Insights Into the Principle of Cooperation

By a US practitioner

We Falun Dafa students have all recently been dealing with the issues of cooperation and mutual support as we work together to clarify the truth and save sentient beings. Master Li has highlighted this issue repeatedly over the past year and pointed out many of our shortcomings. He has stressed that it must be Dafa disciples doing Dafa work and that we cannot treat it as something done in ordinary society. The main stumbling block is that one, or a group of us, may have a strong attachment to "doing it my way," which causes disharmony among the larger body of Dafa. This will then have a further negative effect as either the old forces or the evil persecutors take advantage of loopholes and our omissions.

In his latest Fa lecture in Philadelphia, Master, taught us how these issues are handled by higher beings. He said that Gods are able to cooperate because they do not seek to emphasize their own particular methods, but are willing to forgo any individual glory for the greater good. I believe he taught this example so as to help us to "gradually get rid of human thoughts" ("Fa-Rectification Period Dafa Disciples") and improve as a whole. Allow me to present how I enlightened to the significance of this issue.

After studying the recent Fa Lecture, I dreamed that I was going to have a trumpet playing session with several other trumpeters. We all met in a tent, got out our trumpets and got ready to begin. For some reason, I happened to be the leader and it occurred to me that, since there were so many trumpeters and we had never played together before, we should start with something very simple so that we could work on the basics of playing together properly. So I took out a very simple piece of music and asked that the participants play it, adding in harmonies as they pleased. This would have the effect, so I thought, of allowing everyone to warm up their lips and fingers and get used to playing together. But then things in the dream turned ugly: suddenly and unexpectedly, one of the players started to protest that my idea was not good and he refused to play. This resulted in everyone there starting to argue and so no playing at all was done and the meeting broke up! I woke up at this point and began to ponder the dream, amazed at its resemblance to the very issue Master Li had discussed.

Let me analyze this dream from the perspective of a Dafa disciple, by looking inward. Did I act benevolently by putting forth my suggestion, or was I just trying to make sure it was done my way, so that I could "shine" as the leader? Rather than answering this for you here at the conference, let us ask this same question of ourselves. Suppose that the trumpeters in the dream were the Dafa students: would we be willing to suggest a way of doing things that would enable everyone to participate? Would we be willing to "play the harmony part" and not always the lead melody? How would we feel if such a petty conflict led to the breakup of such a fine "musical" undertaking?

Fellow students, let us cultivate far beyond these low-level attachments. Let us never stop in our quest to righteously validate Dafa until the Fa is rectified and the Dafa of the Cosmos is indelibly written in all dimensions, time-spaces and in the hearts and minds of all sentient beings! Ending with a quote from Master, let us never forget: "Dafa can rectify the Universe, so it certainly has the Fa's power to repress evil, eliminate disorder, harmonize everything and remain invincible." ("Definitive Conclusion," Essentials for Further Advancement, Vol. 1)

(Shared at the 2003 Florida Experience Sharing Conference)

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