(Clearwisdom.net)

Greetings, Master!

Greetings, fellow practitioners!

In the past several years of validating Falun Dafa through Minghui/Clearwisdom website team work, I have gone through many xinxing tests and tribulations, fallen many times, gone through terrible pain, and experienced miracles after making progress in my cultivation. To sum it up, my most important understanding is that every improvement I make is the result of tempering by the great Buddha Fa, and every bit of wisdom has been bestowed by our benevolent Master. As a tiny particle within Dafa, I have been learning to make the right choices that conform to Falun Dafa's cultivation requirements. I want to share two experiences below, so please correct me if there is anything wrong in my understanding!

1. Cultivation and Being a Coordinator

Looking back at my cultivation path, it was filled with choices: doing things according to Dafa's requirements or following my own human attachments. In other words, it was between choosing to unconditionally follow Master's teachings or to follow my own comfortable ways. Every time I make a choice, it is a process of getting rid of attachments.

At first, fellow practitioners suggested that I write something for the Minghui website. After a little while, more and more practitioners joined our group, I became the coordinator. I did not feel very comfortable with being the coordinator for a long time because I thought I was not the best choice based on my writing skills and cultivation state. I also thought that I was not suitable as a coordinator. For a long time, I just finished the work I had on hand but didn't think about group coordination. Fellow practitioners tried to point out my lack of taking on responsibility, but I was still attached to my own opinions, so I was reluctant to improve in this area. I found many excuses for my shortcomings.

Now I see that I chose to look at cultivation from my own standpoint: how I felt and how I understood things. However, I failed to look at it from the angle of validating Dafa or the Fa's requirements. I saw that fellow practitioners would consider things based on the Fa-rectification situation and actively try to meet the requirements for validating the Fa. I realized how little I had devoted to coordination work, and I deeply regret it. I had a big gap in my cultivation state.

Based on my understandings from studying the Fa, comparing with other coordinators' cultivation states and work situation, and comparing with fellow practitioners within my own group, I found my problem. My resistance towards being a coordinator came from my selfishness. Being a coordinator does not mean having the best writing skills or organizational skills, but having the heart to give of oneself. I remember Master teaching us that he does not consider one's ability when choosing coordinators, but only if one was willing to serve the group or if one was willing to sacrifice more for others (not a quote). Because I always thought that being a coordinator would consume my time and effort and interfere with my schedule and what I truly wanted to do, I thought that coordinating the group was a big responsibility and needed a lot of time and effort. If I quit being a coordinator, I could do only what I wanted, and it would be a lot easier.

It was selfishness that caused me to have a less than ideal relationship with the group and to position myself poorly as a coordinator and cultivator. I saw the damage my selfishness brought to our work. Master has been benevolently protecting me and giving me hints. One day I saw an article on the website called, "Not Fully Cooked Iron Eggplant" (see http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/9/28/40767.html). I was moved after reading it. Following the Buddha's instruction, 49 days later, the two former thieves succeeded in cultivation and reached Consummation. However, the couple who was cultivating towards Buddhahood most of their lives did not succeed because they always put their own eggplants in the best spot in the pot! Selfishness blocked the couple's way back to their true original selves. I enlightened to the fact that my selfish notions about coordinating the group was no different than that couple's!

Master taught us,

"......so for this Dafa of the universe to change a person is so very easy. I gave you an example the other day, a simple one: It is just like a furnace of molten steel. If a grain of sawdust falls in, it vanishes in a twinkling. You can't even find a trace of it. Within this Dafa, human beings are just like that grain of sawdust. ...... it is that the Fa has provided people with such an opportunity." ("Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Canada")

As Dafa cultivators, if we do not relinquish our selfishness, then we cannot fulfill our mission in Fa-rectification and will miss this unprecedented opportunity. In fact, it is my utmost honor to be able to upgrade myself in the Minghui website's cultivation environment. At the same time, we shoulder a vitally important task. Because the website spreads information for Falun Dafa, its mission and audience are both extraordinary.

I enlightened to how poor my selfish notions were and how solemn cultivation is! No matter what we do, we are required to validate Falun Dafa and save sentient beings. It was the requirement that chose us; we did not choose our mission or how to cultivate. We must position ourselves at the correct starting point, so that we can cultivate away our attachments and make choices based on Dafa's standard.

Sharing this today does not mean that I have completely done well in this regard, just that I have taken a big step towards removing this attachment. I sincerely hope that fellow practitioners who see shortcomings in my cultivation will point them out for me, so that we can improve together while assimilating to Dafa and fulfill our mission well.

2. Cultivation and Work

I decided to begin work again and reminded myself that work is another cultivation environment, so I must not foster attachments.

I quit working in 1997 due to my physical condition. Now, I must handle work situations, inter-personal relationships, and human notions. I reminded myself that I am a Falun Dafa practitioner and must talk and act like a Dafa disciple. I absolutely cannot damage Dafa's image. I use all suitable opportunities to clarify the truth to my colleagues, spread the Fa, and teach the exercises. I wanted to created a pure land with my compassion cultivated from Falun Dafa and help more people learn the truth about Falun Dafa.

I found that after a while, attachments that I thought I had cultivated away emerged again, even quite strongly in some cases. I thought I had gotten rid my notion of admiring celebrities and scholars, my attachment to fame, and being moved when hearing the names of people I used to admire. However, when I was clarifying the truth to my colleague, it was exposed that I was still attached to fame. After I learned about his credentials, awards, and honors, and his kind nature, I grew attached to his fame. This attachment stopped me from clarifying the truth to him. I was afraid that he would lose his good impression of me or I would make a mistake talking with him, so I always clarified the truth to him only at a superficial level. I was shocked to find my attachment. My attachment to fame presented itself again and even blocked me from clarifying the truth.

I studied Master's teachings again in "What is Wisdom" in Essentials for Further Advancement:

"People think that the renowned persons, scholars, and different sorts of experts in human society are great. In fact, they are all really insignificant, for they are everyday people. Their knowledge is only that tiny bit understood by the modern science of human society. In the vast universe, from the most macroscopic to the most microscopic, human society is exactly in the very middle, in the outermost layer, and on the outermost surface. Also, its living beings are the lowest form of existence, so their understanding of matter and mind is very limited, superficial, and pitiful. Even if someone were to grasp all of mankind's knowledge, he would still remain an everyday person."

I realized that relinquishing my exposed attachment and having a good relationship with ordinary people is one of the things that I need to seriously cultivate. My attachment to fame is just one of the notions that I have acquired in this realm. This type of thinking emphasizes fame, profit, and qing in ordinary society. As a cultivator, I must transcend everything that is of ordinary society, so how can I be blocked by such a human attachment? No matter how good this colleague is, he is a part of ordinary society and a being waiting to be saved by Dafa. Success in ordinary society cannot give him a bright future. If he does not obtain the Fa, he cannot return to his original, true self. It does not matter how many years he has been meditating or the kindness of his heart. He was predestined to meet me, so that means I should clarify the truth and spread the Fa to him. He is no different than other beings. I should not destroy his destiny with my attachment, for that is a huge sin.

After I came to this conclusion, I sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate my bad thoughts and to rectify my relationship with ordinary people, so that I could clarify the truth to him at every opportunity, provide him with Falun Dafa books and exercise instruction DVDs, and kindly remind him to learn the truth by reading Zhuan Falun. I cleansed the field in our office when sending forth righteous thoughts during lunch hour and eliminated all the evil factors that interfere with people learning the truth and obtaining the Fa. Now, this colleague has started cultivating in Falun Dafa, and many other colleagues have learned the facts about Falun Dafa.

I found another attachment while working: I am strongly attached to doing my job well. It is not wrong to want to do our job well, but if my will is too strong and it is in order for others to think well of me, that is a problem. I even found a noble excuse: I should not damage Dafa's image. As a result, my workload was too much to bear. I had to either rush to finish without quality or finish at home on my own time, which would directly interfere with my Dafa work. I realized that my attachment provided the old forces with a gap, and they overloaded me with work. When I clearly saw the cause and effect, I seriously upgraded my xinxing and sent forth righteous thoughts to disintegrate the evil factors interfering with my cultivation. On a human level, I talked to my boss frankly about the amount of work I could shoulder within my work hours. I also told him that I needed my spare time to do work for clarifying the truth about Falun Dafa. Based on my clarifying the truth, he was very understanding, and my work load reduced and became more flexible.

Cultivating at my workplace helped me enlighten to the fact that the three things Master told us to do can help us harmonize cultivating in the Fa-rectification period and fulfill our mission to save sentient beings. I still have many attachments to cultivate away, but I will definitely treat myself as a Dafa cultivator, completely walk the path of cultivating "Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance," and not disappoint Master's merciful salvation.

Thank you, Master!

Thank you, fellow practitioners!