(Clearwisdom.net)
Dear respected Master,
Dear fellow cultivators,
I am pleased to have this unique opportunity to be here and to talk about my cultivation experiences with websites. I had always had the desire to write an experience report but each time I have failed writing about what I have considered to be my mission in the Fa rectification period. When I have heard of this meeting, I was happy from my heart and I knew, I will manage to write the article this time. Clearly I saw the path that Master had arranged for me.
Looking back I would say that everything I have done before my work with the website was in preparation for my cultivation in this work. Only since then could I see how I had changed myself, and my heart was cleaned from all the old notions and attachments that I hadn't been able to let go before. I also realized what a strong effect it had on the teamwork inside the website team. Actually, that makes me very pleased. Only if I look inside and clean my heart, my environment will be harmonized and in this way, more sentient beings can be saved and the evil can be exposed better.
When I began with the website work, I had a lot attachments and strong notions about how things had to work. Everything had to have its procedures and there had to be an equal work share. I immediately got irritated when something didn't go that way. So I complained about this to a practitioner who does the coordination for our team. Since she is not only a fellow practitioner but also my older sister, I behaved even worse and used the opportunity to further get upset and complain about others. I usually complained that others allegedly don't work sufficiently for the website and don't give their whole heart, and I finally had to catch up everything that others wouldn't do. Now I know that I had been wrong, no matter how logical and correct my criticism had sounded. I hadn't measured everything with the Fa -- "Zhen, Shan, Ren" -- instead I used human notions to settle my things.
I always had the excuse that the criticism is acceptable and right, but only because I became irritated and had attachments. Afterwards I had always felt very bad and also guilty to the other ones. I was sorry that I had been so annoyed and couldn't restrict myself but I couldn't really change my behavior because I hadn't really looked inside and tried my best. The limit of my tolerance was too low and my compassion wasn't cultivated well. The only thing I thought I had cultivated well was truthfulness, because I was upright to others and said what annoyed me... but that was only seen from a very human perspective.
Inside myself I knew that I was trapped in my notions and especially in my anger. Every time it happened, I asked Master from the bottom of my heart to help me to finally put down this strong attachment, to become a true cultivator. Although I was depressed afterwards and I had given up the courage -- I had often thought of giving up my cultivation also -- one thought remained - who else would translate and correct the articles - who else would upload them the next day - who else would check the website the next day and correct possible mistakes...? Somebody else would have been able to do it, of course, because the Fa harmonizes everything. But I felt responsible, from the bottom of my heart I felt responsible for the website each day.
Before I took over this task in the Fa rectification, I was quite clear that this was my mission and that I had promised sometime to save the sentient beings, expose the evil and enrich my own world in this way. That is where I believe this righteous thought came from. The sentient beings are waiting for their salvation. When I couldn't be responsible, how much loss would that mean... and I wouldn't be able to compensate for it. Once a God decides for a path that he has seen for himself, he will walk that path to the end, no matter what happens. So I walked my path, anything else wouldn't have made any sense.
Gradually I became aware that my attitude wasn't right. Recently I had an important experience. I dream quite often and I think that Master often gives me hints in my dreams, because in this way there are not so many thoughts that disturb my realizing and accepting my attachments. I dreamt that I had been together with my sister somewhere in an amusement park with lots of different attractions like a roller coaster. Suddenly I had the choice between the roller coaster or cultivating myself by studying the Fa and doing the exercises. Actually I wanted to go directly to the roller coaster because this seemed to be the most logical choice to me. Why should I first go cultivate myself, if I could immediately do what I wanted? But my sister told me that I should go to the other side first, the rest would come by itself and I wouldn't need to think about it. In my dream I recognized that she was right and followed her.
After that I became aware of one of my strong attachments: Instead of cultivation, I just regarded my task as ordinary work and did it like that. All the time I had forgotten to look inside and improve my xinxing in doing the work.
I also haven't been aware of another attachment: I used to approach everything with human logic. Everything had to be logical and conclusive in itself, otherwise I couldn't understand and accept it. That's why I became easily annoyed. And I recognized this only today when I wanted to write this experience report.
First I had written something else, but I wasn't really content. I noticed that I had this intellectual hindrance by human logic, and that because of it, my article wasn't very good. After I recognized this in a painful way, I noticed while I was writing, how much that thought had restricted me. Just like Master said in Essentials for Further Advancement:
"When learning Dafa, intellectuals should be aware of a most prominent problem: They study Dafa in the same way that everyday people study theoretical writings..." (Learning the Fa, September 9, 1995) and
"After the degeneration of morality, humans are unable to see that the terrible human heart is the poisonous root of social problems, and so they always foolishly try to find the way out in social phenomena. As a result, human beings never realize that all the so-called "ways out" that they create for themselves are precisely them sealing themselves off. As such, there are even fewer ways out, and the new problems that follow are even worse. Thus, with much difficulty humans again find a tiny space and take new measures, thereby closing this remaining bit of space once again. As this repeats itself over a period of time, there is no room left and they can no longer find a way out, nor can they see the truth beyond the enclosed space. Human beings begin to suffer from all that they have created for themselves." (Remaking Mankind, September 9, 1996).
Now I try my best to remove this notion and to not allow it to come up at all.
These insights were very valuable for me and at the same time I realized that the cooperation in our team has improved fundamentally as a result. We cooperate more closely with our sister Chinese language website. I see that we all take our task very seriously and regard it as the highest priority. Everyone is aware of his responsibility. And if not, we are able to first look inside where we have shortcomings and we are able to remind ourselves with a benevolent heart.
I think that with my strong attachments I have consciously or unconsciously impeded some practitioners to do their things well and almost "kicked some out". Today, for example, I heard of one practitioner who has noticed that I don't have such strong expectations of her any more, and that she is able to work much better and get more things done ever since.
I have also realized this, but I hadn't been aware that I was also blocking her so strongly with my attachment. I am glad that she has remained steadfast.
That's the reason why I'm writing this experience report, although it was painful at first. Fortunately the other person that I almost "kicked out" wasn't shaken either. Through him I was allowed to recognize how important it is to have righteous thoughts towards other practitioners, no matter how the surface looks like. I also learned that we should regard ourselves as one body all the time, even if one of us doesn't walk his or her path righteously for the moment. If one has interferences or attachments that he cannot recognize, then isn't this concerning the whole body? Like if my toe is aching, can I say that it is not part of me, then?! Instead of reproaching the other one that he or she doesn't perform a good job, just as I reproached a fellow practitioner, we should be more benevolent and tolerant. We should realize the old force's arrangement that they want to separate us, and totally deny it. Just the pure realization of it is denying the old forces. When I realized this -- it seems that it also affects others -- as they began to work more at the website and more steadily. I also realized that I'm able to show much more confidence in my fellow practitioners and acknowledge their capabilities.
When I look at what every one of us is doing, I'm moved to tears. No matter what abilities the other ones brought with them, they make use of them and show undreamt of strength. That is the power of the Fa. When we cultivate ourselves well, everything else comes by itself. Everybody contributes his share. For example, my English has improved fundamentally even though I didn't understand a word before.
Another practitioner always thought that her ability to write wasn't very good and that she wouldn't be able to write articles at all. But when I saw how carefully she corrects the translations we do, and the kind of beautiful wordings she finds, I see my own shortcomings. Another practitioner who can neither correct nor translate articles has a very good view for it when an article's content doesn't correspond to the Fa and suggests that we had better not publish it. Or he writes an article on his own, if one is needed. The other two practitioners always close the gaps with translations meanwhile, because we must translate the largest portion anyway. Without them we wouldn't have many important articles.
We also have technical support that I am very grateful for, because none of us has much computer knowledge. He doesn't only confine himself to technology but always takes part in our regular telephone conferences, too. He also tries himself in translating when we are out of town or at an event. I find this very impressive because he doesn't just sit there, but really tries to help wherever it is needed, because he too sees that his role is to work for this website, no matter in what form it is. Our other technical support is always included more, too and I notice that the exchange is also important for him and he really cares that we also understand everything if there are new functions in the software.
We grow together as one body more and more. I can really sense as we improve our xinxing together, the effect this has on clarifying the truth. This can also be seen in the complete team which publishes the website in many different languages. The only thing remaining is that we should exchange and cooperate more at the European level. In this way, we will have more strength to destroy the evil completely and to save the sentient beings in the many parts of Europe. I hope we will use this good opportunity here and think about how we can improve our coordination.
Not only our small editorial team has made essential progress, the cooperation among translators and polishers, and between our team and Chinese language websites has become better and better. I notice that the exchange between practitioners is crucial to realize and understand the urgency of the websites in the Fa rectification period.
In the particular type of work we do, we oftentimes feel quite isolated from others. Disturbing thoughts can often creep into our minds, so that we stop doing their work as well, or even completely stop or suddenly jump ship because other things seem to be more important. By trying to promote the exchange among practitioners, there are always some who realize that their work is needed really urgently, no matter how tedious it may sometimes seem, and that it is also a cultivation path. I think the websites gradually come to the point where they really are able to explain the truth, expose the evil and save sentient beings.
At the same time, this also causes a difficulty, namely the more practitioners involved, the bigger the safety risk, because the practitioners are so different. They take the seriousness of work with websites differently, they are in different cultivation states, they cultivate for different periods, etc. This way it becomes more difficult to remind everybody of the responsibility he or she has when working for the websites. We give our best but unfortunately it happens too often that practitioners hadn't cultivated their speech well and told everything about our work to other practitioners, who were unable to keep things to themselves. We must be aware of our responsibility towards Dafa and other practitioners. It's a matter of fact that we all still have attachments and some will talk about these things out of their mentality of showing off or because they want to know everything out of curiosity, which are also attachments. Because of this we should be careful whom we tell something, being careful not to nourish practitioners' attachments and better allowing them to remove them by way of cultivation.
This problem appears quite often: some practitioners consciously or unconsciously claim that they already know everything about our work and ask more concrete questions. Since we are oftentimes too naive and don't know to measure this with the Fa, but act out of our human feelings, we begin to talk like a waterfall. Of course we feel good and have the impression that we can trust each other. Since we haven't looked at it from the perspective of the Fa, the old forces see this and make use of our gaps. They lead this practitioner to gossip about everything, because he also has a gap -- it triggers a chain reaction. If we have bad luck, it was a spy and we have given all our important information to the evil... we should really consider from the Fa why one of the safest e-mail lists has been cracked and what effects that had on practitioners in China. If we understand it from the Fa, then how could we handle our responsibility so inattentively? Wasn't this actually a test for us, targeting our human feelings towards other practitioners? If we haven't passed the test, it'll definitely come again but it gets even more difficult. Shouldn't we measure everything we do with Zhen, Shan, Ren and what Master tells us? We cultivate our inner selves, not the outside. We have to walk our own path and can't rely on others and simply follow somebody blindly.
Thank you Master,
Thank you fellow practitioners
