May 18, 2003
(Clearwisdom.net)
Our Teacher taught us, "Validate the Fa with rationality, clarify the truth with wisdom, spread the Fa and save people with mercy" in the article, "Rationality." How do we meet the requirements set by our Teacher? During truth-clarification, whether sentient beings are saved depends on the righteousness of our hearts. We should ask ourselves if we have let go of all our attachments.
When a fellow practitioner found that the peasants in a remote countryside didn't know what Falun Gong was, we decided to go there to clarify the truth about Falun Gong. It was the first time I went to the countryside. At that time, I thought that we should only distribute all the truth-clarifying materials to the houses where nobody was home. However, my fellow practitioner Tang stood outside a farmhouse and asked loudly, "Anybody home?" When people came out, Tang clarified the truth to them and handed them the truth-clarifying material. I felt ashamed of myself and realized my shortcoming.
The people in the countryside were very welcoming and friendly. They wanted to hear the truth. Some people asked us to give them a lot of truth-clarifying materials. Some people volunteered to be our guides and gave the truth-clarifying materials to other folks. A young man volunteered to give us a ride on his motorcycle. An old gentleman with sincere concern for us said, "Be careful. Don't get caught by the village officials." A lady warmly kept us in her house until we ate the meals she prepared. Thus, we visited one village after another until we distributed all the truth-clarifying materials we brought with us.
One time, two fellow practitioners and I went to a village in a mountainous area. I went to a house. A young couple and an old lady were at home. I started to tell them the facts about Falun Dafa. Because they were deceived by the lies [from the official media] they didn't want to hear what I said. I sent forth righteous thoughts and said sincerely to the old lady, "When you are in a crisis in the future, please remember, 'Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance are good.'" She was apparently shocked. Just after I left the house, she asked loudly, "Please wait!" She went after me and took one piece of truth-clarifying material for herself and asked for another piece for her daughter-in-law.
One time, while we were posting a truth-clarifying statement on an electricity pole, a young man saw us and asked us to stop. He directly referred to our Teacher by his first name. I told him immediately that he should be respectful to our Teacher, and maybe some day Teacher Li would be his teacher. He smiled and said, "You have suffered a lot more than I and have done many more compassionate deeds than I." He then asked for all kinds of truth-clarifying materials and he also passed those materials to other people.
We also had a special experience. A big crowd of people gathered in front of a small corner store. We went around this area to avoid the crowd. Later, we met an old lady in a farmhouse. She was illiterate, but she knew that Falun Dafa is good. She wanted her son to read the truth-clarifying materials. She led us to the crowd in front of the corner store again and handed the materials to her son. Some people in the crowd already knew about Falun Dafa. Some people wanted to learn the Falun Gong exercises, some people asked for several pieces of truth-clarifying materials, and some raised a few questions. When we first saw them we went around them. How unfortunate it would have been if we missed an opportunity to save these predestined people because of our attachment to fear. Our Teacher said,
"Dafa has already come to this stage in the Fa-rectification: what's there for us to still be afraid of?" in "Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A."
Our Teacher's heart is filled with all the beings in the universe. If our hearts are filled with the fear of being reported and the fear of being arrested, then frankly, it would be selfish. Our Teacher taught us,
"I also want to tell you that your nature in the past was actually based on egotism and selfishness. From now on, whatever you do, you should consider others first, so as to attain the righteous Enlightenment of selflessness and altruism. So from now on, whatever you do or whatever you say, you must consider others--or even future generations--along with Dafa's eternal stability" in "Non-Omission in Buddha-Nature."
"Master wants to save all sentient beings. But the evil forces are truly committing sins against Dafa by using all sentient beings, with the ultimate purpose of destroying them" ("Dafa is Indestructible").
When we wanted to go to the countryside again as we planned, the husband of a fellow practitioner warned us that the police had talked to him. He asked us to be careful. Soon after, we learned the news that some fellow practitioners were arrested. We realized that these incidents were interference to our Fa-validation. We must completely reject the arrangements by the old forces. Our mission is "Assisting Teacher in his journey in this world" (Hong Yin), to save all the sentient beings. Thus, we set off on our way along the narrow road to the countryside. Rain poured down on us about halfway to the villages. We paid no attention to the rain and the muddy, bumpy road. We went across mountains and hills and distributed all the truth-clarifying materials to folks living in the countryside.
In the wide, broad field, we saw pairs of expectant eyes and lives waiting to be saved. We must not disappoint our Teacher's compassion in saving sentient beings, not disappoint the sentient beings that have placed their hopes in us. We must use all the time left and try our best.