(Minghui.org) It has been years since I began to write about cultivation in Falun Dafa. Another practitioner often reviewed my writing and gave me hints on how I could improve on the work.
It was rather unsettling, as the practitioner revised what I had written over and over again. She tore my article apart, word by word, paragraph by paragraph. For her, nothing was off limits.
I often felt uneasy and thought that she overdid it. My feelings must have been obvious, as she said to me, “As authors, we should be responsible for all readers.”
When I could no longer concentrate on the task at hand, she would suggest that I put the article aside and study the Fa.
Heightened Awareness
Sometimes, a practitioner has the ability to see beyond the ordinary. This ability might provide an insight that helps heighten one's awareness of a situation. In my case, it enabled me to keep revising one article in particular.
As we were revising it, I saw a score: “92.” There was a piece of paper stuck to the wall that recorded each modification we made.
One record showed that we used a more appropriate word, and the score attached to that was +0.5. Another record was the rephrasing of an important part, and that was given a score of +2. Even a change in punctuation gave us +0.02 points. The final score was 98.
After seeing that, I felt relieved and relaxed. However, the practitioner told me that we needed a score of 100. We further revised the article and eventually did achieve a score of 100. I felt so good when we got there.
However, the other practitioner was still not satisfied, and she pushed me into going over the article once more. After a while, the score was still 100, but it changed color.
Eventually I understood the importance of these revisions, and I became an active, earnest participant in the revision process.
Before submitting an article to the Minghui website, that practitioner would wait another day to check our work one more time.
As I never asked her if our article was accepted, she became curious and asked, “How come you do not care if the the article was published?” I told her that I just go with the natural order of things.
After the article was published, my fellow practitioner would check if there were any changes done by the editor. She appreciated every change and said that it improved the writing.
Precious Experience
When I started writing on my own in the beginning of 2016, I realized how precious the experience was. It was an excellent way to discover where I could do better.
The process did not change a lot, but it took some adjusting. I slowed down and when I sat in front of the computer for a long time, my eyes were burning, my skin became dry, and my gum was bleeding. Soon, my black hair began to turn white.
My mind told me that this change was interference to stop me from writing articles, because I was exposing the persecution. I was doing the most righteous thing.
One day, I saw an old lady with white hair and wrinkles in front of me. It was an older me, who told me that this was my life.
This was wrong and I thought, “I am a Falun Dafa practitioner. I study the Fa, do the exercises and improve my xinxing. My body should be getting younger. I won't be deceived by this interference.” Soon, my physical condition returned to my present age.
Validating Dafa Instead of Myself
There was one day when I thought that I had done enough revisions of an article. The editor would modify it later anyway, after all. This unrighteous thought took away my wisdom and I could not write for half a month. I realized that I must eliminate the attachment of relying on the editor. In addition, I trusted and admired the editor very much, which is another attachment.
Many of my attachments were exposed when it came to articles getting published. When my article was published, I was very happy and I would show off. When it didn't get published right away, I became very anxious and kept on checking the website.
I kept looking within, corrected anything that was not within the Fa and eliminated my attachments.
I realized that writing articles is not done to validate myself, but to validate Dafa. If it were not for the wisdom that I have obtained from Dafa, I could not write good articles. Instead of worrying about things outside of my control, I should focus on how I can get better.
Category: Improving Oneself
