Western Practitioner: Coming to New York
Shared at the 2005 New York International Falun Dafa Cultivation Experience
Sharing Conference (Clearwisdom.net) A couple weeks ago, a fellow practitioner asked me if I
was going to write an experience sharing paper for the Fahui. I told him I
wasn't, because I felt I had nothing profound to share. He told me that what
might seem everyday to me might be profound to other practitioners, and could
help them in their cultivation process. I said, "No, but I really don't
have any stories to share." He said, "How about your decision to come
to New York? That could be helpful for other practitioners who are thinking of
coming, but are wavering and haven't done it. I want to write one, too. We
should do it together." I still was resistant to writing one. Besides, I
was too busy with other projects. At that point, my alarm went off and it was time to Send Righteous Thoughts,
so, we ended our discussion. After Sending Righteous Thoughts, I looked at him
and said, "Alright, so when are we going to start writing?" I had actually begun to realize last summer that I should come here to New
York. At that time, I was about to enter my junior year in college. Out of the
blue, my dad told me that it might be a good idea to take some time off school
and get an internship, because the work experience would be good for my resume
and help me get a job when I graduated. Last October, I was flying from my home in California to the East Coast for
personal reasons. So I decided to stop for a few days in New York to help out
with truth-clarification activities, and also look for a job. My dad
knew a couple people at a major bank, and helped me get three interviews with
people from different departments. This bank is the largest financial services company in the world. They have
been doing business with China since 1902, and they have certainly made some
deals with the Chinese Communist government. So when I went to the interviews, I
felt that the most important thing was to clarify the truth, because if they
didn't hire me, then they might not have another chance to know the truth. Even though the first two interviewers showed no interest in hiring me, I
made sure to tell them about Dafa. My third interview was with one of the top managers for the bank in New York
City. I got there early, and he wasn't in his office. The door was open, and I
glanced inside. His walls were covered with awards and plaques from West Point
Military Academy. When he arrived, we sat down and started talking. He was
telling me about what he does, and what it's like to be a manager of so many
thousand people, and so on, and then he looked at me and said, "You know,
the most important thing about being a manager is to really let go of your
ego." He paused to gauge my reaction. I looked at him inquisitively. He
said that he meditates every day. "No kidding! I meditate every day, too," I told him. "I
practice Falun Gong." The rest of the interview was a half-hour
philosophical discussion about mediation, letting go of attachments, and
improvement through hardships. He seemed to understand at a deep level that I
looked forward not to making money or the excitement of New York, but to
improving my character through hardships. I was offered the job. But when I got home, some practitioners shared with me their understanding
that I should not take time off of school to go to New York and do Fa-rectification
things, because it might not conform to the normal way of living in society. I
felt torn. I really want to leave a straight path for the future. But then I
thought, well, people of the future will understand, it's for Fa-rectification. Later, I realized that that excuse really didn't hold up, because anyone
could use that justification to quit their job, leave their family, and only do
Dafa work. So I decided not to go to New York. But then I thought more about it. I had seen so many signs that I should go:
my dad's suggestion, a job interview that was more than a coincidence, as well
as hints from other people over the last several months. I had a guaranteed job, so I had a means to support myself, and at this human
level, a means to get job experience for the future. My school and parents were
very supportive, and I had no major obligations at home. So with my parents' encouragement and blessing, I took a one-year leave of
absence from college and flew to New York. Initially, I had reservations about working for a big company like this. Like
many banks, they have done some questionable things over the years. In fact,
were it not for the fact that they are doing millions of dollars worth of
business with China, I would not have wanted to place myself there. But, I knew
there were many people to clarify the truth to there. Plus, by paying me a
salary that allowed me to live in New York, weren't they also contributing to
Dafa, indirectly? Because of my unique internship, they have rotated me through different
departments. At my request, I spent a month in the Manhattan Chinatown branch.
Every one of my co-workers was Chinese. I decided that I would wait a little while to tell them that I was a Falun
Gong practitioner. I thought: if I tell everyone right off the bat, if they have
negative thoughts, it will prevent them from getting to know me. So I got to
know people in a friendly way, and when co-workers saw that I spoke some
Mandarin and had a strong affinity to Chinese culture, many of them liked to
talk with me. One day, after three weeks, a co-worker was bragging to me that in the future
he would be a high-ranking Communist Party official. I knew that I had to talk
to him about it and give him a chance to be saved. Sometimes, when I try to
clarify the truth, I make the mistake of telling people the facts that I want
them to hear. But after a recent discussion with a fellow practitioner, I
realized that a better technique might be to ask them questions, listen to them,
and find out what their notions are, so I can really help them break through
their notions. I had been reading the Nine Commentaries the night before,
and I felt it really opened up my wisdom. "Do you know what happened in the Tiananmen Square incident?" I
asked my co-worker. "Yes, the student attacked the soldiers and set them on fire," he
said. I asked him if he'd seen the videos played by Western media that showed that
in fact the soldiers killed several hundred unarmed students. He said he hadn't,
but anyway, China has to maintain social stability. After all, where would China
be without the Party? I asked him, "For whose sake is it important to maintain stability? The
government or the people? Aren't the people what are most important?" He
nodded his head in agreement. "The Communist Party has only been around for
fifty years," I said, "but the Chinese people have a glorious
five-thousand-year history. Historically speaking, they are the most advanced
civilization on Earth. So, with or without the CCP, won't the people do just
fine?" He seemed to understand. I continued, "But the Communist
government has killed so many of its own people - the Great Leap Forward, the
Cultural Revolution..." But China is improving, he told me. I said that I had just read in the New
York Times that millions of Christians were being persecuted and the same
with Falun Gong practitioners. "Oh, Falun Gong is different," he said. I needed to find out how he was poisoned. I asked, "What do you know
about Falun Gong?" He replied, "Did you know Falun Gong tells people not to eat and not to
go to work?" "Where did you hear that?" I asked him. "It's true," he
said. I told him, "I guarantee you that's not true." He said, "How do you know? You're not a Falun Gong member." "Actually..." I said, "I've been practicing Falun Gong for
years." Now he was curious, so I had the opportunity to explain many things
to him, and answer all of his questions. Since he'd seen me do a good job at
work, that I knew about Chinese history, and that I respected Chinese culture,
he was willing to listen to what I had to say. But I haven't always done so well at my job. After I left the Chinatown
branch, the next place I transferred to was an office building where they handle
the credit cards sales. Unlike in the branch office, here I had my own private
desk with a computer and phone; it was very comfortable. My first week on the job, I fell asleep every day, even in a few meetings. I
thought it was because I had been busy with Dafa work and only slept a few hours
each night. The research I was asked to do was very difficult and boring at the
same time. I worked very slowly. The worst part, perhaps, was that, because I
was at a big corporation and my salary was paid by someone other than my direct
supervisor, no one cared if I did any work or produced anything, so there was no
human incentive. I was very embarrassed when my supervisor asked me if I was narcoleptic. I
made some excuse that I had been working on some volunteer work, and he told me
I needed to sleep more; at home, he meant. It was like this for my entire first week. I wasn't leaving a good impression
of Dafa practitioners. I couldn't understand why I was so tired all the time. I remembered Teacher's words in Teaching the Fa at the Assistants' Fa
Conference in Changchun in 1998. "You all know about enduring hardship. Yet you haven't realized that
your sleepiness, too, is a demon tormenting you and trying to stop you from
cultivating! Isn't this when your willpower should take control?...You have to
pass this hurdle." Teacher also said, "Don't you get sleepy? Don't
you feel sleepy as soon as you read the book, or become drowsy once you study
the Fa? Let me tell you that those are gods at a level in this human
dimension. If you can't break through them, you remain a human. They aren't
intentionally doing anything to you--they treat everyone like that. That's why
people feel tired and sleepy. If you want to break away from being a human,
you have to break through everything before you can make it. If you go along
with them they'll think you are just a human." (Falun Buddha Fa --
Teaching the Fa at the Assistants' Fa Conference in Changchun) I was treating myself as a human. Lacking self-control, I gave into the
demon-nature of laziness. When I felt tired, I would just let myself be tired. I
was also affected by the human sentiment of thinking my job was boring. So I
knew I had to break through that. The next day, I went to my supervisor and told him I was sorry and had no
excuse, and took responsibility for not getting enough done. I told him that I
was committed to being more focused and doing a better job. Things went much
more smoothly after that, and even though I didn't sleep more at night than
before, I did not fall sleep at work. Soon thereafter, I was given a major opportunity to clarify the truth to my
company. My boss asked me if I wanted to attend the company's 1st Quarter
Earnings Live Broadcast, because he thought it would be interesting for me. I
thought, "Sure, why not check it out?" After he signed me up, I learned that there would be time at the end for the
audience to ask questions to the CEO. I realized, "Oh, I'm supposed to ask
him a question tomorrow." But as soon as I thought about what question to
ask that would clarify the truth, I started shaking with nervousness. At first I
wanted to ask him how he felt about working with a country that persecuted
millions of innocent people. But that evening, I talked with a fellow cultivator
who gave me some honest feedback. I realized that my question came out of the
attachment of zealotry. He said that I need to think of the CEO and his
interests first. If I criticized him, he would be angry and not take my comments
seriously. So we devised the following question: "As you may know, nearly a million people have publicly resigned from
the Chinese Communist Party in the last two months. I think Chinese people are
increasingly unhappy with their government's corruption, persecution of
Christians and Falun Gong, democracy advocates, and so on. If there is a
political collapse in China, do we have mechanisms in place for dealing with
that or pulling out if we need to?" I felt this question was much better, because it told the current state of Fa-rectification
by giving evidence for the CCP's impending collapse, mentioned that Falun Gong
is being persecuted, and also expressed concern as an employee for the future of
the company, so it was compassionate. The next morning, I ended up with a front row seat in the studio. I was only
two yards from the CEO. The whole time, as he was talking about finances, my
heart felt like a jackhammer. I was so nervous, I didn't know if I could ask my
question properly. I thought: "Why am I nervous? I should be calm, like a
Buddha." I realized that it must be interference to prevent me from asking
an important question. I sent Righteous Thoughts. I said to myself,
"Alright body, go ahead and shake, go ahead and be nervous if you want.
Inside, I'm going to be totally calm." And when I asked my question, I was
calm, and it came out smoothly. It turns out that a video of this meeting was broadcast all over the world to
the company's 3,000 top managers, including those in China, as well as tens of
thousands of employees. No wonder evil beings were trying to make me feel
nervous! Although the CEO answered by saying that he didn't think there would be
a political collapse in China--the only answer he would dare to say--the
question itself was hopefully enough to make people think about the issue. I feel like Master has given many people an opportunity to learn the truth
through my presence in New York. Another thing is that New York provides an excellent opportunity for
self-cultivation. "Sakyamuni once made this statement, as did Boddhidarma: 'This
oriental land of China is a place where people of great virtues are
produced,'" says Teacher in Zhuan Falun, "Only by
being among the most complex group of people and in the most complex
environment can one cultivate the high-level gong." Sometimes I think to myself that New York is an awful place--it's loud, it's
dirty, it's smelly, it's too hot, it's too cold; people on the street seem to go
out of their way to avoid making eye contact with you; there are nude pictures
hanging in the middle of the street, and once you look up you see them--what a
great place to cultivate! It's also a place where sentient beings are quite
lost, and need Dafa disciples' help. I'd like to conclude with a poem. I originally wrote it to encourage a fellow
practitioner who was thinking about coming to New York. When I was writing this
experience sharing paper, I realized that it might apply not just to her, but to
many practitioners. I call it Leaping Forward. Peering over the ledge at the city below, Steady the heart to break through the next phase Thank you, Master. Thank you, everyone!
Covered in ashes, grime, and black snow,
Though human heart wary
Finds unknown things scary
Thy original self, it doth know.
With the Law in thine heart, thou canst see through the haze
In earth dense and hot
A diamond is wrought
Save precious souls from the maze
Chinese version available at
http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/4/25/100427.html
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