(Clearwisdom.net) Truth-clarifying work that involves professional skills should be thought about and done from the perspective of a Fa-rectification Dafa practitioner. Of course there are many cultivation factors involved. Here I would like to share some of my personal experiences and hope we can all improve as one body.
1. Break the limitations on one's abilities by working with other Dafa practitioners
I handle some coordination tasks in addition to technical tasks for truth clarification projects. Hence, I have to deal with a lot of practitioners. I was more comfortable dealing with the small group of people around me and did not want to work on tasks that required dealing with many people. Initially, I thought that as long as I followed the requirements of being a practitioner, I could just do many things on my own if I couldn't find anyone else to do them. After receiving feedback from fellow practitioners, I realized that other practitioners were actually more experienced at dealing with people. I realized that I lacked basic common sense when doing coordination tasks. Since I am still working on improving myself, I consulted with other practitioners about important issues and asked for feedback after things were completed.
For example, I am financially comfortable, and my wife is also a practitioner. However, not all other practitioners have the same advantages I have. I sleep late but others may not; different people may hear the words I say differently. In addition, sometimes I speak with a harsh tone of voice.
Some of the tasks I do touch upon cultural differences. Ordinary society has developed many types of people with proficiencies such as public relations, marketing, and technical writing. I talked to a practitioner with an MBA degree that had been involved clarifying the truth to government officials. She told me that she learned to handle a lot of the issues I was concerned about when she was in school, such as facing large numbers of consumers, the media, and investors. Some of these types of skills do come in handy. She taught me some of these skills and later, I read up on them as well. They seem like common sense but require a systematic approach, which makes it easier to consider things in a rational and logical way.
It is even more obvious that practitioners need help from others when it comes to using computers. For me it was especially important. My experience was that whenever I had a problem, the first thing I did was to ask people for help. Others may tell you the answer right away or recommend a book or a technique that you need to learn.
2. Don't be confined to the current situation
Often when I couldn't find anyone to help with something, I would end up doing it myself. Of course that meant I did not have the attachment of waiting for and relying on other people to do the work, but that also showed that I tried to avoid having to coordinate with others. This is an attachment that I formed in ordinary society, where I was showing that I was more capable than others.
When I encountered technical problems, I was always thinking that we will face more problems in the future, since we intend to do things on an even larger scale than we are doing now. For example, if I don't know how to manage five Internet servers, how can I design a system with 50 servers? Since I specialize in computer skills, I would try to read a lot of books related to this topic.
I consider computer techniques to be different than art. For someone specializing in computers, he can quickly learn Perl or system administration, and can then jump-start many projects. My experience showed me that you need a good textbook that explains the subject, and you have to learn the basic knowledge first, not just what you need to get one job done. Of course one cannot predict problems in the future, but my feeling is that, in the long run, the quickest way to do something new is to learn the basics just like we did in school. It is even better if we can have the chance to practice them. If one can be persistent, learning from a good book is more effective than going to a so-so class. Of course, having a good teacher is a tremendous help, or even just someone knowledgeable to answer questions. This is where practitioners can also help each other.
There is a limit to a person's capabilities, but if we can do everything step by step and fully understand it, we can accomplish many things.
3. Getting rid of my attachments
For me, it is more difficult to identify my attachments than to get rid of them. Teacher said in Zhuan Falun,
"We do our cultivation in the setting of ordinary people, and because of this a lot of our students can't seem to let go of many attachments they have, and a lot of their attachments have already become natural to them, they can't notice it."
When I memorized this sentence, I felt its impact immediately.
I also want to mention that we should cherish others', especially practitioners', suggestions and criticisms. For me, most of the time my wife provides me with feedback about my attachments. Other people's attitudes when providing opinions should not upset us; we should cherish them.
For me, after being trained in the modern sciences, I am very confident with the conclusions I come to after thinking about something. I am unwilling to give up that conclusion and cannot see the attachment behind the conclusions I come to. I look like I am confident in everything I do, and others are reluctant to state their opinions after they try to talk to me a couple of times.
After I memorized some Fa lectures, I started to see some of my attachments. For example, I mentioned to my wife that another practitioner was unable to do some technical work. I said with contempt, "That's no better than not being able to do anything." My wife immediately pointed out the attachment behind what I said. Taking this as an example, we know that every practitioner does Dafa work seriously. We should encourage each other instead of looking at things in a negative way. I used to think that I was just making objective comments. Also, I thought I pointed out the weaknesses so that we could do better in the future, that we should set our sights on grander goals, and that our current situation was trivial. Of course now I think differently; techniques and the forms of contributing in this human world are secondary. The most important thing is the heart practitioners put into their work, and that we need to think about the consequences of what we say. We cannot ignore how others feel just because we are right. Of course, as practitioners, we should not say one thing while thinking the opposite.
Another problem was my style of writing emails. I remembered Teacher said that there was no model for us to follow when it comes to cultivation. I think if you really want to look for a model, try to picture how a Buddha would handle a situation. So I try to remember how Teacher usually expresses himself. I quickly realized that some people I deal with in my job like to or even purposely use dirty words or nasty phrases. As a practitioner, I should not use that way of talking. Later, when I was caught up in conflicts, I tried to remember how Teacher would resolve conflicts among practitioners. The result was that the conflicts did not bother me as much.
4. Study the Fa well and do the exercises regularly
After 2001, I seldom practiced the exercises. I later discovered that my physical endurance was going downhill. I got tired quickly while driving, and my brain did not function clearly when doing truth clarification tasks that required a lot of thinking. These situations started to improve after I began practicing the exercises regularly, although my level has not returned to what it was before 2000.
Studying the Fa well is the foundation of everything. I feel that a lot of the character issues I mentioned before are the natural responses, revealing the state of one's Fa study. It was especially true for me when I was memorizing the section talking about lust. I feel that mind and body are like containers. When I study the Fa, the containers are cleansed.
The above are my recent experiences. Please point out anything that is incorrect.
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