A Brief Sharing

Greetings, Teacher
Greetings, fellow practitioners

At an important sharing among practitioners coordinating the London 2008 Spectacular, the discussion focused on how to deal with the conflicts between practitioners. One practitioner said “Actually Teacher already has a plan for the Spectacular in other dimensions, so long as we let go of our own attachments to our ego, we will be able to follow this plan and achieve the best effects. If we hold on to egos, we will be lost, the more tightly we hold on to our egos, the more lost we will be, and the less likely we will do well.” This piece of sharing came towards the end of a meeting which had lasted hours. I felt very strongly that it was spot on in pointing out a key cause of conflicts between practitioners and was sure that the understanding would help me resolve future conflicts.

However, facing a situation a few weeks later, it was as if that this principle had vanished into thin air. Regarding an issue relating to the London spectacular preparations, I was not so happy about a practitioner, feeling that he doesn’t walk his talk despite grand “rhetoric”. At times, the feeling was intense and bordered on being angry. Later at moments when I had a more peaceful mind, I found what annoyed me most was not so much his opinions as the fact that his opinion was different, very different in some aspects, from that of mine. At these peaceful moments when I could better let go of the ego, I could see more clearly the value of the suggestions of the other party. Even when facing the issues on which I still believed the other party was not correct, my mind state was one of more benevolence, care and respect for the other party, for his perseverance in cultivation and doing three things well amidst the same tribulation.

After another sharing about the UK spectacular, in which several practitioners raised different opinions and made critical comments, a fellow practitioner said to me: so-and-so’s comments were not really right, why didn’t you speak up for your approach? Indeed, I might have done so on a different day, but the energy field there that day was so good that in the field I was more able not to think about who is right and who is wrong, or about explaining myself. Instead I could focused more on listening to what others are thinking about, and actually heard valuable things in their comments.

Like other practitioners, I have understood the principle of letting go of oneself for a few years, but at the moment when a tribulation occurs, I might at times deal with it like a person who doesn’t understand this principle. After struggling through the tribulation, and looking back for some enlightenment, it is interesting that often what I got enlightened to was the same principle of letting go of oneself, known many years ago. Maybe this is because we cultivate layer by layer, and the layer that is cultivated and clear-minded will be separated from this human side and whatever that is left is again not clear and needs to cultivate anew. (Of course, this is not a process of simplistic repetition, but one of elevation too, albeit a slow one.)

A practitioner from another country told me that in a project over there, initially practitioners raised different opinions, but because they were not dealt with properly, the conflicts deepened, and people no longer put forward their ideas or thoughts. It almost ended up with most people giving up on the project. So having different opinions is not a bad thing! Actually, when practitioners express different opinions, it is the starting point of closer communications and an opportunity for forming a one body. The way of doing that is letting go of egos.

I try to remind myself in each project, that it is not my project or a project of the coordinator but an environment in which each participating practitioner walks his/her personal path of saving people and consummating his/her future world. One of the key functions of a coordinator is to assist each practitioner to walk well his own path, as arranged by the Master.

Teacher frequently reminds us that although on the surface what we do is similar to what the ordinary people do, they are fundamentally different. Teacher spoke of this during many of his recent lectures and we read about this many times. But it was not till I attended the events in Athens earlier this month that I had a greater understanding and a more vivid perception of this.

Almost the last minute before the event, a practitioner asked me to make three copies of the manuscripts of several speeches. I rushed into a hotel next to the event venue. A man behind the counter who looked like a manager asked me without any expression how many copies I would need and disappeared into the office with the originals. After a good while, he still didn’t come back, I thought to myself: the fellow practitioner explained to me that this is the only copy of the speeches which will be read at the event with live broadcast through a satellite link. If anything happens to the manuscripts then there would be nothing to use at that event. There was already a lot of interference that day, these manuscripts must not be lost at the last minute. So I started to send forth righteous thoughts. A short while later, the manager emerged, carrying a bunch of paper with him. I was quite relieved to see the manuscripts and wanted to immediately take them, pay and go. However, page by page, the manager started carefully sorting the bunch of photocopies into three piles. I was in a rush but felt it was not proper to push him. The manager picked up the three piles of paper one by one, tidied them up and reached to his drawer for paper clips which he put carefully on each of the three copies. Then he said, slowly, here are your three copies. When I asked about the cost, he put his hands on his chest, bowed slightly, and said “There is no charge. It’s out of my respect for your cause.”

Walking out of the hotel, I held those photocopies tightly in my hand. There was a feeling of witnessing uplifting scene on the broadest horizon and a feeling of sacredness. Teacher’s teaching about our activities being fundamentally different from similar ordinary people activities came to mind. But this time the understanding and perception of this teaching is vivid – I felt that innumerable gods in the universe were watching me holding the photocopied manuscripts, walking down the hotel steps, cutting across the traffic and street, and rushing them to the hands of the waiting practitioner. That broad and uplifting sense of sacredness was so vivid and lofty, that it can easily melt away all the barriers between practitioners and make all the conflicts and accumulated grudges look so unimportant and feeble, to the point of being irrelevant.

Although our photocopying was not so different from ordinary people’s photocopying, what we do, even small things, are sacred, are things that numerous gods in the universe want to but could not do. Only we have the great fortune and great responsibility to do them!

I would like to finish by quoting the final part of Teacher’s poem “Plum Blossoms” as encouragement for us all:

Never, ever get preoccupied with worldly things
Steel your righteous thoughts
For all [that you have gone through] since ancient times,
Was for none other than this time around.

Thank you, Teacher
Thank you, fellow practitioners!