Greetings Master, greetings everyone! I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota and I run a small computer consulting business to make a living. The work hours are quite flexible and it gives me the opportunity to spend much time doing volunteer work for Dafa. I have no family, live by myself, and, as a consultant, have no true co-workers, so there is no one I interact with, communicate with, and have conflicts with on a regular basis. Or so it seems. But every practitioner has a unique path to follow, and I have come to see in my own life how it is that conditions will be provided for us to cultivate, no matter what the surface situation of our everyday lives in society.
It is clear to me that my life circumstances have been arranged so that I will have the free time, worldly skills, and other resources needed to devote a lot of time to working for Dafa. These circumstances mean that I have a responsibility that I accept willingly and take seriously. Each of us "Dafa particles" have a unique and special role to play during this unprecedented period of Fa-rectification, and each of us has a role that is glorious in ways that we cannot yet realize or understand. I have accepted that my role often puts me "out front," in very visible or audible positions, behind a microphone or in front of a parade. But as a person who was very shy as a boy, this role of being so visible is itself frequently a test, a way to expose and get me to handle many attachments.
It would be easier, safer, and simpler if I could just cultivate quietly, without anyone knowing who I am or what I stand for--but then there would be fewer tests, fewer occasions when my attachments get prodded and poked. I knew that the possibility of me trying to keep my practice of Dafa a private matter was gone forever when a photo of me doing the sitting exercise appeared in the largest newspaper in the state. This happened two years ago following a news conference that we held to inform local media about the persecution in China that was just beginning. After my photo appeared, people didn't stop me in the street or point to me in restaurants or anything so dramatic, but I fully realized that, from then on, it was my job to "go public" with my practice and to tell everyone about Dafa and the persecution.
Teacher says in Lecture Four of Zhuan Falun:
"...you are practicing cultivation among everyday people. You will not be suddenly turned upside down with your head facing the ground, flying up there and suffering in the air--it won't be like that. Everything will assume the form of everyday situations, such as someone may have irritated you today, someone has upset you, someone has mistreated you, or someone suddenly speaks to you with no respect. It is to see how you will react to these issues."
As I mentioned, I have relatively few occasions to cultivate through handling conflicts with nonpractitioners in society, and when I do experience such conflicts, I often--but certainly not always--find it not too difficult to be accepting, forgiving, and compassionate to the person who has misunderstood me or provided me some other test. Yet, in my volunteer work for Dafa, arranging activities with other practitioners or trying to communicate and coordinate, there arise moments of conflict with other practitioners. And this is the odd thing: while it seems I have an ever-improving capacity to be kind and patient to nonpractitioners, my threshold for getting irritated seems to drop when conflicts happen with other practitioners.
I see this as being taken care of in cultivation, that is, having situations provided for me in which I experience mental tribulations. These moments of conflict with other practitioners force me to look hard at myself, to look even deeper inside myself to search for the source of the problem. When I have a conflict with practitioners, I know it's not just superficial and it's not because they place self-interest foremost, because they do not. Conflicts between practitioners are substantial xinxing conflicts. The other practitioners are also cultivating themselves, working hard for Dafa, and trying to meet the universal criteria of Zhen-Shan-Ren. So I am required to dig deeper inside and examine myself more thoroughly to find the cause of the problem when disagreements and conflicts surface between another cultivator and me.
This is such an excellent cultivation environment. During this Fa-rectification period, we practitioners from all over the world must work together closely to expose the evil and tell the truth. Dafa particles working together continuously and closely is part of the design for this time period, and one result of this is that practitioners can help each other to improve more rapidly in many ways.
I said earlier that I take my responsibility seriously, yet I have found that even such concepts as "responsibility" and "respect" that are considered good in the everyday society can, at times, become attachments or problems themselves. This is one lesson I learned during the time when I was helping to coordinate activities in Geneva this year during the UN Commission on Human Rights. That was a tremendous opportunity for all of us to clarify the truth to the world and also to work with practitioners from many countries. The pressures and interference were high, and we had to accomplish a lot in a very short time. Things kept changing or going contrary to expectations, nothing seemed smooth, and we slept little. As one practitioner joked, "Didn't you sleep before you came to Geneva?"
In this situation there was nothing to do but just recognize attachments as they came up and then let them go instantly--there was no time to hesitate, procrastinate, rationalize, or complain in one's mind. We had too much work to do! So I think we all could feel the improvement in ourselves, which was aided by studying the Fa together before most meetings and in the evenings.
One small incident taught me a lot. We were staying up late in the hotel, trying to get work done, and some practitioners kept going in and out of the hotel after the door had been locked, which caused the night attendant extra work. I went down to the lobby to wait for some practitioners to return, and the attendant started yelling and gesturing angrily at me. My French is not very good, but I could tell he was saying something like, "This is my responsibility, and you have no respect for me!" "Respect" and "responsibility," he clearly said these words several times.
As a practitioner, I didn't respond angrily to him, but apologized several times, even though I had not gone in or out myself or caused him any trouble directly. I quickly realized that this has something to do with me, the fact that he yelled at me and not someone else. Later as I thought about this, I understood that I was feeling responsible for the other practitioners, our work, their behavior--maybe too responsible. It had become an attachment at that time, and is actually a long-standing attachment in my life--it goes along with being the oldest son in a big family, perhaps.
Beyond this, I came to understand that some outstanding values and priorities of everyday society--important and noble words like "responsibility" and "respect"...as practitioners, we cannot place these too high. These values have to be subordinate to, to be contained within the greater, ultimate, and supreme characteristics of Zhen-Shan-Ren. We must always hold these highest; this has become even more clear to me. We honor everyday values while we are in society, but always keep our sights set on the highest-level values.
Thank you to all my fellow cultivators, I learn so much from every one of you. Thank you, Master, for giving us all this extraordinary opportunity to cultivate and work for Dafa during this unique time of Fa-rectification.
