Cultivating Myself Amidst Setbacks and Tribulations
By a Falun Dafa Disciple in Taiwan
(Clearwisdom.net) I started to learn Falun Dafa at the beginning of
2000. Since then, I have been validating the Fa mostly by writing
articles. As a matter of fact, when I was a student, my writing skill was not
good and I had the lowest grades in my class. Not until several years before I
attained the Fa did I start to grasp some writing techniques. During an
on-the-job training, I happened to participate in a writing competition. To my
surprise, I won the first place among all the participants from the colleges in
Taiwan. Afterwards, my confidence in writing improved tremendously. This laid
the foundation for validating the Fa through writing articles later on. I
believe that all of this did not happen accidentally! Here, I want to share my
experiences with fellow practitioners and my understandings over the last
several years of writing. Please kindly point out anything that is improper. 1. Writing is a process for me to continually correct myself and remove my
attachments During a normal conversation or an impromptu sharing in a Fa study, one needs
to react quickly and decide what one wants to talk about in a very short time.
Therefore one's attachments are often exposed. However, while writing something,
one can stop and rewrite the article if one fails to write it well the first
time. So the impure elements can be washed away through repetitive corrections
and modifications. Additionally, in the process of writing articles, and when
studying the Fa, it is likely that the Buddhas, Taos, and gods, who exist in
different levels, give me hints. Therefore, when I finish an article it is often
of high quality. During this process, my xinxing also improves. Some fellow practitioners have indicated to me that my articles were well
written, which is actually the result of continuous corrections and cleaning up
of these articles. 2. My attachments are exposed during my writing Seeing that the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party has been
spread with full force, I thought that I should also make a contribution. I
wrote five articles and systematically disclosed the crimes of the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP), using the Nine Commentaries and some other
relevant articles as a reference. During the writing process, I put all my
energy into this work. I did not get enough sleep and neglected to practice the
exercises. I spent almost two months writing these five articles. I thought that
these articles were well written. I was confident that the articles would surely be published. However, after I
sent the articles to different web publication sites, I did not receive any
response, as if they never had received them. I had put so much time and effort
into this project, just to receive such a result. I immediately felt very
discouraged. I did not even want to pick up my pen and write again; neither did
I want to go to any group activities. I knew that this condition was not right,
but I was just unable to change it. Later, after searching within myself, I realized that these five articles had
nothing novel. Furthermore, most of the contents were taken from the Nine
Commentaries and from other practitioners' articles. All I did was just
reorganize them. I have not been to mainland China; therefore I do not have a
deep understanding of the CCP. I wrote some points purely using my own
imagination. So it was predictable that these articles were not accepted. From this incident, I saw my attachments. I did not have a pure and clean
mindset when writing these articles. I also developed some grudges when the
articles were not accepted. I was far from the standards of a Dafa practitioner! 3. The Fa-validation projects need actual help and involvement During an opinion sharing, I made some critical remarks and gave some
suggestions regarding Dafa practitioners' media work. After listening to my
words, one fellow practitioner said in an unfriendly tone, "The fellow
practitioners working on media projects have suffered a lot. Don't increase
their burdens anymore. After you make a suggestion, you need to execute it
yourself." After hearing this response, my immediate reaction was,
"What kind of logic is this! The purpose of sharing is to let everyone
raise his or her concerns. This is the only way that we practitioners can
improve as one whole body. Is it still called a sharing if one were not allowed
to make suggestions? As for the logic that one cannot ask others to do well if
one has failed to do well, isn't it the warped notion that the evil
group..." After I returned home, I thought about the practitioner's words and found
that they were not completely unreasonable. The media work is for validating the
Fa and we definitely need to help and actually get involved. Since a Dafa
practitioner does not encounter anything that is accidental, my hearing this
kind of response certainly did not happen by chance either! Since I started practicing Falun Dafa, I have almost stopped writing articles
that are not related to Fa validation. I have taken on the work of writing some
articles for our media that serve everyday people. These articles are for all
people to read and enhance their understanding. After all, if every Dafa
practitioner only writes articles related to cultivation practice or Fa-validation,
it would be very difficult for our media to function in an everyday society. 4. Do not let down the great trust placed in me by the cosmos Master said: "So there must be a reason for letting a certain Dafa disciple have
supernormal abilities while he cultivates... However, a small number of
students who have supernormal abilities have failed to live up to their great
missions and have not done well. They're smug about the little tiny abilities
they have, and their problem even goes beyond showing off, they've even gone
on a long detour, some of them have even developed crooked understandings, and
still they haven't realized it! You have failed to live up to the great trust
placed in you by the cosmos, and that's no minor thing." ("Teaching
the Fa at the 2004 Chicago Conference") Some time ago, a fellow practitioner asked me to write something for a
project. As I was very busy and had many things to do then and as I also
believed that it was not yet time to write about that topic, I refused the
request with an unfriendly tone. After my wife heard this, she did not agree
with me. She pointed out, "You sounded as if you had some extraordinary
talents." My wife's words struck me like a stick wake-up. She was right.
Just because I have such a little talent, I viewed myself as being above fellow
practitioners and even looked down upon others. If I let this trend continue,
then some day I would think of myself as being a Buddha. Some fellow practitioners who know how to repair and maintain computers often
go to all the other places in order to help repair computers for Dafa
practitioners who have computers that require service. Sometimes they are
already very tired, but they still have the patience to repeatedly explain the
operating procedures to the elderly practitioners. They validate the Fa and have
no complaints. Think about it. How far have I lagged behind those practitioners? It cannot be denied that the practitioners who have some supernormal
abilities or some talents, on the surface, may appear to have suffered more
hardships and shouldered more Dafa work. However, is it correct that the
corresponding amount of mighty virtue has also been given to them? If we do not
bear the hardship of doing a little more Dafa work, or if we often speak to
fellow practitioners in unfriendly tones, or make them feel pressured, worried,
and even intimidated when they ask for our help, have we not already failed to
live up to the great trust placed in us by the cosmos? On the other hand, let's assume that we ourselves encounter difficulties and
need help during our validation of the Fa. Even though we know that a specific
practitioner can help us, if we are unwilling to ask for his help because we had
conflicts with him before and are afraid of his unfriendly attitude, then we
would rather let the Fa-validation work be affected and even stopped. If this
were really the case, then we were only validating ourselves. Are we still
validating the Fa? Aren't our thoughts based on our own selfish considerations? 5. Let the truth-clarification articles exhibit their powers I wrote some materials for truth-clarification on the Internet.
These materials contain many short articles clarifying the truth, which can be
used not only for chatting on the Internet, but also, after some reorganization,
for mailing, faxing, and pasting on the internet forums, or for making telephone
calls. Later I found that they could also be used for personal truth
clarification to everyday people. Recently, I changed my job and came to a new work place. There were more than
ten people who did not have a correct understanding of Dafa. They often asked
why the CCP has persecuted Falun Gong, why there are so many people practicing
Falun Gong and what benefits one can get by practicing Falun Gong, etc. I was
not able to answer some of the questions clearly in a short time. Some people
asked the questions without really wanting to know the answers, so they ran away
before I was finished with my explanations. Later, whenever I encountered such a
situation, I would find the answers and the relevant facts they wanted to know
about in the prepared truth-clarification materials. I printed the materials and
then showed them to those people. As a result, all the employees in my work
place have come to a correct understanding of the Fa. Furthermore, over half of
them have read Zhuan Falun, and some of them have already tried to
practice the Falun Gong exercises. Several months ago, I wrote a truth-clarification article. Besides having my
fellow practitioners help me to send them out, I also sent it to over 600
Internet addresses that I had collected. I also posted the article to several
advertisement boards in the neighborhood. It was found that these efforts were
very effective. Over the several years of my writing, no matter how much hardship I have
suffered from and no matter how busy I have been, I always made sure that my
articles met certain quality standards. I found, based on my experience, that if
the articles did not meet the required quality, their role of validating the Fa
would not fully manifest. I believe that writing an article is like creating a
painting artwork. The article should be perfected as much as possible in order
to attract more people to read it and let them be moved! Finally, I would like to share with fellow practitioners one paragraph of
Master's Fa in "Teaching the Fa in the City of Chicago," and let's use
the Fa to encourage each other: "So many years have passed over the course of history, the Three
Realms have existed for so long, and so many sentient beings have come here
over time, but all hopes are being placed in this one moment out of all the
ages. This instant is precious beyond measure. Completing the last leg of this
journey well is what's most magnificent." August 8, 2005
Chinese version available at
http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2005/8/9/108053.html
Yearly Archive
Printer Version
feedback@clearwisdom.net