We Can Do Dafa Work Well, With Pure, Righteous Hearts Only When We Let Go of Our Sense of Self
By a Dafa practitioner from overseas
(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings to Master and fellow practitioners! I consider myself very fortunate to be attending this special experience
sharing conference. While I do feel happy and do cherish this opportunity, I am
also filled with shame. The conference coordinators asked everyone to write an
experience sharing article, and this invoked a sense of responsibility in
me--the responsibility of contributing to the conference's success and being a
part of the entire body of cultivators. When I compare myself with those fellow
practitioners here who have quietly shouldered enormous amounts of work over
lengthy spans of time, overcoming lonesome working environments, and diligently
and selflessly making sacrifices to ensure Minghui.net's smooth operation, I
feel as though there is a wide gap between them and myself. When I compare
myself with the fellow practitioners who are advancing diligently in the Fa, I
often feel ashamed, and I want to take this opportunity to first express my
highest respect for those practitioners! Although it seems only an instant, nearly five years have already past since
the establishment of Minghui.net. I have contributed at times to this website.
Yet Master has given so much, and there is no way I can repay him. Here I would
like to share a few understandings based on my cultivation in the course of
working with Minghui.net. I hope that you will correct me when necessary. 1. When we truly try to save all sentient beings, we will have the Fa's
strength and wisdom. When Master's comments regarding the article "Exposing the Local Evil to
the Local People" were published, fellow practitioners in China grasped
their significance, and they began clarifying the truth to local people and
exposing the evil. To aid the Chinese pracitioners, Minghui.net's materials
exposing the facts of the persecution over the last four-plus years were
assembled and organized into different content areas so as to make them more
easily accessible. After a short period of coordination, practitioners began to
undertake this most important project. When I sat down and truly read through the articles exposing the persecution
since July 20, 1999 when the persecution began, I was shocked to discover that
my knowledge and understanding of the facts in this area were far from adequate.
In the past, I had always invented a variety of different excuses to justify
only skimming over the articles in the "Facts of the Persecution"
section. Sometimes I would quickly read only a few notorious or typical examples
of persecution just for the purposes of clarifying the truth, and I would focus
most of my attention on reading the articles where practitioners shared their
experiences and insights. At the same time, I would read other types of articles
based on my personal preference. After discovering this huge omission, I
understood that it was probably not a coincidence that I was assigned the task
of comprehensively organizing the facts of the persecution by area. I had too
many omissions in this area, and I could now make amends through this work.
However, I realized once I truly started working on this project and began to
see some of the elements of cultivation that my extremely shallow and limited
understanding could not do justice to the broad, deep significance of the
persecution from a grander perspective. Looking at the materials detailing the persecution, I realized that some of
the areas would contain at least 1000 articles -- it was truly a daunting task.
I had difficulty figuring out how to group the articles in order to best reflect
the overall situation of the persecution against Dafa and Dafa disciples in the
past four plus years, how to completely expose the evil on the local level, how
to comprehensively display Dafa's beauty and its benefits, and how to take into
account the obstacles facing our non-practitioner audience and their ability to
accept these articles. All of these conditions were necessary so that the
resulting set of materials would be most effective. Because I had no experience
in writing long reports of material pulled together from different sources, I
really did not know where to begin. However, as I read one article after another on the persecution, I learned
that the disciples in China were waiting to receive the materials exposing the
truth to save people in the last moments of Fa-rectification, and as I remember
Master's instructions to clarify the truth, expose the evil, and save sentient
beings, I began to understand the significance and urgency of my project. Case
after bloody case and example after shocking example of the persecution, in
addition to the Mainland Chinese disciples' indestructible righteous thoughts
amidst the brutal persecution shook me time and time again, washing away the
attachments I had not yet ridded myself of through my cultivation. The
degenerate elements in my own dimension were decreasing, and the righteous
energy field grew stronger and stronger. From my own experiences I felt the
power of the truth, and I gained a deeper level of understanding of Master's
teachings on clarifying the truth. Meanwhile, my desire to seize the moment in
saving sentient beings grew ever stronger. When my thoughts were rectified, Dafa gave me the wisdom I needed. My
uncertainty of where to start, the feelings of apprehension, and all of the
other difficulties I was mired in vanished. They were replaced by inner peace,
calmness, and determination. This experience led me to gain a comprehensive and deep knowledge of the
facts of the persecution, and I learned to appreciate the Minghui.net articles
and the significant role these articles play in clarifying the truth, saving
sentient beings, eliminating the evil, and completing our cultivation during Fa-rectification. 2. Everything has an element of cultivation within it In the course of reading and organizing massive amounts of persecution
materials, I was often deeply moved by the Mainland Chinese practitioners'
ability to let go of life and death amidst the evil persecution, and the tragic
yet magnificent episodes of the practitioners using their own blood and lives to
validate Dafa. On the other hand, I also noticed the wide gaps between them and
myself in terms of cultivation, and I saw clearly the remaining human
attachments in me. I realized that everything that happens in a Dafa project has
elements of cultivation within it. As long as we are able to maintain a
cultivator's vigilance and seize the opportunity we will be able to improve in
our own cultivation while being involved in these projects. For example, when I was organizing the case of Shandong Yantai Dafa disciple
Wang Lixuan and her less than 8-month-old son Meng Hao being tortured to death,
I noticed that the original document read: "Wang Lixuan, female, 27, and
son Meng Hao, not quite 8 months old, Dafa disciples from Shandong Province,
Yantai Region, Qixiasikou Township, Henggou Village." After reading this
passage, a thought entered my mind: this infant was brought by his mother to
Beijing and murdered. If we say that he and his mother were both Dafa disciples
from Shandong Yantai, it may look strange to non-practitioner readers. So I
casually changed the sentence to: "Wang Lixuan, female, 27, Dafa disciple
from Shandong Province, Yantai Region, Qiyansikou Township, Henggou Village, and
son Meng Hao, not quite 8 months old." I simply excluded little Meng Hao
from the ranks of Dafa disciples. Afterwards, in order to ensure that the re-organized materials were accurate,
complete, and did not omit significant details, I read all of the original
documents regarding this persecution case again. There was an article that was
written by a Dafa disciple that had been temporarily locked up along with Wang
Lixuan and her son. The article said that during the detention, little Meng Hao
laid calmly in his mother's lap, without crying or making noise. At the time it
seemed like nobody in the vehicle knew there was an infant aboard. The
practitioner found out that Meng Hao was only a little more than seven months
old in the evening from his grandmother, when he finally cried because he was
hungry. She exclaimed, "He is so young!" Yet the child's grandmother
replied, "But he is a Dafa disciple too!" When I saw this, my mind
reeled and my heart caught in my throat -- unbidden tears rolled down my
cheeks. Those few words -- "But he is a Dafa disciple too!" -- allowed me
to recognize how my own thoughts were the same as those of ordinary people and
how I was judging matters of Fa-rectification with an ordinary person's notions.
Master taught us that the vast majority of the people on this Earth are
high-level beings who have come down to obtain the Fa. So it is quite possible
that in this life he reincarnated into a Dafa disciple's family at this
unprecedented period of Fa-rectification, had a predestined connection with Dafa,
and may have come particularly for the Fa. In this wicked persecution against
Dafa, this being was also persecuted, and had validated Dafa in his own way.
Little Meng Hao had accompanied his mother to Beijing to safeguard the Fa five
times, three times while inside his mother's womb and twice in his mother's
embrace. In the end, he and his mother were both tortured to death. Even though
his life was brief, he was still a Dafa disciple, so he has his deserved glory.
After I grasped this based on the Fa, with tears in my eyes, I changed the
sentence back to its original form. This made me realize that the materials exposing the facts are solemn in
terms of the Fa, and their solemn nature is not just limited to their mission
today of exposing the evil and saving sentient beings, but their significance
includes leaving a record for the future. At the same time, I understood the
importance of maintaining a Dafa disciple's righteous thoughts in the process of
compiling materials exposing the facts. When we can look at things with
righteous thoughts, we will not be taken advantage of by ordinary human concepts
or be manipulated by the remaining human notions that we have. This process also
allowed me to see the gigantic gap between myself and those Mainland Chinese
Dafa disciples who gave up everything to validate the Fa. During the progression
of producing truth-clarifying materials, I felt my soul stirring. After each
process was completed, I had the wonderful feeling of having eliminated
degenerate elements. 3. We can do Dafa work well and with pure righteous hearts only when we let
go of our sense of self The production of truth-clarifying flyers that were to be distributed in
China required that we include content that was very brief, yet explained
multiple perspectives, and covers a variety of subjects. In addition, we needed
to take into account the Mainland Chinese readers' attachments, obstacles, and
their ability to accept the facts, so it was actually quite difficult to design
the desired type of flyers. It was also required that we maintain our righteous
thoughts and a very high standard while gathering the materials, organizing the
flyer, editing it, and laying it out. Even more importantly, we had to have
sufficient insight into the readers' needs and understanding of Fa-rectification. In the beginning, I felt that based on my background, designing
truth-clarifying flyers would pose no problem. However, after a period of time,
a practitioner within the team expressed some criticism through another team
member. She felt that I was not careful enough in compiling and editing the
material, and that I failed to keep the readers in mind, and thus there was need
for improvement. When the feedback reached me, even though on the surface I said
that I would think about the matter seriously, I could not let it go inside. I
felt that I could not take it, and I had these thoughts bouncing around inside
my head: "I've done my best, if you have some criticism, why do you not
tell me directly? In fact, sometimes after I finished editing the material, you
guys would make some unnecessary changes to the text anyway." I even wanted
to accuse the practitioner of pushing all of the team's difficulties on me, and
I completely forgot about Master's teaching that cultivators should look inside
when encountering problems. At that point, I could not reconcile things, and my
complaints piled up. I wrote a verbose e-mail to that practitioner. On the
surface, I was sharing my understanding, but in reality I was venting and
complaining. After reading my email, that practitioner called me on the telephone and
shared her thoughts with me frankly. She did not criticize me for my flawed
designs, and instead she pointed out this problem sincerely: I gave inadequate
thought to producing truth-clarifying materials from the perspective of what the
sentient beings need. After putting down the phone, I could sense that this
practitioner was not focused on my shortcomings, and she was truly concerned
from the perspective of saving sentient beings. I calmed down gradually, and my
fellow practitioner's upright actions based on the Fa caused me to take a hard
look at myself and see the disparity in our cultivation. The wall inside me
vanished, and I started to look within with a tranquil heart. I asked myself, "In the entire process of producing truth-clarifying
flyers, had I worked with a merciful, benevolent mindset? Was I thinking of
those sentient beings? If not, then what kinds of attachments and human thoughts
hindered my work?" I figured out where I had fallen short. In the Dafa work
I had mixed in personal things. When considering problems, I looked at them from
a perspective of what I was interested in, what I wanted to clear up, what I
thought was good, and sometimes I even mixed in my attachments to being
ostentatious and competitive. I definitely did not consider things from the
perspective of what the sentient beings needed. Finally, I perceived clearly
that huge sense of self hidden inside of me. The next day, I received a reply from the practitioner to whom I had
complained about the unnecessary changing of my wordings. She said to me,
"No matter what, please do not hold on to this matter. Do not let it become
a burden -- throw it away and continue on with life. If yelling at me for a
while would help, then please yell at me. If you thought about things less from
your own perspective, then you will not feel so sad." After I read her
e-mail, my face was covered with tears. This was because I wrongfully accused
her and I was being irrational, yet she did not turn around and criticize me or
defend herself, but instead she expressed genuine concern for me and tried to
help me from a cultivator's perspective. I was crying deep inside too, blaming
myself for my actions of selfishness, regretting hurting a fellow practitioner,
and was moved by the selflessness and forgiving nature of my kind fellow
practitioner. At that moment, I felt a huge surge of energy, and that piece of
filth inside my own dimension was washed away entirely. Through this experience, I learned that doing well in Dafa work is not a
matter of using ordinary people's skills or abilities but of continuously
advancing in cultivation, letting go of the sense of self and cultivating away
selfishness, while maintaining a pure, righteous mindset. Only if we cultivate
and eliminate selfishness can we do Dafa work well. We are fortunate enough to cultivate while helping the Dafa websites, and we
are also privileged enough to be here along with Master in this Fa-rectification
period. Dafa has given us strength and wisdom, and only when we can cultivate
diligently in this incomparably glorious Fa-rectification era can we be worthy
of Master's merciful salvation and do justice to our historic mission of saving
sentient beings. These words spoken by fellow Dafa disciple Liu Chengjun touched
me deeply: "My life exists for Fa-rectification. If one day I am able to
see Master, I will be able to say without regret, 'I have done my best on this
path of Fa-rectification.'" Finally, let us encourage each other with Master's latest scripture: "Lasting or momentary -- all caused by time For the sake of all living things, for the sake of validating
Dafa, stay diligent on the path to godhood! The future, eternal harmonization
will exist alongside your glory!" ("Master's New Year's Day 2004
Greeting to Dafa Disciples") Thank you Master, thank you everyone!
Fa-rectification has forged the New Epoch
The long, drawn-out years of glory and suffering
All to fulfill the grand pledge today
Chinese version available at
http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/1/26/65725.html
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