European Sharing Conference: Working Together as a Whole

Greetings Master! Greetings fellow practitioners!

I am a Swedish Falun Gong practitioner. Today, it is a great honour to be in front of you and have this chance to share my experience during this special European Falun Dafa conference held in Russia. I have been to Russia several times and every time it has been a great joy to meet with all the Falun Dafa practitioners from Russia and Eastern Europe.

I know that it is not an easy matter for Russian practitioners to attend a Falun Dafa conference outside of Russia. It is not even an easy matter to attend it inside Russia since Russia being so vest. The first time I came here, many years ago, I was in St. Petersburg when someone told me a story which left a great impression on me. I was told that once a practitioner from a very remote place in Russia had to travel nearly an entire month to get to a Falun Dafa conference. When this practitioner finally arrived he was beaming with joy. One can’t even begin to think of the difficulties this practitioner has met during this long journey. I remember thinking then that our conferences are so sacred and something that we should try to attend. With this in mind nothing could have stopped this practitioner from attending.

Here we can grow and cultivate together, appreciate and learn from each other and unite to become one strong body to meet whatever is presented to us. Together there is nothing that we cannot over come. This is our true legacy that Master has given to us to save the world’s sentient beings.

Today I would like to share with you my understanding of us becoming one body.

Many years ago during the United Nation activities in Geneva I remember my first thoughts regarding us cultivating as one body. Normally I always get to the group activities early and get in the position in the front line but this day I was quite late and I was in the last line, right at the very back. From here I could see everyone. I was overwhelmed to see so many practitioners from all over the world standing there together. All of us came with one thought…to save sentient beings. I was greatly touched by this sight. While we were doing the third exercise I noticed that some arms were up while others were down. All of us are doing the same exercise and all of us came with same wish but we were in different fazes. Some were a little faster and others a little slower. There I had a sudden understanding that we as practitioners are perhaps not really aligned yet. At the same time I was wooed by the very thought of us being or becoming one body and how strong and powerful our energy would not be if we are completely aligned together. I could see that we are like a grand orchestra. All of us play an instrument and one day perhaps we can play a most beautiful piece which will emit a great resonance throughout the universe.

During these days I remembered a story I read as a young child. It was about a cow who worked on the field. One day after work the cow came back in the evening to rest. While he rested his different parts started to talk to each other about who is most important of them all. The mouth said he was most important since with out eating the cow will surly die. Then the eyes said that with out them they can not even see the food so they are most important. Then the lags said with out them how the cow will get there to find food so they were most important. Even the stomach and the tail had something to say. All of them fell into a big argument and finally stopped communicating. Day after day all the parts refused to carry out their relevant tasks. The cow grew weaker and weaker everyday. One day a weak voice said. We can not go on like this, if we do not work together, the cow will surly die. And so all of them agreed that they all were needed and they need to work together in unison order to save the cow.

I know this is a children’s story and that we are not cows, yet the principle of working together still could apply to us especially now that there are so many Falun Dafa related projects that we are working on. Many of us need to work on many projects at the same time and being pressed with time can sometimes greatly affect our cultivation. When we work on different projects it is impossible to avoided problems arising among our selves. Since I have been coordinating several projects over the years I have heard a lot of criticism towards my coordinating work and most of the time my heart is affected. Still I can not but appreciate the opportunity it gives me on improving myself and how it benefits my cultivation when I finally get over them. I truly believe that it is the process that counts in making every project possible, big or small, how we improve together as practitioners and that each practitioner has a role to play. We are as different cogs coming together to produce a final outcome.

Even though cultivation is an individual process and every practitioner has their own path, we are also very much connected with each other and every righteous thoughts we have towards one another will strengthen us while every deviated human thoughts will weaken us. It is not easy to see clearly through the deviated human notions yet I think more mature we are, quicker and quicker we can over come ourselves and bring less and less loses to the whole plan.

One of my very first obstacles in my cultivation was understanding the true nature of the tests and tribulations that we are presented with. From the very start I had a notion that cultivators should be nice and harmonious towards each other and when the problems started to arise among ourselves I naturally thought that the problems were in others and forgot to look inwards to find out my own shortcomings. With this mentality I avoided the cultivators that I had conflicts with, and of course I thought of my self as a better cultivator because of that. In reality I learnt later that the opposite was the truth.

Tests in our cultivation are unavoidable and so we shouldn’t try to avoid them but rather we should remember that all of us are Falun Dafa practitioners and that we will all try our best to over come what ever hardships we are going through together. When conflicts arise I try to remember who we are. We all came unselfishly to this world to save sentient beings and because of the contamination of human world we at times can not remember to behave like practitioners yet we are Falun Dafa disciples and as such we have a grand and sacred mission before us.

Recently we had some activities in Finland where there are not that many practitioners who could participate in the activities. One day I sent an email to the Finish practitioners and received one irritated and accusing message. My first reaction was to write am email telling her why they were wrong as she had obviously misunderstood the whole thing. While I was writing an irritated email, another Finish practitioner called regarding another matter. I could tell that she was also much stressed. Suddenly I saw how pressed all of them were and how little they must have slept for many days. It was not just Finish practitioner’s responsibility but it was our responsibility. After the phone call I rewrote my e-mail. This time I did not aggressively state my thoughts but rather I asked what I can do to help. I was grateful that I never wrote the email so as not to cause more problems. This incident was not a very difficult or hard test for me to overcome and yet I learnt a lot from it. I learnt to be less critical. Also it reminded me to appreciate other practitioner’s hard work. So while I was coordinating for a few resent seminars in Sweden to introduce the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party I tried to remember to thank practitioners for their work whenever possible. Even with this realisation I still came short in appreciating some of the practitioners efforts.

In our labours in becoming one-body the evil is constantly trying to interfere. For instance when we are doing projects together as a group I have repeatably noticed several ways the evil tries to interfere. One way is trying to create an imbalance by targeting our cooperation, creating misunderstandings and disharmony among the practitioners so our disagreements become an issue. If we cannot see through this in time it will certainly create many difficulties with the project. Another way is to create small disagreements between two practitioners. Some practitioners do pull in directions away from the project because they do not have a clear picture or truly understand the purpose of the project. If we are clear on our priority and purpose of why and do what we should do, we can easily see through these interference..

Even though it really is not easy to clearly see through ones own selfish human nature I think that we as Falun Dafa practitioners as a whole have matured a lot over the years. Therefore I think we should really take every opportunity to better ourselves in character frictions and let go of our human notions and really help each other to overcome all the difficulties, work together to create a strong foundation and become a truly magnificent one body.

I would like to end this sharing with my deepest appreciation towards all the fellow Falun Dafa practitioners all over the world who put endless efforts in creating and finding ways to save more sentient beings. I have learnt so much from all of you and hope you will keep on helping me to learn more.

We are most fortunate beings in the universe how can we not but be overjoyed by the grace we received from our reverent Master. Thank you Master for giving us this greatest of opportunities to be part in this Fa rectification.

Thank you.