(Shared at 2001 New York Conference)

Greetings Master, Greetings fellow practitioners,

My name is Carrie. I have been practicing Falun Dafa for about eleven months. I would like to share with you some of my experiences in the past eleven months.

Why I Practice Cultivation

My mom started practicing cultivation about five years ago. Before she started, she had many illnesses and her health condition was very poor. For as long as I could remember, our home was always full of different types of medicines, medical books and devices. Our family used to be called the "family hospital" by the neighbors. In 1996, mom started to practice Falun Dafa. Since then, her health condition has improved dramatically. Our whole family saw the drastic changes in her both physically and mentally. She became a totally different person. She was healthier, happier and livelier. At first, I was very unused to these changes. I no long smelled the scent of the Chinese herbal medicine in our house or saw her pouring a bunch of pills in different shapes and colors into her mouth. Slowly, I started to accept the fact that mom was actually getting healthier and Falun Dafa has changed her physically condition completely.

After gaining so much from the practice, my mom started asking my sister and I to practice together with her. My sister did but I didn't. My thoughts were I don't have too much physical problems, why would I want to do some slow-movement exercises. Plus, what exactly was cultivation? Die that mean I had to be like the nuns? That sounded like too big of a burden for me. I went to a good school and have a nice job. I still haven't explored many other parts of life. Why would I want to send myself into a cave so early in my life? It's okay that mom practices it because she is so much healthier and our whole family is released from the shadow of her unhealthiness. However, for young people like myself, this is definitely not for me. Therefore, I refused to practice. But mom and sister still tried to persuade me. Yet, the more they talked about it the more I resisted. I told them to leave me alone. I didn't oppose Dafa and them from practicing it but felt they should just let me make my own decision. No matter what they said, I would not change my decision. I was very stubborn.

Then came the July 22, 1999 incident. All of a sudden, Falun Gong was in the newspapers everywhere. Because mom was one of the first few people who started practicing in the area, the local newspaper reporters interviewed her right after the incident happened and her pictures were in the paper next day. For some reason, I started to feel scared. I didn't know what happened and what my mom was getting herself into. Although I grew up in the states, I have heard so much about what communists can do to someone. I started to worry about her. Before she started practicing, I was once afraid that I was going to lose her because of her health condition. I don't want to lose her now because she practiced Falun Gong. The atmosphere in our family also changed quite a bit. Dad doesn't practice. He didn't understand what happened. Pressure was coming from everywhere for mom, her friends, people in the community, the neighbors and the family. Although I believed that she knew what she was doing, I still wasn't quite sure about the group of people she was with, the practitioners. Sometimes, I would explain to my dad that she needed to do what she was doing because she would have peer pressure otherwise. When mom decided to go to DC that time, I asked her, "Mom, will you get arrested? Will they harm you?" Mom laughed. She said, "Why are you scared? It has nothing to do with you. They can't do anything to me. We are in the states." "But what if the Chinese government put you on the blacklist?" I said. "Then I just don't get to go back to China. That's not a big issue." Sometimes when dad and I tried to stop her from going to places during that time, she would say to us, "I am doing this not for anyone else but for myself. I suffered more than twenty years before I got to where I am today. Dafa has given me so much. I won't give up this practice no matter what." I saw the determination in her.

At the same time, news about the torture, beating and death started to appear on Minghui site and other media. I started to read those reports because mom asked me to help her with access to the website sometimes. I was shocked and puzzled. What is going on? Why are there killings? What harm can an elderly woman do to other people? What has a young girl done wrong to deserve the severe beating? Why does a government want to treat its people like that? I was very disturbed by the news. I also started wondering why these people wanted to risk their lives for this thing. What exactly was this Falun Gong?

My curiosity prompted me to pick up the "cultivation stories" and some other Dafa books. I didn't want my mom to know that I was reading because I was afraid that she would ask me to practice again. However, I started to find those stories interesting. Perhaps I was concerned about her safety, I started to drive her to the assistants meetings. Because the meetings would usually start with reading and I had nowhere else to go, I had to stay there with her the entire time. I started to listen to what they were reading. I became the veteran "non-practitioner". During the course of those few months, I also got to know the practitioners a little better. I was surprised to see that they were always smiling, happy, and showed no hatred or fear amidst what they were going through. Everyone was nice to me. Just like what Master said in Lecture in Canada, "This is the only remaining piece of pure land in the human world." I felt the peace in them. Their peacefulness and sincerity touched my heart. Slowly, I started to think, maybe there is something I can do for these peaceful and innocent people.

About the end of April last year, mom asked me if I wanted to go to DC with her. They were going to have a parade at the "cherry blossom festival". Thinking that I would have a chance to see cherry flowers, I happily accepted the invitation and volunteered to drive them to DC. But before we even left New York, I found out that my car had a flat tire. There was not enough room in other cars to fit the four people in my car. Mom asked me if I still wanted to go that night. For some reason, I insisted. Finally, we were on our way. Then the tire blew up entirely in the middle of the highway around 1 in the morning. We finally made to the hotel at 3 in the morning.

The next day, I attended the parade. Because I didn't know how to do the exercises, I was standing outside of the parade crowd. Mom handed me a stack of flyers and said, "Why don't you go hand out the flyers and talk to people since you can speak English." Great, I got myself a job, a non-practitioner handing out flyers. Thinking that people might ask me questions later on, I started to do my last minute reading. The parade started and everything was fine. I passed out many flyers. Then there was this young mother with her baby. She started asking me questions. "Who are these people?" "Oh, they are Falun Gong practitioners." "What is Falun Gong?" "Oh, it's an ancient practice. If you like, you can go to the website and download the book for free. In that book, it explains what it is." "No, I don't want to read the entire book. Why don't you just tell me in a few sentences what it is about." Gosh, here comes the test, I said to myself. Luckily, I read about this in the flyer before the parade. I know how to answer this question. So I replied, "Oh okay, Falun Gong is an ancient practice that will help you improve your body, mind and spirit." She seemed to be happy with my answer. "What is this?" She pointed at the Falun emblem on the flyer and asked me. Ha, I know this one too. I said, "This is a Falun emblem. It is the miniature of the universe." Then she asked me another question, "Why are these people dressing in yellow?" Oh no, I didn't remember reading anything about why the color is yellow. I started to flip the flyer back and forth, hoping to find the answer to her question. No, couldn't find it. I couldn't say I didn't know since she must think that I am part of the crowd. I represent those people in the parade. If I couldn't answer her question, it would be such an embarrassment for those people in the crowd. She would think, how could one of their own people not even know the answer to such a simple question? I started to get nervous. Finally, the colors in the emblem inspired me. I said, "Oh it's because one of the colors in the emblem is yellow. That's why they are in yellow." She left and I got away with it. But I felt so embarrassed. Gosh, I wish I had read the book, I said to myself.

During the memorial-day weekend, New Jersey practitioners organized a three-day intensive study and mom asked me if I wanted to go. Thinking that the ladies who would be going with her didn't speak English and they might need my help on the way, plus I could have a nice get away for a few days, I went. Once there, I learned the exercises and read the book "Zhuan Falun" from the beginning to the end for the first time.

My Understanding of Clarifying the Truth and Fa-Rectification

The crackdown was escalating. Appalling news and reports flooded into Minghui everyday. I don't remember how many times I found tears rolling down my face when I was reading the reports. I could feel the pain and suffering that those practitioners in China were enduring. As I got more involved with Dafa work, my life became very hectic. Whenever I felt tired or discouraged by the situation that I was in, I would think about the suffering of those practitioners in China. I would think about the help I could bring to them with whatever I was doing. They became my support and backbone.

Last month, I attended the European experience sharing conference in Geneva. It was also the beginning of the month-long yearly UN Commission meeting. At the same time, China sent a 500 people delegation team to Geneva to influence different countries to vote against the resolution initiated by the United States in condemning its human rights records. The North America practitioners decided to visit the missions there to clarify the truth to them. We broke into groups of two or three and visited almost all of the UN member country missions. We saw the different attitude of those countries. Some countries were indifferent about the situation and the resolution; some slammed the door on us in fear of China's pressure; some were supportive and told us that they would vote with the US. We all learned a lot in those few days.

Because we were invited to attend an event sponsored by a NGO called the Association of World Citizens, I extended my stay in Geneva. The day before the event, I was wandering around in a store with my cousin and her husband, a group of Chinese people came in. Judging from their outfits and the way they talked, I could tell that they were part of the Chinese delegation team. My cousin's husband was wearing a Falun Dafa sweatshirt. Once this group of people saw us, their facial expressions changed. "Falun Gong!" some of them whispered in surprise. One guy started cursing at us, "We should have eliminated this group of people! This evil thing!" They passed by us and left the store. Later, a Chinese guy in suit came in to the store. He looked like he was from the group before. Suddenly, I had this thought in my mind as I saw him talking to the sales person, "We should let him know about the truth too." I asked my cousin's husband if he had any materials with him. He only had a new human rights violation report on CD and it is in English. We figured he could probably read English if he's part of the delegation team. We started thinking about how to approach him. We decided to give him the CD outside of the store since he would probably feel pressured if we gave him the CD in the store. We waited outside for almost an hour. He didn't come out until the store was about to close for the day. As he walked out of the door, I approached him. "Sir, are you from China?" I asked him in Chinese. "Yes." He replied. "I have some materials about Falun Gong. Would you like to take it?" I handed him the CD. "Okay, what is this?" "This is a report documenting all the human rights violations conducted by the Chinese government in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. Over 160 people have died from the persecution. Many of them are women and elderly. Maybe you can bring it back with you to China." "Oh, oh." He mumbled. Then he walked away. Looking at his back as he disappeared in the crowd, I felt happy for him that he had the chance to hear about the truth. At that moment, I had no hatred toward him in my heart. I was grateful to our teacher for his great benevolence. Another human being has learned about the truth. He now has a chance to position himself. I came to understand what Master said in the lecture at the Great Lakes Conference, "When we're enduring the worst suffering, we're still saving others."

This month I went back to Geneva again. We brought with us the women's reports that we had just finished. I heard from many practitioners who visited the NGOs and missions that the vivid pictures in the report have moved many people. One practitioner told me that when she was talking to an ambassador, after she showed him the women's report, his expression totally changed. He pointed at the stack of paper on his desk and said to her, "These are all abstracts. I don't know what's in here. If you didn't come to me with all these materials today, I wouldn't know what I would be voting with or against. Now I have to vote with my conscience." Suddenly, I realized, when we are clarifying the truth, we are not just doing it for ourselves. Clarifying the truth is not only about letting the people in the world understand what exactly is going on, but more importantly, to offer them salvation. Master said in the lecture at the Great Lakes, "It looks like we're [just] giving a flyer to an everyday person, and it appears that we're [just] telling everyday people the truth. Let me tell you, when this Fa-rectification matter is over, humankind will enter the next stage, and those people and beings who have in their minds "the Dafa of the cosmos isn't good" will be first eliminated. It's because they're worse than the worst beings in the cosmos, for what they're against is the Fa of the cosmos. So when we're clarifying the truth, we're eliminating some people's evil thoughts towards Dafa. Haven't we saved them at least when it comes to this?" Many people out there still don't know the truth about Dafa. They have been affected by the Chinese propaganda or the misleading media reports unknowingly. It's our responsibility as Dafa particles to tell them the truth, not just to expose the evil but also to offer them an opportunity for their future. If these people didn't get a chance to hear the truth, it may not be their fault that they have those bad thoughts about Dafa. It may be because we didn't do enough to clarify the truth. As a practitioner once mentioned, "Teacher is rectifying the Fa of the cosmos; we are only validating the Fa." To keep up with the Fa-rectification, it's important that we understand the significance of clarifying the truth. I came to have a better understanding of what Master said in Rationality, "Validate the Fa with reason, clarify the truth with wisdom, spread the Fa and offer people salvation with benevolence."

Some Thoughts from Conversations with My Friends

Recently, a good friend of mine from college told me that many of my friends are worried about me because I am with Falun Gong now. I asked her, "We grew up together. They don't even trust me?" She said, "I told them that you haven't changed but it's difficult for people outside to look inside and know what's going on." Her reply made me think for a while. I realized that everyday people don't have the chance to get to know the practitioners in China. The only way they get to know practitioners is through us, the overseas practitioners. In my friends' eyes, I represent Dafa. I can correct all the misconceptions they have about Dafa or confirm the erroneous information they have learned from the misleading media reports. Every single action of mine that is a little strange or abnormal would make them misunderstand Dafa. I realized that it's important for me to make sure that my behaviors are not odd and try to conform to the standards of the ordinary people's society. We have printed so many materials to clarify the truth. In reality, we ourselves are one of the best materials to tell people about the truth. I invited her to come to our conference today.

Closing

Our Master has done so much for us. He has been so benevolent to all of us. What I can do as a particle of Dafa is to keep up with the Fa-rectification and to attain the righteous enlightenment of selflessness and altruism. I would like to close my speech today with Master's poem from HongYing, "Assisting the Fa"

Thank you.