(Minghui.org) In the past, I submitted a few experience sharing articles to the Minghui website. In the beginning, I had a strong mentality of validating myself, and since my articles reflected this, they weren't published. When the 8th Internet experience sharing conference was announced, I began to realize that Dafa disciples' sharing articles are different from articles written by ordinary people. After I understood this, I submitted two articles and both of them were published. Through studying Zhuan Falun, I realized that Master has taught us everything in the Fa, including how to write experience sharing articles. It's just that I didn't enlighten to it in the past. After reading the conference articles online, together with some of my own experience in writing articles, I want to share some of my understandings with fellow practitioners.
Placing Myself as an Elementary School Pupil
I am a teacher. Because of the habits I formed in doing my everyday job, I always treat other people as my students, and I always want to “teach” others. When I wrote sharing articles, I couldn't help but write them as if I were giving lectures to students. Because I wrote my articles with this mentality, it became my biggest obstacle. Later, I realized that when writing articles, I should place myself in the position of being an elementary school pupil with a humble heart. The Fa that Master teaches is simply enormous, and the universe is so gigantic, that no matter how high we cultivate, we are just a small particle in the universe, and an elementary school pupil in Dafa cultivation.
I enlightened that the purpose of writing articles is to share our cultivation experiences with fellow practitioners so that we can improve together. In the past, my starting point for writing articles had gone awry. I thought that I had enlightened to higher principles than others, and I had the attachment of showing off through the articles. The level of my understanding was way off. Everything is given to us by Master, so who am I showing off to? Actually, the diligence of other practitioners that is displayed in their articles has helped me see the distance between them and me. If I have the mentality of “everyone should come to learn from me”, isn't that a sign of developing demonic interference from my own mind?
Eliminating Qing from My Articles
Ordinary people tend to add a lot of emotion to make their articles more touching. However, I think that as Dafa disciples, when we write sharing articles, it should be a process of looking inward, cultivating our minds, and further improving ourselves. Therefore, we should have a peaceful mind when we write sharing articles. We shouldn't have hatred against the police officers who persecute us, nor should we complain about how ordinary people do not understand us. This is a fundamental difference between Dafa disciples and non-practitioners. When we truly look inward, we will have a deeper understanding of the Fa during the process of writing sharing articles.
Including Stories and Our Cultivation Process
Master told many vivid stories in Zhuan Falun, such as the elderly practitioner in Taiyuan who was dragged by a car, the Changchun practitioner who was almost hit by scaffolding, the Qingdao practitioner who levitated when doing meditation during her lunch break, and how Han Xin endured the humiliation of crawling between someone’s legs, etc. We should learn from these and write down our cultivation process, such as how we did it, what we said, and what we thought. When writing sharing articles, practitioners often forget to write down the thoughts they had during the experience.
Master said in Zhuan Falun: “good or evil comes from a person’s spontaneous thought, and the thought at that moment can bring about different consequences.”
One can clearly see how important our thoughts are. They are the most real manifestation of our understanding. So it will be easier for others to understand our points if we can include some personal stories. When I read the sharing articles from the 9th online conference, I notice that practitioners had very detailed descriptions of their cultivation process, and I learned a lot from them.
Don't Emphasize Superficial, Flowery Expressions
Before we write articles, we need to determine what we want to share, and after we finish, remove the parts that stray from the point. If the article is long, we can use some writing conventions such as dividing the articles into a few sections and adding subtitles, etc. One thing we need to keep in mind is not to use those flowery expressions that will cause our articles to lack substance. The sharing articles from the 9th online conference use the most simple language. It will be enough if your article can accurately express your understanding of the Fa. After you finish your first draft, you should repeatedly revise it. Don't be afraid of spending a lot of time doing this and try to think from the reader's standpoint.
Maintain a Stable Heart After Submitting the Article
After I submit my articles to Minghui, I often become attached to whether or not my article will be published. If it isn't published, I feel upset, and sometimes I even think perhaps the Minghui editors haven't enlightened as high as I have. I realized that if my article isn't published, I should look within and see if I submitted it with human thoughts and a mentality of showing off or validating myself. Everything happens for a reason, so I must have some attachments. On the other hand, if my article was indeed published, I might also develop the attachment of zealotry and showing off.
I understand that writing sharing articles is a process of looking within and improving my xinxing. The fundamental difference between a Dafa disciple and a non-practitioner in writing articles is one's heart. Non-practitioners can't get rid of everyday people's emotions in their writing, but for Dafa disciples, we can't be separated from Dafa, and we all need to measure ourselves against the Fa when we talk about our own understandings.