(Minghui.org) Greeting, Revered Master! Greeting, fellow practitioners!
Master told us several times in “Fa Teaching Given at the Fa Conference Marking the Tenth Anniversary of Minghui’s Founding” (Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. X), about the importance of the Minghui website and how great Minghui is. In order to save more people and better fulfill Minghui’s role in the final stage of Fa-rectification, the cultivation state and writing skills of us reporters becomes a critical factor.
Although I have been writing reports for many years and reviewing reports submitted by other local reporters, my skills are still far from professional. In the past few days, I’ve been looking within and found my attachments to comfort, complacency, zealotry, as well as personal profit and fame. As to urgently saving people, it remained lip service for me as I continued doing things following my own routine without truly putting my heart into my efforts. The impact and depth of my articles remained at a very shallow level, owing to my long-term lax cultivation state.
Realizing the Danger of Being Lax in Cultivation and Eliminating the Fear of Death
A few years ago, several reporters left the team in Queensland, Western Australia, and New Zealand. We needed to find new reporters and train them. The coordinator spent much effort looking for good candidates and training them. We now have reporters in most major cities in Australia. Those in New Zealand are also making quick progress in their reporting. Learning from the core reporting team in the U.S., we now also hold weekly meetings, which is very important for us.
Our team has been able to submit timely reports for the past two years for all major events, anniversaries, and fellow practitioners’ interviews in different cities in Australia. All of these are a reflection of the overall cultivation state of practitioners in Australia and society’s righteous support.
What impressed me the most was the two-day annual Australian Fa conference in 2019. A few weeks before the Fahui, coordinators began to discuss the details and make arrangements for the reporting. We were all clear about our responsibilities. The coordinator also sent us a detailed list of the arrangements. From the preparation, photography, interviews, transcription, translation, and final writing, we published the main report and supplementary reports according to the plan. With Master’s help, we interviewed people who had predestined relationships with Dafa. The success of the event’s reporting greatly inspired us, and we also realized the power of one-body cooperation.
Because of my lax in cultivation, however, I later broke away from the other practitioners and was taken advantage of by the evil. Here is what happened.
Around June 2020, practitioners in Australia began to prepare online rallies for July 20. They also initiated a petition drive to collect signatures from Australian politicians on the letter calling for an end to the persecution. As Australia was on pandemic lockdown, I had different opinions about how to contact the VIPs. I developed negative thoughts during our weekly meeting. I did not realize this was an opportunity for me to broaden my heart. I ignored the coordinator’s suggestions and refused to host training sessions, with the excuse I was too busy. I quit the cellphone chat group and said that I would stop attending the weekly meeting.
The night I quit the reporter chat group I began to have intensive pain on one side of my lung, and I coughed very badly. I realized that something went wrong with my xinxing. But I insisted that the coordinator and other practitioners were wrong. I did not ask to be added back into the chat group and I did not attend the meeting. Although the pain disappeared after I realized I was wrong and I also re-joined the team after we finished the July 20 reports, my xinxing loophole was still taken advantage of by the evil. In fact, I’d been ignoring many of my problems in cultivation, including not carrying through in reciting the Fa or diligently doing the exercises—this caused my body to age quickly.
Master said in “Stay Rational,”
“Any Dafa disciples who have not been diligent, or who are prone to acting in extreme ways, should immediately straighten themselves out, and sincerely study the Fa and work on themselves, for you are at great risk.”
I realized I was at great risk. It seemed on the surface that I was working very hard. In fact, I was very lax in my cultivation.
For those few days, I noticed that I developed strong fear of being taken away by the evil. A few weeks ago, a fellow practitioner pointed out some of my problems in cultivation. She told me a dream she had. The two of us and a third practitioner were driving together and we had an accident. I was thrown out of the car and hit a wall very hard.
When I heard this, I understood that I needed to immediately change my state. But I didn’t realize that my fear was growing as well. (The other practitioner reminded me about it, but I didn’t pay attention.) I then had a dream in which I encountered two dangerous situations. I was driving into oncoming traffic – there were people riding a bike and rows of big trucks. The traffic was very heavy. If I wanted to avoid the truck, I would have to hit the bike. I had one thought, the only way to survive this was to levitate.
But the heavy traffic coming at me left me with deep impression. “Is it true that so many people want to take my life?” For the next few days when I did the exercises, I had to constantly reject my fear. Later, Master reminded me through a practitioner that my fear is equivalent to asking for danger. I should let Master decide everything for me. What I needed to focus on was cultivating myself well.
Since I identified my problem, I needed to take action. One of the things I need to do is to host training for practitioners who are interested in writing. This is a task given by the coordinator of the reporting team. There is a Vietnamese practitioner on our team and I need to translate all the training materials for one person. But with my rectified mentality, I didn’t develop any negative thoughts while doing such tedious and time-consuming work.
I have another wish for us to improve together and reach the basic requirement in a short period of time. The training materials contain some basic knowledge and the series of articles on writing published by Minghui. I also shared some training content provided by the core Minghui reporting team with fellow practitioners.
Identifying and Eliminating My Attachment to Fame
Another thing that happened last year helped point out my strong attachment to fame.
April 2019 was the 20th anniversary of Master’s teaching the Fa in Sydney. We thought of writing a report of practitioners’ recalling their experiences during Master’s lectures. When we proposed the idea, fellow practitioners all acted on it and sent in their interviews. I did the most interviews – a total of five practitioners. In particular, I spent a long time on interviewing a coordinator practitioner in Queensland.
We all put a lot of heart and effort into this report. But after we sent it out, we did not receive a response. Back then, the main Minghui reporting editor rarely participated in our weekly meeting, with the excuse that the time was too late. It’s not like the daily communication we have right now through a chat group. Fearful of being told it was rejected, I didn’t have the courage to ask the editor about it. Meanwhile, I also had a hidden attachment that this article would be published as a top feature. Needless to say, I developed strong zealotry and an attachment to fame before the article was published.
The days passed quickly but I still didn’t see the article published. After the anniversary of the Fahui, I began to look within and I knew that there must be some reason it didn’t get published in time. I didn’t try to examine myself to see what attachment I had. I only thought that perhaps the article was not appropriate, or I wrote something that shouldn’t be published, or the cultivation state of the practitioners who did the interviews weren’t good.
The following year, my attachment to fame continued to grow. I was very happy as long as the articles I wrote were published in a prominent position. But if the reports written by teams in other cities were published as a top or side feature, I felt it was unfair and I felt jealous. Knowing that jealousy is very dangerous in cultivation, I immediately sent righteous thoughts to eliminate it. But I still allowed my attachment to fame to continue expanding. All the articles I worked on, whether they were local reports or other practitioners’ articles I was asked to edit, I expected to see published in prominent positions.
Last May 13, the article was published as one of the “Celebrate May 13 Submissions” with few edits. I was surprised. I began to reflect on myself and wondered why Master made this arrangement. This time, I saw my strong attachment to fame. Since then, I no long care whether my article is published as a feature report. As long as it’s published, I feel grateful.
Master said,
“It’s no good if the work itself doesn’t help him to improve; the improvement of his xinxing is the number one priority, his elevation is what’s most important. Only if his heart is pure and clean, and if he can realize his problems, then when he goes to do the work again the work will be more sacred. So the reason many of our students can’t achieve success in their work is that they do the work while holding on to a lot of attachments—they can’t let go of this or that attachment. Whether they’re attached to their own affairs or develop an attachment while doing work for the Fa, as long as they have an attachment, it will be exposed in the midst of their work. And especially when their intention isn’t good, that’s when they are less likely to be allowed success. So they’ll have great obstacles then. That’s because they aren’t permitted to do work of a sacred nature with an impure heart. If they can do sacred work with a pure heart, only then is their work truly sacred.” (Teachings at the Conference of Changchun Assistants)
Maybe because I identified my attachment and can now participate in Minghui with a purer heart, other practitioners have offered me a lot of help and the main coordinator in Australia contacts me when there are major events to report on.
Epilogue
In terms of my cultivation I need to run in order to catch up with the other practitioners. I plan to be more diligent and continue to contribute to the reporting team in Australia and New Zealand.
Thank you, Master, for your compassionate protection and salvation. Thank you, fellow practitioners for your help.
Heshi.
(Presented during the 2021 Minghui Website Fa Conference)
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