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We Should Think More About Others
by a Falun Dafa practitioner in China
(Clearwisdom.net) I felt sad after reading an article on the Minghui
website. It was called "My Cultivation Experience at a Material Production
Site in the Past Seven Years." I deeply admire and appreciate the hardship
fellow practitioners go through and the effort they put into running a material
production site. I also feel sorry for the barriers that still exist between
practitioners. I cultivate at home and have set up a material production site
there. After all the ups and downs, I understand the hardship of living and
working at a material production site. The article I read talked about many
unnecessary misunderstandings between practitioners. I'd like to discuss the
issue of cooperation among practitioners. After July 20, 1999, many practitioners could not get Teacher's articles or
other truth-clarification materials. So, some practitioners took the
responsibility of printing and distributing materials. This is how the material
production sites got started. Usually, one material production site is
responsible for supplying materials to a large area. Sometimes one site supplies
a whole city and its surrounding areas. The workload is heavy. Practitioners who
work at the material production sites are usually young and living away from
home. Back then, I was responsible for part of the distribution work. A fellow
practitioner would bring the material near to my workplace. Each time, it was a
large bag with a few thousand copies. I distributed the materials in bulk to
other practitioners who in turn distributed them in their areas. Because there
were not many practitioners distributing materials then and there were a lot of
materials, every practitioner involved was distributing as fast as possible. If
we didn't work quickly, it would be difficult to deal with the large volume of
materials that would be left over. As a result, there was little time for
practitioners to study the Fa. It was common for practitioners to
only do Dafa work without studying the Fa. With the environment as such, material production sites became the primary
targets for the evil to destroy, and our state of doing Dafa work without
studying the Fa became a vicious cycle. We did not understand the deeper meaning
of the Fa. Later, a material site was destroyed and many practitioners were
implicated and arrested. From the perspective of being responsible to the Fa and
other practitioners, if someone had suggested that we give materials to each
individual based on his or her ability, maybe we wouldn't have had the problem
of having too many materials and not enough time to study the Fa calmly. There
was one practitioner who had too many materials. He could not finish
distributing all of them and threw away the extra materials out of fear. Later,
that practitioner had serious illness karma and passed away. Some practitioners
distributed materials from morning to night in order to finish their allotment.
As a result, they were followed and arrested. In 2005, I set up a production site at my home. I experienced many miraculous
events from the preparation stage to production. In fact, as long as we have
righteous thoughts, Teacher will help us. "When disciples have ample
righteous thoughts, Master has the power to turn back the tide". ("The
Master-Disciple Bond," Hong Yin Volume II) I only have a single
contact when delivering the materials. We schedule the meeting ahead of time.
Fellow practitioners tell me what kind of materials they need and I tell them
when I have too much work. We coordinate well with each other. But there are
still areas that are not as good as I would like. For example, some
practitioners only want Teacher's new articles, but not fliers or books. When I
heard that I thought, "How are you doing the three things? Are
you cultivating?" but I didn't dare to point it out face to face for fear
of hurting others' feelings. When fellow practitioners were late or could not
make it to the previously agreed on appointment, I thought, "You are not
treating this seriously. What can be more important than this?" Sometimes,
the more I thought about it, the more upset I got, "I went through all the
trouble to make these and deliver them to you, but you make me wait and
wait." Sometimes I even thought, "Is the person being followed?"
I unintentionally thought about all the bad things. In fact, all these thoughts
are human attachments, and I began to feel worried about them. Teacher said, "as long as you're a cultivator, in any environment or under any
circumstances, I will use any troubles or unpleasant things you come
across--even if they involve work for Dafa, or no matter how good or sacred
you think they are--to eliminate your attachments and expose your demon-nature
so that it can be eliminated, for your improvement is what's most
important." ("Further Understanding," Essentials for Further
Advancement) When I remembered that, all the unpleasant feelings evaporated. In the article on the Minghui website, it said that it was common for
practitioners from the material production site to wait two or three hours when
delivering materials to fellow practitioners' homes. I am not criticizing here,
but I feel that we should keep the appointments we agree to. Even
non-practitioners talk about keeping appointments, not to mention how serious
the matter is. Another issue is that we need to be careful when using the
telephone or cell phones for safety reasons. The evil is watching our every
move. Not only must we be careful with our own safety, but we also need to think
of the safety of fellow practitioners. Another issue is that when misunderstandings arise among practitioners, it is
best to talk about them openly. We must be clearheaded about it. When
misunderstandings arise, we must realize that it is the old forces trying to
create barriers among us. So we must let go of any bad thoughts and be
righteous. We need to think about others and look inward to avoid any barriers
among practitioners. We need to form a harmonious body and not leave any excuses
for the old forces. When we think about others, this is also being responsible
to the whole body and cultivating ourselves. Please point out anything inappropriate. Heshi. |