(Clearwisdom.net) I started to practice Falun Dafa in 2001, around the same time as the website I work on was launched, and I soon began to help out on a daily basis. I realized that many things that happened throughout my life had given me the necessary skills to take part in this project and felt indescribably grateful to our Master for arranging me to take part in Fa-rectification in this way.

One of the things that struck me near the beginning of my time working on a Dafa website was that there is no reward or affirmation of the work that you have done, just as there is no fame involved because most people are not even aware of the work we are doing. Handing out a flyer and talking to people on the street allows you to see the effect that you are having immediately. Working on a website, you do not even know if anyone is reading it let alone are you able to see the effect it is having. So I quickly had to get rid of any attachment I had to getting results or proof that I was doing something effective in the Fa-rectification. If I ever came across negative thoughts about this, I would just remind myself that Master will guide people who need to see the website so that they can learn the truth and I just need to do well in what Master has arranged for me to do.

In the early days of the website, everyone on the team had a good relationship with the coordinator but there was little contact between other members of the team. This put a lot of pressure on the coordinators, as they were acting like an information sharing hub between the many different practitioners in the team. There was no cultivation environment between the rest of us because we did not communicate or share together. The first time I made a step forward and called someone else on the team who I had not spoken to before, I felt that a big wall had been knocked down between us. I realized that communication and cooperation are extremely important in this Fa-rectification period, both for reasons that we can see on the surface, and for other reasons that we may not know about. Whenever I called people, Master would always arrange for them to tell me things that were very important for me to hear in my cultivation. I soon realized that working on a Fa-rectification project together we were not a bunch of individual practitioners working on the same project but we were actually cultivating and ascending together. It is important that we make our work on Dafa websites into a cultivation environment by sharing and improving together. This will allow us to work as an indestructible whole rather than a series of individual particles.

I remember one time when I was trying to upload my articles onto the system but it just would not work. I sent forth righteous thoughts and though it felt quite good, it didn't seem to help. I could not see any particular problems in my Xinxing or work out why I could not overcome this obstacle. I had to get in touch with other team members to ask if they could input my articles for that day. But before I asked, it was suggested that we try sending righteous thoughts together as a team. We did this and suddenly everything worked perfectly.

I realized that no matter how well we feel we are doing individually, sometimes we have to work as a team to overcome things and if we cooperate and communicate well, our power is tremendous. The first time our website team met together in person was also an enormous step forward for the team as a whole. We spent a day studying Fa and sharing experiences and the effects were enormous. This was something different from telephone conferences and since then we have tried to have regular meetings in person, even though some practitioners have to travel quite a long way.

In 2002 I often had experiences where I would have a problem with an attachment in my cultivation and when I spoke to someone else from the team I found that they were having similar problems. But recently I felt that things have been slightly different. For example, one practitioner in our team was really not doing too well. He would not do his work at all or when he did the work, the quality was terrible, putting a lot of pressure on me because I always had to fill in for him. Although I knew that as a practitioner we should think of others first and be tolerant, I felt that because this was Fa-rectification work and very important I had some kind of right to be strict and demanding of others. Actually this was a manifestation of me lowering the standards for myself. Master told us in "Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Vancouver, Canada, in 2003":

We cannot use any excuse for behavior that does not conform to the Fa's standards, no matter how important or urgent the situation is. This practitioner not doing well was a big test for me -- whether I could truly follow Master's teachings and assimilate to the Fa under this much pressure and in this kind of difficult situation.

Over time my thoughts towards this practitioner seemed to get worse and worse and his contribution to the website got worse and worse, until I had in my mind that he was useless and should no longer work on the website. I then spoke to a practitioner who went to the Fahui in Atlanta. He told me some things that really went straight to my heart and made me see the layers of selfishness that were controlling my thoughts. I realized that the change that needed to be made was not an external one -- we should not remove this person from the team. The change for me was an internal one -- my heart was not broad and compassionate enough towards this practitioner. Instead of trying to help and encourage him through this hard time, I had only had negative thoughts towards him because of the hardship I was suffering. When I thought of the suffering Master has been through for all of us, I felt really ashamed with myself. I realized that my thoughts of "this practitioner is not good enough, let's replace him!" were actually the thoughts of the old forces and is exactly the kind of tactic they wanted to use to get rid of practitioners they felt were not worthy.

I refused to follow their arrangement. As soon as I saw my shortcoming here and wanted to change myself, I felt my heart broaden and that I was able to see a new level in the Fa-rectification. Since then I have tried to have this broad and kind heart in everything I do, accepting what others can offer rather than judging them and expecting them to follow my decrees. But the biggest lesson I learned from this experience was, when I looked at this practitioner with a righteous mind and felt compassion towards him, his website work suddenly made a big improvement. My attachment and negative thoughts seemed to have been holding him back and they were the real source of the problem in the team. I truly saw that we are not doing individual cultivation but are instead part of Fa-rectification cultivation. As Master told us in "Teaching the Fa at the Washington, D.C. Fa Conference" in 2002:

Every thought and action of ours can have big effects on others, and any omission or attachment is not a personal matter.

For a long while I did a lot of Fa-rectification work and really felt that I was doing quite well. But over time I developed attachments and incorrect notions that doing Dafa work is all there is to cultivation. I put aside chances to look inside and change myself because I felt that I was too busy with Dafa work and the work was too important. Master continually reminded us of the importance of doing the three things well: cultivate ourselves, validate Dafa and send forth righteous thoughts. However, although on the surface I was doing all three things, I did not give cultivating myself and sending forth righteous thoughts the importance that they should have been given. I felt that they were just to help me do better in Dafa work. When I recognized this and made a heartfelt promise that I will do the three things well and do my best to follow Master's requirements, I felt like an enormous weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Now I better understand the importance of doing all three things well, I have found that I can rationally and calmly find time for all of them and that they all work in harmony together so everything is taken care of.

Thank you Master and thank you fellow practitioners for this chance to share my cultivation experiences. I would like to finish with some words from "Master's Greetings to Dafa Disciples for New Year's Day 2004":