Doing Things Is Not Cultivation

(Minghui.org) Dafa practitioners work on different projects to save people, using our talents and abilities. We may come across difficulties, but if we cultivate ourselves based on the Fa, we can overcome them all.

One project I’m involved with is a team of practitioners producing calendars that clarify the truth about Dafa and the persecution. One year, we made seven big boxes of calendars but no practitioners came to collect them for distribution. We were not sure what was wrong.

We stopped work to focus on studying the Fa and looking inward. When we studied the following paragraph, we understood everything.

Master said,

“What you are working on is not cultivation in and of itself. Be it the businesses you own, your Dafa projects, or whatever it is you do—they are not cultivation in their own right. What makes something cultivation is the attitude that you bring to it and the way that you deal with and resolve any issues, namely, by applying the standards for a practicing Dafa disciple!” (“Fa Teaching at the 2019 New York Fa Conference”)

We asked ourselves, “What was our attitude while making the calendars?” We were talking about practical stuff in our everyday lives, like money and housing. We realized that our thoughts while making the calendars should be pure, and focused on saving people. We took all the calendars out and sent forth righteous thoughts towards them, eliminating any unrighteous elements and factors that were interfered with when awakening the conscience of sentient beings.

The next day, practitioners came to collect the calendars, and ordered two more boxes. When one of our team members later joined us and discovered that the calendars were all gone, he said, “Apparently we should study the Fa more! Only when we cultivate based on the Fa can we truly resolve problems.”

We found that some of the practitioners who came to collect the calendars didn’t have correct understandings of Fa-rectification and were lingering in a state of self-cultivation. Others didn’t have a pure and justified motive for distributing the calendars. In order to do this project well, we sent forth righteous thoughts more. We went to the regions where the practitioners were distributing the calendars to help them send forth righteous thoughts, especially when they were experiencing interference.

We had the same issue when we made the calendars again the next year. We felt that our mentality was much better after the previous year’s lessons and couldn’t understand why we were still encountering problems. We stopped work and studied the Fa.

Master said:

“The evil doesn't dare to interfere in this very weighty matter where people are making a choice that determines their survival or destruction, but the evil elements are interfering with message transmission and reception capacity.” (“Teachings at the 2005 Conference in San Francisco”)

We thought that perhaps some practitioners still didn’t know about the calendars, or could not find people who wanted them. We began to send forth righteous thoughts targeting the evil elements interfering with the “message transmission and reception capacity.” Within a couple of days, all the calendars were collected.

Master said:

“As true practitioners,we should look at issues from a very high level instead of from the perspective of everyday people.” (Lecture Six, Zhuan Falun)

Having cultivated to today’s stage, we should jump out of the mentality of everyday people and view issues from the standpoint of the Fa. Only then can we separate ourselves from the old cosmos and stop being everyday people.