(Minghui.org) While sharing recently with fellow practitioners, I discovered a lack of righteous understanding when it comes to making truth-clarification materials.
I made these informational materials to inform the Chinese public about the persecution of Falun Gong. Each time I downloaded materials from Minghui.org, my heart felt the solemnity. The process of collecting raw materials, editing, and laying out the content was a collaboration of practitioners in and outside of China. It was a process of xinxing improvement.
As I made more materials and acquired more skills, however, I relaxed my requirements for my xinxing. Many attachments emerged. I didn't even realize that many of my ideas and approaches had deviated from the Fa.
Making Materials According to My Personal Preferences
Minghui.org offers comprehensive content. As I made more materials, I started judging the content, “This is good. Practitioners would like to distribute it.” “That pendant piece looks nice. I should make more of it.”
I started developing preferences and cherry-picking truth-clarification content. I rejected fellow practitioners' suggestions that we should cover a broader range of content. I now realize that my personal preferences were not based on the Fa, but stemmed from my human attachments. I wasn't thinking from the standpoint of saving sentient beings.
Master taught us in Zhuan Falun:
“What is calligraphy qigong? I went over there to take a look and saw a person there writing. Upon writing, he gave off his qi to each word with his hands, and the qi emitted was all black. His mind was preoccupied with money and fame. How could he have gong? His qi could not be good, either. His writings were hung up with expensive price tags. But they were all sold to foreigners. I would say that whoever bought them would be miserable. How could the black qi be good? That person’s whole face looked dark. He was obsessed with money and only thought about money—how could he have any gong?”
The mindset we have while making truth-clarification materials is very important. Even if we are doing the greatest thing in the world, if our standpoint is wrong and our mind is not righteous, we will not be able to save sentient beings.
Trying to Be “Unconventional”
As I acquired more skills I started thinking that Minghui's materials were not as good as I had thought. I often wanted to revise the content or create something unique. I didn't listen to other practitioners' kind reminders. I didn't realize that the process of making informational materials is a very important process of collaboration.
Master has affirmed the importance of Minghui.org in the Fa. The content the website publishes must be very good. Then why do I have to do something unique and create something different? If I really deem an issue very important, I can discuss it with Minghui from the perspective of saving time and reducing the workload for practitioners who volunteer at Minghui.
In addition Master has reminded us about copyright issues many times. We cannot casually deal with the copyright just because we are all Falun Dafa practitioners. The practitioners who distribute the materials don't necessarily know the details behind the production. They don't consider whether it's my own materials or materials from Minghui. They simply distribute the materials. If the materials are distributed as Minghui materials, the content should not be casually altered.
So many practitioners have invested a lot of time, wisdom, and skills into the work of Minghui. We should compliment their work instead of offsetting its impact.
Wasting Resources
Material sites are funded by the savings of practitioners. These practitioners lead a thrifty life to save money to contribute to the sites.
We should budget resources before making materials, especially before a large-scale operation. We should do what we can with what we have. For projects that cost a lot of money and require a lot of labor, we should first be clear on the impact. We shouldn't do things for the sake of doing things, or commit resources based on unverified personal assumptions.
Wasting Dafa resources is a sin, whether it's our own money or fellow practitioners' money.
Minding the End Result
Master has often mentioned the difficulty of saving people.
It is indeed very hard. For example, people don't take our brochures if they don't think positively about the Fa. People are more likely to take calendars or pendants because many people want nice-looking and useful things for free.
Some practitioners like the fact that people don't reject these materials. These practitioners are happy because they can distribute all materials they have and leave sooner. This gives those who make truth-clarification materials an impression: we should produce more if the items are well received.
But we have also seen that many people don't cherish the items. For example, some people carve out the characters about Dafa or throw the pendants away if they lose color due to long-term exposure to the sun. This shows that these people have not truly understood the truth.
These pendants are not issued by Minghui and they take a lot of resources to make. Some practitioners who make these pendants emphasize the artistic design too much; words about Dafa are made too small or unclear. I doubt the impact of such items in validating the Fa.
Master taught us in “Fa Teaching Given at the 2015 New York Fa Conference:”
“Yet some students don’t act in line with Dafa but instead do things in ordinary ways. And worse still, when they do become aware of their own faults they think it’s nothing significant and just brush them aside. But the old forces won’t turn a blind eye to those things. They will hold you to the standards for a cultivator; they will hold you to the standards for the lives of the future. So do you think they will be all right with it if you use the standards of ordinary people to evaluate yourself or govern yourself? They won’t. And this is why some people have met with so many ordeals and troubles, and some have even passed away without knowing why.”
We make truth-clarification materials out of kindness. Our collective goal is to save more people. But we are also cultivators. We have to adhere to the standards of cultivators. No matter how much work we do, we cannot deviate from the Fa.
The above is my personal understanding. I have written it down to share with fellow practitioners on the Fa. Please kindly point out anything inappropriate.
Category: Improving Oneself
