(Clearwisdom.net) Since April, practitioners in different locations have been staging live anti-torture exhibits, using models and posters to show how the Jiang regime has been brutally torturing Falun Dafa practitioners. People are shocked when they see the bloody scenes of practitioners being tortured right in front of them. I'd like to share my personal experience and suggestions. I hope the exhibits will improve so as to achieve better results in saving sentient beings.
1. Based on our previous experiences, it would be better to have a director in charge of the torture exhibit. The director should plan for exhibit contents, make-up, scene arrangement and regular breaks. The torture exhibit can convey a lot of information and feelings. Practitioners directly involved, especially those who are new, might not have a thorough understanding of the overall effect. Therefore, we need someone to coordinate. The director needs to talk to everyone that's involved in order to make the whole exhibit look consistent and truly reflect what we want to convey to the public.
2. Our practitioners will demonstrate various kinds of torture. The effects will be very strong. Not all the torture methods can be demonstrated. However, even just those that can be shown will be enough to move people and make them think twice about the persecution. Much effort will be needed to truly reflect the brutality of the torture as well as the spirit of those who remain determined when faced with such brutality. How we understand the persecution from the standpoint of the Fa will be reflected in our demonstration. What would we do if we were being tortured? Would we show the practitioners' dignity and solemnity if we simply hang our heads low and make ourselves look very weak in order to show how brutal the persecution is? Some practitioner commented that the paintings shown in the Chicago torture exhibit were very good in this regard, where the spirit of the practitioners in those paintings was respectable when they were hung up and beaten up.
3. The exhibits are actual performances on stage. It is a very serious topic. However, it's very easy to forget about this when there are no people around looking at us. For example, the practitioners who act as practitioners being tortured might chat with those who act as malicious cops. Or, some other practitioners would talk to the practitioners in the demonstration. It might not look good to people who are driving or passing by. They may be watching us. It might be possible that they were only given this one chance to learn the truth of the persecution. If so, what would they think of us and the persecution if the atmosphere of the demonstration was very relaxed because the practitioners involved didn't treat it seriously enough?
4. It would be better to have some western practitioners or those who were personally tortured in China explain the scenes to people. In this way, the practitioners who were in the acts would be able to continue with their performance. Otherwise, it would make the demonstration look funny if the practitioners, either as practitioners being tortured or those conducting the torture started to talk about the facts of the persecution.
5. We can also do a better job to make the exhibit look more true to life. When doing make-up, it's better if we don't do it in public and don't redo makeup during the demonstration. The practitioners who are taking a break should not walk around before they have their make-up removed. When setting up the scenes, we need to pay attention to the background so the exhibit can look more realistic. The practitioners who were not in the exhibit continually asked the actors if they wanted to drink water or take a break. They did it because they cared about their fellow practitioners. However, they might unintentionally detract from the scene.
6. Even observers are part of the exhibit and not just an audience. How we view the exhibit not only influences the actors but also the public. Though it's just a demonstration, it shows the suffering of the practitioners in China. Take the "tiger bench" for example. Many practitioners in China suffered this torture. Liu Chengjun, who was tortured to death, was forced to sit on the bench for fifty-two days in the Tiebei Detention Center. It's admirable to keep a practitioner's determined righteous thoughts when faced with brutal torture. The public will probably admire the Fa and the practitioners if they can recognize this solemnity.
The above are technical details. However, they are closely related to our cultivation. When clarifying the truth and saving sentient beings, we wouldn't be able to solve any problems just by resorting to techniques. Instead, our understandings on the Fa, the improvement of our xinxing level, and our righteous attitude are reflected in our activities. For example, the torture exhibit is just like any other projects that we do. There is the issue of coordination. Sometimes, we all have good ideas. However, if we simply implement all of them, the overall results might not be good, probably because the different styles of ours sometimes counteract each other. When this happens, we need to truly cooperate with each other, improve ourselves and our xinxing level, so we can better clarify the truth. How pure our heart is when it comes to caring for our fellow practitioners in China and the sentient beings that need to be saved has a direct impact on the results from our activities.
The torture exhibit is a very effective way to explain the persecution facts. The feedback that we have received has been very good. However, we still need to work on it to make it better since it's not easy to reflect the current serious situation in China. Teacher said in the article of To the Clear Harmony Website of Europe,
"... Dafa's situation in Mainland China must not go unreported. In particular, you should make focal your reports of deaths that result from the persecution, along with reports about the evil means used in the persecution..."
We need all the practitioners to put our wisdom together to come up with more creative ways to expose the evil persecution in order to better clarify the truth and save sentient beings.
