(Minghui.org) Greetings Master! Greetings fellow practitioners! For years I thought about writing down my cultivation journey with regards to producing informational materials to clarify the truth about Falun Dafa. Because I did not finish primary school I had few skills and even less courage. I’d like to tell you how I went from not knowing how to turn on a computer to being able to do lay out and produce leaflets that expose the persecution.
Learning IT Skills and Printing Materials
One day in 2000, my workplace informed me that every employee must participate in computer training and then be tested. The test results would be used to evaluate our performance for future promotions. Everyone in our department attended the class.
The first day, the teacher taught everyone how to turn on the computer and mentioned the words “Windows” and “Word”. These two words were mentioned in class every day. The teacher helped me switch on my PC and I looked for “Windows” and “Word.” The training was 13 days long and I looked for the terms every day but upon graduation I still couldn’t recognize them. I was so vexed that I could not eat or sleep. I even dreamed about “Windows” and “Word!” After 13 days, I still did not know how to switch my computer on or off.
In early 2002, my sister wanted to throw away an old desktop PC and an ink jet printer. I asked her to give them to me because I wanted to produce truth clarification materials. The leaflets we had were brought from another region by practitioners and there were never enough to hand out.
I asked my son to teach me how to use the computer. In the beginning, I did not even know how to hold the mouse and could not distinguish right click from left click. When I moved the mouse, I did not know where it was pointing. I later realized that I held the mouse upside down. It took me three days to familiarize myself with how to operate the mouse and what right click, left click did, and what every icon on the PC meant. I was finally able to operate the mouse.
Next, I asked a practitioner to show me how to print materials. She patiently showed me step by step. But I could not understand anything she said or remember what she did. In the end I said to her, “Let me hold the mouse, you tell me where to click and I will follow.” I wrote down every step and then practiced the steps following my notes. That’s how I learned to print a single sheet of information.
In October 2003, a practitioner from another area came to our city and suggested we start our own materials production site. We said, “We do not know how and need skilled practitioners to show us.” A few days later he returned with a young man to show us what to do.
We quickly started up a materials production site. We bought two laser printers and a color ink printer. I was in charge of producing the materials for practitioners to hand out. I also printed out Minghui Weekly and Master’s new lectures. At first, I was only able to print a single sheet of information. I was soon printing booklets using the laser printer and the color printer.
I took the practitioner to the materials production site. He turned on the PC, plugged in the printer cable and explained, “This cable goes to this port, you must note this. When printing the documents, you will know which document goes to which printer. If there is a problem, you’ll know which printer is causing the issue and be able to fix it easily.”
My eyes were already dazzled by the sight of three printers operating at the same time. Could I handle it? The practitioner operated the machines while explaining things to me. He even told me to print on the other side of the paper after the first side was done. After several days, however, I hardly learned anything.
It was a cultivation process. After demonstrating many times, the practitioner became impatient and spoke rudely. I did not say anything but I thought, “This young man is ignorant. My son is older than you and he has never spoken to me like this! How can you talk to your elders in such a tone? You stay at my place and I have to provide you with food.” The more I felt resentful, the ruder he became and the less I learned.
One time, he asked me to open the printer drum and pour in powder. I took the drum and dismantled it. He shouted at me angrily, “Why did you take it apart?! You should have asked which part to open!” I replied defiantly, “You did not tell me how to open it, you said to dismantle it and I did.” He said, “I put powder in it every day. Haven’t you watched me? Why don’t you know how to do it?” I said, “I did not see clearly.” He said, “Why didn’t you ask?” Seeing the look of anger on my face, he said, “I will go home tomorrow and ask someone else to come and teach you!”
I was worried. We established such a big materials production site, and needed so many materials! If he left who would show us? Practitioners are waiting for these materials to save sentient beings. With my stubborn attitude, aren’t I committing a sin? We studied the Fa together when we got home. I calmed down after reading one lecture of Zhuan Falun. I looked within. Wasn’t this my reluctance to be criticized by others causing the problem? I saw my ego, resentment, jealousy, seeking repayment, and vanity—I knew these thoughts were not me. I asked Master for help. I must eliminate these bad thoughts.
I apologized to the young man, “I’m sorry. I behaved badly. Please continue to teach me. I will try my best to learn. Let’s follow the usual method. I’ll hold the mouse and you show me where to click and I’ll write it down.” I picked up the skills within a few days.
The practitioner also patiently showed me how to take out the drum and add ink, how to fix it when the paper got stuck, how to clean the printer, and bind the booklets. I wrote down the entire process. When I did it, I checked my notes. I was soon able to operate things smoothly. When small problems surfaced, I was able to deal with them.
After producing materials and working with all kinds of printers for years, I realized that whenever the printer does not operate normally, it is because I need to improve my cultivation.
One time, while printing booklets, for several days in a row, red streaks appeared and an error warning that there was not enough ink. After cleaning the printer, I printed twelve documents but the problem was not resolved. I switched to printing photographs. But after two days, the problem returned. I spoke to the printer and sent righteous thoughts but nothing worked. I packed up the printer and planned to send it for repairs on Saturday.
I was busy on Saturday and had no time to take the printer in for repairs. On Sunday, after finishing lunch, I was going to take it to the shop when a thought came to mind: “red hot.” I suddenly understood and told the printer, “There is nothing wrong with you, it is all my fault. I kept getting upset with my family. Sorry, it has affected you in doing things to save sentient beings. We won’t go to the repair shop.” I turned on the PC, prepared the documents and began to print. Everything was back to normal.
Another time, I bought a new color ink jet printer. In less than two days, blue streaks appeared. After cleaning it several times, the problem returned when I printed a few pieces of materials. I took it to the shops twice and they could not find anything wrong. The third time I went, the shop was busy and asked me to come back three days later to pick it up. I looked within when I got home. I had conflicts at home and was not compassionate in handling things. Realizing the problem, I resolved the conflict.
The next day, I went to pick up the printer. I asked, “Have you repaired it?” She said, “Not yet!” I said, “In that case, there is no need to fix it.” I said to the printer, “You are fine. Let’s go home.” The lady laughed and said, “You are funny.” I smiled at her and carried the printer home. When I used it again, everything was fine.
Learning to Download Materials from the Internet
Our first materials production site was a rented place and we were not able to access the Internet. Every week, we went to another area to get a disk then returned home to print out materials. At that time, practitioners in that area were often arrested. I felt it was not safe and forked out 3000 yuan to buy a second hand laptop. I got a practitioner to go online to download information at his place.
One day, the door to the materials production site suddenly opened and the landlord walked in. He saw what we were doing but did not say anything. We thought we should not continue using this place and decided to move. But where could we go? If we rented another place, would the same thing happen again? In the end, we decided to move the site to my house. But then the practitioner who went online to download materials was arrested and his laptop was confiscated.
What to do? We could not go back to relying on practitioners in another area. I asked Master for help: “Master, I want to learn how to go on the Internet.” I had a dream that night. A man showed me how to go online. He had me hold the mouse first, then showed what to click, step by step. I was able to do everything. However when it came to the last step, I did not know what to click. When I called out to him he said, “You should do it all over again.” I did, but still did not know what to do. I felt anxious and woke up.
The next day I met a practitioner who knew how to use the Internet. I asked her to teach me. I took notes and kept repeating the process until I remembered.
But the files I downloaded from the Minghui website were in pinyin and I could not read the English letters. Every day, I had to open the files one by one to find which one I needed. Another practitioner later taught me to copy and paste the files into a folder after downloading them from the website. They would turn in Chinese characters then.
That year, several truth clarification DVDs were made. I asked a practitioner living in another area to install a burn cd-rom software program on my PC. The practitioner looked at my PC and said, “Auntie, your PC is too old! It’s amazing that it can print and go online. If you want to burn CDs, this PC won’t be able to do it. Furthermore, why don’t you have a firewall installed? When you went online, were you blocked?” I said, “ I don’t know, I have been doing this for over a year, I have never been blocked, and my Internet speed is good.” He told me the risks of not having a firewall installed and helped set it up. From this experience I knew Master had been helping me all this time.
I insisted on getting him to install the software to burn CDs. I asked him to train me how to use it after it was installed. He showed me step by step. After a few minutes, a CD was done. When I tried it, the picture was very clear. Under his guidance, I learned to operate it a few times and then I knew how to burn CDs.
Learning Lay Out and Editing
We wanted to print a truth clarification booklet, and a practitioner copied the articles. I became anxious after I saw it because I didn’t know how to lay it out. I was only able to copy and paste it into folders. I said to Master, “Master, I also want to produce these materials. But I don’t know how to lay things out and edit articles, what should I do?”
Two days later, a practitioner from another region came to my place. I was delighted and kept thanking Master. The practitioner asked, “Why are you so thrilled?” I told him my wish. He showed me how to do lay out and edit materials. I followed his instructions and wrote down the entire process. This experience laid a solid foundation for me in producing newsletters to expose the persecution in my area.
In 2008 - 2009, 47 practitioners in my region were arrested. Twelve were sentenced to prison, 6 were sent to labor camps, 7 materials production sites were sabotaged—the persecution was severe.
To expose the unjust treatment, I downloaded the information about the persecution in other areas from Minghui. I used it as a template and tried to print stickers, write reports on the arrests of practitioners and turned it into fliers which I sent to Minghui. Every time it was published on Minghui, there were a lot of changes, many wrong characters were corrected (because I did not know pinyin and I had to write the information by hand). I felt bad for causing other practitioners extra work.
Later on, Minghui published many articles on how to write reports to expose the persecution. I took my original scripts and compared it to Minghui’s edited version. I pondered over why the changes were done, why this was broken into several paragraphs, why this sentence punctuation was edited and so on. Gradually, my writing skills improved. I learned to use appropriate punctuation marks, and organize paragraphs. I picked up the phone and called my son when there was a character I did not know how to write. I wanted to try and make things easier for practitioners working on the Minghui website. The fliers I laid out looked better. When I see good images on the Internet, I copied them and saved them in folders so that I can use them in future materials.
One time, I wanted to write a summary report on the persecution of practitioners in my area and publish a special edition. To make it more relevant, I had a photo of every practitioner who was in prison or in a labor camp. A month later and with a lot of effort, I got all the photos ready. I was short one photo.
One of the two photos was a photo of several people taken together. I had to crop the photo of the practitioner from it. I did not know how to do it and asked my son to help me. But he did not know how to edit the background and pasted it on a piece of white paper. I thought this would not do and went to a photocopy shop to get a background done.
Two days later, I received the photo of the last practitioner, it was also a group photo. I took it to the photo studio and asked them to extract the practitioner’s photo. But the head and shoulders were slanted. The young woman said, “Do you want me to adjust the head and shoulders?” I said, “Yes, do it as you see fit.” In the end, she did a great job and charged me 5 yuan. I went home happily.
At home, I took the two photos with the background done by the photocopying shop and compared it to the one done at the studio. There was a huge difference. I thought to myself, if this photo were published on Minghui, the whole world would see it, but it looks so bad. This would not do, even if I had to spend 10 yuan, I must ask the young woman at the studio to help me edit it. I was in great financial difficulty at that time and had to think over spending a single cent. I took the photo, braved the pouring rain and ran back to the studio. I asked the young woman to help me. I was very happy with the job and asked how much it cost. She said, “Two yuan.” I stood in front of Master’s portrait when I returned home and said with tears in my eyes, “Thank you, Master!”
With everything in place, I started to produce the special edition. I included a photo with every case and used the images I saved in the appropriate spots in the newsletter. At the end of the newsletter, I wanted to use a gallery of photos on the various torture methods used in the persecution. I searched online but could not find anything suitable. Left with no choice, I settled with using one photo. I wanted to add a few sentences to tell the police officers not to take part in the persecution. However I could not find the right words to express my thoughts. I said to Master, “I really don’t know how to write it. I am not happy with the photo either. I will have to bother practitioners at Minghui to make it better.” I submitted the special edition to Minghui.
Four days later, the newsletter was published. I downloaded it and it was exactly what I wanted. Some areas were edited to make it even more perfect. I knelt in front of Master’s portrait and thanked Master for his help.
After going through so much all these years, I’ve experienced what Master said,
“You put in the effort and your teacher will handle the rest.” (The First Talk, Zhuan Falun)
“...only when gods see that you are a good person will they grant you wisdom and allow you to create things.” (Teachings at the 2005 Conference in San Francisco)
I picked up my pen many times but I was stopped by human notions as I did not even finish primary school and was poorly educated. I did not regard it as an opportunity for practitioners in China to cooperate as one body and improve in cultivation. I wrote this sharing after realizing I was wrong not to report to Master and share my experiences with fellow practitioners.
I know that when I don’t have the skills, Master arranges for practitioners to help me. Everything is given by Master. I am grateful for Master’s infinite grace.
Thank you Master, once again! Thank you fellow practitioners!
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