(Minghui.org) I began cultivating eight years ago, just toward the end of my freshman year in college. As I was finishing my end-of-semester exams, my high school literature teacher sent me a copy of Zhuan Falun via an email. Having always been interested in religion and spiritual works, I began reading the book.
Completing Zhuan Falun for the first time was a challenge, as I had to overcome a lot of thought karma. In high school, literature was my favorite subject. However, much of what we studied contained degenerate values. While some works carried uplifting messages, most revolved around dark themes such as murder and degenerate relationships. These ideas lingered in my mind, causing headaches, nausea, and skepticism as I read Zhuan Falun. It took me two months to finish reading Zhuan Falun, but once I did, I started practicing the exercises and truly I truly stepped onto the path of cultivation that summer.
Growing up in a socialist country, I was deeply ingrained by socialist ideology, attached to being competitive, showing off, jealousy, and zealotry. Despite these shortcomings, I felt that Falun Dafa was the true path and a wonderful practice, and I had a strong desire to share Dafa’s principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance with others. Although I’d only just started cultivating and I was the only practitioner at a large university, I was determined to establish a Falun Dafa Club on campus.
The requirements were high: we needed at least 25 members to start and had to present a clear plan to the Student Council. I was very introverted and had little experience with public speaking, yet I felt confident that I would meet these requirements and get the club approved.
A local practitioner came to help. One Sunday morning, we walked around campus and asked students to sign our club interest form. I didn’t hesitate to talk to classmates and request their support. Miraculously, we met the requirements. The day of our club presentation, my speech was clumsy but heartfelt. The head of the Student Council listened attentively, showing great sympathy, and in the end, our club was approved.
Looking back, I realize that in running the club, I often operated from a place of personal attachment rather than from the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. Because of this, when we hosted film screenings, attendance was low, and some Chinese students viewed us as competitive rather than compassionate. I recall organizing a screening of Hard to Believe at our school. On the event day, only two people attended—one of whom was a medical professor. However, he later invited us to host a similar screening at the medical school for his students. That screening attracted 50 medical students. This serves as a profound reminder of Master’s boundless compassion for me. Despite my shortcomings and loopholes in cultivation, Master continuously looked after me, transforming my failed efforts into a good outcome.
Three years later, I entered graduate school. By then, I’d spent three years working in ordinary society, maturing both in character and temperament. I was confident that this time I could run the club more effectively and avoid the mistakes I’d made before.
However, when I shared my intention to start a new Falun Dafa Club with a fellow practitioner at school, my enthusiasm was not immediately met with encouragement. Instead, she urged me to pause and reflect—was I starting the club out of a genuine need for truth clarification, or was there an element of personal recognition involved? She also voiced concerns about the challenges ahead. Given that we were in a liberal city with a complex environment, she worried that, as foreign students, we might struggle to navigate the school social environment and administration system and, if we made mistakes, we’d risk giving Falun Dafa a negative reputation.
Her advice made me pause and look within—was I motivated by zealotry or a subconscious desire to stand out among both ordinary people and practitioners? After deep reflection, I realized that while I still carried elements of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) culture and had shortcomings in my personal cultivation, these were not reasons to hold back from spreading the truth about Falun Dafa. On the contrary, the very process of running the club would help us refine our character, eliminate our attachments, and mature in our practice.
I came to understand a fundamental difference in perspective: under CCP culture, leadership is often associated with personal gain and status. But in the West, club leaders are not seen as stars or authority figures—they are simply individuals who step forward to build something meaningful and contribute to the community. Leadership is not about yourself; it’s about others.
With this newfound clarity, I pressed on, speaking to classmates and gathering support. As more students joined, the fellow practitioner gradually let down her barriers. She not only became supportive but also took an active role in introducing the club to her friends. In the end, we far exceeded the minimum requirement of 10 members—starting with 14 and growing to 61 by the time I wrote this article.
When the club was finally approved, I experienced a profound shift. As I drove home from school, I felt as if the world around me had taken on a new look — one that is cleansed and purified. Everything looked the same, yet it felt as though part of it had stepped into a new realm. This feeling lasted for several days before it faded.
This time, I set out to lead with a different approach. I chose to embrace the universal principle of balance as the foundation of our club’s strategy. A Shen Yun artist once shared in an interview that in dance, “To move forward, one must first take a step backward.” This concept mirrors the higher principle of yin and yang, emphasizing harmony and flow. Anything aligned with the fundamental laws of the universe unfolds naturally and beautifully—and our Falun Dafa Club was no exception.
Previously, driven by resentment and competitiveness, I had focused primarily on exposing the CCP’s persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners in China. While this was important, I realized that before addressing such serious topics, we needed to first express and convey the beauty and benefits of Falun Dafa, and present a contrast to the CCP’s atrocities in a way that would resonate with people’s hearts.
Therefore, we restructured our events. Instead of beginning the academic year with heavy topics, we first introduced Falun Dafa by holding positive and inviting events such as weekly meditation workshops with free bubble tea, the nine-day Falun Dafa lecture series, and a Once We Were Divine movie screening.
There were times when the pressure of balancing school, local Dafa projects, and maintaining the club seeped in. When I felt exhausted, I wished I could just enjoy college life like an ordinary student, free from responsibility. But at the end of this journey, I see things differently.
The club was never a burden—it was a blessing bestowed by Heaven. Every event we hosted, every student we spoke to, was predestined and precious. Our efforts may seem like mere drops in the ocean, but each drop represents sentient beings awakening and finding their path. And that is the wish of our benevolent Master.