Forming One Body and Promoting Shen Yun

I am a practitioner from France. I would like to share the experience of forming a one-body during Shen Yun promotions in the past 3 years.

In recent years, we clearly knew the importance and high efficiency of leafleting in front of theatres based on our survey statistics as well as conversations with the audience. The importance we refer to is that theatres are the places for theatre-goers who love to watch shows and who can afford to watch shows; the high efficiency is because it can only take about one hour before each show to distribute leaflets; two hundred to six hundred leaflets could be distributed for each show, so the results were very good.

Paris is a city of arts, where there are many large or small theatres that are staging many kinds of performances coming from all around the world. Therefore, we selected a dozen theatres based upon the class of theatre, the nature of the performances staged, and the level of ticket prices. Then we compiled a performing schedule for those theatres, so we could, hopefully, reach audiences from mainstream society.

Finally, we needed to allocate manpower, and this is relatively difficult to handle. From October last year to April this year, more than six months, performances were staged on five or six days per week, sometimes there were over 10 shows in one day, which required quite a lot of manpower on a long term basis. Our goal was to not miss any one show, to give us a chance to cooperate well with each other, and to provide practitioners a chance to step out and take part in Fa-rectification with this project.

We were lacking manpower all the time. Everyone tried to study the Fa as much as possible, share with each other, and encourage practitioners to join in by making phone calls. At group Fa-study or on the group email list, we often reminded everyone how many shows needed to be covered with leafleting, the less coverage with leafleting, the less chances the sentient beings had to be saved, and the matter was so urgent and important. During Fa-study and sharing sessions, many practitioners also shared experiences of encountering predestined people, and experiences of handing out flyers. Those experience sharings encouraged the participation of many practitioners.

When picking up the phone and calling for practitioners’ participation, I encountered different responses, with also a lot of encouragement and frustration. All of those were chances for me to cultivate and adjust my mindset. Sometimes, practitioners took the initiative and said “I will take care of all the shows in this theatre”. Some practitioners were very straightforward and agreed to do whatever was assigned to them at their available time. One practitioner told me that she was waiting to do Shen Yun leafleting every year; she persisted in taking a one-and-a-half-hour train journey to a theatre to do one-hour leafleting every day in spite of the objection of her non-practitioner husband. One night she called me and made a complaint, it was after 11pm, she just got back home, it was very cold and snowing in Paris, the train also had some problems, it was very tough to complete the task, and she was crying on the train while thinking of the hardship during those days. Practitioners’ diligent and active participation made me very pleased and not dare to slack off.

There ware also many setbacks while making phone calls. For example, someone said “I will not be available, you can call person A or person B. If you really cannot find anyone, then approach me again after that”. Some people turned down my request by giving a pile of excuses and meanwhile casually firing some complaints to me. Some people just simply did not pick up my call or simply ignored my text messages and so on. Sometimes I felt discouraged and did not want to phone people. However, after calming down, I looked inward and checked what I didn’t do well and why I couldn’t find people to help. Perhaps they already had other arrangements and by asking them to distribute flyers all of a sudden they may not able to re-arrange things. I should have a plan in advance. Meanwhile, I also found that I was lacking a calm heart. I also felt strange: Why did I feel as if I was begging for help from practitioners for my personal and private things while calling practitioners to participate in the project? Distributing Shen Yun flyers is a project for all of us, not for myself. Where did it go wrong? I saw my disappointment when I could not find anyone’s participation, I felt uncomfortable. Isn’t this a heart of pursuit?

I then adjusted my mentality, and straightened my angle of thinking. My responsibility was to let practitioners know the opportunity of participating in Fa-rectification by doing Shen Yun leafleting and to help fellow practitioners join in the project rather than seeking something. Once I changed my way of thinking, the tone and method of my communication with practitioners also changed; I also didn’t care about being turned down too much.

Once, a fellow practitioner phoned me and said he couldn’t go to the Theatre Versailles due to other commitments. I immediately searched around for a replacement but had been rebuffed on all cases. The ticket prices of shows staged at Theatre Versailles were more than 200 euros, so the audience must be from mainstream society. It would be a pity to miss covering leafleting for any of the shows. I kept thinking of who would be available. Suddenly, I realised, why don’t I cover the theatre myself? Master may arrange for me to go. I was looking after my child at home. So I took my six-year-old child with me and drove to the theatre and parked my car in a nearby car park. The child fell asleep and I did not want to wake him as it was chilly outside. So I went to do leafleting on my own. I went back to my car when there were less people to check if the kid had woken up. He was asleep, so I ran back again to do leafleting. I also asked Master to reinforce me while doing leafleting and let the kid sleep. “I'll run back here again and hand out leaflets, while with Master's blessing, let the kid go back to sleep.” On the way home, the child was still asleep. I was so glad, thanks to Master’s reinforcement.

This year we achieved an important breakthrough, practitioners put the theatre show timetables online, then everyone could register his- or her-self online to cover certain slots. We could immediately know when and where we needed manpower. This made the coordination much more convenient and effective.

As the date of the Shen Yun shows was approaching, more practitioners joined the leafleting in front of theatres, but also a problem of cooperation emerged. For example, some people registered but did not turn up or arrived late, which caused some theatres to have no-one or not enough people to cover, thereby losing the chance of saving sentient beings; some people turned up without registration which caused too many people at some theatres, and wasted manpower. After the problems emerged, various complaints and human thinking also emerged.

If each person was doing it their own way, it was not possible to coordinate things well. It was also a test of cooperation as a one-body, and the responsibility of each of us. If we registered to do leafleting, then we must go there on time. If we intended to do leafleting, we must register in advance. As one encountered interference or unexpected things, we also needed mutual understanding and inclusion. This was a good opportunity for each of us to look inward.

During the half-year, with joint effort, practitioners distributed many flyers and covered many theatre shows. Many audience members in front of the theatres expressed that they had already bought Shen Yun tickets or got the Shen Yun flyers. The statistics from this year’s audience survey indicated that 29% of the audience came to the show due to receiving flyers at theatres, which exceeded the 20% from previous years.

Thank you everyone.