(Clearwisdom.net) One day, before I went to school in the morning, the principal of the school I taught at called me at home and asked me to come in early. He said he needed to discuss an unpleasant matter with me.
I thought, “This must be an opportunity for me to raise my xinxing level. I should not miss it. I should eliminate the attachment that is being exposed and look inward to see if I have any attachments to fear, jealousy, or competition. Am I afraid of losing my reputation or self-interest?” I kept asking myself this on the way to school, until I saw the principal.
The principal showed me two anonymous letters stating that I was a bad teacher, and demanding that the principal remove me from my job to punish me. If the principal did not follow the requests, they threatened to report me to the Department of Education. The tone of the letters was very stern. The principal said seriously, “The school administrators had a discussion and have decided to suspend you from teaching to punish you.” I thought to myself, “I have been teaching the students for one year and have done nothing wrong. Being a good person does not mean that I should be wrongfully treated. I cannot accept this punishment.”
After listening to a long lecture from the principal, I asked, “Didn't my class have the best test scores and performance this semester? Weren't my students' comprehensive skills the strongest? Didn't they submit their homework before the deadline and learn extracurricular knowledge?” The principal replied, “Yes, they were the best.” I continued, “I think I'm being wrongly accused. I ask that the school officials talk to the parents of my students and find out if the accusations are true.” The principal agreed, “I will have a meeting with the parents tonight, and if three of them say that you are not a good teacher, then what the letters have said are true.”
I felt uneasy after my talk with the principal. I am not good at socializing and do not have much of a relationship with the parents. Would they say good things about me? I thought about the false accusations in the letters and felt that I was wrongly accused. I felt uneasy and was worried.
Then Teacher's words appeared in my mind, “For a cultivator, all the frustrations he comes across among everyday people are trials, and all the compliments he receives are tests.” (“A Cultivator is Naturally A Part of It,” from Essentials for Further Advancement) For a non-cultivator, this situation may have seemed like a disaster, but it was all part of the process of elevating a cultivator's xinxing. It was nothing to worry about. I read Zhuan Falun during lunch break as usual.
The parents came to meet in the evening. The meeting room had three transparent walls and was located near the staircase of the classrooms. The room could be seen by teachers, students, and parents who came to pick up their children. It is used to hold an entire class that does not behave, or, a meeting about a teacher. Everyone could tell that the meeting was about me since I had to sit by myself in the lobby.
My colleagues looked at me with all kinds of expressions as they walked by the room, some even joking, “This just isn't your lucky day.” I kept reciting “A Cultivator is Naturally A Part of It” to calm myself down. I realized that this situation was to rid of my attachment of “wanting to save face.”
The meeting lasted forty minutes but it felt much longer. Finally, the parents walked out of the meeting room. They surrounded me saying,
“Teacher Zhang, you are the best teacher. We spoke highly of you.”
“My child really likes you.”
“I want you to teach my child next year.”
“We wanted to seek justice for you.”
“We want to write a good letter about you.”
“Teacher Zhang has done nothing wrong.”
The parents said a lot of things. Some of them comforted me, while others wanted to speak up for me. Finally, a grandfather whom I've never spoken to came up to me and said, “Don't take it personally!” Then, almost everyone patted me on the shoulder. I understood they approved of my job.
I walked into the principal's office as he was sorting the questionnaires. He looked at me with teary eyes and said, “Everyone was praising you during the meeting!” He showed me a piece of paper that recorded what everyone had said. They were all words of appreciation. One said, “I have never told anyone about this before, but teacher Zhang has never accepted gifts from us. Where can we find a good teacher like Zhang? I didn't dare to tell anyone for fear of affecting teacher Zhang's relationship with others.” The principal commented, “You are definitely not the same as others!” Under the ruling of the Chinese Communist Party, where lies and deceptions are abound, words like these are true praise for Dafa practitioners.
I sincerely thank Teacher for guiding me through this test, allowing me to become a good teacher and person. Thank you Teacher!
