to control myself well and got drawn into a long discussion.
After that I decided to try collecting signatures at my company. I spent a couple of days thinking about how I should proceed, with whom I should start and so on, and I hesitated, waiting for a good moment. I became quite nervous and the "right moment" never did come. The longer I waited, thinking about it, the bigger the task seemed to be. In the end, I wasn't even able to concentrate on my work anymore and my colleagues seemed to be less and less friendly to me. Then, I finally decided to start by asking two of my colleagues. The first responded quite loudly that he had heard that Falun Gong was a sect, and didn't want to sign before informing himself about Falun Gong through other sources; and the second one said that he had no time at the moment. After that I went home quite discouraged.
However, I was absolutely determined to overcome this problem. That same evening, I read two lectures from the book "Zhuan Falun" and suddenly realized that my own fear and hesitance led to the hesitance and skepticism of the others. The next day, immediately after I came to the office, I took the petition sheet and went from one colleague to the next without thinking about their reactions. Suddenly everything was so simple. Everybody signed the petition and many also showed their sympathy for the Falun Gong practitioners in China. At the same time, the atmosphere at work improved and I was able do my job better. This was a big confirmation for me. Through this experience I understood even better what Master Li has always said, that we should read the book more often. The Fa can really break every attachment. The next time I visited my parents and sister, they volunteered to sign the petition, without my prompting them to do so.
At the same time, we started to collect signatures more regularly in the city. Our experiences were mostly very good. Most passers-by signed the petition, and many wanted to know more about Falun Gong. I spoke with a girl who couldn't keep from crying when she saw the Tiananmen Square picture. Some practitioners met people who began by being impolite and were unwilling to listen to anything that the practitioners had to say. Then, after the practitioners politely expressed their thanks, the same people returned a short time later and apologized for their behavior.
We also realized that unfortunately, a lot of people in Vienna still have never heard of Falun Dafa, or what they had heard was wrong. This was a sign for us, that we should put more effort into spreading the Fa. Some people who had never heard of Falun Dafa, didn't want to sign right away, but most were willing to accept the information and materials we offered. Through these activities, not only could we inform many people about Falun Gong and the persecution in China, but each of us were able to better detect his/her own shortcomings through contact with people of many different opinions. Gradually, we came to realize that personal cultivation is closely connected with spreading the Fa and with the Fa rectification, and we understood that spreading the Fa is not work, but cultivation. The better one has cultivated, the better he/she can spread the Fa, as well as the other way around. Especially by spreading the Fa, one can cultivate faster and more quickly recognize and remove attachments.
Through these experiences, we also matured. We have been able to come up with new ideas, and new possibilities present themselves. Everyone does what he/she can do best, as everyone is a particle of this Fa. One practitioner, along with a practitioner from Canada, translated the introductory book, "China Falun Gong" into Romanian. The practitioners who knew how to work with graphics designed posters, flyers, and helped with the Falun Dafa websites. Others who could speak Chinese distributed newspapers to Chinese restaurants and talked to people there, while practitioners who had more time, got permission to distribute newspapers on the streets.
We were all impressed when we heard the experience of a practitioner from Salzburg. He was in a bookstore and saw there the wrong book about Falun Gong. Immediately, he went to the salesperson and said to her, "I don't know if you are interested, but there is a right and a wrong book about Falun Gong in German. Unfortunately, you have the wrong one here." The salesperson was very surprised and wanted to know more about it. Then she said that she would order the right book right away. Also, she offered the practitioners a place in the bookstore to put the Falun Dafa flyer.
Next, we attended an Information Day on the 8th of December, shortly before the International Human Rights Day, and we were located on one of the largest shopping streets in Vienna. The 8th of December is a public holiday in Austria, but most shops are open so that people can use this day for buying their Christmas presents. The streets were full of anxious people looking for presents, who presented a sharp contrast to the tranquil Falun Gong practitioners. This aroused an interest in Falun Gong in many passers-by. The German Falun Gong newspapers had just arrived in time, and on this day alone we distributed over 1000 newspapers. In order to synchronize the exercises for the Information Day, we watched the exercise video together a couple of days before, and took the opportunity to further improve the movements and correct some mistakes.
In the past, when someone was interested in Falun Gong, we would invite the person to our reading room or practice site, or some of the practitioners would introduce the person to Falun Gong and speak about personal experiences. During the signature collection we noticed that most people who are interested in Falun Gong, asked about a formal introductory event or course. And though several of them showed great interest, almost no one actually came to the practice site to learn the exercises in the open. So we came up with the idea to introduce Falun Dafa to people through a sort of formal information event. At about the same time, one practitioner found a room in a café which was used for birthday parties, slide shows, presentations or similar events for free. So she talked to the owner and he agreed to having a "Falun Dafa information and introductory evening" there.
About 15 people came to this information evening. One practitioner began with a brief presentation about Falun Gong, and then the five Falun Gong exercises were demonstrated. During the break many people began conversations with the practitioners and looked at the Falun Dafa books and information materials lying on the table. After the break everybody was interested in learning the exercises right away so we taught them the first two exercises. At the end, we showed the video "Falun Gong - The Real Story, Part 1." The reactions were very positive, as people showed great interest in Falun Dafa and sympathy for the Falun Dafa practitioners in China.
After the information evening, we all agreed that this was a very good way to present Falun Gong. Ever since, we have organized monthly information evenings in order to offer people easy access to Falun Dafa. We realized that when one wants to do something good with his/her whole heart, one will get the opportunity.
Although we have started only relatively lately to spread the Fa, we hope that in the future we can do better. We also hope that more people will have the opportunity to obtain the Fa and that we can improve in helping our Master with Fa rectification.
March 2001