(Minghui.org) Greetings Master! Greetings fellow practitioners!
I’m from Gimhae, Gyeongnam, South Korea, and I was a teacher for 39 and a half years. I retired in February. As of November 2024, I’ve practiced Falun Dafa for 20 years.
In Teachings at the Conference in Singapore, Master said, “Nothing should interfere with your cultivation, for it is the top priority.”
When I began practicing I decided that in order for my cultivation to be free from any interference, it must be my top priority and I would unconditionally follow Master’s arrangements.
Introducing Falun Dafa to Students
I started practicing Falun Dafa when I was 42, and Dafa changed my life. From the very beginning I focused on cultivating well and how I could tell others about Dafa. Every semester, I taught students how to practice the exercises. The children also recited the two phrases “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” I thought that even if the children did not persist in cultivating, they should at least remember the two phrases: “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.”
I told the children about the divine, and I’m very grateful that no one complained or reported me. Very few of my students became sick, or had major problems such as injuries.
Master corrected my bad habit of losing my temper with the children. Not long after I began cultivating, Master tested me to see if I was able to stay calm, and I passed the test. When I went home that night to read Zhuan Falun, I realized that this was really a miraculous book. In my last year as a teacher, as if to remove all the debts I owed, many of my students were naughty, and they created problems every day. I usually looked inward and tried to restrain myself, but it wasn’t easy.
When a student cursed me, I was very mad. But I remembered what Master said, “We have said, however, that as a practitioner one should not fight back when being punched or insulted, but should hold oneself to a high standard.” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)
So I held back my anger and called the student over. Just as I was about to yell at him, the muscles on my face suddenly relaxed, and I smiled. I immediately realized that Master was giving me a hint to stop being angry with the children and stop creating karma. I smiled and talked to him. Afterwards, the children behaved better, and I no longer lost my temper.
Getting Along with the Principal
I knew everything I had was arranged by Master. The promotion standards in South Korea were lowered, and I was suddenly promoted to vice principal of a school. I just started working on a Dafa project and I proofread translations—every day after work, I spent hours proofreading.
This promotion to vice principal gave me plenty of time. However, when I thought of going to work at a school more than 80 kilometers away from my home, I wondered why I was sent to a school so far away. But then I realized that Master must have a reason. After a few days, I sensed that there was some special predestined relationship between myself and the principal. I made up my mind that no matter what, I would do a good job and saving sentient beings.
Teachers said this principal was very harsh and strict. They were frightened, but after working with me for about two weeks, he trusted me and was friendly.
I introduced Dafa to the school’s janitor, and taught her the exercises. We occasionally practiced in the pavilion, and the principal saw it. He said that I should teach the exercises to all the teachers and students at the school. So, every day, I used a 20-minute break to gather more than 70 students and teachers in the small hall and I showed them the exercises. After a few months, he asked me to go to the adjacent nursing home at noon every Wednesday to teach the older people the exercises.
At the end of the year I suggested that the school buy Shen Yun tickets for the students and teachers, and the principal agreed. As a result, the staff, students, and teachers went to see Shen Yun, but the principal didn’t go because he was not in a good mood.
In South Korea, school administrators have to be transferred after eighteen months, but after the end of the local Shen Yun that year, the rule suddenly changed to a one-year tenure as a vice principal before I could apply to transfer to another school. The sudden change in the transfer regulations made me realize that Master was trying to enlighten me and ask me to return to Gimhae City. Although the principal wanted me to stay another year, I immediately applied for a transfer.
About two months before I was transferred, while I was meditating, I suddenly saw my past life with this principal. Like in this life, it was a short and sad fate. I couldn’t stop crying. A few days later, he sent me an email to apologize and explain that the reason he didn’t go to see Shen Yun was because he was jealous that I only had Master and Dafa in my heart.
He later called me and said that he finished reading Zhuan Falun, which I had given him. When I heard this, I bought Shen Yun tickets for him and his wife, and they said that they were very moved by the Shen Yun performances. Under Master’s arrangement, I resolved my predestined relationship with this principal and fulfilled my mission of assisting Master in Fa-rectification.
After returning to Gimhae, over the course of three years and six months, I worked with three principals, and after settling all the karmic debts I owed them, I was promoted to principal.
Cultivate in My Role of Principal
In March 2017, I was transferred to a school in the Yangsan area as a principal. The parents and teachers were very unhappy. As a cultivator, I always conducted myself in accordance with Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and treated students, parents, and teachers with the mentality of putting others first. Although everyone was worried about me, I didn’t pay much attention to it.
The president of the parent-teacher association came to my office the first morning and made various requests. The office staff was also cold to me. I felt everyone here was rude. But from day one, I looked inward, got rid of my attachments to fame and fortune, and restrained my mind. I was determined to treat everyone with respect and, as a principal, to address their requests as soon as I could.
In order to allow the teachers to focus on educating students, I decreased their workload. Soon after, I said I wanted to speak to the children in the auditorium. I wanted to tell them about Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Although there was no precedent to hold a morning meeting for the children, the teachers didn’t object. Through the monthly education on Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, the children’s expressions became clearer, and they would come to greet me when I walked around the school campus.
Over time, the teachers were satisfied. The president of the Parent-Teacher Association also thanked me by sending a congratulatory flower arrangement to the school when I returned to Gimhae. In the spring of 2018, approximately 21 out of 25 employees watched Shen Yun.
Later, I realized that it was also Master’s arrangement that I was suddenly promoted to principal. Three months after I became the principal, my daughter, who was working for a media project, started working on social media platforms. This project wasn’t easy. There were many tedious things to do, from selecting good articles, translating English into Korean, and proofreading articles. No practitioners volunteered to do this, so, I decided to take a break and help my daughter with this new project.
I asked three practitioners from our region who could translate English into Korean, and they all agreed. Although the translation and proofreading wasn’t perfect, they did it with great care. Soon after, the number of articles that needed to be proofread increased dramatically, but I was the only one doing the proofreading. Sometimes I had to proofread eight articles.
As the number of followers on social media accounts continued to increase, so does the media’s advertising revenue. Therefore, in order to achieve the same level of reporting as ordinary media, the media recruited three journalists. We left the program shortly after the young practitioners joined. I was very pleased that the social platform project played a positive role.
In the more than a year I worked on this media project, I improved a lot, and sometimes I felt like I was using my extraordinary abilities. The practitioners in our area never complained about the hard work, and everyone cooperated very well. When I think of the selfless assistance of fellow practitioners, I’m very touched and very grateful for their selfless help.
After ending my assignment here, I was transferred to a smaller school in Gimhae City in September 2018. The following year, a teacher, who is also a practitioner, came to our school and was appointed by me to be in charge of the children’s moral education program, and she told them about Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Thanks to the creativity and efforts of this practitioner, the children changed every day.
In the second year, the program was well received by parents. When I left the school, the sixth-graders saluted me, and their faces were extraordinarily bright.
I worked at that school for about eighteen months, and was about to be transferred, when a senior principal called and asked me to come to his school. Although I never thought of going to that school, I felt that everything I encountered was not accidental, so I submitted my application.
A teacher from that school later began practicing Falun Dafa, and we opened a new practice site near the school. During my tenure at that school, I got a call from someone I knew in college, whom I had told about Shen Yun, but he hadn’t seen it. During our phone conversation he said he would be transferred to a position near our school in January. So, I recommended Shen Yun to him again, and this time he went to see it.
Six months after he was transferred here, he was reassigned to his hometown. From this incident, I once again felt that all my transfers were carefully arranged by Master, and all of them were to enable me to connect with sentient beings and complete my mission of saving them.
Because my job at this school was going well, I thought I had finished my task in the ordinary people society, so I wanted to apply for honorary retirement two years in advance. One day while I was hesitating, I dreamed that someone gave me two IOUs. When I woke up and thought about it, I felt that there was still something I needed to do in the remaining two years. So, I applied for a transfer to an area in Gimhae where I never worked before. I wanted to end my teaching career there.
The students at the last school were more polite and of good character than any of the previous schools I worked at, and the teachers were conscientious and responsible. There was nothing special that I needed to worry about.
When the Department of Education or the principal’s group came to visit our school, they said, “This school is so clean and the atmosphere is so relaxed!” Every morning, four office staff members came to my office and talk about business as if we were a family. In the two years we worked together, we never argued. When I retired, the teachers were very sorry.
The retirement party for a principal is special. Retirement parties are usually held in Gimhae, but when I retired, I was suddenly changed to a farewell party in Xianyang. Xianyang—the first place I started working when I became a teacher at the age of 21. My teaching career started and ended in Xianyang.
I felt as if I received a precious gift. In my 39 years and 6 months, as a teacher, I cared for the children and fulfilled my responsibilities. After I began practicing Dafa, I remembered my mission to save sentient beings and to introduce Dafa to the people I interacted with. When I thought of the elaborate arrangements Master made for me, my eyes became wet.
The organizers of the party asked me to write my favorite sentence on the medal I was given, and I wrote: “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” On the day of the retirement party, all the principals in town were present, and the host read aloud “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good” and explained the meaning of this sentence. No words can express my gratitude to Master. After the farewell ceremony, the principals said this retirement party was the most serious and solemn one they ever attended. On that day, there was heavy snow on the Xianyang Mountains.
Although I have had many shortcomings in the twenty years of cultivation, under the careful arrangement of Master, I came through smoothly. If I hadn’t cultivated Dafa, I, who had anxiety, would never have become a principal. Once again, I would like to thank Master for his meticulous care, and I would also like to thank my fellow practitioners who have gone through 20 years of cultivation with me.
Thank you Master. Thank you fellow practitioners.
(Presented at the 2024 South Korea Falun Dafa Cultivation Experience Exchange Conference)
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