A Nun's Understanding of the Divine Performing Arts

This story happened during our promotion of the New Tang Dynasty's 2007 Chinese New Year Spectacular performance by the Divine Performing Arts group. I was really moved by the fact that a nun had such a deep understanding and reached such a high-level enlightenment after seeing the performance.

More than a month before the performance, I received a phone call inquiring about it. I gave the woman the standard introduction and the URL to our website. I told her that from Presidents to embassy staff, from CEOs to employees, from professional artists to ordinary workers, many people praised the performance highly. Two weeks later, I again received a call from her. She said, "Please give me four tickets. Here's my credit card number. Please charge two thousand (Canadian) dollars to it." Four tickets would not cost two thousand dollars. But before I could tell her, she told me to take the extra money as a donation. She told me, "I don't know you and your organization. But I know the Divine Performing Arts is really really good. Do you know this cannot be produced by a normal person? It is created by a person with enormous virtue and wisdom." She continued, "It could not be created by a regular person. You see the dancers' movements and gestures. They are all based on a Bodhisattva's movements. And the music is from Heaven..."

As we continued our talk, she raised the amount of her financial support and also increased the number of tickets from four to twelve. When she heard that we had a VCD of the 2006 Chinese New Year Spectacular performance, she asked for it immediately. I then called a practitioner in her city to deliver to her two VCDs. One was the 2006 performance and the other one was the promotional video for the 2007 performance created by that practitioner. I told the practitioner that she was a special customer with great spiritual inclination. The practitioner let me preview the promotional video, and I was very satisfied with it. I thought the nun would like it too.

A few days later, the nun called me. I said proudly that the promotion video was very good and it was created by our fellow practitioners. To my complete surprise, she simply said, "Not good enough." She told me, "You have to watch the whole performance to understand it. I watched the entire performance. It is fantastic. I have watched it again and again the past few days. Every afternoon I would watch it. I have cultivated for more than twenty years. There was an issue which blocked me for a long while and I thought I could not cultivate any further. After watching the performance, I all of a sudden enlightened on that issue. You know, I was stuck in my cultivation, and I made the breakthrough after watching the 2006 performance. I have listened to the music several hundred times now. It almost broke my CD player. I could tell the music has enormous energy in it. Teacher's Gong is like a huge magnet that pulls up those with predestined relationships right away."

A few days later, she called to buy another twenty four tickets and increased her financial support again. We chatted for a long while when I delivered the tickets to her.

She asked me in detail about our ticket sales. She said to me repeatedly, "Teacher is a person with great mercy, benevolence, wisdom, and virtue. He created such a wonderful performance. The Divine Performing Arts' performance is not for someone to simply watch for pleasure. Heaven has many beautiful things in it. He has seen them all. This performance was created by him with great diligence and tremendous effort. It's a great treasure. What we should do is to sell the tickets quickly. This is a treasure to save all sentient beings. How can we cultivate by ourselves? With karma all around us, how can we reach consummation? Teacher gave us this treasure to let us cultivate. If you do not act now, how can you reach consummation?

"The Divine Performing Arts is for saving people. As long as you take people to the theater, they will be saved. As long as they enter the energy field, a seed for being saved will be planted in them. It's just a matter of time then, because they still have karma.

"Do it quickly. I am not rich. I am just a nun. I don't think you are doing it fast enough. There are only three weeks before the performance and you still have three thousand tickets that are not yet sold. I feel really sorry. I can't do much, but I will try my best. I know this performance will save people and I will do my best to help. You know how much effort Teacher has put into this performance? I see all the clothes and headdresses, it's all made by Teacher thread by thread ... No other performance is like this. He exhausted himself to create this treasure for sentient beings. If we don't do our work, it will be a sin.

"All this music is from Heaven. It's Heaven's music. How could humans create it? I have studied dance and music before. I also tried to create this kind of performance, but I could not do it this well. I tried for six years. And all of my hair became white. Teacher created such a grand performance, do you know how much difficulty he has encountered?

"The effect of this show is way beyond what normal writing can achieve. Newspapers, fliers, and your Epoch Times cannot have this effect. Talking to people everyday won't be this effective either. For this performance, if a person watches, he will be saved! How powerful it is! Do it quickly. I think you need to improve your promotional work. Don't begrudge spending money. Spend more. You need to do bigger advertisements in mainstream media.

"It's easier to save Westerners. They know that they need to cherish it. The Chinese think they have seen many of these kinds of performances before. They don't cherish it. Tell them to watch, but they say it's too expensive. I shall buy tickets and give them away. They will be saved if they go to watch it.

"When I gave the tickets to some Chinese, they told me, 'Can't go.' I asked them why? They said it's related to Falun Gong. I asked them, 'What is Falun Gong? What's wrong with Falun Gong? I am just asking you to watch the performance, to enjoy art.' They all became quiet. I know they will watch it."

The Divine Performing Arts had five shows in Vancouver. She bought tickets for every show. During the intermission, I chatted with her a few times. I asked her a couple of times whether she wanted to be interviewed by the media. She always shook her head and waved her hands, "I am a nun. I am in a closed cultivation period. It's not appropriate for me to take the interview." She also told me, "Now my head is blank. I don't know what to say. I emptied myself to watch, listen, and understand the connotation of the dance and music. It has too much in it. You can't describe it in a few words. You see, every gesture of the dance and every note in the music has countless things behind it. I can't understand all of it. Teacher is so great! And some of the performers are teenagers. They are super! Terrific!

"Super! Please say thank you to them for me. Ask them to keep up the good work and do it better next year. Please thank them." Then she took out all the money in her wallet, "I want to buy some gifts for them, but I don't have much money left..." I said, "Don't worry. You have given a lot. Thank you very much!"

When we talked about religion, she said, "Soon, at most within a year, the religious world will understand. You see that Teacher has said it very clearly in the performance."

I chatted with her several times. Each time she expressed her admiration and respect for Dafa disciples. She said more than once, "You are so lucky to follow such a great Buddha. You are really fortunate. Cultivate well. I have cultivated for more than twenty years. In these twenty some years, I came to understand things one by one. Teacher said in Zhuan Falun, he is like an adult teaching kids, telling you point by point, every detail so that you can understand. It's really like teaching a small kid. You are so fortunate. For these many years how come I hadn't heard of it? Why I was so closed?"

During the performance, I worked backstage. One day I met her in the hall of the theater. She asked me, "Are you busy? Are you tired?" I said, "It's OK." Holding my hands, she said, "Do it well. And do more. This is a great opportunity for your cultivation. Do more. Whatever you do is for yourself."

After the Vancouver performance, the Divine Performing Arts group went to Calgary, Canada. Without any hesitation, she decided to go there to watch the Divine Performing Arts again.