Cultivation Lies in the Process Rather Than the Result

(Minghui.org) I was born and raised in Hong Kong and later immigrated to Toronto, Canada. I began to practice Falun Dafa in Toronto in March 1999. Interestingly, I joined the Sound of Hope (SOH) Radio Network in 2003 to help with Cantonese language broadcasting, especially news announcements. 

Be Considerate of Others’ Feelings

Hong Kong attracted the world’s attention as a result of the Anti-Extradition incident in 2019. The SOH Cantonese news channel on YouTube grew rapidly and needed many announcers. That’s why I became involved.

In addition to announcing the news, I was responsible for looking at viewers’ comments and selectively respond to them. When the viewers commented that our announcers’ Cantonese pronunciation was not standard, or the wording was unfamiliar to Hong Kong residents, I shared the feedback in our group chat. I felt it would help improve the overall quality of our program.

I listened to a fellow practitioner’s sharing at the Canada Fa conference last year. She told another practitioner that certain issues were supposed to be done in a certain way. But, it turned out that the given practitioner was already experiencing a lot of difficulties at home, and by asking the other practitioner to do what she thought was right, she was actually bringing more difficulties to the other practitioner. She carefully reflected on whether she had done similar things to other practitioners in the past, and then apologized to each of them.

I suddenly realized it was wrong for me to point out my fellow practitioner’s mispronunciation in the group chat because I failed to consider the fellow practitioner’s feelings. I reached out to the practitioner and apologized. The practitioner was very kind and told me not to worry. She said she looked things up in the dictionary a lot to make sure her pronunciation was correct, but she didn’t bother to look up certain words because she didn’t think she would mispronounce them. 

I realized that what I thought was right was not necessarily based on the Fa, and I did not even know that I was doing something wrong. I thought I would improve the quality of the program by correcting my fellow practitioners’ pronunciation. The idea was right, but my approach was wrong. Every practitioner is Master’s disciple. It was wrong to hurt fellow practitioners’ feelings. It was a big omission in my cultivation. 

I also thought about whether I had hurt other fellow practitioners’ feelings. I apologize to them in this article.

My team has set up an online room where all fellow announcers can exchange experiences and answer questions, which would help each other. I brought some of the viewers’ feedback to this online room. I hope this approach is more appropriate.

Cooperation: Stop Complaining and Calm Down

Most of the scripts we received were from the Mandarin channel, so the grammar and phrasing were not Cantonese or Hong Kong-style Cantonese. Since most of our viewers are Hong Kong residents, and Hong Kong immigrants living overseas who prefer Hong Kong-style Cantonese, we had to take time into changing the script to be more in the Hong Kong-style. 

There are also differences between Cantonese and Mandarin translations of places and people, so it also takes time to find the translation that is commonly used in Hong Kong. I have been struggling to control myself not to complain or get upset in the process. 

In the last few months, I made some breakthroughs. I was able to consider many of the challenges that my fellow editors had to face. I told myself to calm down and face my challenges as a practitioner. Now, I am better at not complaining, and can prepare scripts with a calm mind. 

There were times when complaints came to my mind. I immediately realized that they were not right, and I needed to get rid of them. I am striving to shorten the time it takes to identify and eliminate the negativity, so I can reach a state where I don’t let improper thoughts enter my mind at all. I believe this process is cultivation.

If the script was perfect, there would be no opportunity for me to identify and remove my attachment of complaints, and learn how to calm my mind.

Later on, I had a dream. I realized Master was using the dream to give me a hint that I should not focus on the results; that I instead should focus on the process of discovering my shortcomings, listening to others’ suggestions, and correcting myself. I realized that developing a habit of looking for my own shortcomings and improving myself is the key to doing anything.

Holding on to a Pure Mind Will Let Us See the Path Master Created for Us

It usually took me two to three hours to finish recording the news announcements. I felt it was too long, but didn’t know how to shorten it. Then I had an opportunity last month to talk to a veteran Mandarin SOH announcer who shared with me her method of recording and editing. I was greatly inspired and tried it the next day. This actually saved me almost half an hour. 

I realized that I never thought of this approach because I was working with a complaining mindset, wondering why the scripts weren’t better. I couldn’t be given wisdom when my mind was clouded by human thoughts and notions. 

Now, that I started to let go of my attachment to complaining, Master then arranged for the fellow practitioner to help me. The practitioner also said, “We should use any saved time on other things.” It’s true, time is so valuable for Dafa practitioners now. When we cultivate ourselves well, Master will give us wisdom so we can do things well and fast, and we can get more things done, broadening our paths.

Any Environment Can Provide Opportunities for Cultivation

I also participated in promoting Shen Yun in Toronto, mainly at the ticket booths, for more than 10 years. Amidst the thick and thin of doing so, I found many of my shortcomings, such as poor cooperation with fellow practitioners, pursuit, zealotry, and fear of hardship.

However, in the SOH project, prior to the YouTube Cantonese channel, I mostly worked on broadcasting either at home by myself or with a few practitioners I knew very well. Thus, I always thought it didn’t present me with a lot of opportunities to cultivate. 

In contrast, the YouTube news channel is a collaboration of an entire team, including editing, broadcasting, post-production, uploading, quality assurance, and responding to viewer comments. Each step in the process is closely linked, and any problem in one step will affect the work in the next step, especially steps involving practitioners from different time zones. It really takes a lot of practitioners’ cooperation to upload the news to YouTube quickly. Over the past two years, I realized I had a lot of shortcomings in cultivation while working on this SOH project. 

In fact, every environment, every project, and every matter is not accidental. They are all opportunities Master has arranged for us to cultivate. I believe that Master arranged many opportunities for me to improve as soon as I joined SOH, but I did not realize it because of my poor enlightenment quality. I was looking at things with human notions, and of course missed those opportunities. 

I am grateful to Master for giving me the opportunity to work on the SOH Cantonese channel. I understand that I should always conduct myself in accordance with Dafa. I realize any environment can provide opportunities for cultivation. I am also grateful to my fellow practitioners for always being tolerant.

Thank you, Master, for giving me this opportunity, and thank you, fellow practitioners!