Cultivating Away Human Notions Amidst Doing Media Work

(Minghui.org) Master stated: “If you do not change the human logic that you, as an ordinary human, have formed deep in your bones over thousands of years, you will be unable to break away from this superficial human shell and reach Consummation.” (“Cautionary Advice” from Essentials for Further Advancement)

I would like to share with fellow practitioners the detours I took on my cultivation path from the angle of getting rid of human notions.

Overcoming Difficulties

I was involved in research before practicing Falun Gong. When a practitioner suggested I write for the Epoch Times (ET) newspaper in 2001 I refused because I felt I was of poor enlightenment quality. Not until the publication of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party in 2004 did I realize the importance of making good use of everyday people's media as a platform to spread information about Falun Gong. Therefore, I studied how to write news reports and do website editing.

We decided to launch a weekly publication on current affairs in late 2006, because we wanted to sell the paper to those average people in society. It was Christmas Eve and I had no clue on how to write articles for publication. I surfed the Internet and found some training materials on how to write. From then on I went to work during the day, and wrote articles for ET after work, as well as did website editing work in the evenings and on weekends. Besides that I took care of my son, did house chores and participated in local Falun Gong activities.

Time was very tight. I was very tired and I had frequent headaches, especially when I could not meet my ET deadlines. To meet the deadlines, I began to send righteous thoughts, do the exercises, and sometimes I had to send righteous thoughts up to six times when writing one article.

I quit my well-paying regular job in 2011 and worked for ET full time. I sat in front of the computer about 15 hours daily. My eyes hurt and I could not even keep them open when eating food. I reminded myself that I should not get stressed by these difficulties on my cultivation path towards godhood. I can now manage to write around 5,000 words on a daily basis. It is clear to me that this is entirely because of the blessings and guidance by Master.

Cultivation Taking Backseat

I didn’t have much time to study the Fa. I mainly listened to Master’s Fa lectures while cooking or doing house chores. There was little time to do the exercises and I only did them on Saturdays.

I looked for excuses, although I knew that the Fa cultivates us and our gong would increase as long as we upgraded our xinxing. Furthermore, I was hindered by the human notion that I needed seven hours of sleep daily.

Thanks to fellow practitioners who maintain the morning Fa study session, I could break through this notion of mine. It was very difficult to get up on time. During the Shen Yun promotion, I gritted my teeth and managed to get up and that guaranteed my daily Fa study.

When I had problems with my eyes, I noticed that my physical body was not cultivated well. I looked aged and haggard. My hair turned gray and my teeth became loose. I had not realized that I needed to do the exercises.

Master emphasized: “Cultivate with the heart you once had, and Consummation is certain.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2013 Greater New York Fa Conference”)

In fact, Master already mentioned in 2009: “That is why it's said that always cultivating as if you were just starting will surely result in achieving your ultimate rank.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2009 Greater New York International Fa Conference”)

Before I emigrated from Beijing in 1997, I got up around 4:00 a.m. and went to the practice site. Why could I not get up early now? It was human notions and the attachment to comfort that obstructed me. I changed my schedule, went to bed at half past eleven and got up at quarter to four. I did the total set of exercises and then joined the Fa study on the Internet. I felt relaxed and my eyes no longer hurt.

Believing in Master and Fa; Letting Go of Validating Myself

I had a very strong rebellious mind when I was little and was ready to leave my home at the age of six. Cultivation taught me that the biggest sin for humans was to disrespect Gods and Deities.

I learned many types of qigong and had strong thought karma. I dared not look at Master's picture in the early years on my cultivation path. Bad thoughts popped up when I looked at Master's picture. I even called some unknown person master in my dreams. I realized that I had to eliminate my thought karma. I kept saying in my mind, “I'm a Fa-rectification disciple of Master Li Hongzhi. I have only one Master.” I repeated this in my mind for 20 days before I overcame this thought karma.

When I read Zhuan Falun more than a decade ago, every time I read “One’s gong level is as high as one’s xinxing level, ...” (Zhuan Falun)

It was difficult to understand when Master said, “I told him to climb up further. He said, "I can’t do it. I don’t dare to climb any further, and I’m unable to climb any further." Why? It is because his gong column was only that high, and he had reached there by sitting atop his gong column.” (Zhuan Falun)

Master knew that the practitioner's gong column was only that high, but why did Master still ask him to “climb up further.” Then, I suddenly realized that as long as we truly and fully believe in Master and the Fa, do whatever Master says at that moment, our gong column will increase, and we will be able to climb up further.

This opened my mind further. When I encountered difficulties in my early days of cultivation, I never begged for help from Master. Superficially I did not want to trouble Master with my trivial problems, but as I dug further, I noticed that there was an enlarged attachment of selfishness hidden underneath. I was validating myself instead of validating the greatness of Master and this cultivation practice with a pure and clean mind.

I knelt down, greeted Master and burned incense every morning. Although I do not possess any supernormal abilities, I truly feel the presence of Master around me at all times. I could not help but cry each time I thought that after 1999, everything that has happened is because of Master’s tremendous sacrifice. Therefore, I dared not slack off even a little bit.

Eliminating Financial Interference by the Old Forces

I longed for cultivation and practice from a young age. I had never thought about being wealthy. Master emphasized on many occasions that our media needed to make a proper way forward financially. However, I initially felt that these words were for fellow practitioners who were involved in advertisement sales. Then, when I heard Master’s words in 2007, I began to question myself.

Master said:

“As you are Dafa disciples, whatever it is you are asked to do--be it writing articles, distributing materials, or going out to the streets--you can do it well. But it seems that if you are asked to visit potential clients and do sales and marketing, you don't want to.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2007 New York Fa Conference”)

After the New York lecture, I asked myself why I did not want to do the work that Master asked us to do. Didn’t we say that we would do whatever Master asks?

I then thought about doing business. When I started out, I lacked the determination to eliminate the financial interference arranged by the old forces. This state of mind dragged fellow practitioners and me down until 2009, prior to our second year of the Shen Yun tour.

It was very expensive to print Shen Yun posters during the first Shen Yun tour. Therefore, we decided to purchase a large printer to cut down on the high printing costs. We planned to print the Shen Yun posters at home, but the printer was of an industrial standard and too large to fit at home. Therefore, we needed to set up a company and rent an office.

I firmly hold the thought that a Falun Gong disciple should do well in whatever he or she does. If we don’t understand how to do business, we would have to learn everything from scratch.

On the average, of newly established companies in the United Kingdom (UK), only 15 percent survive. Thanks to fellow practitioners’ hard work, not only has our company survived, but we took on all printing for the displays and exhibits needed for practitioners' activities and Shen Yun promotions in the UK and many European countries. We provided employment opportunities for some of our fellow practitioners and thus solved their problems in finding jobs.

Our company was voted by the British government as No. 11 among the top 50 strong female-run companies with the fastest growth in the UK on March 8, 2015. We all understood it was the result of Master’s compassionate blessings.

I always take Falun Gong flyers with me when going out, and {clarify the truth}} about Falun Gong to people, even at business meetings. In the past, I was hindered by my human notions. I was embarrassed to mention Falun Gong.

Master said,

“An ordinary fear is an attachment that needs to be eliminated through cultivation practice. Yet you are afraid of others finding out that you're learning Dafa? Cultivation practice is a very serious matter. How should you regard yourself and the Fa?” (“Environment” from Essentials for Further Advancement)

Master also said:

“Do not think that others will fail to understand you if you learn Dafa. Think about it: Even people's claim that they have evolved from apes is able to be highly regarded. Yet with this great Dafa of the universe, you are embarrassed to give it a correct position--this is human beings' true shame.” (“Environment” from Essentials for Further Advancement)

Walking Away from the CCP Brainwashing

Over the past decade, my main work was writing articles. Led by the attachment to doing things, I felt our media had done quite well. After I heard Master’s criticism of our media in the New York Fa lecture in 2014, I was thunderstruck and it was very painful. I thought the media that we worked so hard for could save more people. However, unintentionally it turned out to be counter-productive.

Master said:

“And especially in the case of the media, if you use those Party-culture theories, terminology, or line of reasoning, then that amounts to spreading the Party’s culture. So you need to pay attention to these things.” (“Fa Teaching on World Falun Dafa Day”)

I looked within and discovered that many of my words and actions were very warped. For example, I forced my son to study the Fa, so he told me that I was like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). I was not in the state of non-action or following the course of nature, but I was very strong. My competitive mentality and attachment to losing face remained very strong. During the Shen Yun European Tour I realized why Master arranged for me to do media reports: So I could get rid of the CCP brainwashing.

Letting Go of Sentimentality to Family

Losing the attachment to family was the most difficult. For the first 10 years, my husband interfered with me. In recent years, my son helped me with my cultivation. At the beginning, I treated my son as a cultivator and was very strict with him. I absolutely refused to buy him those deviated toys and the weird looking clothes. When he felt very lonely and wanted a pet, I refused to get him one. I was very strict with him and I studied the Fa with him. However, it came with consequences. He started to rebel after he started middle school. He learned to tell lies. He appeared to do well on the surface but he did bad things secretly.

I began to punish him with even more serious means but it resulted in him becoming worse. My son said that I never praised him. I didn’t think it over at that time and even said to him: “You have done so many bad things, how can I praise you?” In the end, my negative method of education made my son become worse and worse. I eventually began to enlighten to Master’s words, “ Coercion Cannot Change People’s Hearts” from a different level.

Looking within, I found my innate weaknesses because of the CCP brainwashing, as well as my strong human sentimentality towards my son. Meanwhile, I feared that he would malign Falun Gong. Eventually, I realized that he saw things differently because he was brought up in the West. It also could be the generation gap, or karmic retribution. No matter what, he is here to help me cultivate my forbearance and compassion. I need to maintain a compassionate and peaceful mind at all times. I should not develop negative thoughts no matter how he behaves.

It took me a long time to overcome this attachment. When committing a wrongdoing, he would be severely criticized by using the principle of truthfulness. However, I might not have done well with compassion, let alone forbearance. I now understand that cultivating “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance” simultaneously is the most difficult. Our path is very narrow which does not allow us to go astray even a little bit.

Attachment to Changing Others But Not Self

The Party culture talks about criticism and self-criticism. They are indeed bad kinds of things, but obscured. They make people go against each other because of selfishness. The Buddha School talks about benevolence and we talk about studying the Fa and positive encouragement.

Not long ago, the Cambridge City government informed us that under British law, we must hold banners during our protest activities in front of King's College, and we could not fix the banners and displays at a certain place. My first thought was negative, because we had fixed the banners there for over a decade. Why did they come up with such a new requirement now.

I wrote to Members of Parliament, listing all kinds of reasons, such as we are short of manpower, elderly practitioners do not have the strength to hold banners, Chinese people dare not take informational flyers because their minds have been poisoned by the Communist Party, and banners are the only way to spread the information. I requested that the city government give us a special permit.

I thought I had strong righteous thoughts, but later I found that I had an attachment of always wanting to change others, and not changing myself. At the same time, I disregarded the law, and thought that cultivators were superior to non-practitioners, a mentality that stemmed from the Communist brainwashing. I also found my competitive mentality.

After our discussion among fellow practitioners, we decided to stand there holding the banners. The results were good, because the energy field became stronger.

I understand that I ignored looking within, and only emphasized sending righteous thoughts when I encountered obstacles. I also failed to position well the relationship between cultivators and non-practitioners. Master teaches us to cultivate Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance simultaneously. I feel we cultivators should be humble but should not have a sense of being superior, so as to be able to save people.

All Sentient Beings Came for the Fa

When we did not find a theater to hold Shen Yun shows and when sending righteous thoughts, I took the managers of the theater as opponents, as if we wanted to take over the theater. I later understood that sentient beings all came for the Fa, and our relationship should be like shoulder to shoulder but not being on opposite sides.

As we did not do well in our media work, I had a bitter feeling for a period of time. I realized that I was wrong when I attended the last Fa conference, and listened to practitioners from Kaohsiung, Taiwan happily shared their experiences of holding Shen Yun performances. Master taught us,

“If you do not care and do not put them on your mind, with the master and the Fa here what is there to fear? As long as the green mountains remain, there is no fear of having no firewood to burn. Ignore them! Once you give them up, you will find that the tribulations have become smaller and you have become bigger. You will overcome them in one step, and the tribulations will become nothing. It is guaranteed to be this way. If one cannot overcome them, it is actually that he cannot give up the attachments or does not believe in the Fa.” (Lecture in Sydney)

When I looked within, I felt that I still did not have strong faith in Master and the Fa. I later changed my notions and I felt brighter. I can gradually experience the realm Master describes in his poem,

Holding the wheel with arms roundedI stand towering between heaven 'n earthLooking down at the human worldPlanet Earth looks like a tiny pelletThe Three Realms under my feetThe world's people in dustWhat's difficult about transcending the world?Disciples feel it's hard to sever attachments(“Holding The Wheel” from HongYin III)

I feel very fortunate to be a Falun Gong disciple during Master’s Fa rectification period. I truly hope I can become a tranquil particle within Falun Gong and walk well on our final cultivation path.

Thank you Master, thank you fellow practitioners.