(Clearwisdom.net)
Greetings Master Li! Greetings fellow practitioners!
My name is Jared Madsen. Ever since I can remember I had this thought: "I have to go to China to become an immortal." This one thought deep in my heart was what gave me direction for the first part of my life. I was in constant pursuit of anything from ancient China. At a young age I began reading Daoist and Buddhist texts, along with other writings from China. I had the opportunity to study for a semester in a Chinese high school, and then I went on to spend nearly all my college years in China. One morning in early 1996 when I was studying at a traditional Chinese medical school in Beijing, I was walking around outside and happened upon the Falun Dafa practice site. Though it took me several months to realize it, one day it occurred to me that this was what I had been looking for since I was little, and all the studies I had done on ancient China were to help me better understand and cultivate in Dafa.
Several months after the persecution began a local practitioner had the idea to put videos about Dafa on cable stations in our area. Though we thought it was a good idea, it seemed too difficult so we didn't follow through with it. In 2001, some practitioners shared experiences about discussions with out of state practitioners working in television to clarify the facts of Dafa. After going home and thinking about it, I realized the great impact TV has on people and how just a few people can reach millions through the right channels. I was determined to also work with television to clarify the facts. Not long after, some practitioners had the idea to start a television program in English about Dafa for ordinary people to watch. I was immediately interested and wanted to take part. Many of us sat down and talked about what we would need to set it up, who was willing to help, if it would be worth it to make a show like this, and also the name of the show. One of the names we came up with was Pure Heart, Clear Mind. We all went home to think about whether we wanted to make the show or not. A few days later, I was at a Chinese restaurant with some of the practitioners and we were again discussing whether or not to do this show. At the end of the meal my fortune cookie read: "Your heart is pure, and your mind clear, and soul devout." Pure Heart, Clear Mind--that was the name we had come up with a few days before for the show. I showed this fortune cookie to everyone, and we took it as a sign to do the show.
In the beginning the show was rather simple. Another practitioner and I were the hosts, we had a main editor, a practitioner in charge of translating videos from Chinese, and I was in charge of the overall direction and coordination. In the beginning, when creating the basic structure of the show, the section "About the Third Eye" from Zhuan Falun gave me many insights. Master said, "When we talk about 'opening the Third Eye' it's about bypassing your optic nerves and opening a passageway between your eyebrows, which makes it possible for your pineal gland to see outside directly." At the time when we started the show two years ago, we were often trying to think of ways to have the media show the truth of Dafa. Though it is good to have the media do reports on Dafa, it is like looking at Dafa through the optic nerves, and it is difficult to see its true nature. Pure Heart, Clear Mind would surpass this route and be like the Third Eye: it would allow people to directly see Falun Dafa practitioners and the truth of the persecution.
Master also said, "Modern medical studies in anatomy have found that at the front part of the pineal gland there's the complete structure of a human eye and all of the components of an eye. Since it's inside the skull they say it's a vestigial eye. We in the cultivation world have reservations about it being a vestigial eye." (Zhuan Falun) I understood public cable stations to be like the vestigial eye. They contain everything that other channels have, but they are just not as prominent, yet that doesn't mean they are not effective.
Master said, "A person sees not only through the main passageway, but also through a lot of sub-passageways. Buddhists say that every pore is an eye, while Daoists say that all apertures in the body are eyes, or in other words, all the acupuncture points are eyes." (Zhuan Falun) I understood that if we were to make a television show that would directly clarify the truth about the persecution, and show Dafa's beauty, we could not just put it on our main local cable station, but that we should put it on cable stations across the country and even the whole world. With the help of practitioners in many areas, we were able to put Pure Heart, Clear Mind on many stations, with millions of potential viewers.
Like all the projects we work on, each is just one method used in clarifying the facts. Since our goal is to clarify the facts, and not just make the project we are working on succeed, then we should think about these things from a macroscopic perspective. For example, if we were to write an article about Dafa to put on the Clearwisdom.net website to clarify the facts, we could also think about other ways this could be used. Perhaps it could be put on other websites or even given to media outlets. It could also be translated into several languages. It could maybe be made into a video or used in a radio broadcast. Often, with just a little extra effort, we can use things from one project in many of our other projects.
Pure Heart, Clear Mind does this by using information from our Dafa websites and video footage taken by practitioners from around the world on our program. We also interview practitioners and tape other activities during our Fa conferences. Practitioners from other areas will lend a hand and help with some of the workload, each bringing their skills and talents to the program. We bring all of this together to make the final program each week, and then distribute the program to practitioners and cable stations around the country. In Zhuan Falun Master said, "When it's turning clockwise the Law Wheel can automatically take in energy from the universe, and when it's turning counterclockwise the Law Wheel can send out energy. Turning inward (clockwise), it saves oneself, turning outward (counterclockwise), it saves others. It is unique to our practice." When designing the operation flow of Pure Heart, Clear Mind, we tried to structure it according to our understandings of the Law Wheel.
Quickly after we started making Pure Heart, Clear Mind, all sorts of arguments occurred among the practitioners working on the show. In "Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Boston" Master said, "You have a good idea, he has a good idea, too, and everyone thinks that his own idea is good... this is usually how arguments happen. And when you argue, because you've neglected your day-to-day Fa-study or have slacked off in your cultivation, you fall into ordinary people's ways of arguing." That was definitely me. I always thought that my ideas were the best, and it would be a real pity to not use them. Other practitioners had their ideas too, but I had trouble looking past my ideas and accepting theirs. Thinking this way is obviously selfish and not using the Fa to look at the situations, so I easily fell into an ordinary person's state. I would get anxious and then angry. This in turn was difficult for others to accept, and gradually many practitioners did not want to work with me. Over a period of several months, due to these conflicts and other conflicts happening in our local area, practitioners gradually stopped working on the program, no one wanted to work with me, and I was basically left by myself.
For the months following, I needed to seriously look inward and find the problems in myself that had caused this situation, and also how I was to resolve it. In the beginning, it was very painful. Each time I tried to look inward, I would quickly start to think about the other practitioners' problems. Since practitioners were upset and not willing to work with me, loneliness quickly set in. In "Lecture at the First Conference in North America" Master said, "Unendurable loneliness is most dangerous to humans, and it's also the greatest tribulation in practicing cultivation."
In this difficult situation, I first needed to determine if I could continue the show by myself. Quickly the understandings from the Fa on the importance of the show and how great an effect it was having on society came to my mind, and I immediately solidified my will: Even if I have to do the show all by myself until the Fa rectifies the human world, I will continue to do so. In Zhuan Falun Master said, "It's hard to endure, but you can endure it. It's hard to do, but you can do it." I had the Fa of the universe and Master's help, what was there to be afraid of? I quickly learned all the details of producing the show that I did not know before, and was able to keep the show going.
After determining to continue with the show, I needed to truly look inside and find my problems, not only because I am a cultivator and this is how we cultivate ourselves, but also so that I could do better in the future to make the show a stable and effective way of clarifying the truth.
The first main problem I found was my being too controlling and not able to trust other practitioners. When I would find problems with what others did, I would easily get upset with them. I tried to make everything go according to the way I thought it should be done. I would force ideas on others and didn't feel practitioners were able to follow through with what they should be doing. This state was formed not only by my selfishness in wanting things to go my way, but also by a lack of patience in working with others and thinking of others first.
As a coordinator, I should understand others' situation. I should understand their skills, their cultivation environment, their strengths and weaknesses. In this way, we can work together to find tasks that are suitable for them and beneficial to their cultivation. At the same time, I should check up with them to see how their situation is, if they need help, if they have new ideas, or want to take on more responsibility. With this way of conducting myself, it will be a lot easier for the practitioners working on the project to take part in doing what they should do and not be unnecessarily controlled.
At the same time, I need to make sure that everything is getting done, the program is being produced, and the show is constantly improving. I could not be picky in the specific jobs I did or see myself as above others. Coordination and working well together is for clarifying the facts well. If I see my coordination role as being above clarifying the facts, then I am deviating from the path of Fa-rectification. How does this manifest specifically? I look at the whole project and see all the jobs that need to be done. If practitioners helping on the project are not able to take all the jobs, then it is my responsibility to either find others to help out, or if temporarily I can't find others, then I need to do it myself.
This is a stark contrast to how I conducted myself before. In the past I would get upset if there weren't others doing all the jobs, and this in turn would put a lot of pressure on others. When treating the project from this new unselfish point of view, practitioners were able to do what they could do for the project, and I would happily figure out how to deal with the jobs that were left. I would not have expectations for others or get upset if they couldn't reach a certain standard. I would help them out where needed, and we would figure out together how to do better in the future. This understanding comes from the Fa and is not based in ordinary people's management methods. Often when we try to use the methods of management used in the ordinary society to do our Dafa projects, there are generally many large gaps, and it just doesn't work well. I understand this is because these management skills are based on the old universe's principles of formation-stasis-degeneration-destruction, so they are bound to fail, especially when used in Fa-rectification projects.
After implementing the understandings I just mentioned, gradually practitioners were willing to come and work on the project. The more I acted according to my understanding of Fa-rectification, the more practitioners were willing to work on this project. As more talents are being used to create Pure Heart, Clear Mind, I receive more and more feedback about how the show improves each week, and how more and more people all over the country tell practitioners at Dafa events that they have seen the television program and already have a good understanding about Falun Dafa and the persecution.
Pure Heart, Clear Mind is now improving in a healthy manner, and it has been an excellent cultivation environment for me and those who work on it. For areas that do not yet have Pure Heart, Clear Mind, please contact us and we can help you get it showing on cable stations in your area. It is easy to do and can clarify the facts to a large number of people in your area.
Thank you everyone!
