(Minghui.org) Last year I went through many xinxing tests in my cultivation. The company I work for underwent major personnel changes. A high ranking manager left and was replaced by a new one. The new manager reorganized the entire leadership team in the company. A majority of the high level and middle level managers were removed or resigned.
Difficulties Encountered
I was the lead for a few major departments, so I was also affected by the reorganization. A few months later, my direct boss told me to transfer one of my major responsibilities to my subordinate. I was then assigned to be in charge of international business orders. My boss said that I had to get some international orders as soon as possible. If not, I would not have my job much longer.
I was under a lot of pressure to rapidly adjust to the changes. I used to be in my boss' favor. Now I had fallen to a low point in my career. Moreover, it was not an easy task to get international orders in a short period of time. I faced the challenge of whether I could survive in this company.
The first thing I had to do was to hand over the one major responsibility to my subordinate. He was very hesitant to accept it, and I also knew that his abilities were not up to handling this responsibility. However, the boss had given the order for me to do the hand-off in front of both of us.
I felt very sad. I had been doing this job for a very long time, and I had trained this subordinate. This test was also a huge one for me. I forced myself to tolerate it and follow Falun Dafa's requirements as a practitioner.
I told my subordinate, “Please accept the responsibility. If you have any difficulties, I will definitely help you out. I won't leave the company anyway.” He knew me well and felt reassured. If I was not a practitioner, the results could have been far different. A non-practitioner might think, “You're the boss. If he can't handle the responsibility, it'll mean you made the wrong decision. I'll just sit back and watch until you have to come back to me!”
But the tests were not over yet. One of the new managers often went to my direct boss and criticized me. My boss gave me hard looks, and I could not figure out what I'd done wrong.
Looking Within
Later, when I calmed down and looked inward, I realized that this was all meant to help me eliminate my attachment. I was used to everyone being nice to me, and I could not tolerate any criticism or unfairness. I've had this attachment since childhood. Since I'd found this attachment, I needed to get rid of it.
The process of getting rid of the attachment was very painful. Similar things happened repeatedly in order to test me. For example, the head of our company asked the leader of another company to meet with my boss, and I was intentionally left out. I immediately felt hurt. But when I could let go of my attachment, things usually got better.
Another time, a few of the new managers had a meeting and included a junior person in the meeting without inviting me. I realized that it was another test and told myself to let it go. Soon afterward, the boss called and invited me to the meeting. It further reinforced my understanding that all of these scenarios were not accidental. They were tests meant to target my attachments. These tests lasted until this spring, when I finally felt that they could not affect me anymore. Then everything returned to normal.
Dafa's Giving Nature
Some miraculous things also occurred that had to do with my fulfilling my new responsibility to get international orders. I understood that Master was helping me, and without Master, I would have been in a very difficult situation. Getting orders is always very important for any company. But I lacked sales experience in getting international orders, and my English was not so good.
I then heard that another company in our industry sent two salesmen overseas, but they could not get a single order for the first two years. It was clearly a very difficult task. I could only try my best; the worst-case scenario was that I would have to resign.
About 20 days later, I suddenly got an inquiry about ordering our products. I immediately realized that Master was helping me, since I had never had an inquiry like this before. I soon closed the deal, and the boss was very happy. I truly felt that I would not have able to achieve this without Master's help. Even more incredible, over the next two months, two more orders like the first one came in. The new manager was very surprised. At least my job was secure again.
A few months later, my boss decided that we would attend an exhibition to promote the company's products. A few days before we left, I suddenly thought of something: In the past, I had called an international customer just to see if they were interested in our products. During the call, I was not confident that I could communicate well in English, so I suddenly said something in Chinese. The person on the other end of the line replied in Chinese. It so happened that this was an overseas company run by Chinese.
Their company had very strict requirements, however, so I'd put aside any thoughts of attempting a sale. Now, at this key moment, I thought that I should try calling that company again. I reasoned that, if I waited until after the exhibition, it might be too late. I called again and found that they were looking to develop a new product that fit our company's profile very well. So we very quickly closed a deal.
More surprisingly, just four days before I headed to the exhibition, I got an inquiry from another client, and I quickly closed that deal. If I had closed these two deals after the exhibition, my boss would have thought that they were the result of my attending the exhibition. Master helped give all this merit to my initiative.
Further Tests
Another test occurred recently. We had a batch of goods that needed to be shipped. I negotiated with two shipping companies. The first company belonged to the relative of one of our managers. The other shipping company was one of our long-term partners. After a round of negotiations, I gave the order to the latter company, since they offered a lower price.
A few days later, the manager at the first company asked me for inside information about the company that was awarded the contract. I knew that I should not give him any details about the company, as it would be a conflict of interest. I clearly felt that he suspected that I must have received some kickback for closing the deal. But since I did the right thing, I did not think too much about it.
However, the next day when I went to my boss' office, I saw that the manager who was a relative of the other company's owner was chatting with my boss and immediately stopped talking when I came in. My boss looked at me oddly. I immediately recalled my refusal to provide inside information the previous day. For the next few days, I repeatedly felt bothered by this and wanted to clarify the situation to my boss. However, since he did not bring it up to me, I decided to wait.
A few days later, when I was studying the Fa, the thought of clarifying the situation to the boss came up again. I suppressed it, but it resurfaced again and again.
Master's Fa came to mind,
“Upon running into this kind of conflict, we should, first of all, keep a cool head, and we should not behave the same way as that person. Of course, we can explain the matter kindly, and it is not a problem if we clarify the issue. But you should not become too attached to it. If we encounter these problems, we should not compete and fight like others.” (Zhuan Falun)
Master taught us to calm down first. But my mind was full of thoughts of unfairness. Even if I did go to explain the situation, it would be with the intention of airing a grievance. I realized that this happened to help me upgrade my xinxing. But I also continued to think that the situation was really unfair; I could not tolerate that someone thought that I would take a kickback.
My thoughts went back and forth a few times, and I eventually decided to let it go, since I'd done the right thing. I immediately felt relaxed and wonderful. I understood that I had upgraded my xinxing and that Master thus took away my attachment to protecting my reputation.
The next morning, my boss came to my office with a smile, like nothing happened. The manager whom I had judged to be involved in nepotism later came to my office to discuss other business. He also treated me very kindly. After I let go of the attachment and improved my xinxing, all the conflicts disappeared.
There have been many other miraculous occurrences on my path of cultivation. I truly understand that as long as we consider ourselves as practitioners and follow Dafa's principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, we can solve any problem. Moreover, many good things that we may never expect to happen will also occur.
Thank you, Master, for your compassionate protection.
Category: Improving Oneself
