Experience Sharing: Spreading the Truth

[PureInsight.org] I am 15 years old and have been practicing Falun Dafa since 1998. It has already been more than five years. Today, I want to share with everyone my experiences in clarifying the truth. In 2002, I started to chat through the Internet. It was an ordinary classmate who told me about it. In the beginning, I typed very slowly and just talked about some ordinary things. Although I made many friends through the Internet, I felt it had no significance. Then suddenly I reflected on how wonderful it would be if I could share the facts in this way! Since that day I have been spreading the facts through the Internet. At that time, the suppression of Falun Gong in China was very severe. So many of my chat room friends did not understand Falun Gong, and even maligned it. In the beginning, I was a bit at my wit's end on how to handle the situation. However, I gradually calmed down and started to explain to them patiently. As time went on I increased my typing speed. Because I had studied Chinese in Singapore, Chinese is not very difficult for me.

In the chat room, I tried many ways to spread the truth, such as by sending instant messages, chatting one-on-one, sending the addresses of truth-telling websites, and so on. Eventually I selected chatting one-on one, since I feel it has the best effect and pertained most closely to the person.

The course of sharing the truth actually is also a course of upgrading my xinxing. For example, when some people did not believe I was in the USA and just thought I was lying, or they did not believe my age, I became impatient many times. Especially when I used the QQ website to chat at the beginning, as many of them did not believe there was QQ overseas. However, I realized my impatience was wrong. And then I just said to the other side of the chat room, "It is up to you to believe or not. Anyway, I do not lie. What I cultivate is Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and I do not cheat people." Thereby, I introduced the topics regarding Dafa and shared the truth.

However, with the acceleration of the Fa-rectification, people are gradually understanding much better, and they are starting to use their own minds to think through the issues. They changed from reviling to quibbling and from rebutting to questioning. They also changed significantly in their tone. So, compared to three years ago, now it is easier to explain the facts.

In these years of truth clarifying, I met many people ranging from the friends who are the same age as I am to the older people whom I can call grandparents. Among them, there are undergraduates, students in middle school, policemen, Internet administrators and so on. Some are curious, some are indifferent to Dafa and some have very deep misunderstandings about Dafa. I often talk to different types of people in different ways. For example, one day, when I talked about Dafa with a man, he said to me, "Do you know who I am? I am a policeman!" I typed a smiling face symbol to him and said, "Really? That is great. It is hard for me to find a policeman right now. I will just tell you, you should not persecute Falun Gong practitioners. They are all good people." I talked to him a lot. Finally, he changed his thoughts about Dafa. Usually, I make friends with them first and then relate Dafa from my own life. However, sometimes, I talked about Dafa in the status of the third party, which also had good effects. When I explain the facts I do not like to make the atmosphere tense. Usually, I type all kinds of smiling faces symbols to the other side. Sometimes, I joke with him and show that I care about him, which makes him feel Dafa practitioners are not that rigid but really want to help him from their hearts. For example, one day after I clarified the truth with a man, he asked my age. He said: "You are unlike 14." I told him it surely was my real age. He said, "Actually, if you turn around the numbers of your age, I am still older than you." I joked, "I am almost 15. In that case, if you turn it around, am I older than you then?"

Many times my chat room friends have said to me, "You are so young. You do not understand many things. It is just most important for you to study hard." I reply, " I may not understand some things. But I know the most basic things. I know Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good. I know people who cultivate Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance are right. People who persecute a group of harmless good people are wrong. However, that man who is in his 70's and also once worked as Chairman of China does not know the most basic things at all!" The other side is usually rendered speechless or changes the topic.

Often the chat room friends believe that the evil Jiang represents China. When I mentioned the lies Jiang has spread they criticized me for not loving the home country and being against the government. I just say, "Jiang cannot represent the government, even more, it cannot represent China. If it can represent China, China is just disgraced overseas. Do you know that it suddenly stood up and sang in an international conference? When it visited Chicago, it did not enter the hotel it had booked by the front door or the even the side door, but by the back door. It was afraid to see a group of virtuous Falun Gong practitioners. If it can represent China, how do you explain its betrayal of its country?" By this time, most of the others on the chat room are curious. They asked, "Aha? Betray the country? What's this about? Tell me more about it." That chat room friend that was almost going to go offline became interested in staying online when hearing Jiang betrayed the country. This resulted in us chatting for another half an hour.

During the course of sharing the facts I think what is most important is sending righteous thoughts and studying the Fa well. When I first started clarifying the truth, I would begin by just sending righteous thoughts. I would do the same when the other person very terribly abused Falun Gong. As expected, the other person had no reply for a long time. Moreover, studying the Fa well can help me to keep a harmonious and merciful state of mind during the course of explaining the facts. I then will not feel upset just because of a little thing. When my state of mind was not stable what I said to the other person just had less of an effect, and at times even had an adverse effect. So before I tell people the facts, my mother always urges me to study the Fa or listen to the Fa first.

The above is just my experience of spreading the truth in chat rooms. Next I want to talk about some stories about my clarifying the truth in school. It happened last year when I was in Grade Eight. It was the first year I transferred to this school. There are not many Chinese students in this school. There are only three in the grade I am in. The other two Chinese students do not know how to speak English very well. So when I talked to American friends in English and my exam scores were very excellent, both of the Chinese students were astonished. One time, it was time for a history class to begin but our teacher did not come to the classroom. Someone suggested asking a boy to tell a story. Then another boy interrupted him and said: "No, let Yiqian tell some Chinese stories." At the beginning, I was a bit shy but I realized it was a very good chance to tell my classmates the facts. I could not lose such a precious chance just because I was shy. So I replied, "Okay. I'll just tell you a story that happened in China." I talked about Dafa and mentioned the persecution. When I spoke about people from an eight-month-old infant to an over-70-year-old elder who was tortured to death, they looked at me with serious and earnest faces. During this time, there was some interference. Someone kept raising questions, but others were impatient and said to him, "You let her finish first." So, in a few minutes, I spoke to the whole class about Dafa's situation in China. Just after I finished, the assistant principle came in. My classmates told him I had told them the stories of what is happening in China. The assistant principle nodded and said, "Good, that is also history." I deeply experienced Master's mercy and encouragement. I also thank Master for giving me such a good chance.

Another time that also happened last year, everyone was collecting signatures to rescue Charles Li at various locations. We were also doing this in our area. A practitioner encouraged my friend and me to go to school to collect signatures. At the beginning, I was a bit nervous and shy. When it was the time for the fourth class, my friend asked the teacher to read the introduction on the signature list, and he signed his name without any hesitation. I was very encouraged and also ashamed of my own fear. So, after the class, it was lunchtime and my friend and I started to collect the signatures of people who we know or did not know. However, because I did not let go of my fear, my friend did better than I. Later, with the continuous hints Master gave me, and Master use of the ordinary people's mouths to remind and encourage me, my friend and I collected in total more than 100 signatures.

This year, I transferred to a high school. It is a totally new school. There are new teachers and classmates. Some have heard about the Dafa truths before and some have not. I recall one time our English teacher mentioned a main character in a book in the class. For the sake of justice and conscience, he would rather endure torture and was not willing to give up his belief he held fast to, which made me reflect on Dafa. So after class was over that day when I passed by the classroom I saw my teacher sitting there alone. I just walked in. At the beginning, I just spoke to her about my grades. Then I said, "Teacher, what you talked about in today's class reminded me of something happening in China. Do you know about Falun Gong? It is a practice to teach people to cultivate Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. It is welcome in more than 60 countries in the world. However, in China, it is suppressed unreasonably and propaganda is broadcast about it. Falun Gong practitioners are detained, even persecuted to death, just because they wanted to speak up to defend it. They are not against the government. They only wish the government would give them the freedom and environment to practice which originally belonged to them." The teacher nodded and said, "I see, it is not against the government." I continued to talk. When I mentioned that the eight-month-old infant was tortured to death, she suddenly said, "It seemss I read about that somewhere. There was some information regarding this in my mailbox." I became speechless for a moment. Then I recalled it could have been the Dafa practitioner who once took over a class for an absent teacher and maybe she put the materials in her mailbox. And then I gave her a smile. When I mentioned evil Jiang did not dare to enter the hotel by the front door, just because he was afraid to pass a group of Falun Gong practitioners wearing yellow clothes, the teacher looked amused and laughed. In just 10 short minutes, another life knew the truth. I am really happy for her.

There are some other stories. For example, a classmate got a truth-clarifying flier a long time ago. One day when we were in school, he suddenly said to me, "I read the flier about Falun Gong at home one day. I read that China arrested a person just because he unfurled a banner. It was really not right." I smiled at him and agreed.

During the course of sharing the facts I also let go of my own attachments, for example, fear and shyness. However, whenever I am hesitant, I always recall Master's mercy and encouragement for me to let go of my fear, expose the persecution in China to more people, and show Dafa's beauty.