(Clearwisdom.net) I remember that it was in the article "Dafa Is Indestructible" issued on June 23, 2001, Master put forward the requirement for us to "clarify the truth thoroughly". Since then, I have been thinking precisely how to clarify the truth "thoroughly" and "clearly", and I feel that it is not a trivial matter. For Dafa practitioners to recognize the truth themselves is the first step in clarifying the truth, and we should not take this for granted. Whether we can do it well enough depends on our own state of cultivation. It also has something to do with our attachment to accomplish something, our attachment to our career, our concern for the world's people, as well as our own understanding of the overall situation, etc. Recently, while preparing for the Washington D.C. activities, I experienced something that touched me deeply. In this article, I want to share with everyone that from the perspective of a Dafa practitioner, recognizing the truth is a basic step for clarifying he truth.
When preparing materials for a large-scale English-language activity, in order to enhance the depth and comprehensiveness, we started by selecting and translating articles from the Chinese Minghui Website, followed by rewriting the material to English and making improvements. After going through large amounts of translated Chinese articles, one Western fellow practitioner said, referring to materials about how Jiang Zemin went against his own government's decision by personally starting the Falun Gong persecution: "I had not heard about seventy percent of this information before. I believe many Western professionals like me would also like to read these comprehensive materials in depth." When this fellow practitioner, who for the past year has spent a lot of time preparing lawsuit material, read specific cases of practitioners being tortured, she was so sad, she could not help crying. She said: "I did not understand what torture is, and how Jiang's regime treated Falun Gong in China until today." Other English-speaking practitioners also mentioned that they had not known that there were so many important materials exposing the persecution until that day. The heavy workloads had not permitted the translation of some of the articles on English Clearwisdom webpage. Because of her busy schedule, she did not even read many of the articles on the English Clearwisdom website. In contrast to our past experience, at a deeper level the process for writing and translating is no longer just the process for collecting and modifying materials and words. It turned out to be a cultivation process for the Chinese practitioners and the Western practitioner to meet and learn the truth more in-depth, and cultivate their tolerance
During the same period of time, another instance of sharing cultivation experiences occurred. Everybody was very busy, facing tight schedules and lots of work. Some fellow practitioners said before reading the materials carefully: There are too many materials. Even our fellow practitioners are not interested in reading all of this material; the people in the society will likely think them very dull. Other practitioners felt that they should use some specific form that they prefer. It was almost impossible to incorporate all the good suggestions and to achieve a good result within the specified period of time. We considered what we should we do? After we calmed down, we had a face-to-face discussion.
During the discussion, some practitioners pointed out: The reason we come up with so much background material is not because we like to talk a lot. Rather, it is because the process of this persecution itself is very complicated. In addition, truth-clarification becomes more complicated and difficult because the evil fabricates and spreads all kinds of lies everywhere. All this is the reality. If we want to clarify the truth, we should try it from the standpoint of saving the world's people. If we are confronted with a stranger, we should keep our explanations brief and concise. To mention one or two cases of practitioners being persecuted can be enough. However, on the fifth anniversary of "July 20" 1999, during a rally where thousands of practitioners are gathered together, we needed to consider that we also needed to save the legal professionals, government officials at different levels, human rights organizations as well as Chinese communities that were already aware of many specific cases. Therefore, we needed to organize more of the facts so as to help people see more clearly the whole truth, and gain a deeper understanding of the ridiculous cause and the systematic, widespread and cruel nature of the persecution. In order to do so, we needed to first concentrate our efforts on learning the truth more deeply and more thoroughly.
After sharing these experiences, our energy field changed greatly. Facing the same materials, a Western practitioner said after reading carefully, I have helped with writing a certain practitioner's experience of being persecuted dozens of times. However, now that you place it in a larger background, I can hardly help shedding tears when I read the story again.
During this process, we also shared with many other overseas practitioners, discovering that quite a lot of them do not really read Minghui articles. In particular, they do not read about the facts of the persecution, since they assume that they already know enough about it. Instead, they only read the lead article and the experience-sharing articles. It is a great pity that even fellow practitioners in mainland China including those who help with preparing truth clarification materials also read through the titles quickly, click open some articles, read them quickly and then stay busy preparing materials to be delivered. The notion of "knowing about it" and the attachment of getting things done quickly have stopped our fellow practitioners from knowing the truth more thoroughly.
"Persecution" is not just one of the words in the articles and neither is it an empty concept. When it happens, it is real, no matter who the victim is. From a higher perspective this persecution of practitioners is a reflection of the righteous fighting against the evil in the universe. It has greatly interfered with the future universe and all human beings. It is not the same as other forms of persecution going on in this human world. Neither is it simply people persecuting other people. So we should see clearly the widespread, severe, devious, and destructive nature of this persecution. Recognizing the truth thoroughly is the basic step for clarifying the truth. We have to understand the truth very well before we can actually give the specific information to the sentient beings according to their needs and their ability to comprehend. We can then clarify the truth to them more effectively.
Think about it, if we Dafa practitioners are not willing to calmly learn about the truth of the persecution ourselves, or if we treat the processing of information about it as something that we want to get done, will the people who receive our materials not think that we are force-feeding them something? It is like: it is ok for you to take the materials without knowing its real meaning, and I don't mean to ask for your appreciation of the materials. It is ok so long as we can push to you what we want to give to you. Of course, this may be of some help. For everyday people, getting the chance to learn the truth at this time is already a great fortune for them. However, we have to ask ourselves whether we can better demonstrate the compassion of Dafa. Everyone in modern society is very busy. Ordinary people have their own attachments, and we cannot expect them to make time to read our materials if we are not willing to read the reports ourselves. What is more important is that Dafa requires us to "clarify the truth thoroughly". If we do not know the truth clearly, how can we meet this requirement?
Talking about the requirement to clarify the truth thoroughly, since we have not clarified the truth systematically, in-depth and more comprehensively before (please pay attention that here "in-depth" does not mean that we should talk to people from a very high level of the Fa. Rather, it means that we should clarify all the facts within the realm of ordinary people, and in the context of the law of the human world), although some ordinary people are against the persecution because they know about some cases of persecuted practitioners, they have a bad impression of some of our public activities. They think it is unnecessary to have such activities at scenic spots and in front of the Chinese consulate. They believe that these activities will bring disgrace to China. In addition, there are some Chinese public security officials who take every chance to lie to Chinese people who have heard about cases of persecution. They say that although the persecution is not good, it is only due to a few low-quality, uneducated policemen. In this way, they try to make excuses for Jiang's regime. They not only continue to conceal the facts of the persecution, they also attack and defame Dafa practitioners. They continue to confuse and twist the facts to the public. Unfortunately, their words and behavior have deceived many people. Only when we clarify the truth more thoroughly and in-depth will the lies lose their power to poison people.
As a matter of fact, while clarifying the truth, we often find that the attachment to getting things done, impatience, and not knowing the truth clearly will bring difficulties. If we can seriously think more about how to clarify the truth and recognize the truth more thoroughly, then we can cover all aspects to help everyone know about the truth.