(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
At a coordinating conference for the London 2008 Spectacular, one practitioner shared her understanding regarding handling conflicts between practitioners, "Master already has a plan for the Spectacular in other dimensions, so long as we let go of our selfishness, we will be able to follow Master's arrangement and achieve the best outcome. If we persist in validating ourselves, if we hold on to our egos, we will be lost. The more tightly we hold on to our egos, the more lost we will be, and the less likely we will do the three things well." I thought she made a point that would be helpful for me in resolving future conflicts.
However, facing a situation a few weeks later, it was as if this principle was no longer understood. Regarding an issue relating to the London Spectacular preparations, I was not happy about the behavior and speech of a fellow practitioner. At times, the feeling was intense and bordered on anger. Later, when my mind was more peaceful, I found that what annoyed me most was not so much his opinions in themselves, but the fact that his opinions were different, very different in some aspects, from mine. When I could better let go of myself, I could see more clearly the value of the other practitioner's suggestions. Even when facing the issues on which I still believed his ideas not to be correct, my state of mind was one of more benevolence, care and respect for the other practitioner, for his perseverance in cultivation and in doing the "three things" well amidst the same tribulation.
After another sharing about the UK Spectacular, in which several practitioners raised different opinions and made critical comments, a fellow practitioner said to me, "So-and-so's comments were not really right, why didn't you share your approach?" Indeed, I might have done so on a different day, but the energy field there that day was so good that I was able to not think about who was right and who was wrong, or about explaining myself. Instead, I was able to focus on listening to what others were thinking about, and I heard valuable things in their comments.
Like other practitioners, I have understood the principle of letting go of oneself, but at the moment when a tribulation occurs, I might sometimes deal with it like a person who doesn't understand this principle. After struggling through the tribulation, and then later looking inside, I enlightened to the same principle of letting go of oneself that I thought I had understood many years before. Perhaps this was because we cultivate layer by layer, and the layer that is cultivated and clear-minded will be separated from this human side, and whatever is left is again not clear and needs to cultivate anew. Of course, this is not a process of simplistic repetition, but one of elevation.
A practitioner from another country told me that on a project there, initially practitioners raised different opinions, but because they were not dealt with properly, the conflicts deepened, and as a result, practitioners there no longer put forward their opinions. It almost ended up with most practitioners giving up the project. So having different opinions is not a bad thing! Actually, when practitioners express different opinions, it is the starting point of closer communications and an opportunity for forming one body. The way of doing that is letting go of self.
I try to remind myself that each project I get involved in is not my project or the coordinator's project, but an environment in which each participating practitioner walks his/her personal path of saving people and consummating his/her future world. One of the key functions of a coordinator is to assist each practitioner in walking well his own path, as arranged by Master.
Master frequently reminds us that although on the surface what we do is similar to what ordinary people do, they are fundamentally different. Master spoke of this during many of his recent lectures and we have read about this many times. But it was not until I attended the events in Athens earlier this month that I had a greater understanding and a more vivid perception of this.
At almost the last minute before the event, a practitioner asked me to make three copies of the manuscripts of several speeches. I rushed into a hotel next to the event venue. A man behind the counter who looked like a manager asked me without any expression how many copies I needed and disappeared into the office with the originals. After a good while, he still hadn't come back, and I thought to myself, "The fellow practitioner explained to me that these were the only copies of the speeches to be read at the event with live broadcast through a satellite link. If anything happens to the manuscripts then there will be nothing to use at that event." There was already a lot of interference that day, and these manuscripts could not be lost at the last minute. So I started to send forth righteous thoughts. A short while later, the manager emerged, carrying a bunch of paper with him. I was quite relieved to see the manuscripts and wanted to immediately take them, pay and go. However, page by page, the manager started carefully sorting the bunch of photocopies into three piles. I was in a rush but felt it was not proper to push him. The manager picked up the three piles of paper one by one, tidied them up and reached into a drawer for paper clips, which he put carefully on each of the three copies. Then he said, slowly, "Here are your three copies." When I asked about the cost, he put his hands on his chest, bowed slightly, and said, "There is no charge. I respect your cause."
Walking out of the hotel, I held those photocopies tightly in my hand. There was a feeling of witnessing an uplifting scene on the broadest horizon and a feeling of sacredness. Master's teaching about our activities being fundamentally different from similar everyday people's activities came to mind, but this time the understanding and perception of this teaching was vivid. I felt that innumerable gods in the universe were watching me holding the photocopied manuscripts, walking down the hotel steps, crossing the street, and rushing them to the hands of the waiting practitioner. That broad and uplifting sense of sacredness was so vivid and lofty, that it could easily melt away all the barriers between practitioners and make all the conflicts and accumulated bitterness look so unimportant and feeble, to the point of being irrelevant.
Although our photocopying is not so different from ordinary people's photocopying, the things we do, even the small things, are sacred, and are things that numerous gods in the universe want to but could not do. Only we have the great fortune and great responsibility to do them!
I would like to finish by quoting the final part of Master's poem, "Plum Blossoms" as encouragement for us all:
"...Never, ever get preoccupied with worldly things
Steel your righteous thoughts
For all [that you have gone through] since ancient times,
Was for none other than this time around."
("Plum Blossoms" from Hong Yin Volume II)
Thank you, Master!
Thank you, fellow practitioners!