(Clearwisdom.net)
Greetings respected Master!
Greetings fellow practitioners!
Since April last year, I have been doing translations for a truth-clarifying website. I would like to tell you how I came to do this Dafa work and also some of my insights and experiences.
In August 2002, my fiancée (at that time a non-practitioner) and I traveled overseas to a foreign country. We wanted to travel and get some work experiences abroad. However, we found no job. Actually, that didn't bother me, because in some way I knew, that this journey was meant for my cultivation in the Fa rectification period. In the first week of living in that country, I contacted local practitioners and stayed with them for about 7 months. It also happened that my fiancée became a practitioner as well. Together with the local practitioners, we studied the Fa, practiced the exercises, sent forth righteous thoughts and clarified the truth. This had a big impact on both of us. I also studied different Dafa websites, because I wanted to get some ideas for my diploma in media education and therefore collect materials as well. During the whole time, I remembered parts of a dream I had before I went to the country. In this dream, Master told me, that I had to do and learn certain things in the country. I can't remember exactly, but one thing was, that I should learn the English language.
When I was back in my own country, I wanted to volunteer to do something for Dafa. The first time, I didn't live close to other practitioners and there was some difficulty to get truth clarification materials. So I thought that I should visit Dafa websites again. Fortunately, I found some articles with email addresses from the persecutors and was able to write emails to them to clarify the truth. Unfortunately, there were not email addresses posted on them that often, so I had to look for some other task I could do. I remembered the dream I had and indeed, I had learned more English. Then I wrote an email to a truth-clarifying website and expressed my wish, to volunteer to do translations of Chinese articles to English. Since then, I translate 3-5 articles daily. Most of them are about the persecution.
Next I would like to talk about some tribulations I experienced. When I received the first set of feedback for my translations, I reacted very sensitively. But I must also say, that at the same time I wanted to receive feedback to improve myself. The feedback came by email and only contained a few words. For example, the emails would say that this and that wording could be better and asked what my opinion would be or that I should read through my translations again, after I finished them. That sounds like nothing, but it hit some attachments of mine, for example, that my work wasn't able to be finished as perfect as I wanted it to be done. I also thought of doing less translation, in order to avoid the sting of criticism and to keep someone off my back. As a practitioner, I knew I shouldn't avoid conflicts. I tried to stay calm and improve my translations and of course raise my xinxing [moral character, mind nature]. Now, when I get feedback, I'm able to see that it's necessary in order to produce the best quality translations for Falun Dafa purposes, instead of being stuck in my emotions and self protection attachments.
When I began working on translations, the university semester hadn't started yet. I had more than enough time, but later, I felt that I started to have trouble balancing my time. I didn't attend as many university seminars as I wanted and I did not have much time for the people around me. Sometimes I again thought of doing less translation. Two good things happened that helped me out of this situation. My fiancée also started to do help me with the translations. When I was short of time, she made the first effort with the translations and I only had to proofread her work. Now she translates regularly. The other good thing was that a lecturer at the university offered me a job as his assistant. My fiancée and I decided that I should take this job. Now I have my own office and free access to the Internet. Thus I can translate articles in between seminars or whenever I have time. Without this job, I had to go home to do translations or wait a long time to get a free seat in a computer room. Having this job, studying media education and doing translations for a Dafa website give me a very good environment to validate the Fa and clarify the truth. For example when there are discussions about global communication and media or discussions about Internet communication, I have always something to say and can share my personal experiences.
I also remember a time, when I used being busy with translations as an excuse. Sometimes I didn't want to help with other efforts for Dafa or didn't want to do work together with particular practitioners. Of course, that was not good. I realized this attachment and impure mentality along with its bad influence on the translations and got rid off it.
Most of the time, my fiancée and I are a good team. But sometimes, there are conflicts between us. For example: She's not that experienced with English grammar and I always correct her texts, before we submit them. When her cultivation state isn't that good or she is preoccupied with a mental burden, she makes more mistakes. When I'm also not in a good cultivation state, I easily lose my temper. Sometimes it has been real demon nature that came out of my mouth. I always feel bad afterwards. She has helped me so much and at times, I have shown no compassion and no tolerance toward her. But things are improving. We are able to treat our conflicts as opportunities to realize our attachments and to improve our xinxing together.
From the feedback we received for our translations, we came to realize, that the quality of our texts is linked to our cultivation state. When we both aren't in a good cultivation state and working with a pure heart, there were more corrections. When we had studied the Fa well and were in the Fa, the feedback we received was good and there were nearly no corrections. The work is also done much faster and easier, when we think of the others that these articles are written about. That is, we want to give the practitioners persecuted in China a voice in another language through our work. We try to translate as well as possible in order to create less work for the practitioners who correct the articles, and we try to think of the readers, so that they have a good article to read and are able to understand the truth of the persecution against Falun Dafa. We came to understand, that we have a responsibility. Because we translate everyday, it's hard to meet this standard all the time, but we try.
We both regard doing translation work as our main task to assist Dafa. For us, everything seems to be arranged in this way: Our journey to the foreign country and the help and inspiration we received from local practitioners and the job at the university. We are thankful to Master for everything he has done for us. When I was in the foreign country one practitioner always reminded me of the three things we have to do now. I hope all of us are able to reach this standard and do what we are supposed to do.
Thank you.
01/19/2004