(Clearwisdom.net)
Greetings to Master and fellow practitioners!
I consider myself very fortunate to be attending this special experience sharing conference. While I do feel happy and do cherish this opportunity, I am also filled with shame. The conference coordinators asked everyone to write an experience sharing article, and this invoked a sense of responsibility in me--the responsibility of contributing to the conference's success and being a part of the entire body of cultivators. When I compare myself with those fellow practitioners here who have quietly shouldered enormous amounts of work over lengthy spans of time, overcoming lonesome working environments, and diligently and selflessly making sacrifices to ensure Minghui.net's smooth operation, I feel as though there is a wide gap between them and myself. When I compare myself with the fellow practitioners who are advancing diligently in the Fa, I often feel ashamed, and I want to take this opportunity to first express my highest respect for those practitioners!
Although it seems only an instant, nearly five years have already past since the establishment of Minghui.net. I have contributed at times to this website. Yet Master has given so much, and there is no way I can repay him. Here I would like to share a few understandings based on my cultivation in the course of working with Minghui.net. I hope that you will correct me when necessary.
1. When we truly try to save all sentient beings, we will have the Fa's strength and wisdom.
When Master's comments regarding the article "Exposing the Local Evil to the Local People" were published, fellow practitioners in China grasped their significance, and they began clarifying the truth to local people and exposing the evil. To aid the Chinese pracitioners, Minghui.net's materials exposing the facts of the persecution over the last four-plus years were assembled and organized into different content areas so as to make them more easily accessible. After a short period of coordination, practitioners began to undertake this most important project.
When I sat down and truly read through the articles exposing the persecution since July 20, 1999 when the persecution began, I was shocked to discover that my knowledge and understanding of the facts in this area were far from adequate. In the past, I had always invented a variety of different excuses to justify only skimming over the articles in the "Facts of the Persecution" section. Sometimes I would quickly read only a few notorious or typical examples of persecution just for the purposes of clarifying the truth, and I would focus most of my attention on reading the articles where practitioners shared their experiences and insights. At the same time, I would read other types of articles based on my personal preference. After discovering this huge omission, I understood that it was probably not a coincidence that I was assigned the task of comprehensively organizing the facts of the persecution by area. I had too many omissions in this area, and I could now make amends through this work. However, I realized once I truly started working on this project and began to see some of the elements of cultivation that my extremely shallow and limited understanding could not do justice to the broad, deep significance of the persecution from a grander perspective.
Looking at the materials detailing the persecution, I realized that some of the areas would contain at least 1000 articles -- it was truly a daunting task. I had difficulty figuring out how to group the articles in order to best reflect the overall situation of the persecution against Dafa and Dafa disciples in the past four plus years, how to completely expose the evil on the local level, how to comprehensively display Dafa's beauty and its benefits, and how to take into account the obstacles facing our non-practitioner audience and their ability to accept these articles. All of these conditions were necessary so that the resulting set of materials would be most effective. Because I had no experience in writing long reports of material pulled together from different sources, I really did not know where to begin.
However, as I read one article after another on the persecution, I learned that the disciples in China were waiting to receive the materials exposing the truth to save people in the last moments of Fa-rectification, and as I remember Master's instructions to clarify the truth, expose the evil, and save sentient beings, I began to understand the significance and urgency of my project. Case after bloody case and example after shocking example of the persecution, in addition to the Mainland Chinese disciples' indestructible righteous thoughts amidst the brutal persecution shook me time and time again, washing away the attachments I had not yet ridded myself of through my cultivation. The degenerate elements in my own dimension were decreasing, and the righteous energy field grew stronger and stronger. From my own experiences I felt the power of the truth, and I gained a deeper level of understanding of Master's teachings on clarifying the truth. Meanwhile, my desire to seize the moment in saving sentient beings grew ever stronger.
When my thoughts were rectified, Dafa gave me the wisdom I needed. My uncertainty of where to start, the feelings of apprehension, and all of the other difficulties I was mired in vanished. They were replaced by inner peace, calmness, and determination.
This experience led me to gain a comprehensive and deep knowledge of the facts of the persecution, and I learned to appreciate the Minghui.net articles and the significant role these articles play in clarifying the truth, saving sentient beings, eliminating the evil, and completing our cultivation during Fa-rectification.
2. Everything has an element of cultivation within it
In the course of reading and organizing massive amounts of persecution materials, I was often deeply moved by the Mainland Chinese practitioners' ability to let go of life and death amidst the evil persecution, and the tragic yet magnificent episodes of the practitioners using their own blood and lives to validate Dafa. On the other hand, I also noticed the wide gaps between them and myself in terms of cultivation, and I saw clearly the remaining human attachments in me. I realized that everything that happens in a Dafa project has elements of cultivation within it. As long as we are able to maintain a cultivator's vigilance and seize the opportunity we will be able to improve in our own cultivation while being involved in these projects.
For example, when I was organizing the case of Shandong Yantai Dafa disciple Wang Lixuan and her less than 8-month-old son Meng Hao being tortured to death, I noticed that the original document read: "Wang Lixuan, female, 27, and son Meng Hao, not quite 8 months old, Dafa disciples from Shandong Province, Yantai Region, Qixiasikou Township, Henggou Village." After reading this passage, a thought entered my mind: this infant was brought by his mother to Beijing and murdered. If we say that he and his mother were both Dafa disciples from Shandong Yantai, it may look strange to non-practitioner readers. So I casually changed the sentence to: "Wang Lixuan, female, 27, Dafa disciple from Shandong Province, Yantai Region, Qiyansikou Township, Henggou Village, and son Meng Hao, not quite 8 months old." I simply excluded little Meng Hao from the ranks of Dafa disciples.
Afterwards, in order to ensure that the re-organized materials were accurate, complete, and did not omit significant details, I read all of the original documents regarding this persecution case again. There was an article that was written by a Dafa disciple that had been temporarily locked up along with Wang Lixuan and her son. The article said that during the detention, little Meng Hao laid calmly in his mother's lap, without crying or making noise. At the time it seemed like nobody in the vehicle knew there was an infant aboard. The practitioner found out that Meng Hao was only a little more than seven months old in the evening from his grandmother, when he finally cried because he was hungry. She exclaimed, "He is so young!" Yet the child's grandmother replied, "But he is a Dafa disciple too!" When I saw this, my mind reeled and my heart caught in my throat -- unbidden tears rolled down my cheeks.
Those few words -- "But he is a Dafa disciple too!" -- allowed me to recognize how my own thoughts were the same as those of ordinary people and how I was judging matters of Fa-rectification with an ordinary person's notions. Master taught us that the vast majority of the people on this Earth are high-level beings who have come down to obtain the Fa. So it is quite possible that in this life he reincarnated into a Dafa disciple's family at this unprecedented period of Fa-rectification, had a predestined connection with Dafa, and may have come particularly for the Fa. In this wicked persecution against Dafa, this being was also persecuted, and had validated Dafa in his own way. Little Meng Hao had accompanied his mother to Beijing to safeguard the Fa five times, three times while inside his mother's womb and twice in his mother's embrace. In the end, he and his mother were both tortured to death. Even though his life was brief, he was still a Dafa disciple, so he has his deserved glory. After I grasped this based on the Fa, with tears in my eyes, I changed the sentence back to its original form.
This made me realize that the materials exposing the facts are solemn in terms of the Fa, and their solemn nature is not just limited to their mission today of exposing the evil and saving sentient beings, but their significance includes leaving a record for the future. At the same time, I understood the importance of maintaining a Dafa disciple's righteous thoughts in the process of compiling materials exposing the facts. When we can look at things with righteous thoughts, we will not be taken advantage of by ordinary human concepts or be manipulated by the remaining human notions that we have. This process also allowed me to see the gigantic gap between myself and those Mainland Chinese Dafa disciples who gave up everything to validate the Fa. During the progression of producing truth-clarifying materials, I felt my soul stirring. After each process was completed, I had the wonderful feeling of having eliminated degenerate elements.
3. We can do Dafa work well and with pure righteous hearts only when we let go of our sense of self
The production of truth-clarifying flyers that were to be distributed in China required that we include content that was very brief, yet explained multiple perspectives, and covers a variety of subjects. In addition, we needed to take into account the Mainland Chinese readers' attachments, obstacles, and their ability to accept the facts, so it was actually quite difficult to design the desired type of flyers. It was also required that we maintain our righteous thoughts and a very high standard while gathering the materials, organizing the flyer, editing it, and laying it out. Even more importantly, we had to have sufficient insight into the readers' needs and understanding of Fa-rectification.
In the beginning, I felt that based on my background, designing truth-clarifying flyers would pose no problem. However, after a period of time, a practitioner within the team expressed some criticism through another team member. She felt that I was not careful enough in compiling and editing the material, and that I failed to keep the readers in mind, and thus there was need for improvement. When the feedback reached me, even though on the surface I said that I would think about the matter seriously, I could not let it go inside. I felt that I could not take it, and I had these thoughts bouncing around inside my head: "I've done my best, if you have some criticism, why do you not tell me directly? In fact, sometimes after I finished editing the material, you guys would make some unnecessary changes to the text anyway." I even wanted to accuse the practitioner of pushing all of the team's difficulties on me, and I completely forgot about Master's teaching that cultivators should look inside when encountering problems. At that point, I could not reconcile things, and my complaints piled up. I wrote a verbose e-mail to that practitioner. On the surface, I was sharing my understanding, but in reality I was venting and complaining.
After reading my email, that practitioner called me on the telephone and shared her thoughts with me frankly. She did not criticize me for my flawed designs, and instead she pointed out this problem sincerely: I gave inadequate thought to producing truth-clarifying materials from the perspective of what the sentient beings need. After putting down the phone, I could sense that this practitioner was not focused on my shortcomings, and she was truly concerned from the perspective of saving sentient beings. I calmed down gradually, and my fellow practitioner's upright actions based on the Fa caused me to take a hard look at myself and see the disparity in our cultivation. The wall inside me vanished, and I started to look within with a tranquil heart.
I asked myself, "In the entire process of producing truth-clarifying flyers, had I worked with a merciful, benevolent mindset? Was I thinking of those sentient beings? If not, then what kinds of attachments and human thoughts hindered my work?" I figured out where I had fallen short. In the Dafa work I had mixed in personal things. When considering problems, I looked at them from a perspective of what I was interested in, what I wanted to clear up, what I thought was good, and sometimes I even mixed in my attachments to being ostentatious and competitive. I definitely did not consider things from the perspective of what the sentient beings needed. Finally, I perceived clearly that huge sense of self hidden inside of me.
The next day, I received a reply from the practitioner to whom I had complained about the unnecessary changing of my wordings. She said to me, "No matter what, please do not hold on to this matter. Do not let it become a burden -- throw it away and continue on with life. If yelling at me for a while would help, then please yell at me. If you thought about things less from your own perspective, then you will not feel so sad." After I read her e-mail, my face was covered with tears. This was because I wrongfully accused her and I was being irrational, yet she did not turn around and criticize me or defend herself, but instead she expressed genuine concern for me and tried to help me from a cultivator's perspective. I was crying deep inside too, blaming myself for my actions of selfishness, regretting hurting a fellow practitioner, and was moved by the selflessness and forgiving nature of my kind fellow practitioner. At that moment, I felt a huge surge of energy, and that piece of filth inside my own dimension was washed away entirely.
Through this experience, I learned that doing well in Dafa work is not a matter of using ordinary people's skills or abilities but of continuously advancing in cultivation, letting go of the sense of self and cultivating away selfishness, while maintaining a pure, righteous mindset. Only if we cultivate and eliminate selfishness can we do Dafa work well.
We are fortunate enough to cultivate while helping the Dafa websites, and we are also privileged enough to be here along with Master in this Fa-rectification period. Dafa has given us strength and wisdom, and only when we can cultivate diligently in this incomparably glorious Fa-rectification era can we be worthy of Master's merciful salvation and do justice to our historic mission of saving sentient beings. These words spoken by fellow Dafa disciple Liu Chengjun touched me deeply: "My life exists for Fa-rectification. If one day I am able to see Master, I will be able to say without regret, 'I have done my best on this path of Fa-rectification.'"
Finally, let us encourage each other with Master's latest scripture:
"Lasting or momentary -- all caused by time
Fa-rectification has forged the New Epoch
The long, drawn-out years of glory and suffering
All to fulfill the grand pledge today
For the sake of all living things, for the sake of validating Dafa, stay diligent on the path to godhood! The future, eternal harmonization will exist alongside your glory!" ("Master's New Year's Day 2004 Greeting to Dafa Disciples")
Thank you Master, thank you everyone!