Cultivating Myself and Quietly Improving as a Tian Guo Marching Band Member

(Minghui.org) Greetings Master! Greetings fellow practitioners!

I joined the band when Master (Master Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Dafa) came to San Francisco to set up the Western U.S. Tian Guo Marching Band. I chose the snare drum as my instrument. Recalling those days when the band was founded, time has flown. It seems that in the blink of an eye, we are about to enter our 16^th year.

My cultivation journey has not been filled with earth-shattering or dramatic moments. Instead it is a story of quiet perseverance.

My Journey Begins

I feel that I have fulfilled the promise I made to Master when I accepted the Tian Guo Marching Band cap from him. I am sincerely thankful for this unique way of clarifying the truth. I’m also grateful for this cultivation environment with Tian Guo Marching Band members. I really cherish this opportunity and I feel that this is just where I belong.

Master said, 

“From the start, I have been teaching in a way that’s responsible both to those who want to learn our practice and society. It has gone quite well, and the practice has had a widely positive impact.” (The First Talk, Zhuan Falun)

I still remember when the Tian Guo Marching Band was begun in New York. I really admired the band members, and I longed to participate. I was very excited when Master came to San Francisco. Every night after work I joined the practice sessions. I felt full of energy. The instrument that I chose was the snare drum. At that time, I thought that it would be easy and take less time to learn, so it would not take too much time from my other truth-clarification projects.

I was excited and practiced diligently for awhile. However, my passion gradually faded, and laziness started to kick in. I felt that since I had already learned all the musical pieces, there was little need to practice. The practice location was so far away that I didn’t feel like attending. I felt that all I needed to do was just participate in parades. At that time, I was not the only one who had this kind of thinking. After a few years, the number of people dwindled from over 200 to only 20 to 30 members.

I still remember one practice session. The band was assigned to play a very difficult piece. I looked at the snare drum’s score and saw that I did not know how to read those notes. Taking a look around, I saw that there were only just over 20 people. The conductor stood on the stand and said in a worried tone, “There are so few people, how do we continue?” I felt that this project had come to its end. In just a few years’ time, we were already going to lose this precious project that Master bestowed on us. How could this be called “assisting Master”? 

Later, new musical pieces came and that gave us some further motivation. It was only then that I realized playing the snare drum was actually difficult. The band major began training us in our techniques. Although he did everything to help us, there wasn’t much improvement. After persisting like that for a period of time, a professional conductor brought us a different training method. This helped resolve our crisis to a certain extent. First we needed to improve our technique. Every instrument section needed to look for a professional teacher to teach us. 

I chose the snare drum because I felt that it was easy. However, there is no success without sacrifice. Initially, the difficulty lay in taking the hardship on the body. This was the least difficult part. During the group practice, the other members could practice while sitting down. However, for the percussion section, all of us had to stand for five hours while carrying our drums. The longer we carried the drum, the heavier it felt. Based on my status as a veteran band member, I was the first to raise an objection to this arrangement. I thought that this was something that no one could achieve. In the end, the other members were really able to carry their drums throughout the entire practice. This forced me to suppress my incorrect notion of not wanting to endure any physical hardship.

Next, we needed to improve our technique. For a long time, my technique stopped at maintaining an accurate rhythm. When we had to play the complicated “Star-Spangled Banner” my concept changed. When the professional teacher came, he first took an encouraging approach. After a long time we were being asked to practice the very basic quaver beats. He did not show us any difficult techniques so I thought he was not very diligent in teaching us. He finally told us that our technique was bad. It was so bad that he wasn’t sure if he could even help us learn the basics. After hearing this, I felt remorseful. Even the teacher was putting more heart into this than us and I was even making matters worse by not attending most of the practice sessions.

Experiencing “Tempering the Will”

After that realization, I practiced very hard. That was six years ago and I am still in the process of learning and improving my technique. During this process, I experienced what Master talked about in “Tempering the Will” in Hong Yin. I originally did not have much interest in music. The normal practice was long periods of playing the beats. Such practice is jokingly referred to by the other practitioners as “chopping meat filling.” This kind of practice is not only boring but it also does not have any musical beauty. To make things worse, my hands did not listen to me. When I “chop,” the strength in my hands is not balanced, so the pitch of the beat was sometimes high and sometimes low. The more anxious I was to get it right, the more my hands refused to cooperate. 

For two years, no matter how I practiced, there was just no improvement. Some of the new members, who just came in and were very gifted, grasped the technique after being shown once and they were also able to maintain good rhythm. I had been in the band for so long but my playing was still so bad. Seeing them made me feel dejected.

I even imagined that a “miracle” would happen and I would suddenly grasp the technique. However, the “miracle” did not happen. To make matters worse my right wrist was injured and ached due to my inappropriate practice method. The injury even affected my everyday job. I felt very discouraged. I really did put in the effort but there was just no improvement. As I watched the original band members left the band. I also thought about resigning. I could say that I was old now and no longer suitable to play the snare drum anymore.

Luckily, the drum section members encouraged me and awakened my sense of responsibility. This slowly helped me come out of the slump. They encouraged me to persist in attending the group practice every week. 

I must mention that the band is a very good cultivation environment. It is not so much of cultivation improvement through conflicts but instead, everyone encourages each other. Every member has their own personality; some are clever, some have strong technique, some have a serious attitude and really put in a lot of effort. Others improve through sweat and toil. All these characteristics converge to form a righteous field. Because it is an environment that everyone puts in effort and sacrifice to maintain, I felt that it is also my responsibility to maintain it. 

When I was at my all-time low, whenever I opened Zhuan Falun, I saw the words “responsibility” and “forbearance.” After going through nearly two years of boring technique practice, I gained a deeper understanding. I understood that I needed to elevate to the next level. On the surface, it looks like normal practice but behind it is great energy. My snare drum is a Fa instrument that has allowed me to validate the Fa for 16 years and has great power. How many beings have this honor? There has not been this opportunity since the creation of Heaven and Earth and there will not be such chance anymore in the future either.

A “Miracle” Happened When I Changed My Notion

After changing my notion, I no longer felt depressed over not being able to play well. I became interested in percussion. Now, whenever I have time, I practice. My hands feel itchy if I do not practice. One day two years later, the “miracle,” which I once longed for, quietly happened. When I picked up my drumsticks to practice, I realized that I suddenly knew how to play a certain technique. It came very naturally.

Through these long 16 years, I went from being the youngest member in the snare drum section to the oldest and I am also the only snare drum player left from the time when the band was first founded.

Eliminating Selfishness

Because I am considered a “veteran” member in my section, the title of section leader landed on my shoulders. The title may sound grand but it means that I do all the lowly jobs that others are not willing to do. Big or small matters, I must manage all of them. Be it the daily technique practice, detailed arrangements for the parades, the setting up and keeping of the instruments every time, the wear and tear of or loss of uniforms and props, my own cultivation or the xinxing tests that the other members meet with, all these are under my scope of responsibility. My character is one that does not like to be restrained and I’m indifferent to others. This responsibility kept helping me to expand my capacity and eliminate my selfishness. This responsibility also made me spend more time on others than on myself.

I needed to take care of the three sections that form the percussion section. When the members needed to talk to me, they had to line up. The other members can just leave whenever they have matters to attend to but I need to be responsible for my band mates. I feel that I have to attend every practice. I also need to find a teacher to give us lessons.

For many years, the snare drum section changed members. More than 50 people have joined the section since the band was founded. Every time a new member joins us, I need to spend extra time to train him/her. When he/she finally gets the hang of it, they leave. Some members kept leaving and coming back. These xinxing tests helped to strengthen my endurance.

I also want to mention that I feel very lucky that I am able to have the chance to create and maintain this project along with the current and past Tian Guo Marching Band members, so that I am able to cultivate and fulfill my promise. 

(Presented at the Western U.S. Tian Guo Marching Band Fa Conference)