(Minghui.org) I realized that if I produced truth-clarifying materials by myself, I could only do one sticker, one flyer, or one letter. But if we all did it together, the power would be enormous, and it would be able to deter and disintegrate the evil. Master wants us to work together to save more sentient beings.
--From the author
Greetings, compassionate great Master!
Greetings, fellow practitioners!
First of all, I want to thank our compassionate Master for providing Dafa practitioners in mainland China with an opportunity for improvement.
I am an elderly practitioner. I started Dafa cultivation in July 1998. Prior to cultivation, I suffered from many chronic illnesses. For 30 years, I had rheumatoid arthritis, severe rheumatic heart disease, severe strophic superficial gastritis, and severe neurasthenia. These illnesses seriously impacted my work and life. I even had difficulty consuming food. I went everywhere to find a cure, but without success. Thus, I stopped taking medicine and just waited to die. Just then, I came upon Dafa and began cultivation. After practicing it for a short period of time, all of my illnesses disappeared. Dafa is truly extraordinary and magical. Master has given me a second life. Since then, I have devoted my life to solidly cultivating myself in order to repay Master's compassion!
Over the last 14 years, I've experienced happiness of compassionate Master's blessing and joy of improving with fellow practitioners, as well as painful lessons of the evil persecution and the loss of loved ones. Master has painstakingly looked after me. In the process, every time I did well, Master encouraged me and reminded me to be rational and walk steadily on the righteous path. Whenever I sought comfort, felt depressed, or did not cultivate diligently, Master would hint at me with “always cultivating as if you were just starting will surely result in achieving your ultimate rank” (“Fa Teaching at the 2009 Greater New York International Fa Conference”). Although I have not seen Master and He is thousands of miles away, I feel that our compassionate Master protects me all the time, cares for me, and encourages me to improve.
Our region originally had five to six leaflets and journals for clarifying the truth. As the persecution progressed, less and less materials became available and finally only one was left. Our local version of the Minghui Weekly stopped being published for a long time. As the persecution intensified, and without materials to expose the crimes of the persecution, Dafa practitioners were arrested, sent to forced labor camps, and sentenced one after another. Seeing the situation, I was heartbroken.
Master said,
“Exposing the wicked policemen and bad persons and publicizing their evil deeds is extremely effective at shocking and restraining those irrational, wicked people.” (Master's comment on a practitioner's article “Expose the Evil Happening Locally to the Local People”)
Without practitioners to do the work, the production of truth-clarifying materials in our whole area was paralyzed.
Making Truth-Clarifying Materials Is a Process of Cultivating Away Fear
As I had no experience in writing articles or editing, I decided to create a way of making truth-clarifying materials. In order to rescue practitioners and save sentient beings, I asked for Master's help. There were many persecution cases needing to be exposed, so I wondered how to get started.
By chance, I saw on TV a story of two armies that were fighting each other. When the leading general was killed, his army was routed and soldiers threw off their armor and ran away. I thought that if we exposed the chief of the local police and made people understand the persecution, it would greatly frighten and restrain the evil. Without the chief to give out commands, the persecution wouldn't be so cruel and the lower-ranked officers wouldn't take the initiative to persecute practitioners, as they often said: “It's all from the top. We just follow orders.”
I thus decided to start from the higher officials, concentrating on the Municipal Committee of the 610 Office, the secretary of Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC), and the director of the police department. I downloaded a Minghui article as a template for self-adhesive stickers. I wrote letters to exhort officials to do good and made self-adhesive stickers with photos of these chief figures. When I looked at the photos, my scalp tingled and I had a creepy feeling. It appeared like the faces in the photos changed: one moment they were black, and the next they became purple ugly faces and their eyes emitted a green murderous gleam. I understood that the evil did not want to be destroyed. I said to it: “You have persecuted to death so many Dafa practitioners and I am going to expose you in broad daylight and let people see your crimes!” I continued to post the stickers with this thought.
After I finished posting the stickers and got ready for lunch, I couldn't stand up. I strengthened my righteous thoughts, but I still couldn't walk. I knew it was the evil's interference as it was putting up a last-ditch struggle.
Master said,
“The old forces don't dare to oppose our clarifying the truth or saving sentient beings.”) (“Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Boston”)
I thought, “Why could the evil interfere with me?” I could not think of a reason, so I sat down and sent forth righteous thoughts. After ten minutes, I still couldn't move, so I continued to send forth righteous thoughts. Then a thought emerged in my mind: “You only thought of the first half of Master' teaching and didn't enlighten to the meaning of the second half.” I suddenly understood.
The second half of Master's teaching is:
“What's key is to not let them take advantage of the gaps in your state of mind when you do things.”(“Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Boston”)
When I decided to write articles to expose the evil, I didn't want people to know that I did it. This thought let the old forces take advantage of my loophole. Although I found the root cause, I still had fear deep down in my heart.
Master taught us:
“All of you are already aware of the principle of mutual-generation and mutual-inhibition. If you are not afraid, the factor that would make you afraid will cease to exist. This is not to be self-imposed, but is achieved by truly and calmly letting go of it.” (“Eliminate Your Last Attachment(s),” Essentials for Further Advancement II)
I sent forth righteous thoughts peacefully and uprooted my attachment of fear with divine thoughts. I negated all arrangements by the old forces and cleared all dark minions, rotten ghosts, communist evil spirits, all devious lives, and factors that interfered with my work of clarifying the truth. I sent forth righteous thoughts continuously for 30 minutes. I then recovered and could walk again.
The next day I wrote a letter to the PLAC and the Municipal Committee of the 610 Office to exhort them to do good things. By the time I finished, it was already 2 p.m. When I got up, my legs were in pain, but this time I could walk. After dinner, I sternly admonished the evil, “If you come to give me trouble again, I'll eliminate you!” Then I went inside to get ready to send forth righteous thoughts. My legs no longer hurt, and this phenomenon never happened again.
Master said,
“The Fa can break all attachments, the Fa can destroy all evil, the Fa can shatter all lies, and the Fa can strengthen righteous thoughts.” (“Drive Out Interference,” Essentials for Further Advancement II)
I realized that learning the Fa well and having righteous thoughts and righteous actions were the fundamentals of doing everything well. In the process, I also gained a deeper understanding of Master's words.
Learning to Produce a Weekly Journal and Establishing Materials Production Site
I didn't have any editing experience, but I decided to try. I downloaded Minghui Weekly to see how to mimic it. I saw that the pictures and the accompanying essays in there were excellent, so I downloaded the Minghui Weekly versions from different regions and followed those examples. After going through many trials and errors, I finally completed our local version of the Minghui Weekly. Then, under the guidance of a practitioner with a technical background, I learned to do characters in a fancy style, write words on photos, and layout. I knew Master gave me those abilities, as it would be very difficult for a 61-year-old lady to learn how to edit and do layout otherwise.
I then created a periodical for exposing the persecution at forced labor camps. An experienced practitioner patiently revised my work and gave me guidance. I then compared the revised version to my original to identify the differences. I continuously improved my work.
Master said,
“Yes, it's good that a coordinator wants to help with the Epoch Times work. A person who has a position of responsibility is actually a coordinator, and getting more capable people involved is what's key. How big of a role can any one individual play? Only when the group as a whole plays its role has the coordinator done well. When a coordinator does well himself, well, if you're the only one doing well, then you should just be an average student in that case. The key is that you have got to play the role of and fulfill the duties of a coordinator.” (“Teaching the Fa at the Western U.S. International Fa Conference”)
I realized that if I produced truth-clarifying materials by myself, I could only do one sticker, one flyer, or one letter. But if we all did it together, the power would be enormous, and it would be able to deter and disintegrate the evil. Master wants us to work together to save more sentient beings.
I proposed a number of topics, mostly to write letters to the Public Security director, captain of the Domestic Security Division, and head of the police station. l sent the draft to other practitioners, so that they could use it to write letters. I found out that several practitioners had good writing skills. We let practitioners who had good writing skills be writing counselors and share their writing knowledge with us.
Every week we exchanged views and learned from each other. Practitioners in our group had IT backgrounds, as well as writing, painting, and other skills. We were able to complement each other. Everyone was serious about their work. Some used laptops to learn new skills, some collected source materials, and some wrote articles for the team to read and suggest modifications. I told practitioners how I had learned to edit our local version of Minghui Weekly. Practitioners then also learned how to do it, and are now able to edit our local version of Minghui Weekly on their own.
Cooperating Well with Each Other and Harmonizing the Whole Body
In order to let more practitioners get involved, we asked other practitioners in the county to recommend fellow practitioners who had experience in writing and editing and were willing to engage in the work. We asked these practitioners to write about the persecution that occurs in the county, karmic retribution, and Dafa's extraordinary and magical aspects, as well as to edit the local version of the Minghui Weekly. The data group then reviewed the entries and sent them to the Minghui website. In this way, we exposed the local persecution in a timely manner and reported cases of karmic retribution suffered by those who had persecuted Falun Dafa practitioners, which frightened the evil. This effort also enhanced our working together as a whole body. The result was very good.
When I found a practitioner who wrote well, I tried hard to have this practitioner join our group. I also found a practitioner who specialized in editing. After contacting him, we provided him with truth-clarifying information, and he then published brochures and stickers to expose the evil persecution. It significantly deterred the evil, reduced the evil factors in other dimensions, and enhanced our efforts of saving sentient beings.
We divided the work in our material production site: writing articles, editing journals, compiling Multimedia Messaging Service, and so on. As we had many novice members on the team, to ensure the quality of writing and editing, we assigned experienced practitioners to review their entries. Some practitioners were responsible for reviewing articles and truth-clarifying materials, while others reviewed flyers and brochures, etc. This division of work reduced loopholes and unnecessary errors, and also reduced the burden on practitioners working at Minghui.
We published journals at a specified time. Sometimes when a practitioner responsible for the journal was unable to do the work, another practitioner quietly filled in. If a practitioner experienced technical difficulties, another practitioner with computer skills would help. This practitioner worked very hard and was never absent, even though his work schedule was very tight. A practitioner who was a leader of a small factory placed the role of helping fellow practitioners as her top priority, even though she was very busy at work. Once, a practitioner's aging computer had problems, and she immediately brought another laptop for the practitioner. She said: “Your work is very important and you cannot do the work without a computer.” Her behavior encouraged everyone, reflecting the harmony of the whole body.
We took full advantage of the time, so we met once a week to exchange views and to discuss how to improve operational capacity and enhance our skills in writing and editing. We paid attention to studying the Fa and sharing to improve our understanding of the Fa.
Our truth-clarifying group was also responsible for mailing letters to officials. This effort had two teams: One team handled emergency cases, such as rescuing arrested practitioners, finding defense lawyers, and sending letters and truth-clarifying materials to the relevant agencies; the other team worked on mailing truth-clarifying materials to the municipal administrative institutions such as the political and legal system, the executive authorities, enterprise units, and institutions pertaining to culture, education and health.
I have now passed the task of editing articles that expose the persecution in labor camps to another practitioner, so that I can fill another vacancy, collect more truth-clarifying materials, let more practitioners write articles to expose the persecution and the truth about Dafa, and so on. I am convinced that if we firmly believe in Master and the Fa, there will be no obstacle we can't overcome and nothing that we can't do. Our truth-clarifying materials do not stick to one pattern. They are rich and colorful and play the role of saving sentient beings effectively, which terrifies the evil.
Above are my personal understandings. Please point out anything inappropriate.
From the 9th China Fahui on Minghui.org
