(Minghui.org) When people read our truth clarification materials, they should be able to feel the inner peace and magnificence of practitioners. While learning the truth about Falun Gong, they can reflect on their own state and find their “true self”.
How can we deal with people’s negative thoughts and notions at the moment of reading truth clarification materials? In my opinion, it is very important to awaken their compassion. Our truth clarifying materials should focus on achieving this goal.
We need to improve the quality of our truth clarification materials. I think there are two main reasons why many Chinese don’t read our materials:
First, our materials can be very subjective and extreme, which give an impression that we are opposing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Second, everyday people are busy pursuing self interest. After experiencing numerous political movements by the CCP, they have become insensitive and thus are not interested in what we say.
For intellectuals in big cities, I think our truth clarifying materials need to reflect the righteousness of practitioners, eliminate their negative thoughts and encourage them to think and choose their own path. We can’t forcefully “persuade” them to accept our views. In other words, we need to leave readers with the opportunity to come to their own conclusions. Meanwhile, if the materials are high quality, it is easier for them to be accepted. Articles with good depth and style are a manifestation of our compassion and are part of the truth in itself. They can eliminate people’s misunderstanding and hatred incited by the CCP, and awaken their kindness and compassion so that they can calm down and think for themselves about the true meaning of life. This is what our truth clarifying materials should be able to achieve.
On the contrary, if we are too subjective and don’t consider how others may feel, the effect will be the opposite. When we only want to change people or prove that we are right, they are not willing to accept us and don’t want to read the materials. In fact, that we didn’t cultivate well is reflected in the truth clarifying materials we made. Thus, people are blocked from learning the truth. Sometimes when we only care about expressing our own feeling and understanding, it is hard to interest others.
Karma, human attachments, notions, self interest, etc, are all blocking people’s true self. It’s not the best approach to simply narrate the cruelty of the torture and hope they have sympathy toward Falun Gong practitioners. Nowadays Chinese people are very insensitive because they haven’t directly witnessed the torture. Easily blocked by various notions, they claim that our materials are merely “propaganda” from Falun Gong and don’t want to read them. In addition, some people just don’t believe in anything. Therefore, they are hostile or not interested in our materials.
Practitioners in mainland China mainly use the Minghui.org website as the source of the truth clarification materials. Thus Minghui.org provides the platform for everyday people. It represents Dafa and the righteous thoughts of practitioners. Everyday people naturally realize that it is the message of Dafa. By selecting many articles with good depth from this website, we can convey our message to people. This is something other media can’t achieve.
Teacher said,
“Whether they're receptive or not, you should always treat them with compassion, and you can't get competitive with ordinary people or look at sentient beings with human thoughts. Just do whatever you should with compassion, regardless of whether they're receptive or not. Compassion comes from a person's cultivation, and it's not something that's acted out; it comes from deep inside, and it's not something done to show others. It's something that exists eternally, and it doesn't change with the passage of time or changes in circumstances.”(from “Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Washington DC Fa Conference”)
I realized that the quality of the truth clarifying materials is the manifestation of our compassion. In order for people to accept the truth and choose a bright future for themselves, our materials must be good quality. They can’t be superficial. Instead they need to target people’s heart the same way as “compassion” does. This should be the standard of our truth clarifying materials. If our materials carry the message of pure compassion from Dafa practitioners, people's knowing side can feel it. Their various notions and negative thoughts formed in this human world will be eliminated.
Teacher said,
“When I was just speaking about “the truth,” a great deal was encompassed by that term. When we use it nowadays, we’re referring to how we tell people about the evil’s cooking up lies in order to persecute Falun Gong; to what the wicked CCP is really all about; to why Falun Gong is being persecuted; and then there’s the topic of what exactly Falun Gong is, which people are talking about, and this truth is hard for people to grasp.”(from “2012 International Fa Conference at the U.S. Capital”)
I enlightened to the fact that “truth” can be both “factual” and “implied”. In order to eliminate people’s negative thoughts toward Dafa and learn the true nature of the CCP, we not only need to tell them the “factual truth”, but also need to complement this with implied truth, which encourages them to think. After learning the truth, people need to see the “implied truth” by themselves and choose their own path. The factual truth can be told, but the implied truth can guide and encourage them. This is the most difficult aspect of our truth clarification.
Often by observing our behavior and speech, people realize that practitioners are kind, thus they think Dafa is good. From the other aspect, Teacher wants us to wake up ordinary people’s consciousness, hoping that through our true compassion, sentient beings can understand the traditional value of respecting Heaven and God’s will, realize the true evil nature of the CCP, find their true self in this materialistic world and be saved. This can’t be achieved by only telling the basic facts and stories in cultivation. We need to improve further.
“Compassion comes from a person's cultivation, and it's not something that's acted out.”( from “Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Washington DC Fa Conference”)
The process of editing truth clarification articles is also one of improving in cultivation. The issues that sentient beings have are exactly where we should improve. Some people have the impression of “being subjective” about our material because we don’t truly have compassion. If when we clarify the truth, we don’t consider people's feelings, then the words won’t reflect the power of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and everyday people won’t want to read them.
With the influence of atheism, Chinese people nowadays don’t believe in anything. I enlightened to the fact that the status of our cultivation is reflected in article selection, editing and production of truth clarification materials. This is also the key determinant of whether people will read and understand them. If our content is all about attacking others and proving ourselves, what would the readers get from reading them?
The above is for practitioners’ reference so that we can improve the quality of the materials and save more sentient beings.
