(Clearwisdom.net)
Excerpt:
Many Falun Gong practitioners began clarifying the truth by messaging with cell phones and Internet chat software. Wee often received calls or messages back. At first we didn't dare to answer. After we exchanged ideas however, we thought we should break through this block. We asked ourselves, "Aren't we going to save them? Isn't it more clear to tell them by phone?" After breaking through this there were many practitioners who began to answer their phones. We later added into the message “Please reply to me if you want to know more.” If we received a reply message requesting more information, we called them back to explain, and most people made agreed to quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its two youth organizations.
Greetings, Revered Master! Greetings, practitioners!
During the last moments of Fa-rectification, every Dafa disciple who is striving forward is using different ways to clarify the truth to save people, and to cooperate well with the whole group in order to form a larger field of righteous thoughts. Master said,
“The focus for you right now is simply to find ways to do better, to be more efficient, to have a greater impact, and to save more people.” (“Fa Teaching at the U.S. Capital”)
I'd like to share my experiences of how I use the phone and Internet to clarify the truth and save people with righteous thoughts.
Clarifying the Truth by Cell Phone
Using the cell phone to clarify the truth began spreading in my city in 2009. Before that, we clarified the truth face to face. Many practitioners also participated in rescuing fellow practitioners who were sent to prison, by sending righteous thoughts near the prison and clarifying the truth to people who worked in the police stations, Procuratorate, and court systems. In addition to persuading people to do the three withdrawals, I also made some materials to clarify the truth. However, I always felt that I didn't do my best, and was ashamed to face Master when I studied the Fa. Thus, I then sent group emails to clarify the truth, with the expectation of saving more sentient beings, but the effect was not obvious.
At that time, I took no notice of using a cell phone to clarify the truth. I was blocked by the notion of “Messages are too short to tell something, so the effect may not be obvious,” until I read many practitioners' experience sharing about using cell phones to clarify the truth. Having dispelled the notion by studying the Fa, I began to learn the cell phone techniques for clarifying the truth.
It is true that, “Cultivation depends on one’s own efforts, while the transformation of gong is done by one’s master.” (Zhuan Falun) With this expectation, Master opened my thoughts so that my mind was clear. The reason why cell phones are so widely used is because people needed to be saved after learning the truth.
Master said,
“...nothing in this world, in fact, is by chance. Every being and every object came for Dafa, was formed for Dafa and created for Dafa, and that includes all people. All of what has transpired in the Three Realms's history was created for Dafa.” (“Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Washington DC Fa Conference”)
Therefore, Dafa disciples should use all possible ways to save people, rather than be limited to a certain way! My Celestial Eye isn't open, but I can feel that Dafa disciples' righteous fields as well as the truth are being spread everywhere in the cosmos. Among this is the message to clarify the truth, which travels through space and time to save sentient beings!
The practitioners, however, didn't reach an agreement about whether or not cell phones should be used to clarify the truth. Some agreed to use them, but others thought that using phones was actually concealing their attachment of fear, because they didn't dare to clarify the truth face to face. Some even worried that other projects to save people would be attacked if many of us sent messages. When confronted with these disputes, I felt pressed because the attachment of protecting myself was exposed, and I was afraid of being criticized. I even found an excuse for myself, “Don't affect others in moving forward on their own paths,” and “I should let go of my ego.” However, the process of “letting go of my ego” lasted for over two months, during which time I continuously studied the Fa, and thought over which way was more in line with the Fa.
In this process, what happened to some practitioners touched me deeply and made me feel regret. Lacking relevant knowledge about using cell phones for this purpose, some fellow practitioners themselves bought about twenty cell phones that didn't have group sending or background sound capabilities. This was a waste of money, and it was my attachment of protecting myself and desiring others' approval that delayed this and caused losses. I took notice of this superficial loss, but there was also a huge loss in not saving sentient beings during the delay. I was clear that it was right to move forward, but I had too many misgivings and put my ego in front of everything else. “Selfishness” is just a factor in the old cosmos that should be disintegrated. How could I hold onto it and not let it go?
After I exchanged ideas with a fellow practitioner in charge of coordination, I was enlightened and determined to go forward to shoulder this responsibility. Immediately after this righteous thought, all the disagreements disappeared, and I felt that fellow practitioners supported my proposal and cooperated very well. In fact, all the disputes and disagreements were to eliminate my attachments, and raise my level.
The first problem I faced was buying cell phones. I wasn't clear which one was better, so I turned to a practitioner who was proficient in cell phones. At first, all the purchasing was done by this practitioner himself. He was quite busy in his work however, and didn't have enough time to do this. Thus, I thought of others and began to buy for those who were willing to begin sending messages, ten at a time. In this process, my fear arose, from buying so many at a time. Would I be easily noticed by the evil? Experience sharing articles on the Minghui website had reminded us to be careful, so I thought it would be better to let the individual practitioners buy the phones. I immediately changed my mind, as I reminded myself of my true purpose. Isn't it to save sentient beings? Fellow practitioners are laymen in cell phones and have to pay twice the price I was paying, so why can't I be responsible for this thing that is within my ability and that saves Dafa resources and practitioners' time? I was blocked by my fear and wanted to give up, but excuses couldn't conceal my true feelings, as what did I have to fear? Buying cell phones is in accordance with the Fa, and buying more leads to practitioners sending more messages, and in turn more people being saved, so I should try my best to do this. With this thinking my righteous thoughts became stronger and stronger in buying cell phones. With Master's protection, my fear and attachments to protect myself became less and less. I bought hundreds of cell phones on behalf of fellow practitioners during the past two years.
There were also many opportunities to improve my xinxing in buying cell phones. At first I had no idea which cell phone was more functional, so I just bought one to try, and then bought for the others. Models of cell phones were updated frequently, which added to the difficulty of trying them. Every time cell phones didn't work due to improper handling, they were returned to me, and I had to return such phones by myself. It cost me a lot of time, and sometimes really provoked my heart. For example, some practitioners claimed that their battery didn't last long and needed to be changed, but I didn't think there was any problem with the batteries, and became annoyed about it. However, I changed my mind. Since the practitioner said there was a problem, so there must have been something that needed to be improved with the battery. I then exchanged my battery with hers. Some practitioners needed pens, and I gave them my pens. Almost every time the cell phones were returned to me with a malfunction, they worked well again after I improved my xinxing. If I couldn't let my attachment go in such cases, I found it hard to go forward.
After we got cell phones what we needed to do next was share experiences of improving our xinxing, and teach the techniques. Therefore, those who clarified the truth with cell phones formed a large Fa-study group in order to study the Fa, teach their techniques, and exchange experiences of saving people with cell phones. Every district of my city sent one representative to join the large Fa-study group. They then returned to their own districts to set up smaller Fa-study groups and exchange the techniques and experiences. Using cell phones to clarify the truth thus became a widespread project.
After some practitioners accumulated experience in using cell phones to clarify the truth, we agreed to hold a Fa conference to share experiences. A practitioner from a far-away county had to go to work by bus. At first, she didn't know how to use the cell phone to clarify the truth and was worried. After I went to her county, she was so excited that she couldn't help crying, “I couldn't get contact with other practitioners after I learned that we could use cell phones to clarify the truth. How I wish I could save more people. So I prayed in front of Master's photo to please let someone teach me.” She continuously said, “Thank you Master! Thank you Master!” I then taught her how to operate the phone. Before I left, she asked for some time, and bought a lot of fruit for me. She said, “Why do you have to hurry off? I also want to make dumplings for you.” She participated in the Fa conference and shared her experience of using the cell phone to clarify the truth, with her natural and moving words. She said, “I was very happy after I got the cell phone. I called and sent messages to clarify the truth every day on the train. I once persuaded people to do the three withdrawals by phone, and six or seven people agreed.”
Some practitioners in their fifties and sixties also shared their experiences. They were taught how to type the words one by one, and enter the phone numbers without any technical help. However despite this, they sent many messages each day. Sometimes when they knew that some practitioners had been arrested, they went to every police station to copy the related phone numbers and then called them, and many miracles subsequently happened.
The Fa conference has been very moving, which has strengthened my determination to better continue this project. Practitioners from our big Fa-study group have improved enormously!
One practitioner in her fifties, was serious about her work after taking responsibility to spread the cell phone techniques in her district. She was already the coordinator in her district before she accepted this work, and she sometimes made materials to clarify the truth. Despite a lot of work, she arranged her schedule very well, and set up two smaller groups from which another practitioner was trained well to operate the phones. Another senior practitioner had difficulty clarifying the truth face to face and wanted to use a cell phone. She then taught her patiently and accompanied her outside in winter to use it. Gloves couldn't be worn in the cold of winter to dial numbers, and the practitioners' hands ached from the cold. But with the hearts to save people, they had righteous thoughts. Although the senior practitioner was older and learned slowly, she never gave up, and six months later she could save people independently using the cell phone. The senior practitioner was very happy, and sent messages and made voice calls every day.
Another practitioner had several jobs at the same time. However, she coordinated practitioners in her district very well. She taught two practitioners who learned fast, and those two taught others. Also, she set up a Fa-study group to organize practitioners in exchanging ideas based on the Fa, and improve xinxing.
Some practitioners who were busy took full use of their time while walking, taking the bus, or buying groceries, to send messages, which greatly increased efficiency. Also, some practitioners clarified the truth and distributed the materials face to face. When they were handling personal tasks, they even sent messages from their pockets, which saved time. Some practitioners went out two together to make phone calls. Our basic point was to make full use of all the possible time and resources to save more people, while being mindful of safety. We aren't limited by any framework as the safest way is to follow Master's words and act righteously.
Some practitioners actively wrote texts and video messages, and collected phone numbers. It costs a large amount of money for practitioners who actively call and send messages every day. Knowing this, practitioners take an active part in donating their money to this project. Some practitioners provide a lot of money to buy the SIM cards, even though they had barely enough money to live on. For example, one practitioner makes a wage of 600 yuan per month, but still contributed 200 yuan to buy the SIM cards. All this reflects on the great power that Dafa disciples cooperating with each other as a whole. Due to this cooperation, using cell phones to clarify the truth spread rapidly in our city, and even practitioners from nearby cities and counties came here to learn the techniques.
Cell phones also play an important part in rescuing practitioners who are imprisoned after being arrested. Upon learning the news, other practitioners, within an hour, call or send messages to those who participated in that persecution. The cell phones of the police officers in the police stations immediately ring one after another. One policeman told a practitioner, “Look! We can't handle so many calls and messages.” Practitioners persuaded the officers to treat the practitioner kindly. Through practitioners' persistent efforts, the practitioner was released in a short time.
Several practitioners were arrested at the same time in a county. Every day the director at the police department in that county received many calls clarifying the truth, including both domestic calls and overseas calls. The director told his friends, “The Falun Gong practitioners call me every day and night. I can't turn it off, in case something else happens, but if I don't turn it off, I can hardly fall asleep. I can't beat it!” From this, we can see that cell phones truly play an important role in disintegrating the evil.
Many practitioners from others places give us phone numbers of persecutors, and ask us to clarify the truth to them. Every time we get the phone numbers, we work as a team. Some send text messages, or send a video message, while others make phone calls.
An older couple from another place once went to visit their son who was imprisoned because he practiced Falun Gong. The director of the prison at first didn't allow them to see their son. Knowing this, practitioners immediately sent messages to him to awaken his kindness. He then led the couple to see their son without any special procedures.
Some practitioners made a phone call to the mayor. The mayor and his wife's whispers could be heard from the receiver, and they didn't hang up until the entire call was finished. Many officers of the Chinese Communist Party will listen to the whole recording.
One time a practitioner made a call, and the listener unexpectedly shouted, “Hey, man! You are great! I have waited for this call for a long time and finally I have gotten it! Please play more recordings, as I am willing to listen.” When another practitioner made a call, the listener shouted, “Falun Dafa is good!” The sentient beings are just waiting to be saved.
At the times when we sent messages, we often received calls or messages back. At first, we didn't dare to answer. After we exchanged ideas, we thought we should break through this barrier, and agreed that we should save them. Isn't it more clear to tell them by phone? Many practitioners then began to answer the phone. We later added into the message “Please reply to me if you want to know more.” If we received a reply to our message, asking for more information, we called them back to explain, and most people made the three withdrawals.
Sometimes after I sent messages, I would get a reply that had no content, but I still called them back. Among those there was a broadcaster, and after she knew what I meant, nothing except “yep”followed her first hello. She then pressed a button on her phone and I suddenly felt scared, and many ideas surfaced. “Is she going to record my voice? It could be very dangerous. Hang up now!” However, soon my righteous thoughts gained the upper hand, as what I was doing was saving her. I briefly told her the truth of Dafa and about the three withdrawals., I asked her, “Are you a member of the CCP?” She answered, “Yep.” I asked her whether she wanted to withdraw from her promise to sacrifice her life for it. She answered, “Yep.” I asked her family name, and she answered , “Li.” I then assumed an alias for her, and asked whether she wanted to do the three withdrawals using that name. “Yep.” When that happened it strengthened my righteous thoughts. Master mentioned more than once in the Fa teachings that we shouldn't be deceived by the false image. I now have a deeper feeling about the essence of this Fa principle.
We later went out in groups of two. While sent messages, the other would reply to the calls. Some practitioners could persuade several people to agree to do the three withdrawals, and some who didn't dare to go out to clarify the truth before can now not only go out, but can also clarify the truth face to face. This project encourages many practitioners who didn't dare to go out before, to stand up and save people.
With the wide use of cell phones to clarify the truth, we encountered problems which required us to improve our xinxing and techniques. As more and more practitioners used cell phones to clarify the truth, more SIM cards were used, and some problems appeared. Some SIM cards were locked, and messages couldn't be sent out and received, etc. Some practitioners lost their heart for it, and didn't want to continue. At one time this project stagnated, and practitioners in the large Fa-study group began searching their xinxing, and I also searched inward. At last I realized I needed to break through the blockage of my ego and go forward. I decided to find a way for practitioners to buy SIM cards. I then used all possible ways to buy the cards. I bought SIM cards nationwide and distributed them, and our project continued again. However, I was tortured by the issue of xinxing, and it was a heavy burden for me to buy all the cards by myself, because it not only cost a lot of time but there existed the hidden dangers. However, the fact was that most practitioners had just joined the project and didn't have any knowledge about the card or some of the techniques, except for sending messages, and thus it would be difficult for them to buy the cards themselves. At that time I had to let go of my ego, put Fa-rectification and saving people first, and shoulder this responsibility. After some time, other practitioners shared this work with me. We exchanged ideas in our Fa-study group, searched inward, and strengthened our righteous thoughts. We hoped that every practitioner could mature as soon as possible and operate the related techniques by themselves, and at the same time cooperate as a whole. We were determined to continue this project more vigorously.
In the process of leading this project, I could feel Master's arrangement at all times. Superficially, I chose this project and did a lot of work, but in retrospect, I find that Master had already paved this path. Master unlocked my wisdom, and took care of and reminded me all the time. I had a bad memory, but I never forgot anything about cell phone techniques. I learned and at the same time taught, and every time there was something wrong with a practitioner's cell phone, Master would let me encounter such problems first so that I would find the solution. Many times practitioners complained that there was something wrong with their cell phones, but after I received them, the problems disappeared immediately. The practitioners were surprised, but I was clear that Master endowed me with this responsibility, and also at the same time with this related ability. When I got the cell phones that didn't work well, I told them that they must choose a bright future because they were lucky to make contributions to saving people in the Fa-rectification. After such communication, these cell phones tended to become better.
I am moved by practitioners striving forward and their selflessness in this project. Whenever I was impatient and not willing to teach those who learned the techniques slowly, fellow practitioners would remind me that I should have better control of my xinxing. They also helped share my work to ease my pressure. I sometimes even felt I was pushed forward by fellow practitioners. Every time we encountered difficulties, we sat together and shared, and with each other's help, the difficulties were soon overcome. In this process, I gradually let my ego go and learned how to cooperate with the whole.
Even though our techniques of using cell phones have matured, there are still a lot of problems. We need to cooperate even better. Some practitioners are often reluctant and can't keep striving forward all the time, and sometimes they even relax themselves. Therefore we as a whole need to improve, reinforce our strength to save people, and form a system of cooperation.
Clarifying the Truth on the Internet
There is a dispute about clarifying the truth using the Internet, as some practitioners worry about its safety. However, there are more than 400 million netizens in China, and more and more people spend a lot of time on the Internet. I began thinking about how can we save these people? Our projects of clarifying the truth have obtained positive results, by distributing materials, clarifying the truth face to face, and clarifying the truth by cell phones. However, there are a lot of Internet users to be saved.
A practitioner in our city was persecuted to death in prison. The policemen at the prison fabricated the evidence, traced the practitioner's family to threaten them, and kept them away from other Dafa practitioners. At that time we posted articles which disclosed the truth everywhere, but many were torn down. I thought I should put out articles online to disclose the truth to others, and some practitioners and I searched websites to clarify the truth. With practitioners' righteous thoughts, I published an article which described the persecution of this practitioner. The article stayed online for seven or eight hours and was accessed over 2,000 times. Some people replied to express their sympathy, but most people misunderstood Dafa and left some unpleasant words. However, doing this strengthened my confidence. From this experience, I knew that most people who misunderstood Dafa had never read materials that clarified the truth, and if I wanted to save them, I needed to clarify the truth on a deeper level. However, what should I say to save them? How could I clarify the truth online without the message getting deleted? How could I ensure my safety when clarifying the truth? I was confused and had a lot of misgivings, but I was determined to continue.
At that time the coordinator discussed with practitioners and I about the need to clarify the truth online. We reached an agreement that it was essential, and we all hoped to have more ways to save people. We have since worked together in doing this. The articles introduced a common topic, and then extended naturally to the persecution of Dafa disciples. The hits increased steadily and we all sent righteous thoughts to strengthen it. A police officer later spoke out claiming that we were wrong, so we clarified the truth even from the aspect of law, about how the persecution is illegal, and some practitioners posted materials from the Minghui website. This article was kept for eleven days, and got over 10,000 hits. More than ten practitioners, along with some of their families, participated in this activity.
In those eleven days my xinxing upgraded rapidly. At first, every time I saw negative replies, my anger was stirred up, so I just replied to them strongly with the expectation of overwhelming them, and I even regarded these people as secret agents. However, another practitioner, with pure and kind thoughts of saving sentient beings, replied in a clear and acceptable way, which was hard to resist. From her behavior, I found my weak points. As we communicated in this process, my xinxing was rapidly upgraded. I later no longer thought about whether people who replied negatively were secret agents. Rather, I just regarded them as sentient beings who didn't know the truth yet and were waiting to be saved. After this thought, I immediately felt them as being young and having just graduated from college, and they were waiting for me to save them with kind thoughts.
Some practitioners didn't really agree with clarifying the truth online, and reminded us by email of some of Master's related Fa teachings. I wasn't happy with one practitioner, and thought that he was misinterpreting the Fa. Through studying the Fa again and again, my mind changed, and I no longer complained about him, but I was thankful for his reminder. I understood him then, as he reminded us out of kindness. I was then determined to make full use of the platform of the Internet, and better control the process of saving people.
I think the basic goal of a Dafa disciple before he does something is the most important. we can use any way that is good to save sentient beings and rectify the Fa, and we shouldn't limit our ways of saving people. If the first thing we considered was to keep safe, and we used a superficial way to save people, it would not be effective.
The local practitioners and families of practitioners who were persecuted to death or disabled, cooperated together to appeal to the related organizations and to clarify the truth. To assist them, we disclosed online these practitioners' photos and their detailed experience of being persecuted, as well as the photos of the persecutors and their cruel behavior toward these practitioners. This provoked a storm of intense reflection. Most of the replies were opposing the CCP, but a few replied negatively, and warned others not to be used by Falun Gong. Facing such negative words, we used kind thoughts of saving this person to clarify the truth to him by private message. We told him “You should be a kind and wise person. Think about it, if one day you find that you have saved good people and made a wise choice at this crucial point, can you imagine how happy you will be? In contrast, if you find you are assisting evil people and hitting a good man when he is down, then how sad will you be?” We then gave him the website to get the software to circumvent China's firewall. He later replied, “What I said was silly and stupid, and I regret it. I have deleted all the negative words.” He made the right choice and has hope.
Another time, after reading our article, a netizen emailed us to ask how to be saved, and left us his phone number. I gave him software to bypass China's firewall. He said that he was searching for cultivation ways all the time, including Buddhism, Taoism, and Christianity, but didn't probe deeply. I gave him some e-books containing stories of sharing experiences in searching for Master and cultivating Falun Dafa, which he understood well. Before we discussed more deeply, my user name was deleted due to my False Fire video, which was referred to dozens of times in a short time.
Not long ago, several practitioners cooperated together to publish an article disclosing practitioners' photos who were persecuted to disability, their process of cultivation, and experiences of being persecuted, which attracted wide attention. It was referred to more than 18,400 times and was accessed over 1,200 times in just one day, receiving over 4,700 positive replies. Many ordinary people in their replies severely criticized the CCP and the police. Many were shocked because they never knew the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong was so cruel. A sampling of comments from everyday people includes, “The police are only cruel to Falun Gong and relocated their households,” “If we don't destroy the CCP heads, they will destroy our own mothers,” “Tell me which police officer did this, and I will kill him,” “Shocked! Furious!” “The Chinese people won't live happily until the CCP falls.” Some even said, “Give me your account number so that I can transfer you some money.”
Some helped to find solutions and told us how to contact the media. Many sentient beings knew that we were asking for support in a public way and referred to our article immediately. Some replies were so moving that we couldn't help shedding tears. There were also some practitioners whom we never met who helped to refer to our article. Once a “50 Cent Party” (Internet commentators hired by the CCP) put out an article against Dafa, he would immediately incur a lot of criticism from everyday people. Among netizens were some secret agents, but fellow practitioners' kind thoughts of saving sentient beings moved them and disintegrated the evil factors behind him.
Many everyday people online knew that the CCP was evil, objected to it, and criticized it. However, they didn't know the truth of Dafa, and just criticized the CCP in the culture of the CCP. The CCP strictly controls the Internet, so we need to clarify the truth in a proper way and save people wisely, which requires that we not only maintain righteous thoughts, but also form a field full of righteous thoughts of practitioners as a whole. This is pretty demanding. In this process, I often feel that I can hardly handle it, and I should study the Fa more, and the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party more, so that I can improve my level quickly and give rise to the growth of real compassion to disintegrate the hatred of Dafa in people who have been deceived by the CCP, and really save them. The power of clarifying the truth tends to be discounted due to our attachments of fear and competition, and in turn the article either gets deleted or the negative replies increase.
Using the Internet to clarify the truth is very serious, because of the good and bad mix online. Once you aren't alert, you can easily be stirred by attachments and taken advantage of by the evil, which not only wastes time but also has a bad effect on cultivation. When we first began clarifying the truth online, some practitioners became tired, with their heads heavy, and found it hard to keep their eyes open. I also came across a practitioner's web page, which was intended to clarify the truth to everyday people, but was just his cultivation experiences, including dealing with lust and other things. I can't deny that there were some good articles there, but in general, it seems he didn't follow his path righteously, so I no longer visited that site. We should be strict with ourselves, as our paths to cultivate are so narrow that we have to follow righteously and cultivate firmly.
The project of clarifying the truth online is still being explored and developed. Despite being active for only a few months, we have obtained obvious results. I have written about my experiences only to inspire and encourage other fellow practitioners. Please point out anything improper.
