Western Practitioner: Cultivating in the Process of Becoming a Reporter

(Clearwisdom.net)

Greetings Master! Greetings fellow practitioners!

I'd like to share a couple things. The first thing I'd like to share is my experience working as a reporter to clarify the truth.

I started writing for the newspaper in 2006, just several months after I began practicing with a group. I was living in San Diego and the paper was in need of reporters.

I knew nothing about journalism, had no real writing skills, had little education beyond high school, and hadn't even read a newspaper or online news for several years, but I had faith that Dafa and Master would give me the skills I needed if I stepped forward.

In "Teaching the Fa in the City of Los Angeles," Master said,

"Dafa disciples have brought about many miracles. You can go and learn certain things. That is not a problem, of course. But if you plan to spend a lot of time--say, months or years--to learn something and then come back to validate the Fa, then I would say things would be over by then. (Audience laughs) And you would have learned it in vain. That's why I think that when it comes to certain matters you should think things over and gauge things yourself. As a Dafa disciple, you should think about these things as would a cultivator."

I made a pledge to myself that I would write one article a week, and I started right away. It was difficult at first, but things began to flow. Some weeks when I wasn't able to find a good story, I made myself just pick the best event which was available, and went to cover it. It was often those stories that turned out the best.

I once spent a lot of time working on a story. I was really proud of it, and thought it was one of my best. Then I got a call from my editor saying they would not run it since it wasn't relevant to the local page I was writing for. I got so angry that I thought about quitting. I looked inward, and realized that I had forgotten why I was writing. I had forgotten that I was doing this to save people, and it was not about my reputation or some surface work.

As my skills began to improve, I had forgotten the real reason for writing, and had become too focused on the surface form. I had forgotten that I was not doing this for other practitioners in the paper, or for my own reputation, but rather to save people and to assist Master in Fa-rectification.

In "Teaching the Fa in the City of Los Angeles," Master said,

"Take religions, for example. Those who truly understand things are utilizing the formats taken by those religions to cultivate themselves, while those who don't are upholding the formats of those religions. In other words, what gods want are not the formats that mankind uses, but for you to utilize the formats here and ascend. When you elevate by making use of these formats, you are validating Fa, validating gods, and saving sentient beings, right? (Applause) Dafa disciples' cultivating in the diverse occupations is acknowledging the beings in those systems, and it is saving all those lives."

Not long after having this realization, my editor told me that the article would run in the national paper, which was big news for me at the time.

I later heard that reporters were needed in New York and I was considering going to help. The only problem was that I didn't want to leave San Diego. I was really happy and comfortable there, and I knew that I'd have to leave that behind if I left. The biggest trial for me though was the thought of leaving my family.

I ignored the call for a while, but kept getting signs that I should go. People would mention New York to me in conversation, and it seemed to come up everywhere. Finally, one day my aunt told me to come to the door. A huge crane (the bird, not the machine) had landed in our yard. I had never seen one like it before. It was really big, and had glimmering blue feathers on its neck. I remembered hearing stories of Daoists traveling on cranes, and understood it was a sign, but again, I ignored it.

The next day, the crane came back. I tried to ignore it, went to my room, and a practitioner called me and asked me to come to New York. Right while I was talking to her, I saw a press event invitation on my desk, which read "Nobody Turns Down an Invitation from a Pharaoh."

With a sigh, I agreed to go. I bought a ticket for a flight around a week or two after, and left. Not long after I arrived, it was announced that the paper would begin daily publication, and my understanding was that that's why I had to go, and I decided to stay in New York to help.

Not long after, I met a nice young woman, also a practitioner, and we were soon married. The arrangement worked out so that I could work full time at the paper.

I soon started getting a lot of criticism about my writing. It seemed my skills were not improving, or they were improving very slowly. I was very thrown off by this, and I thought to myself, "I've been writing for the paper for so long. If my writing is still not up to the standard, maybe I should just leave."

After thinking for a while I realized how bad that mentality was. I came to understand that saying I didn't want to improve, or thinking I couldn't improve, was just like saying that I didn't want to cultivate. I understood that as a practitioner, if I fall short in any field, I should work on and improve that area. Leaving because I can't meet a higher standard would be just like quitting for being unable to cultivate myself.

In "Teaching the Fa in San Francisco, 2005," Master said,

"In an enormous cosmic body that is quite far away, the elevation of lives there is very different from what is understood by lives in the cosmic system that you are in. They are sustained by their skills and the continual improvement of those skills. The gods at a higher level, then, have tied whether the lives at the lower levels can invent things and whether they can produce things onto the elevation of their realms. If a person's realm is elevated, his wisdom will be opened up, and he will be allowed to produce things, create things, and elevate. After he elevates, he will realize again and again that he is able to accomplish those things only because of the rise in his morality, and realize that he is able to elevate only because his own realm has risen."

After looking inward, I saw many attachments reflected in my work--competitiveness, jealousy, reputation, and showing off. I also realized that I was overly attached to my work. I regarded it as my art, so I was very touchy about it.

After realizing this, there was a big improvement in my skills, and the work seemed to flow much better.

Eventually, this led to another attachment though. I began to get very arrogant and proud, thinking that my work was so good. While I was covering Shen Yun in New York, Master came and gave a talk to practitioners there. I was late, and missed most of what Master said. Afterwards, I asked a practitioner what I missed, and she kind of snapped at me, calling me "obnoxious."

I was a bit shocked. I looked inward and realized how elated my self image had become. Pride is a very bad attachment. In my understanding, it can make practitioners place themselves above others, which is the same as placing themselves outside the body of practitioners. I was grateful for finding this attachment.

Part 2: Cooperation

I'd like to share a few things I've seen in other dimensions related to cooperation among practitioners, as this has been a large part of my cultivation in recent months.

I shared some of these things with practitioners on a small scale before, but I'd like to repeat them here, as I think it would help practitioners work better together.

While either sending forth righteous thoughts, or doing the fifth exercise (I can't remember which), I saw that each practitioner had many different arms, lots of them, one above the next.

With each arm, each practitioner was holding hands with another practitioner. It was like the bonds that held him or her in the body of practitioners.

When the hands were not holding each other, it meant that the practitioner had a conflict with or bad thoughts about that other practitioner. Some who only had a few hands holding, seemed to not be very stable, and were in danger.

I then saw what looked like a floating, black, twisted hand that was trying to separate the hands of practitioners. I had the sense that if they were able to completely separate the hands of a practitioner from others, it would be as if the practitioner was pulled out of the body of practitioners and it would be much easier to destroy him or her.

It made me think that when we are close to one another, we can help others who are starting to stumble. Yet sometimes when practitioners have conflicts with several others, most tend to keep a distance from that person.

When I look back on the practitioners who I have seen fall out of Dafa, it was often those who came to think of themselves as being smarter or better than everyone else, and refused to work well with others, or those who developed a lot of bad thoughts and conflicts with others.

I saw that in my own field, there were a few hands that were separated, and I was very concerned. At that moment, I really wanted to correct this from the bottom of my heart.

While I was seeing this, a bad thought popped into my head about another practitioner. I then saw something that is somewhat difficult to describe. It was like each practitioner had a different color and world surrounding them. Each one was incredibly different from the next.

It made me think of each of us having come from distant cosmic bodies. My understanding is that in each of these cosmic bodies, beings have their own ways of elevating and their own ways of thinking and doing things which are very different from those of other cosmic bodies, and although their things may not be correct in other cosmic systems, they are completely correct where they are.

On another occasion, I was sending forth righteous thoughts with practitioners just after Fa study, when I saw some interesting scenes. The practitioners in the room each looked like kings, and each had their own brilliant color. Seeing this, I remembered thinking it was amazing that they could all come together like this.

After that, I saw ordinary people and they looked dark and sludgy. I then saw practitioners walking among them like radiating kings. The newspaper office looked like a kingdom.

Then I saw the paper. It's difficult to describe how beautiful it was.

It was layers and layers of colorful jewels, intricately laid. It was stunning. I remember thinking that even selling something so priceless was not right. I had to remind myself that it was to save sentient beings that we give it to ordinary people, but it still seemed amazing that we would give people something so valuable.

For a while, there was a lot of discussion about the paper, particularly the bad thoughts practitioners had about it's quality. I also had these thoughts. A quote from "Essentials for Further Advancement" came to mind.

Master said in "What is Mi Xin,"

"Without mi xin in discipline, soldiers would not have combative abilities; without mi xin in their schools and teachers, students would not acquire knowledge; without mi xin in their parents, children would not be brought up well-mannered; without mi xin in their careers, people would not do a good job in their work. Without beliefs, human beings would have no moral standards; the human mind would not have good thoughts and it would be overcome by wicked thoughts."

I understood that without mi xin in our work, and in the projects we work on, we would not be able to do well.

For myself, I realized that having mi xin or true belief in what I do, and in the paper, is directly tied to how well I can improve and how well I can fulfill my responsibility to save sentient beings through this work.

Thank you all.