England: My Experiences Distributing the Epoch Times

Greetings Master, greetings fellow disciples!

My name is Joanna, I got involved with the Epoch Times in early 2005 and started to coordinate the distribution. It got off to quite a shaky start as I had never been in a position of responsibility before. I had quite a big attachment to relying on others and I felt that it was the duty of everyone else to rally round and get involved. I had a very bad mentality – combative and blameful of others who didn’t help.

I was validating myself and subsequently had many conflicts, in particular with one certain distributor: when he failed to turn up on time I would get most frustrated and more often than not our heated phone conversations would end with me saying “How can you do this… I’m distribution coordinator.” I was very combative and competitive.

“A wicked person is born of jealousy. Out of selfishness and anger he complains about unfairness toward himself.

A benevolent person always has a heart of compassion. With no discontentment or hatred, he takes hardship as joy.

An enlightened being has no attachments at all. He quietly observes the everyday people blinded by delusion.” (‘Realms’, Essentials for Further Advancement)

I managed to let go of this mindset and things naturally started to harmonise themselves – more people got involved and everyone started to take more responsibility for their particular papers.

Getting rid of my attachment to reputation and comfort

Often I didn’t like delivering the papers because of the lowly opinion people have of a paper boy or girl in society. I would have liked to have done something with less physical work and more status – like writing articles for the paper. Sometimes I would also resent getting up at six in the morning to travel to central London in the rush hour and pull a trolley load of papers across town. To my human notions it felt ‘undignified’, when actually it was to help me remove my attachment to fame and reputation. I would visit the same places that I used to audition at when I was pursing an acting career. Sometimes I had the thought that I didn’t want to bump into some of my old acting colleagues for them to see that I was now a paper girl.

But as my mind changed, so did the situation. I started to view my paper delivery as an honour; I was coming with truth to all these different work places, residential homes and cafés. As my mind changed so did how people viewed me. Many people greeted me like a long-lost friend and were really pleased to see me each week. I felt noble and dignified.

“He comes with the Truth, which gives him full control
And travels the four seas with a free and easy spirit
Spreading the Fa's principles throughout the secular world
Loaded full with sentient beings, his Fa Boat sets sail” ('Tathagata', 2002)

Lately I noticed that I had started to slack off in my diligence in distributing the paper. The paper has been running for over a year now and I felt that I didn’t have the zest and enthusiasm for it as I used to. I was like the person in Zhuan Falun who only did superficial work to be appreciated by his supervisor. But as Teacher tells us, cultivation practice depends fully upon your heart.

Before I would just do my set delivery routes and leave it at that but now I take the initiative and go and give out papers in the street in the afternoon. Recently one of our distributors left to go back to Hong Kong, she used to give out papers on the corner of a busy London street – on one corner is a BBC building, on the other a busy university with many Chinese students. It is an excellent place to distribute the paper as it is a thoroughfare that many people pass through at lunchtime. Before I took over this distribution point I was reluctant to because of my attachment to my reputation, I didn’t want to stand on the pavement, on my own in the middle of the day giving out papers.

As Master says in Zhuan Falun:

“A lot of people want to practice cultivation toward high levels. This is now provided right before you, and you may still be unaware of it… Today, it is offered to you at your doorstep, and maybe you have not realised it! This is an issue of whether you can become enlightened to it and whether you can be saved.”

Each week there are 10,000 papers printed which is 10,000 opportunities to let people know about the truth. The papers are free for any practitioners to collect and distribute where they please. Each week I can take the opportunity to do better and better, improving my character whilst reaching many sentient beings who have waited aeon's of time for me to walk through their door with a newspaper.

Alongside the distribution two other practitioners and myself have formed the ad sales team for the paper. The sales team has a very important role to play in ensuring that our paper starts functioning as a regular media outlet in society. It has been a slow process in learning the basics of sales and for a long time I didn’t really have the heart to do it. My human notions told me that it was too much work for too little reward, it would never succeed enough to make a living off, and sales was a bit of a lowly profession.

There was a turning point though at one of our sales meetings. One practitioner commented that the Epoch Times in New York had grown so quickly because they all had the one righteous thought that they wanted it to succeed. After this our minds in the sales team changed. We naturally started to come together, setting up office in one practitioner's home and started to treat it like a regular job. Doing calls in a group is very supportive – we can discuss how the call went and how to better handle objections. There has since been two more practitioners who have joined the sales team.

I feel I need to make rapid progress in sales so I can start bringing in regular revenue for the paper. I have come across many attachments lately in trying to push forward with the sales; notably my dependence on others and my attachment to comfort. I am quite happy making appointments over the phone then going to visit someone, but find it difficult walking in off the street to visit a business. Fear of rejection, fear of the unknown and my attachment to comfort and security all come into play. Walking in cold off the street does feel like a baptism of fire but it is a very time-effective approach to sales and makes you more distinctive than the numerous sales calls that businesses receive. The other practitioner in the sales team gave me some useful advice recently: If you keep putting yourself in the same situation again and again then things are bound to start happening.

Contrary to popular opinion sales can actually be quite enjoyable. The stereotype of the pushy sales person is not true at all, as Teacher tells us in Zhuan Falun: “'Nine out of ten merchants are fraudulent.’ That is a saying made by everyday people. I would say that it is a matter of the human heart.” It is our enthusiasm and positive attitude that attracts people to the Epoch Times. I would encourage anyone to get involved with the sales team. Instead of thinking of it as sales we are just representatives of the paper. There is no particular type of person that makes a good sales person, you can be quiet and shy or loud and extrovert. It is the heart and mind that are important, as Teacher tells us in Zhuan Falun:

“If you can commit your mind no difficulties can stop you.”