By a Dafa Practitioner in the USA

(Clearwisdom.net)

In the process of validating Dafa, practitioners have executed many different projects, and all of these projects have required our coordination and cooperation as a whole body. After being tempered over the past six years through our anti-persecution activities, we all realize the importance of being responsible to the Fa, and we all want to share our best ideas to validate the Fa. However, in my recent experience-sharing with fellow practitioners I noticed an old, yet prominent, problem--that is we do not seem to consider the effect that our own sharing has on the project as a whole. In fact, our ideas may have slowed down the progress of some of our projects. In this article I am sharing my experiences and understandings on this issue; please kindly point out any mistakes.

When working together on a project, we were all eager to share our own good ideas and express our own thoughts about the plan. However, we often lacked patience in listening to others' thoughts and ideas. As a result, for each project we had many good ideas and plans. The positive side is that we were all enthusiastic to participate, and every thought, idea or proposal had its own value. However, from the standpoint of the whole body, the progress of the project was very slow, even when we had many good ideas and proposals. This was because these good ideas and proposals were actually competing with each other; each practitioner insisted on adopting his own idea and proposal since they considered that the others' had many shortcomings. Such competition unnecessarily wasted much of our time and energy. On the surface we have been very busy calling meetings and making conference calls to discuss the project, but the progress was extremely slow.

We all know that Master's Fa-rectification is moving forward very fast. Many of us who have jobs in ordinary society also know that even in ordinary society's companies, there are quality controls and deadlines for projects. How could we make slow progress on Dafa projects?

From a big-picture standpoint, we could see that having many individual good ideas actually slowed down the progress of the whole effort/project. Why? It was not the many good ideas that slowed down the project; rather, it was the fact that the practitioners who proposed these good ideas were not willing to give up their idea that slowed down the project. In other words, these practitioners thought that their ideas were the best and they competed with each other; this unnecessarily wasted our efforts and caused delays.

We all know that many Fa-validation projects cannot be accomplished by any one individual; rather, they require coordination among many Dafa practitioners, and that every one of us is a part of the whole body. Master told us many times in teaching the Fa about the importance of cooperating and coordinating. From the whole body and big-picture standpoint, each individual's things are not worthy of mentioning. We can achieve the best results as a whole body only when we each let go of our attachments to self and each contribute our wisdom and efforts.

The ultimate cause of our problems in cooperating and coordinating are cultivation issues. It is because we did not cultivate ourselves well in validating Dafa; we did not realize that, in the name of "being responsible for Dafa," we were actually validating ourselves. We did not let go of the attachment to showing-off, competition and seeking personal benefits.

Our progress during the Fa-rectification requires that we achieve higher and higher standards these days. My personal understanding is that we must achieve the status of "Gods among human beings." Master told us in "Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A." how Gods coordinate with each other:

"So what's their state of mind? It's tolerance, an extremely immense tolerance, being able to accept other beings, and being able to truly think from other beings' perspectives. This is something a lot of you haven't achieved yet in your cultivation, but you're gradually catching on and achieving it. When another God proposes an idea, they aren't eager to reject it, and they aren't eager to express their own ideas and they don't believe that their own ideas are good. Instead, they look at what the end result of the other God's proposed approach will be. The paths are different--everyone's path is different--and the truths that beings validate and enlighten to in the Fa are different, too, but the results might very well be the same. That's why they look at the results, and if the result of a God's idea can achieve the goal, if it can truly achieve it, then all of them will go along with it. That's how Gods think. Also, if there's something lacking in it they'll unconditionally and quietly supplement it to make things more complete and perfect. That's how they handle things."

In comparing our own behavior to Master's teaching, I have found that we are far from meeting the standards of the Fa. We are still cultivating and improving. We must treat ourselves as true cultivators at all times, eventually learn how to view issues from an enlightened being's view, catch up to the Fa rectification progress and walk well on our Fa-validation path.

August 2, 2005

Posting date: 8/19/2005
Original article date: 8/18/2005
Category: Practitioners' Insights
Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2005/8/3/107618.html

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