Should We Have General Coordinators in China?

(Minghui.org) I would like to share my understanding of general coordinators.

Many practitioners didn't know how to deal with the persecution during the early days. Some capable practitioners who had a relatively clearer understanding of the Fa stepped forward and served as contact persons. They helped fellow practitioners to validate the Fa.

Since very few practitioners were able to read the Minghui website or set up informational material production sites then, these contact persons worked hard and played important roles.

As time passed, however, other practitioners referred to these contact persons in China as “coordinators,” which made them sound like they had some official position; it got to the point where they could give orders to practitioners.

Then there were coordinators for towns and cities, and even a “general coordinator” for a province. It turned into an everyday person's position. If the trend continues, there will be a general coordinator for the whole country!

I didn't realize how serious the issue of large-scale coordination in China was until I read the article “Continue to Walk Well the 'Great Way Without Form'” by the Minghui Editors in 2010.

The article said: “Because the environment has become more lax, some mainland students' human attachments have been exposed. One of the manifestations of this is their desire to do things with form and on a grand and spectacular scale, such as organizing large-scale Fa conferences, establishing media outlets from a third party perspective in mainland China, and positioning themselves as being in charge of a province or city--with some even advocating establishing a national-level coordination structure at this juncture, etc. In fact, while these things are exposing their own human attachments, they are also providing excuses and openings for the CCP to keep up the persecution.”

After this article was published, many practitioners still traveled around and tried to establish positions of responsibility for larger and larger areas. They also often held regular conferences, trying to make other practitioners follow them. This led to more than one disaster. Several large-scale arrests and rounds of persecution have occurred in my area, and the losses were huge.

Actually, if these practitioners had read the Minghui notice carefully and stopped what they were doing, we would have been able to avoid these losses.

In my understanding, these losses happened because these practitioners did not walk well the “Great Way Without Form” and did not follow the article's suggestion.

Let's review Master's teaching again in “Fa Teaching Given at the 2010 New York Fa Conference:”

“Disciple: After Master taught the Fa last time at the Washington, DC, Fa conference, many disciples in the mainland realized that they too should cooperate with the coordinators unconditionally. They went so far as to seek out former site coordinators and assistants to ask them to serve as overall coordinators now, despite the fact that these former site coordinators and assistants in many cases have never truly stepped forward.

Master: Before, in the mainland, those Dafa disciples who served in positions of responsibility at practice sites were not in those positions on account of having cultivated particularly well, but rather, because they had the ability to carry out such work and the desire to do so. It has to be cultivators who handle cultivators’ things. It’s not enough to consider only how good someone is at handling things; whether he is able to cultivate also needs to be looked at. This is something that can never, ever, be changed.

When I last taught the Fa, I expressly added a line about, 'that pertains to Dafa disciples outside of mainland China.' The circumstances in mainland China are different, so I was not addressing the people there.”

Master also taught us in “Fa Teaching Given at the 2014 San Francisco Fa Conference:”

“Disciple: Coordinators in mainland China have been persecuted one batch after another. Many coordinators managed to get out of the evil’s dark dens with their righteous thoughts, but passed away from illness karma later on. This has disrupted the continuity of the coordination work in many regions and prevented people from truly forming a unified whole. I think if we form a system of coordination by way of our different projects...

Master: While I think that when Dafa disciples come up with ways of doing things their starting point is good, if under these evil circumstances you try to contact people, it will be extremely unsafe, and will bring danger to the practitioners in those regions. You need to consider it from this perspective. In fact, since you all have the Fa, regardless of whether those Dafa disciples are in touch with others, as long as they know Dafa’s current state of affairs, if they are able to get online and break through the Internet blockade, they will be able to keep up with the current state of affairs, because gods are watching over things.

Of course, if you can do things in a coordinated manner, that’s even better, but you must take safety into consideration. At the very least, currently you can’t do things on a large-scale, and you can’t collect name lists of practitioners in different regions on a large scale! Whoever does that is committing a bad deed.”

My understanding of Master's teaching is that Master made three clear points:

1. For fellow practitioners' safety, we should not have coordinators be responsible for large areas.2. Master watches and protects every practitioner.3. As long as one studies the Fa and has access to the Minghui website, he or she can keep up with the pace of Fa-rectification.

However, such operations should be local, and be confined to a town or a city. If we avoid large-scale operations, the old forces cannot take advantage of our loopholes, and we can avoid being persecuted.

As far as routinely producing materials, we have already established mechanisms, and these kinds of activities do not need to be coordinated.

Moreover, the existence of “general coordinators” is partially due to some practitioners' attachment to relying on others. Master said, 

“Everything has been prepared, and all that’s missing is for you to carry it out.” ("Dafa Disciples Must Study the Fa - Fa Teaching Given at the 2011 Washington D.C. Metro Area Fa Conference")

We should break through our notions and get rid of our attachment to relying on others. If we can walk our own path in validating the Fa, the situation and environment will change.

The end of Fa-rectification is approaching. We should follow Master's teaching to walk our paths well.

This is my current understanding. Please correct me with compassion if there is anything wrong with my understanding.