(Clearwisdom.net) My father, my mother, my husband and I are all practitioners. Cooperation amongst ourselves is important because we are responsible for providing truth clarification materials and technical support for our local practitioners' computers. After watching Master's "Fa Teaching Given to the Australian Practitioners," I felt ashamed that Master still worries about us.
1. Dispute or Harmonize?
My father can be rather stubborn. He often makes excuses for himself when rejecting someone else's suggestions. I am persistent. This results in us having disputes that end poorly. Yet, neither of us looks inward. We hold onto our own notions and endure heartache, thinking, "Why did he or she not look inward?"
We have tried to communicate. My father admitted his attachment, but I could not understand why he would not let go of it. Neither of us was satisfied.
The deeper my concern grew, the more frequently my father's attachment surfaced. Finally, no one wanted to mention it. Thus, we had created another attachment, that of being afraid of dispute. I wanted my husband to be direct with my father, but he wanted me to do it. Why? Neither of us had the courage to face the possibility that my father might mention our shortcomings. We both have the attachment of "being afraid of criticism," but we have not removed our attachments. Later, we realized that this was wrong. We created a situation where neither of us could talk to the other, leaving this attachment intact... whereas we both should have enlightened to it.
I enlightened after watching Master's "Fa Teaching Given to the Australian Practitioners." Why should I point out my father's shortcomings? Why should I blame him? Why should he accept my opinion? Even if I was right, he had the right to reject my opinion. Why did I not look inward?
Upon seeing another's shortcomings, I should first look inward and check to see if I have the same problem. When others reject my ideas, I should also look inward and check to see if I was unkind, or if my words were insensitive. In order to put my fellow practitioners first, I should think about what I say before I say it. I should harmonize with the Fa, instead of emphasizing my perspective and demanding that others follow my opinion.
2. Cooperate, Not Divide
My husband and I both work, so our spare time is limited. My husband takes care of the technically demanding projects, and I do the less demanding ones, but there are overlaps. My husband often complained about my laziness, saying, for example, "It's your responsibility. I won't do it." Upon hearing this I did not respond, but I felt resentful. The situation only got worse. Some projects were pushed aside and forgotten, because we waited for each other to do them. When my father checked the projects' progress, we blamed each other. Once, we forgot to download Master's new lecture until my father caught it, because we each expected the other to do it.
At times, my husband and I have complained about our coordinator. We thought that we should not get the simple assignments that others could have done. My father does not use the computer, and he sometimes thinks that we waste too much time, accomplish too little, and are not efficient. At times, we have had conflicts with the coordinator. We delayed working on projects because we thought that we were responsible for the quality. Later, our printer broke and could not be fixed, so we had to buy a new one. But we did not look inward after all these problems.
I ran into trouble at my job. On a couple different occasions, my boss blamed me for others' shortcomings. I then remembered Master's words,
"Whenever there is interference of one kind or another in qigong practice, you should look for reasons within yourself and determine what you still have not let go." (Zhuan Falun)
I knew that I had to look within. I was perplexed for several days. Finally I awoke to our lack of cooperation. We divided the projects so we could cooperate better. When we put our own "assignment" and "responsibility" first, did we put the incidental before the fundamental? Even though we might voice our concerns with kindness, if our concerns are not acted on, we should nonetheless cooperate, and not hold onto our own feelings. When we cooperate and take up the slack for each other, Dafa projects will be successful and we will become a perfect and indestructible body.
I am writing this sharing to remind my fellow practitioners that we should not look within only after a problem occurs. We should not awaken to our mistakes only after we fall, and we should give Master reason to worry about us. Lessons should make us clearheaded. We should remember that we are a perfect and indestructible body, as we cooperate and harmonize.
