(Clearwisdom.net)
Greetings to our revered Master and fellow practitioners.
We are practitioners from Cambridge, England. Cambridge has only about 100,000 residents, but about 9,000 of them are Chinese. Every year, two to three million tourists from every corner of the world come to visit Cambridge. In recent years, more and more tourists from Mainland China have come, especially during summer vacation. On King’s Parade in front of King’s College, we can always find groups of young Chinese students and tourists passing by.
Small as it is, Cambridge has so many precious Chinese people. We have a large group of practitioners in Cambridge, second only to London. We always think about why Master arranged for so many practitioners in Cambridge. That must be because this place is very important. Dafa disciples have the sacred mission to assist Master in rectifying the Fa and saving sentient beings. The main venue where we do truth-clarifying activities is in front of King’s College. Seeing the never-ending flow of people on King’s Parade and those precious Chinese people, we feel that all of them are kings and gods from different heavenly realms waiting for us to save them, and whether they can be saved or not concerns the future of the sentient beings in their world. We really feel the weight of that responsibility on our shoulders.
In 2001, we started to promote Falun Dafa and do truth-clarifying activities in the city center every Saturday. Since the publication of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, our activities have focused on spreading it and urging Chinese people to withdraw from the Party. This summer vacation, every weekday a practitioner was there distributing the Nine Commentaries and other truth-clarifying newspapers. On the weekends, we have truth-clarifying activities on both Saturdays and Sundays. In addition, we also have Fa study twice every week. From the point of view of many UK practitioners, Cambridge practitioners have organized many activities and they seem to be of one mind. However, each of us has met with tests on how to eliminate the attachment to doing things, how to eliminate the fickleness of paying more attention to form than content, and how to really cultivate ourselves in Fa rectification.
Practitioner A:
I moved to Cambridge only one year ago. Soon after my arrival, I found that there were many practitioners, many truth-clarifying activities, and two Fa studies in Cambridge. Everyone is so busy and everyone is doing several Dafa projects at the same time. As a result, I am happy to be the coordinator of Fa study and to prepare the materials we need share Falun Dafa. But after I really started to work, I found that nothing was as simple as I had imagined. Even for the simple task of informing everyone about the agenda of Fa study, I could not do it well if I did not pay enough attention.
All the Dafa promotional materials and equipment are stored in our home, and every Friday I need to prepare the things we need for the weekend's activities, which includes at least ten different kinds of leaflets, newspapers, booklets, CDs and petition forms in Chinese and English. If we do not have enough in stock, I need to print out more leaflets and burn more CDs. This task seems to be trivial, yet without one of them it won’t work. After some time, I became more considerate of other practitioners’ difficulties.
We always need to make posters for our activities and one practitioner is in charge of this job. That practitioner is very busy and he is a slow worker, so his slowness sometimes delayed us. He often burned the midnight oil to prepare the posters we needed for an activity the following morning. In the beginning, I always complained about him. I thought he was so dilatory, so slow, and nothing he promised ever came about. Master repeatedly asked us to look inside. I suddenly realized that we should not blame each other when we are doing things for validating the Fa. If we think this practitioner is not doing well or is inadequate, we should make up for it quietly. Complaints only bring in impure substances to our field. In fact, I also have that practitioner's problem, more or less, so I began to do more on my own initiative to try to ease that other practitioner's burden. Soon I grasped the basic technique of making posters and made use of it in our Hongfa activity and "Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance" art exhibition.
However, the conflicts did not stop there. I found that everyone seemed to give me something to do and everyone expected me to do more, while no one cared about my business. I did not even have enough time to do some important personal business. I felt a very strong grievance. A veteran practitioner tried to enlighten me with a sentence from "Tempering One’s Heart and Will" in "Hongyin," "A hundred hardships falling all at once, See how one lives." On my way home, I was thinking of this sentence repeatedly. I thought of practitioners under persecution in China and their orphans. I also thought of how much our Master has endured in order to save us.
Normally I worked on Saturdays, so I did not do enough face-to-face truth clarification. Theoretically, I know that I should be patient when clarifying the truth, but I do not do very well in practice. For example, when I see some Chinese, my first reaction was that these people bully and oppress Chinese people, they traveled here using public funds, and they belong to groups with vested interests. I did not like them from the bottom of my heart. Master wrote, "Examine each and every deed, Accomplishing is cultivating." ("Solid Cultivation" from Hong Yin) When I saw other practitioners distributing the Nine Commentaries and chasing Chinese people to tell them the true facts, I felt very ashamed. Those people are the ones we should save. I do not have enough compassion. My righteous thoughts are not strong. I should do more Fa study to strengthen my righteous thoughts.
Practitioner B:
I obtained the Fa in Beijing in 1994. Luckily, in July of last year, I managed to avoid the barriers set by the 610 Office and came to Cambridge at my cousin’s invitation to look after her baby. Suddenly coming into a completely strange environment, I at once was at a loss. I cannot speak English and do not know how to use a computer. I was worried that I could not do much here.
It is not an accident that Master placed me here in Cambridge. Wherever Dafa disciples go, they should validate the Fa. Soon I found that there were many Chinese people in Cambridge, and every day Chinese students and tourists came and left in an endless stream. Then I understood why I was in Cambridge—I should go out on the street and clarify the truth to the Chinese people and urge them to withdraw from the Party.
It takes me a lot of time to look after the baby. I do not have much free time except on weekends. After the persecution began on July 20, 1999, I was arrested three times because I refused to give up Falun Gong. In 2001, to avoid arrest, I was forced to be homeless for two years. I treasured the cultivation environment abroad. After I came to Cambridge, I persisted in doing the exercises and studying the Fa every day, just like when I was in China. I get up at 5:00 in the morning, send forth righteous thoughts, and do the five sets of exercise. In the evening I study the Fa and recite the Fa and look through the Minghui/Clearwisdom website. Besides truth clarification activities on the street on weekends, I make use of the time when I take a walk with the baby. I go to the city center and explain the facts to Chinese people I meet on the street, distribute the Nine Commentaries, urge them to withdraw from the Party, and deliver materials door to door.
Before cultivation, I did not like to talk, but in order to clarify the truth, I have changed. At the beginning, I just gave materials out and did not talk much to people. Later I reviewed Master’s poem "Hurry Up and Tell Them,"
"As Dafa disciples clarify the truth,
Sharp swords shoot forth from their mouths,
Tearing open the rotten demons’ lies,
Lose no time and save them, hurry up and tell them."
I suddenly realized that I should talk to them. This year Master published "For the Good of the World" and encouraged us to spread the truth. Only when the truth is clarified can the rotten ghosts be driven away. Dafa disciples should clarify the truth to sentient beings face-to-face.
In "Teaching the Fa at the Fa Conference at the U.S. Capital" Master said,
"People with predestined relationships and those who can be saved can be made to--made to by Master's Law Bodies, righteous gods, or the immense field that Dafa has formed in the world--appear right before you in any of a range of settings, providing them with a chance to learn the truth. But you have to carry it out, and it doesn't work if you're not out there doing things."
Last year just after I arrived, I was once besieged by a group of Chinese students who did not know the truth about Falun Gong, and I felt a bit fearful. This year I am expecting more and more people. Last year when I met Chinese with hearts full of hatred, I was affected, whereas this year, no matter what sort of people they are, they hardly affect me at all. I just want to save them, I just want to tell them the truth with a smile. Especially in the recent few months, through my truth-clarifying on the street, about twenty Chinese students and scholars have agreed to withdraw from the Party. Now I treat everyone I meet as a person with a predestined relationship with me and tell them the facts. Once I explained the facts to a Chinese girl. At the beginning she was deceived by the self-immolation staged by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After realizing the truth, she understood the preciousness of Dafa. In the end, she squatted quietly at the side of our table and copied Lunyu word for word. She said she would take it back to China.
Practitioner C:
I obtained the Fa in 2001 and most of my time was spent in Cambridge. In 2004, I left Cambridge for a while, but later I found out about a practitioner who was running a small store in central Cambridge. Knowing how hard it is to run a store, I wanted to help him so that he could have more time to do Dafa work, so I came back to Cambridge.
I did not speak English but I know very well how to do business and deal with different people. With my assistance, our small store is becoming better and better. I also met many people with predestined relationships, especially Chinese people. Even though I did not speak any English, I needed to communicate with tourists from all over the whole world in English. Now I can speak some English. It is a miracle.
Cambridge is a world famous city. Streams of tourists come to visit this city throughout the year. It is also a must-see place for Chinese tourists. In summer, hundreds of Chinese children that come to the UK for summer school will visit Cambridge. Our small store is quite close to King’s College, which attracts the most tourists.
In our store, we prepare several sorts of truth-clarifying materials, such as newspapers in Chinese and English, the Nine Commentaries, booklets, and CDs. Because of the special location of the store, we can meet people with predestined relationships every day. For Chinese tourists, suddenly finding a Chinese store in a foreign country, they always come over and have a chat. This creates a fantastic chance for sentient beings to learn the truth. For Western customers, I give them some material telling the facts about Dafa or a paper lotus flower, but for the Chinese, I give them different materials, such as CDs or newspapers according to the situation.
Our store is quite small, so groups of Chinese students from summer school can literally fill the store. One day, several dozen Chinese students came in at the same time that I needed to help some Western customers who wanted to buy clothes. Seeing so many children waiting to learn the truth, I felt a bit worried and helpless at the beginning. But when I realized that I am a Dafa disciple and I should have righteous thoughts, I felt myself standing there like a god. In my heart I asked Master to help me. Finally, I managed to clarify the truth to these children while at the same time taking good care of my customers. Almost all the newspapers and CDs I had at the store were taken by this group of children.
Besides the Chinese children at summer school, there are also many visiting scholars, students and Chinese residents in Cambridge. We sell cheap international phone cards and this attracts many Chinese customers. We have gradually become friends. They come regularly to buy phone cards and take a copy of The Epoch Times newspaper. We also clarify the truth about Dafa. Many visiting scholars came to say goodbye to us before they left for China. Some of them said to me, "It was nice meeting you. I learned a lot from you, and I especially eliminated my prejudice against Falun Gong. Thank you very much!"
Small as it is, our store has become a window to spread the truth of Dafa in Cambridge. Interference is inevitable. I have had some horrible sickness karma at times. My face swelled and became black and blue. I felt powerless and the headache was so bad that I felt my head would explode. If I did not go to the store, I would miss the people with predestined relationships, so I still went. All the symptoms disappeared at the end of that day. All these came to test my xinxing. The hardest test of xinxing is the conflict between practitioners. Several practitioners and I lived together, and there were some conflicts in our daily life. Later I realized Master arranged some of them to be very irritating in order to eliminate my attachment to fighting and to cultivate my tolerance and compassion.
Practitioner D:
I obtained the Fa in 1995 when I was in China. In 2004 I came to Cambridge. Today I want to share with you about how I overcame the interference brought by the old forces to my family life, how I managed to balance my family life while doing the three things well, and how I cultivate myself through hardships.
The year just passed was the hardest year for me. Because I did not balance well my relationship with my family, my husband decided to divorce me. He severely beat me. When I was driven out of my home I was penniless, because all my pay was in my husband’s account.
Despite all these things, I still tried to treat him calmly because I knew that he and our daughter are the beings I should save and I should not leave them unsaved. No matter under what kind of environment, I should always display the style and spirit of a Dafa disciple. One day my colleague told me that a worker in the store next door told her that my husband must be very rich because I always had such a happy smile.
I am a traditional Chinese medicine doctor. When I worked for a Chinese medicine clinic, I had to work six days a week. I did not have much time to do Dafa work and my pay was not good. At the same time, my parents are both practitioners and I worried about their safety in the rigorous environment in China, so I decided to invite them to the UK. They arrived without any trouble. They could not speak English, so I had to accompany them wherever they went. In order to take care of my parents and do the three things well together with them, I resigned and came back to Cambridge. I wanted to set up my own clinic.
Soon after that my parents applied for asylum. Almost at the same time, when my business had been established for two months I was suddenly told that I was not allowed to do business at that site. I had to find another place in a hurry. My marriage, daughter, parents, business, work and living—such a series of hardships were placed on my shoulders. I grieved to the extent that I almost wished to die. I held Master’s picture in my hands and cried in a loud voice.
After crying, I felt my head become clear and I suddenly realized: Aren’t all these agonies rooted in sentimentality? My parents also are practitioners. My mother’s asylum application also met with some difficulties. However, in hardships we still held our firm beliefs that when Master is there to help us and the Fa is there, no difficulty is hard to overcome for Dafa disciples. We did not slacken in doing the three things. We shared our experiences on the Fa and improved through the hardships.
Besides running my clinic, I needed to look after the house, do the cleaning, tidy up the gardens, mow the lawn and trim the bushes. In order to save money, I do some heavy jobs usually done by men. I also save Wednesday nights and Sundays for group Fa study and Saturday during the day for Hongfa. During summer vacation, I spare some hours to go to the city center to distribute the Nine Commentaries. When there is an important activity in London or another city, I will go to support it. Sometimes I also write truth clarification articles for Dafa related websites. At the same time, I leave some time for my daughter and to help my mother with housework. My schedule is always very tight. If I cannot finish one thing on time, the thing after it will be affected, so I become impatient. Once I realized that impatience, I tried to eliminate it. It appeared continually and I eliminated it continually. I previously often made truth-telling phone calls to China, but now I am too busy to do that, so I bought an automatic phone-calling system which works very well.
Now my mother’s asylum application has been authorized, my father is also in a good state and my daughter has also become a practitioner. My business has gotten through the hardest time. I can support my parents and daughter by myself and have money for Dafa work. Here I would like to express my gratitude to local practitioners for their help and support. In this group, we help each other and improve ourselves in the Fa. I really feel that all the Dafa disciples are a family.
Practitioner E:
I once worked as a middle school teacher. I like to work with children. But the children from Mainland China now are not pleasant to work with because they have been poisoned by the CCP. During these past two years of clarifying the truth about Dafa to deeply poisoned children, my xinxing has experienced many tests. I still remember several incidents last year when I clarified the truth in front of King’s College.
Several girls could not accept the idea of "there will be a new China only when the Communist Party is finished." They started to argue with me when I gave them the Nine Commentaries. I corrected their twisted ideas one by one. They left when they could not argue me down. After a while, they thought they had found a way to argue against me and came back, but again, I clarified the truth undaunted. Finally they left unconvinced, with their heads down. A practitioner said, "You were great. You spoke just like a judge."
Another time, a boy came to argue with me. He asked some questions that were hard to answer. I analyzed his questions without hesitation. At last, he admitted that he believed all that I had said but he wanted to tell me one thing. He stared into my eyes and said, "I hate you" and then left.
When facing these children who have been gravely poisoned, I realized that I had succeeded in letting them know the truth about Falun Dafa but I did not melt their hearts. That is because, in reality, I did not have enough compassion and I did not distinguish those innocent children from the evil party, and I did not tolerate them. Since then, I always remind myself that when I clarify the truth that I should not scare them away. Instead, I should try to keep them near me so that they will not want to leave. We are here not to argue or to put them on trial, we are here to save them.
One day several weeks ago when I was looking after the store, four girls from south China came in. Seeing a Chinese person, they came up and greeted me. I found that they looked a bit tired with so many bags so I invited them to come in and have a rest. Then we started to chat and I told them about the CCP’s practice of organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners. One of the girls said, "If they harvest other people’s organs I cannot accept it, but if they do that on Falun Gong practitioners, that is OK." She told me she believes in Buddhism. I was shocked at what she said. Looking at her childish face, I was so sad. The evil CCP has twisted the children’s minds so much. They had been deceived and did not know anything about Falun Gong, so I started to tell them the true facts. I started with the facts of the self-immolation on Tiananmen Square, and continued with the fact that the CCP did not fight against the Japanese. We talked for almost two hours and the mask of the evil party was gradually unveiled. At last, all three girls agreed to withdraw from the Youth League and Young Pioneers. The girl who said she thought it was OK to harvest organs from living Falun Gong practitioners said she did not know that China was so bad until now and that she should stay in the UK and not go back to China again. I told her that there was nothing wrong with China, but the evil CCP is bad. It is easy to contaminate young children’s minds and it is also easy to cleanse them. When I saw these children finally understood, I really felt happy for them.
We all know that it is hard to clarify the truth to Chinese people. In order to let the people who dare not accept our materials or contact us get more information, we often update the information on our banners and posters. We also make use of some sound equipment to pass our information to them so that they can hear the facts about Dafa and not miss this chance.
I remember when we used this small amplifier for the first time to broadcast the Solemn Declaration from The Epoch Times. With the sound of "Numerous Chinese people, the doomsday of the CCP is coming," almost all the Chinese people around were set, even those foreigners who did not understand Chinese at all were also shocked and turned to our table. From their eyes we could see their desire to know the truth, which seemed to be Master’s encouragement and reinforcement.
We felt the enormous power of the Nine Commentaries, but when we became too engrossed and the volume was too loud, a tourist and a neighbor came to complain. Another time the practitioner who was broadcasting found another practitioner besieged by a group of noisy children, so she raised her voice to help, which only made it worse. Everything in this human world is changing with the behavior of Dafa practitioners. We should cultivate ourselves well and then save sentient beings. Our every thought and word should accord with the requirements of the Fa. Now we all try to use our most peaceful voices to broadcast.
Practitioner F:
I obtained the Fa very early, but for a very long period of time I was not diligent enough. Thanks to the practitioners in Cambridge and to the cultivation environment Master arranged for me, with fellow practitioners’ help, I managed to cultivate until now. Some practitioners told me that I had been expected to do many things, but have disappointed them again and again. It is their unrealized expectations that keep pulling me ahead so that I have not fallen behind completely.
I have spent four years time in Cambridge. All the activities I have taken part in and experienced are still clear in my memory, including all the frustrations, hardships, and tests of our xinxing.
Most practitioners in Cambridge are diligent. When they are doing things, they always do it vigorously and speedily, just like a quick-reaction army troop. They all claim to be quick tempered. Because of the special historic and cultural background of Cambridge, it has become an important battlefield between good and evil. Many Chinese people come in and leave, and many of them have been deceived by the evil specter of the CCP. As a result, we have had many truth-clarifying activities. The activities take place one after another without stopping. Sometimes we have had to do several projects at the same time. It is not an accident that Master arranged so many quick acting practitioners to be in Cambridge.
I have formed a habit of pursuing perfection in a roundabout way in my regular life. This is not necessarily a bad habit, but it really has become an excuse for being a coward and lazy. Sometimes when I found that other practitioners were busy preparing for some Dafa project, my ordinary people’s habit of desiring harmony and safety would be affected and I would feel uneasy. I shared a house with some other practitioners. Our home is also the place where we have our group Fa study and where all the truth-clarification materials are made. It is just like a barracks for troops without any personal space. Many times I suddenly had the idea of escaping. In fact, the Fa rectification process is so quick and the situation of saving sentient beings is so urgent, we are indeed fighting as an army. We are fighting vehemently with the evil forces on the surface. There is no easy way to assist Master to rectify the Fa.
Master said in "Teaching the Fa at the Fa Conference at the U.S. Capital,"
"There are many religious groups today who say: 'Oh, look at how good things are with us here. Everyone is very caring and loving towards one another.' What are they loving, though? (Audience laughs) They love attachments, love happiness in the mortal world, and love maintaining that human pleasantness among people. Is that cultivation? It's not! Absolutely not. That's only a shield used to protect human attachments. I do hope that the problems between Dafa disciples [dwindle]--the fewer the better. But when things of that nature are as few as possible, it is because an environment and a state have been created by your being able to search inside and be alert when these tensions arise."
This part of Master’s lecture often appeared in my mind and struck at the concepts about which I had attachments. We are here to cultivate, to assist Master to rectify the Fa. We are not here to have an ordinary person’s happy life.
Today it was arranged that I would be the last one in our group to share my experience. I hope that from now on, I can become your backup force instead of a burden. It seems that the person who was slow in doing things, who made others feel angry, and whose voice was not peaceful or calm enough in other practitioners’ sharing was me. So it seems I should summarize here and eliminate these interference factors. I hope that by talking at this Fa conference together with other practitioners in Cambridge, I can become a real member of this quick-reaction army force to assist Master in Fa rectification.
Thank you, Master!
Thank you, all!
