Walking on the Path Paved by Our Master

Greetings respected Master
Greetings fellow practitioners

I would like to share my cultivation experiences with everyone regarding media work.

Creating Shen Yun reports in countries with unfamiliar foreign languages
I come from Belgium and I have done Shen Yun reporting in several European countries in recent years. At the end of April this year, Shen Yun came to Milan to perform shows. It was the second time for Italy to feature Shen Yun shows and the local reporting team was not very mature. English Epoch times sent veteran Austrian reporter B to work with three local reporters. NTD also formed an international team to do the reporting: local practitioner A as the reporter; a practitioner from UK as cameraman and in addition, a practitioner who came from Rome but originally from Bulgaria coordinated the logistics work. In the meantime, reporters from the local Epoch Times team helped us with transcription and translation.

There were altogether three shows in three days. It was not the first time I had seen the Shen Yun show this year. On the second night, I was watching the show after the interval. The audience were touched by the beautiful scenes in the theatre and started clapping. I suddenly understood that Master had provided the best and the most beautiful things for all sentient beings. No matter how much they slide in this world, no matter how far they get lost in the reality, good or bad, Master has provided the best for every sentient being.

Master has given so much to the sentient beings but humans don’t understand that. Even Dafa disciples may not be able to understand fully.

Master's choice determines the future. Since the characteristic of universe is going to be like this in the future, I should also give others the best. I asked myself what would be the best to offer others? The answer soon appeared in my mind: the selfless things cultivated from Dafa and the selfless hearts that only consider other people are the most beautiful things.

I should offer the best things to people, no matter who they are, sentient beings or fellow practitioners. A few days later, I kept asking myself whether I really wanted to do this. When I was disturbed and felt miserable, I asked myself, do I still want to do that? When a xinxing test comes, it is not easy to force myself to think in that way, but we are Dafa disciples of the Fa rectification period, we have no choice.

On the second day, there were some mistakes in the TV production, and the Epoch Times interviews were not ideal. Reporter B, who was responsible for Epoch Times reporting, asked all reporters to come to the media centre earlier, so that we could study the Fa and do the exercises together. After we did that, B suggested us to put our hands together and speak simultaneously in Chinese: "Assist Master to rectify the Fa, and save sentient beings."

What we studied on that day was “Fa Teaching at the 2013 Western U.S. Fa Conference” where Master says: "But to not fulfill one’s vows is a dangerous thing! How so? You have responsibilities! You are a Fa-Rectification Period Dafa Disciple!"

When studying this paragraph, the word 'responsibilities' was shining and it shook my soul. I've never experienced such a serious sense of mission when reading this passage in the past.

The interviews on that day were very good for both media. In the next few days, it was always the Italian ET reporters that helped our TV team with the translation and transcription. Reporter A from NTD, whose English is not as good as the others, helped to sort out the name and titles of the interviewees. That night, since we had plenty of good quality interviews, ET reporters were very busy throughout, and NTD reporter A had to help with the transcription. When I sent reporter A’s transcription to be translated into English, I realized the transcription was actually just a brief summary. I was stunned. So I sat next to A and asked him to redo it. Three times he said it was done, but when I double-checked it I found it still far from the original interview words. When I saw that what he typed out eventually was 3 times longer than the original text, I had no more tears to cry.

It was almost 3 in the morning, 2 out of the 3 Italian ET reporters had left. B sat opposite to me, seeing me rubbing my forehead with a very painful expression.

When this transcription was finally done, and I was ready to send it to the last Italian ET reporter C for translation, the workload had surpassed reporter C's limit. He told me he could no longer work on it, and started to explain to B why he wouldn't do it any more. His explanation pushed me to the limit, until finally I passed my threshold. Tears streamed down my face.

I didn't have any complaints about C, but I did blame A in my heart half an hour earlier, who did a summary rather than a transcription. Ironically, he was now diligently typing on a computer right beside me, and this was my only supporting hope at that moment. I was crying not because I felt wronged or angry, but because the word 'responsibilities' I saw in the lecture during the day echoed in my heart. We had so many great interviews, just one more step was needed, one more step...

C guided me to the balcony to have some fresh air, but whenever I thought about the word 'responsibility', it was like a hammer pounding on my heart. Tears kept rushing out of my eyes.

At that moment, I heard a voice from inside: "What shall we do now?" Someone answered: "Let's do FZN."

I stood there, shivering and sobbing then I returned inside, still shaking, but I knew what I needed at that moment was righteous thoughts. I crossed my legs, erected my palm, and my heart quickly calmed down. A strong thought came to my mind: do you believe in Master?

Of course I do, Master had arranged so many good interviews in our hands, and surely will arrange a way to turn them into news reports. Do you believe in Master? Yes I do. Fellow practitioners were still doing FZN for me, they were waiting for me to pick up my strength. I could not delay others with my own emotions. So I put down my legs and sat back at my computer. There were still tears rushing out, but I was no longer panicked. Fellow practitioners put down their hands and resumed their work as well.

C came to ask me if there was anything he could still do. I said no, it's okay. I really could understand him: every practitioner has experienced the situation where a xinxing test reaches the limit of our current capacity, and actually his ET Italian colleagues had left before him, and he had helped us transcribe and translate several very long interviews, he was the one who stayed longest among his colleagues. What I also understood was that, there would be such difficult choices laid before us when doing Shen Yun reports. These choices challenge our limit, but also offer us the path to elevate, just like I was facing right now.

After C had left, the only Italian left in the room was A, who can only speak some simple English. Bit by bit, after careful checks and corrections, there were only 2 difficult translations to be done. We could ask for some help later on. The translations we already had were more than enough to make several news packages.

I told A that he could go to sleep now, but he insisted on sitting next to me and apologized for earlier. He said he didn't know transcription meant typing down the interview word for word. Now he understood it and he was looking inside. I told him it was actually my fault. For me, he was a beautiful surprise. Then he replied: I work for the Fa, you work for the Fa also, right?

His words reminded me of Master's lecture in “Fa Teaching at the 2013 Greater New York Fa Conference” where Master mentions how a divine being moves a mountain: "Some people express that they think they’re quite pure, when in fact that’s not the case; they have all kinds of extraneous, distracted thoughts and many things that were formed postnatally. Even what you consider to be a very simple thought might—from its starting point to its cause, or the things that accompany it—be impure."

Later on A told me, he felt that Shen Yun reporting is very sacred. Each time after he did the interview, he felt his head was swelled by energy, and he could feel something press into his celestial eyes with a lot of force. His purity made me feel quite ashamed. What makes me even more shameful was my prejudice towards him in the very beginning.

Reporter B took the 5 am flight back to his home country. After I finished the first package and took a rest, I saw B had arrived home and sent me 2 emails full of exclamation marks: look at who you NTD people have interviewed!

WA well-known designer, regional manager of the world’s biggest leisure company, a lady who called herself a psychiatrist but was actually a solo ballerina and had trained national ballerinas etc. It seems as if the progress of making reports was delayed, but what actually happened was that we were bestowed more time and opportunities to find out the true identity of these precious people. Reporter C from EET shared with me later on that he was very grateful for this reporting experience, which enabled him to restore the heart he once had when he first started to cultivate.

There were many more things worthy of remembering throughout the procedure, especially that we had a lot of unconditional support from practitioners on the frontline as well as remotely. All these had proved that in Fa rectification projects, there is no so called hero who fights alone in the battle, but a harmonious and unbreakable mechanism formed by the righteous support among practitioners, who put aside ourselves.

Do not be attached to one's own capability
Master says in “Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference”: "Some are more capable when it comes to one thing, others with another--you definitely shouldn't let your thoughts run wild based on that. You say that you have such great abilities and so on and so forth, but that was all bestowed upon you by the Fa! Actually, it wouldn't work if you failed to attain that level of abilities. Fa-rectification required your wisdom to reach that point, so you definitely shouldn't think that you're so capable. Some practitioners want me to check out their abilities and skills. But actually, what I think is, all of that was given by me, so there's no need to look."

This lecture has always reminded me not to be attached to my own capability. All sorts of tests helped me to remove this attachment. I encountered such an opportunity again in September.

I was honoured to be involved in 2 TV programmes with very good reputations. The two producers think highly of me. However I always had an inferiority complex and was not able to hold up my head. At the beginning of September, a documentary I made for one of the programmes was about to air. A few days before the broadcast date, the documentary was reviewed in the headquarters. But the boss was not very happy with it and decided not to air it. When the producer told me this news, she asked me repeatedly with guilt: "Will you be very sad about it?" She also told me, even if the boss doesn't like it, it doesn't mean it's not a good story, because some well-received programmes have also been refused by the boss in the past.

I said I'm alright repeatedly, but felt uneasy after hanging up the phone. I understand on the surface, the documentary was refused by the boss, but the true reason behind it was cultivation and destiny. I knew I should look inside, but my head was full of all kinds of thoughts: the mentality of showing off that grew with the progress of making the documentary; the difficulty and wrongs I had experienced during the procedure; the guilt of not being able to do the 3 things well and not being able to balance my time when working for 2 programmes at once, etc. It seems I was wrong and wronged in many aspects. My head was full of such messy things, until next morning, a thought came to my mind: all your capabilities are actually not yours.

Indeed, no matter my inferiority complex and belittling myself in the past, or being uncomfortable about being disapproved of at the present, the real thing behind this was the fact that I took all the capabilities as 'mine'. Actually these are the Fa weapons bestowed by Master to this human body to validate the Fa. Taking them as my own possessions gives me worries about gains and losses. After I realized this, I felt a heavy rock was removed from my heart, and I felt relaxed and renewed.

Thank you Master for bestowing on me an opportunity to do such honourable things.
Thank you Master for transforming me into a brand new being.