Respected Master!
Dear Fellow Practitioners!
Since I started practising Falun Dafa a few years ago, many changes have occurred in my life. Before I started to practise I had always tried to make sense of life and held many questions, once I started to practise Falun Dafa I immediately found answers to many of my questions. A great force transformed my previous notions, which were rooted in Zen Buddhism and other teachings. It was a very painful process, which caused me to fundamentally question my previous beliefs. At the same time, I became convinced that Falun Dafa was the true path for me. However, I failed to recognise the true magnitude and significance of the practise.
Although the persecution was already going full tilt, I cultivated myself in isolation, did the exercises and studied the Falun Dafa teachings. I told everyone close to me about it and let them know how well I was doing since I had started to practise, I did not have the upright desire to save sentient beings, neither was I seeking the company of other practitioners because I did not realise that such an environment could help my cultivation. On a cold winter morning I gathered my things and joined the group practise at Oberlin. On that day, for the first time I was able to sit in the lotus position for longer than half an hour, probably because I was embarrassed to stop before everyone else did. At that time, a practitioner from Canada was also in the park. She was planning to go to Beijing a few days later in order to appeal for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong. The lady intrigued me because she seemed so peaceful. Only three days later, I saw on a Falun Dafa website that this practitioner had been arrested in China only because she told the people there that Falun Dafa was good. This jolted me and I thought: “There are people who are persecuted because of their belief in Truth, Compassion and Tolerance, the universal cosmic principles, while I’m just sitting here comfortably as I cultivate, simply watching time pass by.” For the first time, I understood the great responsibility Falun Gong practitioners have to assume during this period of time, the Fa-rectification period.
Cultivation at Work, Fa Validation and Explaining the Truth
I work as a caregiver for the elderly and my profession engenders frequent psychological and physical stresses. After I had started practising Falun Gong, I was able to recognise those situations, which were considered stressful by my co-workers as tests of ones character. Gradually, I was able to consider myself as a practitioner in my work environment. I used to be somewhat of a loafer who tried to gain privileges using flattery and left the real work and responsibility to others, but I have now changed to someone who really works for the good of my entire workplace.
My supervisors noticed this as well. At first they and my co-workers thought that my Falun Dafa practise was just another quirk and they smirked whenever I was doing the exercises on the terrace during lunchtime. However, after I stopped smoking and using alcohol and drugs, some of them started to become interested in Falun Gong. By now, almost everyone in my firm has read the book about Falun Gong and our care facility has a practise site. My boss told one of my colleagues who has also started practising that he wishes more of the staff were practising Falun Gong. He once told me that he didn’t really trust me before, but that since I started cultivating, he feels reassured whenever I am on duty. Since then, I have become the assistant director of the home and I direct the service facility.
I used to think that it was not really productive to tell people about the persecution because I worried that they would reach a wrong understanding of Falun Gong. However, I no longer think this way. In my experience, whenever a specific aspect of the persecution affects me personally, I am actually obliged to tell other righteous people about it. The fact that I am familiar with the details about what is happening, presents me with the opportunity to convincingly tell others how absurd this persecution really is. The fear of scaring off someone with these facts is an attachment, just like any other type of fear, which prevents me from finishing my Fa-rectification tasks.
Master tells us that everyone we meet is someone to whom we should let know about the persecution. Therefore, I started to wear my Falun Gong t-shirt to work pretty often. Many of the patients’ relatives, patients, doctors and visitors have the opportunity to ask me about Falun Gong. This facilitates conversation and most people who come to us, know the truth about Falun Gong and the situation in China by now.
I am often asked how I manage to stay happy, content and friendly in my difficult job. I then remember the words of our Master who, according to my understanding, said that we should tell everyone why we are good persons: Because we cultivate Falun Dafa, the great law of Truth, Compassion and Tolerance. I believe, that when people realise that we always consider others first and take ourselves less seriously and we tell them that we behave this way because we practise Falun Dafa, it is the best form of validating Falun Dafa. We then no longer need to come up with arguments why the practise is good and the persecution is evil.
Tolerance for Fellow Cultivators
At the beginning of this year I had an experience related to “functioning as one body” that I would like to share with you. When our choir travelled to Hong Kong and London, I had lots of contact with a fellow practitioner who in my opinion had a high understanding of the principles taught in Falun Dafa. He also had the ability to communicate this detail to the other choir members. However, every time this practitioner said anything at all, I experienced a strong feeling of aversion against him that I could not even conceal from other practitioners. Deep inside, I knew that this emotion could not be reconciled with a cultivator’s standards but I could not help it. I always thought that this practitioner wanted to be noticed and had the attachment of showing off. Every day, I became more distanced from him and couldn’t even bear to listen to him with a tranquil mind.
In London, some Austrian practitioners noticed that my whole body went into contortions whenever he opened his mouth to say something, and they told me about it. At first, I didn’t want to accept their well-intentioned criticism and insisted on being right. But one day, when we had just returned home, the following thought occurred to me: We are one body, I am a cell of the body and so is the other practitioner. Whenever the cells of one body attack another cell, Western medicine calls this reaction an allergy. An allergy does not imply that the attacking cell is right and the other cell is wrong. On the contrary, the mechanism only hurts the body, causing an overall weakening of the whole organism, even if the cell believes that it is right. An allergy is simply a disease. In reality, the reason for my aversion was not the other person’s fault but my own lack of tolerance for him. Our Master treats all sentient beings with the utmost compassion. He doesn’t count even the most obvious shortcomings in living beings but I became entangled in hatred of a fellow practitioner. I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to all fellow-practitioners whom I caused problems and I want to thank those who compassionately and calmly pointed out my shortcomings. I beg all fellow practitioners to act as enlightened beings and to consider only a person’s heart rather than those things at the surface level of a living being, in order to become a single and healthy entity.
Translating for Falun Dafa Related Projects
Ever since I started to practise, I have been interested in experience sharing articles from China. I always paid attention to those reports from my previous level of understanding. After I joined the translation team of for the Falun Dafa related website Clearwisdom and the Chinese sister site, Minghui at the end of last year, I have gained a totally different understanding when reading such articles. Previously, I always tried to quickly scan all of the reports every day, which allowed me to survey everything superficially but did not lead to a deeper understanding. Ever since I started to translate articles, I noticed how important it is to truly try to understand what we are reading in order to compare and contrast the insights of our fellow practitioners with our own. In my view, a deeper reading of experience sharing articles provides a great opportunity to help each other elevate our levels and provides a stimulus for our own Falun Dafa activities.
I have to admit that the continuous, almost daily work on articles was very demanding in the beginning. However, I felt the importance of this task because Master surely would not have given me a special talent for literature and language, unless He wanted me to use it. Despite this, I sometimes notice that I am tempted to neglect my daily study of the Falun Dafa teachings if I am especially busy with my translating or other such activity. On days when I neglected my study, I have a lot more trouble translating. In addition, I notice the influence of sending forth righteous thoughts on my Falun Dafa related work. Whenever I neglect those two things, I immediately notice interference from all directions and obstacles along the way. They take the form of human attachments like lethargy, laziness, fatigue and other desires that hinder my progress. I would like to encourage all fellow practitioners who know English and have Internet access to translate articles for Falun Dafa websites in order to improve the quality and quantity of our websites. It is a great opportunity to be able to participate in Falun Dafa work in the comfort of your own home.
I would like to read to you one of Master’s poems from Hong Yin, Volume 2:
New Life (Xinsheng) can rid one’s brain of evil
People’s (Renmin) sharpens pens instilling fear in ghosts
Falun Dafa is Pure Insight (Zhengjian)
The 23rd day of the 12th month, the Year of Geng Chen in the lunar calendar.
A small miracle
Finally, I’d like to relate an experience, which can’t be explained using conventional human notions. During the last few years, my e-mail account has been swamped with a variety of spam, up to 200 junk e-mails per day. Sometimes I had to waste more time deleting junk mail than reading important e-mails.
On the first day I was added to the Minghui mailing list, I was surprised to find that suddenly my in-box was totally empty. At first I thought that there must have been an interruption in my provider’s service. However, gradually e-mails from the mailing list started arriving leaving me feeling baffled. I wrote to my service provider, and asked whether they had installed a new filter or something but this was not the case. Slowly, I understood that Master had cleansed the most superficial realm for me. Since then, I never received spam e-mails again.
I am grateful to Master for his boundless compassion!
I thank all fellow practitioners for their tolerance!
I hope that we can all walk the last steps of our Fa-rectification path righteously and that we are worthy of the compassionate salvation Master has offered us. Let us strive ahead together diligently!
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