Confidence, Righteous Thoughts, Wisdom and Compassion -- Four Understandings in Clarifying the Truth Written by a Dafa practitioner from Mainland China (Clearwisdom.net)
Build up Confidence
Buddha Law encompasses everything and omits nothing. If we have developed the
habit of looking at questions from the Fa's perspective, we can adjust our
approach according to the opportunity and situation when clarifying the truth.
Send forth Righteous Thoughts
The basic point should be always aimed at offering salvation to the world's
people, so we should remind ourselves to keep a compassionate state of mind and
mode of speech when clarifying the truth.
Use Wisdom
The way to clarify the truth is not limited by any specific formality; no
matter what method we use, we need to pay attention to our own and other
people's characteristics.
When talking to our acquaintances, besides promoting Dafa with discussion and
truth-clarifying materials, we should also pay attention to promoting Dafa with
our actions. Because people get a direct impression about Dafa from our
behavior, we need to harmonize with Zhen-Shan-Ren (Truth-Compassion-Tolerance)
at all times and in all situations, no matter whether it is a major or minor
issue that is involved. If we behave well, we can double the results we achieve
using half the effort.
The content of our speech should be focused on clarifying the truth, along
with explaining the Fa's principles. We should adjust the content according to
the listener's enlightenment quality and what the environment allows at that
time.
We can start from the perspective of ruling the country with law when talking
to everyday people. For religious people, we can generally focus more on
clarifying the truth, finding similar beliefs and allowing for differences in
law-principles while trying avoiding unnecessary disputes.
Generally speaking, we will encounter two kinds of people: The first kind
changes their understanding of Dafa after knowing the truth; People like this
are lucky. The second kind does not change even after knowing the truth, which
can be the most difficult type to clarify the truth to. This second group of
people can then be divided into two sub-categories. One group is those who are
protecting their own self interests. Those who obtain material benefits from the
persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners, or those who believe in the principle
of "Stay far away from everything that has nothing to do with
oneself," will behave like that. The second kind of person has developed a
wrong pattern of thinking due to the long-term influence of the environment.
These people share the same characteristic that they ignore the large amounts of
truth and factual information that they have seen or heard. They also use
reports from the media or stories of some individual practitioner's shortcomings
to attack Dafa. For this kind of person, we could clarify the truth from the
following perspective:
(1) Is Falun Dafa really like what media has reported? Have the
understandings of Dafa gone through any thorough investigation and examination?
Then how can one explain the following facts?
There is not any report about Dafa practitioners committing acts of
"self-immolation" and "murder" in any country around the
world other than in China. Why are there such reports only in China? And why
were there no such reports in Mainland China from 1992 to 2000?
Why does Dafa receive numerous awards and so much support? Why did the UN IED
(International Education Development) organization announce in February 2001
that the "Self-immolation incident" on Tiananmen Square was staged by
Chinese President Jiang's regime and the crackdown of Falun Gong by Jiang's
regime is an act of "state-terrorism"? Why was Beijing Mayor Liu Qi
served with a lawsuit in US district court and charged with "crimes against
humanity"?
In the last few months, several large groups of westerners protested on
Tiananmen Square at different times against the persecution of Falun Gong by the
current Chinese government, which was unprecedented. They returned to their
countries with bodies injured by the policemen of Tiananmen Square. What moved
them to do such a thing?
If Falun Dafa is really as it is described in Jiang's regime's propaganda,
then why do so many countries and governments in the world act in support of it?
Are they unable to tell the difference between right and wrong? Are all these
countries and regions plotting a big scheme against China at the cost of the
freedom of expression of their own people?
(2) History has shown that when the Chinese president started this
large-scale persecution, Dafa practitioners followed the citizen's rights
granted by the Chinese Constitution, and have always adopted peaceful and
rational means to clarify the truth and never mentioned any word of politics.
All Dafa practitioners are unwilling to verbally attack policemen who have
brutally tortured and beaten them; how could they kill their own families?
Aren't such lies too ridiculous and extreme? Dafa practitioners try to let go of
all attachments to material gains and all bad thoughts; why would they have any
political ambition? If you think they don't have political motivation now, but
may have in the future, then it should be asked regarding such an issue related
to the survival and well-being of hundreds of millions of families, who has
given you the enormous power to make such a reckless assumption? A court of law
could not sentence people with such unfounded assumptions or "fabricated
charges," but today the whole society persecutes innocent people who
cultivate "Zhen-Shan-Ren"; is it right to do so? How can those people
who support such persecution be called kind and rational?
Please remember we need to keep a more pure and compassionate mind set to
clarify the truth to this kind of person and at the same time we must send forth
our righteous thoughts.
Keep a Compassionate State of Mind
We need to pay a lot of attention to the cultivation of speech during the
whole procedure. If other people stubbornly stick to their own opinions and have
extreme attitudes, we should stop the conversation and peacefully explain that
it is always good to communicate regardless of whether we can accept others'
point of view or not. If there is chance in the future, we could talk to this
person again. The correct mind-set should be: "Do but pursue not-----Often
stay in the Dao." (Hongyin)
Clarifying the truth is sacred. We should never turn it into a hurried and
impatient dispute, or we might leave other people with misunderstandings of Dafa.
We can do well in cultivation of speech only if we keep a compassionate mind-set
at all times.
When the conversation finishes, we should send forth our righteous thoughts
again and tell the other party that we clarify the truth to save the world's
people, not to ask them to oppose the government. It is all right as long as he
can remember that Falun Dafa is good and any human being should follow
Zhen-Shan-Ren.
Lastly, I would like to talk briefly about my understandings of the
relationship between clarifying the truth, sending forth righteous thoughts and
studying the Fa.
These three things are consistent and mutually promote each other. The wisdom
used in clarifying the truth comes from studying the Fa and the process of
clarifying the truth is the process of removing our omissions. Sending forth
righteous thoughts is eliminating the evil in deeper dimensions with supernormal
capabilities and will be of great help in clarifying the truth and offering
salvation to the world's people at the level of the largest surface particles
(molecules). The deeper our Fa studies become, the higher our mind-natures, the
purer our righteous thoughts, the more powerful our supernormal capabilities,
the more precise our understanding of the Fa and the better the result will be
in clarifying the truth.
The above represent my personal understanding. Please point out any
inappropriate statements.
Posting date: 3/8/2002 |