(Clearwisdom.net) The team I work on is a newly formed translation team for Clearwisdom, but many members have been doing the same kind work for several years. Those who have remained in our team have mostly combined this volunteer work with their Fa study, clarifying the truth and sending forth righteous thoughts. This work has become part of our cultivation. Based on my current understanding, let me take this opportunity to review the accomplishments and deficiencies in our work. It covers some problems we are working hard to resolve in our cycle of producing the English version of Chinese articles.
I. Article turnaround cycle
Some team members are meticulous in their work. This can be seen in the detailed comments, verification of news sources, or the large number of revisions in the articles they process. At the same time, some of them take longer than the expected time to finish working on the articles.
We have a communications problem in this regard. The remedies we have are to send out the following types of articles to these slow turnaround members:
(1) Articles which are not urgent;
(2) Those of simple style and not very lengthy;
(3) Articles that come from other members whose work they don't have to make extensive changes to.
Because of human attachments and our reluctance to risk embarrassing team members, we have procrastinated, and haven't dealt with this problem head on. In addition, another problem further complicates our resolution to do better. Sometimes we have backlogs, and these backlogged articles tend to cover up those articles that are running really late. We have realized, as Teacher mentions in Lecture 6 of Zhuan Falun,
"[You] should look for reasons within your xinxing to determine if you are stuck at that level for too long and whether you should improve your xinxing!"
II. Dropping articles
This is a problem in our coordination. Of several dozen articles, we may have missed one, or even missed several of the same date. Through sharing experiences among team members, we now have in place a rather effective approach of tracking articles. However, due to tight work schedules, travel, or program crashes, we have been distracted a couple of times this year. It has reminded us that as cultivators, under a pressing schedule, it is important to keep up our righteous thoughts. Technical solutions are only supplementary.
III. Reduction in the number of team members
Some team members have taken long leaves because of school, job transition or other Dafa tasks. Due to this situation we are quite active in recruiting new members, however we are not yet doing all that we can in staying in touch with those on leave. Thankfully, over half of them do return after their schedule is back to normal. In order to keep team members closely in touch, to better understand each other, and to support one another, we have, once a week, a Fa-study session over the Internet. We are also trying very hard to keep alive our monthly team conference over the Internet, though the attendance rate has been quite low recently. We have noticed that the providers of low cost telephone conferencing all lack transparency in disclosing their company backgrounds. Many of them are located in Los Angeles, where many people of Chinese background are located. These companies don't disclose any information about their management team, and offer only a P.O. Box and a 1-800 toll free number as their contact info. We have avoided using their services in recent months.
IV. Relationship with my individual cultivation
The following are some of my understandings of Clearwisdom work as it relates to my personal cultivation.
(1) These years of work with the Clearwisdom team have enabled me to look at issues with a broader perspective.
Through studying Zhuan Falun and Master's lectures, I have learned that when we face a problem, even if it appears to be other's problems, it is also a good opportunity to look within ourselves. In our team, often when a problem arises, team members also rise to the occasion to resolve the problem. This gives me a great opportunity to compare my own state of relaxation with other's diligence. For example, some team members are not being held back by our convention of processing one article at a time. They take multiple articles in one shot to help reduce email traffic as well as boost productivity.
(2) Doing Dafa work, focusing on studying the Fa, clarifying the truth and sending forth righteous thoughts also helps me do my job in society better.
This is reflected in our looking at issues not from how to maximize our own gains, and how to take advantage of other people or the company when there are potential conflicts of interest. We have learned to contemplate issues by transcending personal gains and losses. In this way we often help to find a solution that benefits everyone. There is also another situation where we are willing to sacrifice by doing some extra work not in the original scope of the agreement. Under many circumstances, I have found that what Teacher says in Lecture 4 of Zhuan Falun, is really true.
"You are not really asked to lose anything materially.... The key is whether you can abandon that attachment." (Lecture 4, Zhuan Falun)
Because others are more willing to deal with someone who is honest and reliable, it helps them to remove their minds from thinking about calculative maneuvers and instead to cooperate with the big picture in mind. This helps to lay a better foundation for future cooperation in business.
One other thing that occurred to me recently is that cultivation is for us to overcome the notions that we developed in human society. Cultivation is not to let us bring into our team saving face, praise, or trickery to get others to work for you. Through cultivation, we want to get rid of these wrong habits, and replace them with sincerity and kindness based on our caring about other's long term interests.
(3) Translation work helps me to do my ordinary work better
After starting work on translation, I started paying more attention to new developments in foreign affairs and international finance in Western society. This helps me in my information profiling work. It also helps me when clarifying the truth to colleagues, relatives and friends, as I can now answer questions they care about more easily. In return, the accumulation of this knowledge also helps me in my translation. Master's said,
"The fact is, you've learned what you've learned because you had that wish and accordingly arrangements were made for you back in the past since it would be needed in validating the Fa, that's all." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2004 Western U.S. Fa Conference")
Above is a brief report from our team and about myself. I look forward to your correction and help.
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