Learning to Negate Old Forces' Arrangements to Validate the Fa
By a Western Practitioner
(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings Revered Master. Greetings Everyone. I'm a practitioner from
Washington, DC. I attained the Fa about 3-1/2 years ago by following a spiritual
path that led me into many different directions. That journey is not part of
what I would like to share today, beyond saying that I am eternally and
inexpressibly grateful that our beloved Shifu (Teacher) saved me from a
life of confusion and disillusion. Since October, I have been one of the coordinators of a website that was
established to help Westerners understand the truth about Falun Gong, the true
nature of the Chinese government, and the insane persecution that we oppose in
everything that we do. I started working on the website after a practitioner asked if I would give a
writing workshop on a conference call. This particular practitioner is not
someone I can easily say "no" to, so of course I did the workshop. Somehow,
though, before I knew what had hit me, I had agreed to help coordinate the
writing team. Another practitioner had taken on that task and she didn't exactly
welcome me with open arms. She was several continents away at the time, so
communicating was difficult. Even when she was back on these shores, we still
experienced a great deal of interference in our communications for several
weeks. But because we are practitioners, we were able to talk honestly about
what was going on and ultimately broke through our limitations and various
levels of interference. Meeting during the Los Angeles Fa Conference The Los Angeles Fahui was when many of our writers and editors met in person
for the first time. I felt it was a great opportunity to put faces to the names
I had been sharing with through emails and conference calls and to learn more
about my fellow writers and editors. Through various miscommunications and misunderstandings, just a week or so
before the Fahui, the editing team had been challenged by the prospect of
assembling a print version for review in Los Angeles. There was confusion about
whether or not we would have to add pulling together a print version to the
daunting work of keeping the website going on a daily basis. Our core team of
active writers and editors is pretty small and we all felt taxed to the limit;
none of us felt we had the time to work on a print version at the last minute.
As it turned out, other practitioners were enlisted to work on it instead,
although our translation team coordinator had had to work overtime gathering
articles. The mock-up of the print version provided an opportunity for some of our
editors and writers to get together with editors of a Chinese website and other
practitioners who happened by as we discussed the content, audience and layout.
After reviewing the paper, several of us shared our understandings about the
significance of targeting Westerners. We also discussed the differences between
American and Chinese styles, as well as some of the miscommunication we
experienced. I was very moved by the hearts of the Chinese practitioners who had been
doing similar work for quite some time. They were admirably clear and solid in
what they were doing and helped me to deepen my commitment to the work and to
expand my own thinking about working on the print version. However, soon after the L.A. Fahui, our coordinating team experienced an
upheaval. One of the key coordinators was asked to take on a different role.
Someone else would be the main project coordinator instead. The transition happened in an awkward way that created many questions in the
minds of our teammates; the confusion lasted for weeks. I found the episode
disruptive and viewed it as interference that had to be negated. Both of the
practitioners brought many needed abilities to our work and each in their way
inspired and encouraged others, myself included, to put forth a lot of effort. I
tried to remain unmoved and supportive and I urged them to work through their
differences. At the same time, I recalled Teacher's Fa that when you witness an
argument between two practitioners you should look inside for your own
attachments. While these two were not openly arguing, they were clearly at a
place where they could not share coordinating responsibilities. It helped me to
see clearly my own shortcomings, especially holding tightly to my own point of
view and seeking fame through Dafa work. Interference in New York Before the New York Fahui, another practitioner and I planned to present a
writing workshop. We'd noticed that while many Western practitioners wanted to
be a part of this project, they seemed a bit insecure about their abilities.
There are dozens of people on our writing team list, but very few write original
content on a regular basis. We also felt other Dafa projects could benefit from
the workshop. Our previous experience with doing a workshop in Los Angeles met
with interference but was well received, so we felt we were on the right track.
I traveled to New York with other DC practitioners and we stayed at a hotel
in New Jersey. We had gone back to our hotel after a busy day of activities in
the city. Three of us were headed back into the city when we ran into horrendous
traffic -- typical for New York, but not something we had factored into our
schedule. It quickly became clear that I would be late for the workshop. This
induced all sorts of attachments in me but I tried to remain calm. My calm was challenged when I called my workshop partner to let him know I
was stuck in traffic and he should get started without me. As it turned out, he
too, was running late and had not copied all of the materials we needed -- and,
he was headed to a completely different meeting room in another part of town.
Somehow, two different locations for the workshop had been arranged and
publicized. Yikes! How could this have happened? We are both super-responsible,
rational and organized people; what in the world was going on? There wasn't much time to figure out what had gone wrong because I got a call
from a practitioner who said the room where I was headed was locked and there
was no one around with a key. After a few more increasingly frantic calls, my
partner and I decided he should go to his location to see who showed up and that
I'd go to the other one just in case anyone was still there. So many thoughts were swirling around in my head. I fought back feelings of
frustration and personal disappointment. My attachment to my reputation and
self-image flared up, big time. I'm supposed to be so together, so reliable and
well-organized. I had worked so hard. I had such good intentions. I had let
everyone down. What would people think of me after such a confused situation? I
also felt bad that I had inconvenienced one of the practitioners I was traveling
with. He was late for his own meeting, but was going way out of his way to drop
the two of us off. We finally arrived at the workshop location. I felt really despondent but
tried not to show it. I'm not very good at hiding my feelings, though. Seeing
the state I was in, the practitioner who was coming to the workshop with me
tried to cheer me up. She said being late wasn't my fault and that what I was
trying to do was such a good thing. I appreciated her thoughtfulness, but my
mind was on my disappointment and what lied ahead. I just knew everyone would
have left to do other things thinking how unorganized we must be if we can't
even arrange for the workshop to be in one place and for the hotel room to be
open. Imagine my surprise and delight to get to the workshop -- 45 minutes late --
and find a room full of practitioners discussing what it takes to work on the
project. Someone had been found to open the room and another practitioner had
stepped forward to conduct the meeting. I was so relieved and so moved I wanted
to cry. The room was hot and stuffy, but there they all sat, learning from each
other. My heart was filled with the utmost respect and regard for practitioners.
I had been thinking mostly about myself and my reputation and thinking about
practitioners in ordinary ways. I didn't expect to find anyone there; I thought
surely they had gone off to do other things and were thinking I had wasted their
time. But there they were, about 30 or so people jammed into a small, hot room.
They welcomed me to the meeting. There were no bad feelings, just a sincere
desire to learn from each other and to hear what I had to say about writing. As
a result of that meeting, two of our tech people are writing more and we have a
new polisher or two. Putting it in print. When I think about the challenges we have faced trying to get a print version
of the website off the ground, I think of Teacher's words in "Teaching the Fa at
the 2004 Chicago Conference:" "When you encounter ordeals during your cultivation, you have got to
cultivate yourself and look at yourself--that doesn't mean acknowledging the
ordeals arranged by the old forces and trying to do well amidst the ordeals
they've arranged, that's not the case. We negate even the very emergence of
the old forces and everything that they've arranged; we don't even
acknowledge their existence. We're fundamentally negating all of their
things, and all of, and only, the things you do while negating and getting
rid of them is mighty-virtue." Wow. That passage causes me to pause every time I read it. It fundamentally
clarifies what it means to negate the old forces' arrangements. Our project
overall seems to encounter one tribulation after another; clearly not our
Teacher's arrangements. I have felt, at times, that the bad gods (dark minions)
have been attacking us: we have faced dissension in the ranks; veteran
practitioners have experienced serious bouts of sickness karma; there have been
car accidents, lost or broken cell phones, lost jobs and burnout. Now I wonder
if having those thoughts about the dark minions has allowed the old forces'
arrangements to have a stronger impact. On the path to getting out the print version, I have not done well in
negating and getting rid of all of the old forces' things. We have had several
test versions, working with a very busy typesetting team. At the same time, we
have had to keep the website active, reorganize the various coordinating teams,
and figure out how to deal with particularly troubled practitioners in a
compassionate way. At times, I have found myself quarrelsome, critical, and
stuck on a high standard of "professionalism" for the print version. Our initial audience for the print version includes an influential group of
people who read prestigious newspapers and journals. These people are important
to reach because they are targets of the Chinese government's anti-Falun Gong
propaganda. I feel, perhaps too strongly, that our publication should look as
professional as the other publications they read. Perhaps it is a mistaken
notion, but I feel that if it does not have strong content and a professional
layout then we will lose the opportunity to reach our audience. I am conflicted
because I feel everything we do should reflect well upon Dafa. At the same time,
I understand the pace of Fa rectification won't wait for the "perfect" product.
We lost our momentum for several weeks, but we are back on track now with the
encouragement and support of many of our fellow practitioners. I feel the
project overall is becoming more of a "one-body" project every day. There are many, many stories to share about this project, far too many for
this one article. In closing, though, I want to talk about the importance of
doing the exercises. There are many practitioners who diligently practice the
exercises for two hours each day. I would like to say that I am one of them --
but I'm not. I find I can spend hour after hour on the computer editing,
writing, and replying to emails; and, of course, there are conference calls,
planning, and family life to attend to. While I read or listen to at least one
lecture each day, almost without fail, I lag behind in doing the exercises. I
know there are many practitioners like me. We work really hard, study the Fa and
try to improve our xinxing. Yes, you can gain merit and save more sentient beings by doing more Dafa
work, but you cannot transform your innate body that way. We seem to forget that
we are cultivating Buddhahood and that if we are fortunate enough to attain a
Fruit Status, it will require the transformation of our mortal bodies into
Buddha bodies. Teacher has talked about this in so many lectures that I am
ashamed to be so lazy still in this regard. Thank you everyone for your time and attention. Thank you revered Master for
allowing me to cultivate this Great Law.
Chinese version available at
http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/7/28/80376.html
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