Taipei

Since July Golden Year 3 (2006), our fellow initiates from Taipei Center have offered weekly lessons at the Shindian Drug Abuse Treatment Center to assist with their rehabilitation. A complete series of lessons were carefully planned for spiritual facilitation, in the hope of assisting friends in the treatment center to abstain from drugs through spiritual power. The process was adjusted to fit the needs of students and aimed to help them start their new lives through rebuilding a healthy inner world, restoring confidence and improving their working ability. After several contacts with the treatment center, we were informed that inmates had requested to learn oral English. So, with the cooperation of the Shindian Drug Abuse Treatment Center and the Taiwan Aftercare Association, Shilin Branch, we offered an “Oral English Course” to provide  the inmates with language skill training assistance. This teaching activity earned warm response from the students and set a milestone in developing local rehabilitation methods for the Shindian Drug Abuse Treatment Center!

Many fellow initiates who participated in the activity had very good experiences and observed that we always achieved a positive understanding with the students when we used Master’s lecture as the theme of each teaching session. Master’s concise yet powerful teachings made the students ponder deeply. This subtle influence transformed the interactions between the teachers and students from stiff and uneasy eye contact to warm and intimate conversations. Our fellow initiates all had the same feeling, that every teaching session went very smoothly under the loving guidance of Master’s power.

Before each class, we always played songs composed by Master to create a good atmosphere in the classroom. With good arrangement by our fellow initiates, the meditation class went quite well, too. We often meditated with the students with   Buddha’s chanting. In addition, the fellow initiates especially encouraged those students who were about to finish rehabilitation and leave the treatment center to develop their inner wisdom by spiritual and moral practices, so that they could start a beautiful new life.

Regarding the English class, our fellow initiates contacted psychologist Ms. Li Jing-yi of the treatment center many times to establish the course. Fifteen students who were willing to learn and were expected to leave the treatment center soon were selected to take the course. In order to generate more interest in the students’ learning and to enrich the course content, we carefully selected Master’s jokes in English for the students to practice their listening comprehension. Master’s jokes were funny and humorous, yet easy to understand. The students always laughed and responded positively while listening. The relaxing teaching content not only introduced them to the English world, but also guided them into the joyous kingdom of Heaven. In the beginning, we selected two jokes from the DVD “The Laughing Saints” for them to practice their listening ability. We turned off the text subtitle on the screen and asked them to focus on listening to the jokes to see how much they understood. The effect was like lighting two candles with one flame: They were not only able to practice their focus on listening to English, but also received Master’s blessings by attentively listening to Master’s words. The result was that they became very interested.

Because the students were at different levels of English, their needs varied greatly. It was quite difficult to select teaching materials to suit everyone’s needs. After communicating with Ms. Li Jing-yi many times, our English teachers of the Teachers Group decided to focus on practical conversation and English songs, so that the students could apply what they learned in practice when they returned to work. Some extroverted students, who were actually very intelligent, were also very eager to learn.  They concentrated on learning and actively asked questions. This was quite contrary to their behavior in other classes. During several of our classes, they showed a great interest in learning English. So our fellow initiates gave them suggestions for different learning channels and methods according to their individual needs.

It was even more touching to see that a few lower level students who didn’t even know much about the English alphabet, took notes very seriously and followed the teachers to practice simple sentences. Although they learned more slowly, they never gave up. During the English listening practice, they could not understand much at first. So they moved their chairs to the front of the classroom and listened to Master’s words with total concentration. One time, we moved the listening practice to the second half of the period. The students kept asking when they would listen to the jokes. Finally, when it was time to listen to jokes, everyone was very earnest and focused. Their concentrated expression really moved us.

We were very grateful for the full cooperation of Ms. Li of the treatment center. Besides fulfilling her duty in the classroom as a teaching assistant, she arranged an additional  class each week to help the students review what they had learned. This was arranged in response to the strong learning desire of the students, who thought the once-weekly class was not enough. Therefore, the treatment center scheduled the review class for them. The students also felt that the ten-week class session was too short, and hoped to further extend the class.

These positive responses have been very encouraging to our fellow initiates. We are very grateful to Master for the opportunity to serve those saints, who themselves began to express interest about Master and meditation, and request more detailed information. They were also curious about the printed words on the yellow vests and the Celestial Jewelries that we wore. Some asked where to purchase Master’s photos. A few students even enthusiastically told our fellow initiates that they had started to practice meditation  and saw the inner Light, and that they wanted to know more about meditation and the vegetarian diet. This feedback was very encouraging for us and also reminded us that we were only Master’s tools and that through things like English teaching, we helped students receive a true living Master’s teachings while improving their English. We also hope that the concentration on English study will allow them to change their focus to healthy desires and interests in their life so that they will be able to stay far away from the temptation of drugs.

Tainan

God’s Holy Light Shines on
the Hearts of Prison Inmates

The follow initiates in the Tainan Center have been visiting the inmates in Tainan Prison every month, rain or shine, for many years, continuously bringing encouragement and energy to the inmates. This persistent concern is from God’s love!

On August 31, Golden Year 3 (2006), we came to Tainan Prison again. During each visit, our fellow initiates always conveyed Master’s teachings to inmates with spiritual teaching sessions and provided them with Master’s new publications, News magazines, and sample booklets, to let Master’s spiritual food nurture their thirsty hearts.

This time, we arranged for them to learn a song. The lyrics read, “A bit more vegetarian diet, a little less ailment; A bit more compassion, a little less pain. Beautiful birds fly in the sky, and happy fish swim in the streams. Let every thing enjoys its place.” The song had lively melody, and the students immediately followed the rhythm and sang. Afterwards, a sister initiate recited out loud Master’s Wu Tzu Poems, which touched everyone’s hearts. It was not often to see that they were so happy and smiled like babies. We are grateful that Master’s blessings opened their hearts.

The last session was teaching the Convenient Method of meditation. Through the explanation by a brother initiate, the students learned that the Convenient Method of meditation was magnificent. Therefore, the meditation session was very peaceful.  After meditation, everyone was glowing with a high spirit. We felt happy for them that their souls were filled with God’s love.

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