Practicing Cultivation During Project Collaboration

(Minghui.org) I have participated in a Falun Dafa project for the past year or so, and have gained new understanding about truly practicing cultivation.

Working on a project is mind-tempering. Before I was involved, I didn’t think it was a big deal other than doing some work. When the time came to actually cooperate with others, I realized that this thinking was completely wrong.

The first thing I needed to learn was to cultivate my speech. In the past, I didn’t have a clear understanding of cultivating speech, and talked a lot regardless of appropriateness, but now it’s different. For safety reasons, I could not talk about the project with my family or practitioners who were not involved.

I used to go to the Fa study groups a lot, and participated in the experience sharing, and I developed a habit of talking. I now tell myself to be careful because too much talking could have serious consequences. I gradually reduced the frequency of attending Fa study groups, and became less talkative. I was eventually able to cultivate my speech. My fellow practitioners on the project felt relieved.

Everything practitioners do is a process of cultivating our hearts, and so was this project. I enthusiastically put in a lot of time at first, but gained very little. Problems kept popping up which overwhelmed me, and I could hardly carry on.

I said to Biyu (pseudonym), the practitioner in charge of the project, “I can’t do this any longer.” She persuaded me to study the Fa more, and told me it would get better as my xinxing continued to improve. I followed my heart and stayed on the project.

As I studied the Fa and looked inward, I discovered a lot of attachments, including ego, lust, showing off, and so on. I realized that validating Dafa was different from doing ordinary people’s work, and nothing can be accomplished without cultivating one’s heart.

Things indeed changed for the better after a short while. I attended a group Fa study one day and was going to talk with Biyu about something. After the Fa study, before I had an opportunity to talk to her, another practitioner threw a fit at her and accused her of a lot of things.

Biyu tried to explain, but could not get her thoughts across, so she left, as did other practitioners, leaving behind me and the practitioner who had the tantrum. The latter then threw her tantrum at me and asked me to give her an explanation. I didn’t get upset. I explained the issue to her patiently. I was calm, and she gradually calmed down. The issue was resolved.

When I worked on the project again, I had a big breakthrough. Biyu told me, “Have you realized that once you raised your xinxing amid conflicts, you have increased your level, and then you made a breakthrough?”

Master said,

“Cultivation depends on one’s own efforts, while the transformation of gong is done by one’s master.” (Lecture One, Zhuan Falun)

I learned a lot as the project moved forward. At the same time, many human attachments were exposed, and conflicts arose.

I was very attentive to the project and details, so I caught up on techniques, even though I joined the project much later than others.

When others were of a different opinion, I always opposed them rather than listening to them patiently, always thinking I knew better, and that they should listen to me. When Biyu commented, I said okay, but was actually upset. At that time, I had become very irrational - I wanted to do whatever I wanted, and was quite sure I was right.

Cultivation practice is challenging because whatever kind of human attachment you have, you will meet up with this kind of people, I often worked with practitioner Lifen (pseudonym) on the project, so we knew each other very well. When I shared my thoughts with her, she was very supportive of me. She said she would support anything good for validating Dafa.

One day we came into contact with some practitioners from out of town, and learned some techniques. We gradually established a connection with them. At first, they were too shy to ask us to do anything, but later on, upon seeing that we were running things smoothly, they asked us for a favor. We agreed, because it didn't seem to be too much work.

It nonetheless put some pressure on us, especially when the workload was combined with our existing workload. I decided to divide it up over several batches. I delivered the first batch smoothly and safely.

While doing the second batch, Lifen told Biyu about it, and the latter was very upset. She was worried about me and the safety of the entire project, because she knew my cultivation state, and she often told us about cases where fellow practitioners who worked across regions failing to handle things well, and ended up being persecuted by evil, causing great losses to the one body.

She asked Lifen, “How could you be so irrational and just do whatever you are asked? We have to be responsible for the one body and for our fellow practitioners.” In the end, she told me to stop what I was doing for the out of town practitioners.

I was very frustrated and did not understand practitioner Biyu’s decision. Some time later I came to understand that she was right, because it would have been very dangerous had I continued. At the same time, I saw my stubborn attachment – I was doing what I wanted to do under the name of validating Dafa, and was causing trouble for the one body.

Lifen was very easy-going and therefore was my go-to person. Although the work had been stopped, I still wanted to finish what I promised to the fellow practitioners from out of town. We agreed to meet with a practitioner from out of town.

When we went to the practitioner’s home out of town, I noticed a big problem. About ten minutes into the conversation, I saw that the practitioner’s cell phone was not far from her. I questioned her as to why she wasn’t paying attention to cell phone safety, but she was very unconcerned.

To be on the safe side, Lifen and I left her house. Not far from her house, we saw a police vehicle approaching, and then a few police officers getting out and walking toward her house. I was very nervous, but Lifen was calm. We quickly called a taxi and left.

We figured that this practitioner had been under surveillance, and if we didn’t leave her house soon that day, we would have been in big trouble. I suggested that Lifen contact other practitioners in the area to have them persuade that practitioner to be more rational, so as to save a lot of trouble for the one body.

Lifen quickly got a hold of the coordinator of the area, but was told that this practitioner (whom we just visited) had never taken the surveillance seriously because she believed her righteous thoughts were strong, and she held no fear. There was nothing we could do!

This incident had a great impact on me, and I felt in my heart that Biyu was indeed being considerate of me and of the one body. My previous thought about her trying to hinder me completely dissipated.

With my improved xinxing, my project was running smoothly again. I later found out that practitioner Lifen was still working with the practitioner we had met out of town. I shared my understanding with Lifen several times and suggested that she stop, but she ignored me. She said she should act when there was a need from that group. I had to be quiet.

I recently heard something happened to the practitioner from out of town. When her car was being repaired it was discovered her car had been bugged by the evil. She was arrested but was soon released, however quite a few practitioners who had worked with her were arrested and still are detained, causing big loss to the one body.

I heard that Lifen was suffering great tribulations at home too.

Collaborating with fellow practitioners over the past year has given me a new understanding about true cultivation. I will walk my path more smoothly and will do better in the future.