(Minghui.org) Through this incident, I realized that improving coordination is done through studying the Fa and cultivation, instead of using ordinary people's ways of doing things. How can their ways form a Dafa group? As the group xinxing has elevated, everyone has become responsible, and coordination has naturally improved. So fellow practitioners and I have now committed to start from the most basics: to restore group study and sharing.
Greetings, compassionate, great Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
Below is my understanding of cultivating away human notions, changing concepts, and harmonizing with the Dafa disciples' whole body through coordination work.
1. Getting Rid of Fear, Letting Go of Self, and Assuming Responsibility for Coordination
Falun Gong practitioners in my city were persecuted more severely than in any other areas in the region, especially shortly before and after the 2008 Olympic Games. Cultivation environments were ruined. Gaps between practitioners were enlarged. When we saw other areas doing well, we worried about our situation and wished that our region could become more mature.
A positive energy field could suppress and disintegrate all evil. However, I never dared to assume the responsibility of coordination, because I thought it was too dangerous. After I was released from a forced labor camp, I decided to just clarify the truth to people I knew and write articles to publish on the Internet. I felt it was much safer to just speak to people on an individual basis, because I could determine if they were trustworthy, and to publish articles online, because nobody would know that I wrote them.
However, from the second half of 2011, almost every practitioner I spoke to invariably talked about a unified body, so I felt that Master was pushing me to step forward. At first, I always pushed it away when practitioners said I was suitable to be coordinator. I said that I just wanted to do what I wanted to do.
Practitioner A thought that I needed to place saving sentient beings as the top priority, instead of doing the projects I wanted to do, and that we all needed to do what Dafa needed the most. The practitioner's words allowed me to see my fear, and that I was using the excuse of working on projects to cover up my fear. Through Fa study, I understood that, with the deviation of the old universe, the starting point of lives was selfishness. When those lives underwent social interactions, they would become more selfish, and then drop in level and became increasingly worse.
What I believe Master wants is selfless enlightened beings in the new universe. Thus, our inherent qualities are being tempered through cultivation, overall cooperation, and saving sentient beings, so that we meet the standard of selflessness of the new universe. Only in the process of the universe's renewal can one be called a Fa-rectification Dafa disciple and shoulder the sacred mission of saving sentient beings. Thus, when a coordinator was needed in our area, I thought I needed to take the initiative.
A magical thing then happened: I had put some information to use for writing truth-clarification articles in a computer folder, but now I couldn't find it. I finally found it in a sub-folder of another folder. I thought that Master had used this to help me realize that I should make the overall coordination my top priority.
The first project I needed to coordinate was to rescue Practitioner B. We had to expose the evil to the local community and get in touch with the family and lawyers. Practitioner B had been monitored by the authorities and was deemed a key figure. I had frequent contact with him and didn't know whether I had been exposed. For security reasons, some practitioners advised me not to get involved, but to find one or two other practitioners who weren't exposed to contact the family and lawyers. However, only Practitioner C and I knew the family well. Since C was being monitored more than I was, I couldn't let her take the risk, so I thought I'd do it myself.
When I accompanied the family to see a lawyer for the first time, the lawyer said that he was under surveillance by the city security forces and that that police had asked to meet with him the following day. When I asked him whether he had been arrested for representing practitioners, the lawyer said that family members should not have a problem hiring lawyers, as that is their legitimate right, and that lawyers were just doing their job and nothing should happen to them. Only Dafa practitioners who accompanied family members might be followed afterward and seized by the police, he added.
When the lawyer made these remarks, he put his cell phone on the table as if to see my reaction. I realized that all of this was directed at my fear to see whether I dared to go forward. I thought that I should use righteous thoughts to face the challenge. As a Dafa practitioner assisting Master in Fa-rectification, I was doing the most righteous thing in the universe. The evil is nothing and needs to be eliminated.
Later, each time I went to meet the family or the lawyer, I would maintain this righteous state of mind, besides taking appropriate security measures. Meanwhile, more and more practitioners began to support the effort. They sent forth righteous thoughts, shared their understandings, and wrote articles to expose the evil. Gradually we formed one body and the rescue work was making progress. With Master's blessings and practitioners' righteous thoughts, I felt protected and safe, and my fear was reduced a great deal.
2. Cultivation During Coordination
In the past, I had the attachment to doing things, which led to my being persecuted. I considered how much I did as a measure of how diligent I was and a direct reflection of my xinxing. This resulted in my straying from the Fa, yet I was pleased with myself and felt that I cultivated well. As a result, the evil was able to take advantage of the loophole and I was persecuted.
Through studying the Fa, I realized that, as genuine cultivators, we need to do our best on each Dafa project, regardless of whether it is big or small; I need to treat every coordination project as cultivation and maintain the mentality of a cultivator. I usually had to go to work, take care of my elderly parents at home, and coordinate projects to save sentient beings. However, no matter how busy I was, I put studying the Fa as my top priority. If I hadn't yet studied the Fa on a particular day, I would put things aside until I finished studying the Fa. As a result, I became more clearheaded and organized.
Practitioners in our area were aware that group Fa study was the foundation to solidifying our one body. With everyone's efforts, several Fa study groups were formed, and I attended one group. During the first two meetings, after reading the Fa, I would discuss projects with everyone right away. We spent a lot of time without accomplishing much, so gradually practitioners lost their enthusiasm to attend meetings. What was the problem? I found that I was caught up in the ordinary people's way of doing things. Thus, I adjusted myself. From then on, after studying the Fa, we shared our experiences, and practitioners felt that they gained a great deal from this. We left a small amount of time to discuss projects. As our xinxing level elevated, everyone took the initiative to undertake a task, and wherever help was needed, practitioners were willing to participate.
Practitioner D suffered from serious sickness karma and was hospitalized. I often went to send forth righteous thoughts for her and help her to look inward, but her condition did not improve. The hospital notified her family of her critical condition and set up monitoring equipment and a ventilator. Practitioners alerted me that D had not studied the Fa mindfully for a while. After we consulted each other, we decided to not only talk, but also study the Fa with her when we went to visit her. Practitioner E used her lunch break, braving the scorching summer heat on a crowded bus, to go to the hospital to read the Fa to her.
With our group efforts, Practitioner D was then able to leave the hospital, and she took the initiative to develop a study plan. During the daytime, the elderly practitioners recited Lunyu and Hong Yin and read Zhuan Falun with her. In the evening, the younger practitioners accompanied her to read Master's recent lectures.
A week later, I found that Practitioner D had changed a lot. Her spirits were up, her face was glowing, and she could eat again. She was sober when studying the Fa and had learned to look inward. While I read a new lecture with her, I felt that we were both immersed in the energy of Dafa, our minds were filled with the Fa, and Falun rotated around our bodies. I could see that D was carefully studying the Fa. When I left her house, I felt an unspeakable joy and I deeply appreciated the wonderfulness of studying the Fa.
I suddenly understood what Master said:
“There’s a saying in China: 'If someone hears the Dao in the morning, he can die at dusk.'” (“Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Europe”)
When a person is assimilated to Dafa, is he still an ordinary human being? Can the evil touch him? Through this experience, I gained a deeper understanding of why Master has repeatedly advised us to study the Fa.
During the process of rescuing Practitioner B, I promptly reported to practitioners where we stood and what the lawyer and the family would need to do next. I was hoping that everyone would intensify sending forth righteous thoughts, collect and provide the information on the authorities involved in the persecution, and download and distribute articles to expose the evil. However, I didn't get many responses from fellow practitioners.
I asked several practitioners about the progress and found that things hadn't been worked on. I felt very tired. Some practitioners said I was shouting slogans, had the mentality of doing things, interfered with others as to what path to take, and so on. I felt that I was wronged and thus complained about practitioners in my mind: “Aren't we meant to be one body? Why doesn't anyone cooperate when we need to take action?”
I had doubts as to whether it would make sense to continue. I really wanted to quit being a coordinator, but my divine side was very clear: Our region was just getting started working as a whole body, and the evil in another dimension was desperately trying to interfere with us to prevent us from forming one body. If I retreated from the difficulties at this point, then I would be walking on the path arranged by the old forces.
I tried to suppress my negative emotions. I vaguely felt that there had to be some shortcomings within me and that was why things had not gone well. I calmed down to find the reasons. I found a lot of the overall group problems: Group study was not widespread enought, and there was not enough sharing among practitioners, interaction between coordinators, and so on.
When I shared these thoughts with Practitioner A, he pointed out that there was a problem with my approach to doing things. I was doing things like ordinary people in an organization: When an officer gives an order, people below him are to follow that order. A cultivation group in the Fa-rectification period is completely different: Each particle takes its own path. In the meantime, everyone is to study the Fa, share, and be diligent together, and form one body. When xinxing is elevated, things naturally become easier to do and coordination work becomes less tiresome.
Practitioner A's words woke me up. He made me realize that I had been looking outward, while the root of the problem was within myself. Although I was willing to do things as a cultivator, my way of thinking and style of doing things were like those of ordinary people. Wasn't that a case of an ordinary person doing Dafa work? Did it not give the evil an excuse to undermine the overall coordination? That was why my efforts had been met with so much resistance.
I also identified the toxic elements of Communist Party culture in my way of doing things: being superficial, speaking to others vaguely, appealing for support without considering others, and not doing things in-depth and meticulously. For example, I didn't tell others ahead of time the specific time and place for sending forth righteous thoughts or things related to making phone calls to clarify the truth; nor did I let practitioners know where to download local truth-clarification materials and what communities to distribute them to. Of course, I couldn't possibly do all of these things by myself, but I still monopolized them. My hidden attachment of validating myself had taken shape and I was unaware of it.
Master said:
“If you sincerely want to have all practitioners collaborate to get things done, what results will you get?”(“How to Provide Assistance” from Essentials For Further Advancement)
Once I found these attachments, I suddenly felt relaxed, as if relieved of a heavy burden. Later, when a practitioner who was being taken advantage of by the evil, spread rumors to undermine the group, I did not let it drag me down.
Master said:
“Why does someone like that exist among Dafa disciples, and why would such a thing come about? Isn't that person's presence meant to target certain people, or certain human attachments? For sure. Nothing happens in cultivation without a reason. When incorrect states and bad human conduct surface among us, those things have come to target human attachments.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2009 Washington DC International Fa Conference”)
“..make sure to examine yourselves often as you cultivate. No matter what kind of problem arises, first reflect upon yourself and the group you are working with, and quite likely you will find the root of the problem.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2009 Washington DC International Fa Conference”)
During group study, I told practitioners about my attachments and my understanding based on the Fa. A practitioner said: “Dafa disciples in our region have gradually formed a whole body that the evil is afraid of. We have to cultivate ourselves well, put down self, steadily cooperate with one another, and form an indestructible whole body. Then the evil would not be able to interfere with us and our whole group will become more mature.”
Through this incident, I realized that improving coordination is done through studying the Fa and cultivation, instead of doing things the ordinary people's way. How can ordinary people's ways form a Dafa group? As the group xinxing elevated, everyone became responsible, and coordination has naturally improved. Fellow practitioners and I have now committed ourselves to start from the most basics: to restore group study and sharing.
3. Harmonizing with the Whole Body to Be a Particle of Dafa
Coordinators in our area had different understandings about using legal means to rescue Practitioner B. I stressed repeatedly the significance of my approach, but they thought another way was more suitable for our group. I thought that I shouldn't be obsessed with the approach itself. When I could not lay down my own idea, I was validating self.
I realized that if the conditions for my approach were immature, I should not stubbornly adhere to it. The apparent result was not as important as the process of exposing the evil and clarifying the truth to save sentient beings. I then no longer imposed my own ideas onto others; instead, I went along with other coordinators' proposals. When I stopped insisting on my own idea, I could better listen to their suggestions.
Coordinators often hear different opinions from other practitioners, and sometimes are even accused of being wrong or misunderstanding others. In the past when I encountered such conflicts, I would try to explain and defend myself. Once, I quarreled with a practitioner and criticized his tone of voice and attitude, telling him that he did not look inward. Afterward, I felt bad about what I had said.
From studying the Fa, I understood that whether things are right or wrong on the surface is not important. Gods only look at whether one's mind is elevated or not. Isn't hearing unpleasant words a good opportunity to cultivate away one's attachment of saving face? Now when I hear different views, I try to understand each practitioner's good intentions and remind myself that, if what that practitioner says has even a small fraction of the truth, I should listen and be thankful. I want to maintain benevolent thoughts and not care about saving face.
In the past, I had many negative thoughts about fellow practitioners and liked to talk about their shortcomings. I found that these notions were caused by jealousy and a show-off mentality, and they had a damaging effect on the group. Master wants us to have positive and compassionate thoughts about fellow practitioners and ordinary people, so I am working hard to cultivate away these negative thoughts and am reminding myself to look only at practitioners' positive side. A cultivator needs to overlook practitioners' uncultivated sides.
Master said,
“Whether you're doing things as a group or doing things individually, what you're doing is the same kind of thing, and that's what we mean by one entity. You're all clarifying the truth, sending righteous thoughts, and studying the Fa, so the specifics of the things you're doing are different but the division of roles is orderly, together there's a form, and separated there are particles.” (“Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference”)
The main body of Dafa disciples--the disciples in mainland China--have continued to walk a path of the Great Way. I feel that a coordinator must be a Dafa disciple first and do the three things well. One should not be satisfied with just planning and coordinating things, while slacking off on clarifying the truth to save sentient beings, so I pay attention to it at all times and in all places.
For example, when our region initiated an around-the-clock schedule for sending forth righteous thoughts, I claimed the ten o'clock time spot for every night. However, sometimes I was busy and missed it. One day I suddenly realized that to promise to honor a certain time to send forth righteous thoughts is a commitment to the group and sentient beings. If I do not do a good job, it will reduce the power of the group. Since then, besides sending forth righteous thoughts at set global times, I have made it a point to send forth righteous thoughts at ten o'clock each night.
When practitioners from other areas come to our regional public security office to submit truth-clarification materials, I go there to send forth righteous thoughts in close range. Whenever there is a gathering of classmates and friends, or when I go shopping or take a taxi, I try to save more sentient beings. I give people Shen Yun Performing Arts DVDs and the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, advise people to quit the Chinese Communist Party, and clarify the facts. In short, I do what I can.
I am well aware that I am far behind the standard of Fa-rectification period Dafa practitioners. When I think of how I have stumbled on the cultivation path, I realize that Master has repeatedly provided me with opportunities to do a good job. I know Master has saved me. I can only live up to the expectations and ensure that I do things in accordance with Master's requirements. I will live up to this precious opportunity that only comes once in tens of thousands of years.