Elevating in Understanding, Compassion, and Cooperation While Reaching Out to Our Elected Officials

(Minghui.org) This article is about my cultivation experience during my volunteer work on U.S. House Resolution 281, a resolution that condemns the systematic, state-sanctioned, forced organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience in China, including mainly Falun Gong practitioners and other minority groups.

Overcoming Initial Doubt

Shortly after U.S. House Resolution 281 was introduced on June 27, 2013, coordinators in the Washington area organized several weekend training sessions to help us prepare ourselves to seek co-sponsors among U.S. Congressmen and other related duties.

When I first saw emails alerting everyone that a resolution was coming, I thought, “I will join the effort.”

I wasn’t available for the first weekend training session and planned to attend the second one. However, when the day arrived, I felt lazy in the hot summer afternoon. I reminded myself, “You have decided to join the effort. You should go.” I got out of the house, but another thought lingered, “Another resolution… It’s just another resolution. Haven’t we had many resolutions? Are they helpful at all?”

I started calling coordinators and tried to make sure there was a training meeting, and that I wouldn’t waste my trip because I didn’t see a meeting reminder notice. I finally arrived at the meeting feeling unsure of the importance and value of it.

I learned a lot from the training. When the coordinator briefed us about potential challenges and objections, he said that some offices might ask if the resolution would really help. The training and sharing had already elevated my xinxing by that time.

So I thought, “Wasn’t that my question? People usually ask us the same questions we have in our own minds.” So I reminded myself, “Yes, the resolution is helpful. During the process, we can save so many people, Those who sign to support the resolution, congressional staffers who learn the truth, and congressmen who co-sponsor. This is another great opportunity for us to cultivate and save sentient beings, another precious opportunity at this final stage of the Fa-rectification! I must try my best.”

Breaking Through Inertia

I haven’t been involved in government work for a few years. The past gaps among practitioners, notions, and cumulative human attachments due to slacking off on my xinxing improvement, have confined me in a state of inertia. Even though I attended training, the first step was so hard to make.

I finally got a Friday off and joined the signature collection effort in downtown DC. Many years ago when I was studying in graduate school, I had no problems collecting signatures on the street. I realized that now, due to many years of so-called joining “more important projects,” my basic skills of approaching people face to face had deteriorated! I felt ashamed of myself, but thankful for Master for giving me a chance to see the problem and address it.

As I became more active in approaching pedestrians, I started experiencing the tremendous energy and solemnity in such mundane actions as asking for a signature!

When a person signed the Resolution 281 petition, I knew he was saved. In the past, I didn’t have this cultivation maturity to know for sure in my mind that a person was saved or not after taking a certain action. Now Master helped me know it. I just knew it.

I was also more surefooted in terms of push or pull, pressing on for a few seconds or letting people go if it didn’t appear to be a good moment for them. Compassion expanded my mind and allowed me to connect to people around me like never before.

One young man passed by but returned to our site. He told me that he had done some research on Falun Gong on his own and would like to sign the petition. I told him that he caught my eye when he crossed the street. But he appeared to be in a hurry so I didn’t stop him. He said he was going out of town but wanted to sign. We ended up having a long conversation about Falun Gong.

Later, he emailed me and told me, “I thought that you would be happy to know that I spoke with a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that is on the subcommittee for Asian/human rights related issues today…” He told me the response he got. It was quite helpful.

This reminded me that it’s time to abandon my notion of “important” projects. I attached too much significance to certain projects. Whether on the street or in a high-end mainstream event, my heart for saving sentient beings should be no different!

Improving in Cooperation

Armed with strengthened righteous thoughts, I started volunteering for appointments in congressional offices.

At the beginning, I hesitated a little bit. Then I realized that once I hesitated, the opportunity was gone. When I wanted to make sure my ordinary life was taken care of first, other practitioners had volunteered for the meeting I planned to cover. This showed me the sense of urgency for cultivation and saving people!

As a native Chinese, I have been quite attached to my English ability and other mundane skills.

In the past, I looked down upon our VIP work coordinator. This time, I went to two appointments with him and really tried to learn from him, as I hadn’t done any government work for a few years. When I humbled myself, I saw so many good things in him! His English, manner, and appearance had all improved a lot. He knew so many facts and numbers that he clarified the truth in a very systematic way. Then I saw that he had covered so many appointments to the point that I worried how he could afford the time off his job. But then I realized that he must have done a good job at work for his manager to support him in taking so much time off from work.

When I cared more and more about saving sentient beings through efforts on Resolution 281, I started sharing at weekly group Fa studies and writing emails to the local group to urge others to join the effort. I talked to more English-speaking practitioners and asked them to share the workload.

I called local coordinators and offered some ideas. I didn’t get a single call back. When the coordinator kept calling me one night to ask me to cover a meeting the next day, I wasn’t happy, “You don’t even return my calls. Now you need me. So you keep calling me so many times!”

I reminded myself, “Didn’t you share in an email to others that we should keep our eyes on the prize instead of coordinators’ styles? Aren’t you making the same mistake that you saw so clearly in others?” I suppressed my incorrect state.

Still, I started sensing impurity in my emails to the local group. I couldn’t exactly pinpoint it. Later, I read a Minghui article about emotions. I realized that my drive was mixed with emotion. Emotions have a kind part but also a selfish part. When my calls were not returned, when my good ideas didn’t get acknowledgement, my demonic nature surfaced.

I told myself, “Remember what you are doing it for and who you are doing it for.” I then no longer wrote so many emails to the group, but intensified my own efforts.

Follow-up is Very Important

For example, in addition to following up with the offices I met via email and phone, I visited them. One afternoon, I visited several offices after covering one appointment. It was late in the afternoon. The receptionists were mostly gone at that time.

At my first stop, I spoke to a woman and asked for the Legislative Assistant (LA). I tried to make an appointment with this LA. This is an office in our local metropolitan area. The LA wasn’t available, but a woman came out and said, “I’m so and so, chief of staff.” I realized that I hadn't been compassionate enough. I had covered so many meetings that I started treating them as routine work. I wasted an opportunity Master arranged for me.

I adjusted my mind state.

At the following stops, I was able to bump into a Congresswoman when waiting for her LA. I was able to speak to an LA in person and obtain an appointment in a short time. I experienced again the magic of Falun Dafa cultivation. The magnificence and beauty of cultivation will only be seen and felt by a genuine cultivator through solid actions.

Close teamwork between DC practitioners and those back in the legislators' congressional districts has proven to be very effective.

In one state that I helped with, practitioners from that state kept emailing signatures and calling the office. One day, I helped hand deliver 800 signatures to an office. The LA was very busy and hadn’t responded to meeting requests and phone calls for a while. When he took the 36 pages of signatures from me, he offered me a meeting that same day.

When I stopped by the office each time, I was surprised that a different staffer greeted me, “Hi, you have come here before, right? Didn’t you have a meeting here regarding organ harvesting?” With my limited experience, I never encountered such engaging front desk people in the Congress. When I asked why they remembered me, and more importantly my issue, so clearly, they said, “We received a lot of letters in the mail.” “We received a lot of phone calls from our district.”

I knew that even though I was there in person, the success I met with was built upon the efforts from practitioners back in the home districts. Their work indeed played a crucial role in the positive outcome!

Throughout the efforts, I remember Master’s teaching in “Fa Teaching at the 2013 Greater New York Fa Conference (Questions and Answers):”

“Clarifying the truth, that’s something you can do anywhere or to anyone. Don’t specifically target some government, organization, etc. Don’t have that thinking. Often it’s precisely on account of such thinking that your path gets blocked. As you know, we are saving people. And what is it we save when saving people? Their minds. So, just direct it at the mind, direct it at the individual. Don’t direct it at an organization or entity.”

I focused on clarifying the truth in my meetings, reaching their hearts, rather than only trying to obtain co-sponsorship of the resolution.

Clearly, our elected officials react positively to well prepared and deeply concerned constituents. I learned that if I can let go of my attachments and take a professional and caring approach to the work, it makes a huge difference.