From Hearts and Minds Uplifted--The Power of Falun Dafa: Take Hardships as Blessings, Look Inward for the Source of Our Difficulties

By Ye Ping, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

[The following article appears in the book Hearts and Minds Uplifted--The Power of Falun Dafa, first published by the Clearwisdom editors in 2006. The short stories in this book were written by people of all ages, from many countries, and from all walks of life. They are all very personal and unique, and yet they share a common theme: the tremendous spiritual growth that comes from practicing Falun Gong. For more information or to order Hearts and Minds Uplifted, please see: http://www.mhbooks.org/mhbooks/index.php?target=products&product_id=29937&sl=EN ]

I have been in the United States for more than one year. Now, when I look back, I realize that I have experienced more hardships during this one year than in all the years since I started practicing Falun Dafa in 1995. I feel fortunate to have encountered these difficulties, because otherwise I would not have been able to improve my character.

I am a technician in my company. My responsibility is assembling and testing different kinds of micro-thermal equipment. In the early days, everything in the company was new to me, and I had to learn from my colleagues. I felt like I was being treated as an apprentice. I was ordered around to do all kinds of trivial work that no one else wanted to do. I had to endure people's impatience too. Whenever I ran into something new, I had to ask others. When I asked too much, they would get impatient, or if they happened to be in a bad mood, they would easily get impatient, too.

Different products have different procedures for assembly. If the procedures are not followed correctly, some problems may occur when the products are tested. This in turn might bring the company a big loss.

For a certain period of time, I made mistakes very often. Something always went wrong, even in an absurd manner. Sometimes, although I obviously followed the procedures very well and even got the green light from my colleagues, the results were still frustrating. Not surprisingly, I received a lot of harsh comments from the lab supervisor, which made me very sad. I thought to myself, "I'm trying to do my best. Is there anything wrong with that?" To make it worse, one of my colleagues always reported to the supervisor upon spotting even the tiniest mistake of mine. The supervisor would then get impatient immediately and shout, "You can't make mistakes all the time. Otherwise, I can't keep you here any more." Then I would get angry too and think, "All human beings make mistakes. Do you think I made them intentionally?" At those times, my mind would be occupied by one idea, "Fire me, then. If worst comes to worst, I will go home. That's it. I'm fed up with this kind of life."

This situation continued for a long time, until one day I made an error just as the supervisor happened to pass by. He asked me what happened. I told him I made another mistake and expected him to explode with complaints. To my surprise, he went away without saying anything. All of a sudden, I felt awakened from a dream. So many days of reprimands and arguments all came out of one attachment: Every time a mistake occurred, I had always remained silent and tried to cover it up. When someone came to inquire, I said that everything was fixed and fine. I always held the belief that so long as I ended up with a good result, everybody should be happy. They shouldn't bother asking what happened in the process. On the surface, my argument sounds reasonable. But to a Dafa practitioner, it is not. A practitioner should follow the principle of "Truthfulness", do things in an upright way, be willing to admit to any mistakes and be crystal clear regarding every matter. Isn't the attempt to cover up mistakes a big attachment? Surprisingly, after that event I seldom made mistakes. Consequently, the supervisor never complained again, and no one bothered to report my mistakes to him any more.

Probably because no one in my family creates trouble for me, I was destined to encounter more trouble in my company so that I would have opportunities to cultivate. One colleague seemed very aggressive in every single matter. He had a habit of preempting the company's equipment, even if he had no immediate use for it. Therefore, when the time came that I needed to use a certain piece of equipment, I could not, and my work would be delayed. Besides, I'm a person of discipline and order and always keep my tools and equipment neatly assorted. He was just the opposite, leaving every piece equipment messy, greasy and sometimes broken after he used it. At times when he could not find his own tools, he used mine and occasionally lost mine too. My work would then be greatly affected. Similar kinds of things happened to me almost every day. Several times I could not control my temper and burst into anger. Afterwards I regretted what I had done. On the issue of improving my character, when there were conflicts, I felt that I was moving up very slowly. Why couldn't I feel within myself a heart of compassion and kindness? If a trivial matter could hurt me, I was far from being firm and unmoved, as a Dafa practitioner should be.

After thinking about it, I understood why. In the first place, it was because I had adopted a biased attitude toward others. I looked at them as selfish, rough and unorganized in their work. I always had perceived things around me strictly from my own point of view. When others did not fit my perceptions, I felt uncomfortable with them. Why had I become so angry? It was because they disturbed my work and created trouble for me. Every bit of my thinking had been about myself only. Was that not selfish? If he had been making trouble for others, disturbing other people's work, I would not have become angry.

In every matter we must be considerate of others! After I started adopting such an attitude, I no longer felt annoyed by my co-workers. On the contrary, I started to feel compassion for them, because they, too, were suffering from the difficulties in their lives.

 

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