My cultivation experience working for the English Epoch Times

Hello Master!

I work in the UK as a web editor for the English Epoch Times and have done some writing for the paper.

The EET website had a massive increase in traffic one week – it was truly becoming part of the Fa rectification. That week on the Tuesday, I had a righteous day online, editing articles, checking sources, putting them on the website with pictures, related articles, page breaks, captions, heads, subheads, pull-quotes, and putting them in the correct sections. I did my job well, I thought and said to myself, “Wow, I’m on top of things!”

However, the next day I woke with cramp. I had not done the full exercises for over two weeks and I think the cramp was karma from my previous night’s sitting meditation where I had tried to turn my leg so that the sole of my foot faced more upwards. It was a pursuit.

I felt groggy and dull. I was very attached to this and wanted to share it with a practitioner at a morning Fa Study. I knew I had to leave early to go to a Web-editing session and I thought the Lecture would take a while to finish. So I asked him if we could share. He said, quite rightly, that we should wait until we finished the Lecture.

At the end there was only a few minutes to share and I felt the childish side of me saying, “OK, you don’t want to share as much as me so I’m not playing, I’ll sulk.”

I had been noticing this sulky child in myself more and more. It came up in my relationship with my wife and at work, with bosses especially. It’s a side of myself I have indulged in the past – not seeing its demon nature, only taking care of its vulnerable, needy side.

Working for the EET has helped me see this side of me for what it is – unnecessary. Working on the technicalities of web-loading and reporting demands putting others first.

You can’t give the reader the correct facts without putting the needs of others before your own. You need to consider what they can take or what they may understand, and get through the technicalities of putting text and image in the right way. This is also a way to show truthfulness, compassion and forbearance.

You can’t work with people if you don’t say when you’ve made a mistake (an aspect of truth), or if you don’t accept their failings and incompatibilities (compassion for them) and their greater abilities and skills (benevolence for oneself), and get through the difficulties which are nobody’s fault, like a website going down (tolerance).

Going through these tribulations day after day showed me some of my immaturity. This sulking side of my personality was not helpful to my daily work. It had so many physical demands, needs I could not supply without slacking off of my work and letting people down.

I got attached to how much or how little I achieved, how more or less advanced fellow workers were in their job or as practitioners, how well they read the Fa or if they coughed at Fa study before meetings. I got pulled this way and that by what others might think of my performance. I had the attachment of competitiveness.

Yes, we have to do our jobs well but I found myself trying to please my bosses and impress others by the amount of articles I could do, the time spent working on the web and the unsocial hours I’d keep because of international commitments.

It was this childish side of me wanting attention, wanting to be seen as good, wanting praise and not doing the work to save sentient beings, just doing it to be part of a warm, accepting group.

Being part of this surge in Fa rectification showed me my ugly negativity – I indulged in dis-spiriting feelings, as on the morning that I woke up with cramp and felt dull. I had let these old, unhelpful mindsets pull me into their sense of wanting comfort, as they were so familiar.

I worried what people would think of me. Their thoughts were not in my control. I was used to feeling rejected and had built good barriers to reject people before they rejected me. But what if they liked me? What if others thought I could do my job ok? This was awkward because it brought up the responsibility of looking after my relationship with them.

Children can’t take responsibility. We look after children because they do not have the experience to distinguish between cool red silk and red-hot flame. They need to learn some basic truths.

I had put this inexperienced child in charge of a large part of my mind. I had given up responsibility, looked outside for decisions. I did not expect to be given responsibilities and avoided taking charge.

While writing for the UK print edition, I found that I was relied on, though not indispensable. If I didn’t come up with the goods each week, it would make life difficult for other staff members.

One of the most important and compulsory meetings I had to go to was at 3am UK time. Other web sessions I was responsible for were at 6-7 in the morning. I also liked to study the Fa each morning at 4am.

When we had the privilege of helping save people with Shen Yun in the UK, my childish side showed itself again. I found it difficult to make decisions about which work I should do. In the end, my childish side remained greedy and would not give any work up.

At one point, I told an editor that I would take some time off as things were getting too much for me. He was fine about this but when the next reporting date came round, I turned up like a robot, ready to do what I had been doing for months but with little energy or enthusiasm.

Eventually, the editor had to tell me to stop. And then had to make me stop as I would not. This was a way of me looking outside – looking outside for help like a child wanting boundaries.

I am very grateful to the people around me who calmly accepted my shortcomings. I learned a tremendous amount about helping the unruly, uncared-for child inside me and re-experienced the humility, embarrassment, shame and loss of face that I felt as a parent when too attached to my children’s behaviour in public.

I thank Master for getting me through this and for putting so many around me who could, and still do, deal with my shortcomings so kindly and, I believe, without attachment or sentimentality.

Thank you so much.