Giving Up Selfish Opinions and Improving as One Body

By a Falun Dafa practitioner from Europe

(Clearwisdom.net) Esteemed Master, respected fellow practitioners, greetings!

I read Zhuan Falun for the first time at the end of the year 2000, after which I realized that cultivation is very difficult, with no turning around once one starts. At the time, I was very much enjoying everyday people's life, so I could not give up various vested interests and make up my mind to cultivate. But at a practitioner's gathering, a local coordinator asked me whether I would join a website translation team. Although I had not begun to cultivate at the time, I knew Falun Dafa was good, so I agreed.

I enjoyed doing translation work for the website because of the independence it allows. You do not need other's help when you select an article, translate or polish one. At the same time, you do not need to help others either. This means you do not need to communicate with others for the most part in translating, but doing working as a coordinator is a completely different story.

A year ago most translators in this project moved on to another assignment, so the remaining translators were all new, without much experience. I had to personally polish their works first before sending them out to other polishers, and in the beginning I had to change almost every sentence of the translations. During the daytime, I typed on my PC, and after work I continued typing until midnight, often complaining while correcting the errors. Sometimes I would rather translate the articles myself than assign them to others so as to save time, and once I almost called a translator to teach her basic German. But remembering the shortage of translators, I did not want to make her mad. It would cause problems for the translation project, and I would not be able bear such a responsibility. And so I did not make the phone call, instead correcting her article sentence by sentence. Through continued Fa study and introspection, my understanding of doing Dafa website translation grew much clearer.

Falun Dafa websites are meant to serve practitioners. They are a window showing the progress of the Fa-rectification process and the demeanor of Dafa disciples as a whole. Practitioners can share their experiences there, and this helps us improve together. Everyone who participates is cultivating, and is walking on the path of validating the Fa. Since it relates to our cultivation, the capabilities of a practitioner should not be the key factor to succeeding or doing well. Indeed, we should not use the quality of a translation to measure whether a practitioner a good cultivator. The main responsibility of a coordinator is instead to use his or her skills unselfishly to provide opportunities to other practitioners and also to help them to solve their own problems, so that they can validate the Fa and setup their mighty virtue through the website project. It is not to "translate all the articles that no one wants to translate". It's a misunderstanding to do all the work oneself. The main responsibility of a coordinator is to mobilize the practitioners and train them and help them to deepen their understandings of Dafa work. If only one practitioner does well, it is only one person. If all practitioners do well, then it becomes a manifestation of the Fa's power.

I periodically send notes to practitioners who do not do much translation work to let them know that they continue to be members of the website team. Sometimes it is just a greeting or just a notice. I feel that Dafa practitioners are one body. I do it not because I want them to continue their work, but because I care about them. Sometimes I do not get any response after several notes, and I grew anxious and start to complain. This I later found to be an attachment because I always felt that my efforts should be rewarded. Since I did right, it should have had an effect, so when it is not as effective as I expect, I started to doubt whether I did it right in fear of falling down myself. All these thoughts are against the requirement of unselfishness for cultivation within Fa rectification. It should not matter whether others respond as long as my contacting them was based on my understanding of Fa and good for the Dafa work. After correcting the fundamentals, I understood the Fa principle: do what should be done, and one day a practitioner suddenly wrote me back, saying, "I have time now, please send me an article to translate."

Lately there have been many discussions on the problems of our coordinators. Although we all knew Hu Jintao is going to come to Europe, our sharing was only on the level of doing things, and I felt practitioners in Germany as a whole were repressed. Our attention was diverted. We did not pay enough attention to Hu's visit, nor did we have enough sharing from the perspective of the Fa. If we focused too much on our individual cultivation, there would be interference. This would then offer the evil an excuse to intensify the persecution of these individuals. It would also divert our attention as a whole body from the important issues. All of this made me very anxious. I wanted to send a note to the entire group, but my attachment stopped me.

Last week I received an email in Chinese summarizing the sharing of Canadian practitioners regarding Hu's visit to Canada. I knew that Canadian practitioners prepared very well, which had a very good effect. I called a practitioner and shared my views on the loophole our Germany practitioners had formed as a whole. I asked her to send an email to everyone as a reminder not to be interfered with and to use this opportunity of Hu's visit to clarify the truth, eliminate evil and completely deny the old forces' evil arrangements. She said:" Why not write it yourself?", to which I replied, "Not everyone will agree with me. Also, the sharing must be in German so that German practitioners can understand it." She then suggested, "Why don't you translate that article into German, then?" I then translated the summary by the Canadian practitioners into German overnight and sent it to everyone. The practitioner I called also wrote a note reminding everyone to pay attention to Hu's visit in Germany. That evening, practitioners in Berlin began a telephone conference in preparation, and by the time I wrote this experience sharing, signature drive appeals to stop the persecution had started in many cities around Germany. I felt the substance that had repressed me becoming smaller, and I truly felt freedom when I become completely unselfish and conform to the Fa.

I still have a lot of attachments yet to be relinquished, so please kindly point to me anything that is inappropriate in this sharing.

Thank you, Teacher!

Thank you, my fellow practitioners.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/12/8/116004.html

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