I would like to share my experiences and enlightenment gained while working on editing/polishing the English version of Clearwisdom's new book Compassion Overcomes Evil - Personal Accounts from the First Written Experience Sharing Conference by Falun Dafa Practitioners in China.
When the editing/polishing process began, things seemed to go quite smoothly and the work was progressing well. Then one day I got the news that one of the practitioners working on the book had a computer malfunction which resulted in the loss of all the work she had done. This was a setback, as she needed to begin again from scratch. The same thing happened again, and even happened to others working on the project. Weeks of work were lost.
After discussing this with practitioners, a common response was, "Since there is so much interference, this project must be important." The common understanding was that all we needed to do was send righteous thoughts to clear the interference, and things would get better.
As we continued with the project, I found one obstacle after another piling up. These obstacles manifested in very different ways. On the surface, there seemed to be difficulty finding time to work on it. When I would sit down to work, there would be a list of things I needed to work on before getting to the book, often ending in no time to work on the book. Looking closer, I found that as I sat in front of my computer, subtle thoughts would constantly arise: "I'm hungry," "I need to use the restroom," "I wonder what is on the websites now," etc. Seemingly very normal thoughts turned out to be huge time wasters, as these thoughts popped up just as I was about to do work.
Another form of interference was my apprehension about asking others for help. I thought that since others were so busy, I shouldn't rely on them too much. But the job at hand was in fact quite large, and the end result would actually be better if a team were working on it. When several different people would edit and polish one article, each would improve on the last, resulting in a much more well-rounded and higher quality article.
As I began to look at this situation, I realized that months had passed with very little progress. I began to search out the problems. I first found the attachment of apprehension in asking for help. Once this was spotted, it was not too difficult to eliminate, and soon several others were helping with the work, which sped up the process tremendously.
There was still work though that I needed to do in bringing it all together and standardizing parts of all the articles. It was very difficult for me to sit down and actually do it though, as I seemed to never have the time. One day, I finally was very strict with myself: "No matter what, I am going to finish the editing today. I will suppress all notions that come up when working, and just focus entirely on the book." That day an amazing experience happened. As I was editing the book, I would often find that as I reached a certain notion that the article was talking about, similar notions that I had that interfered with completing the editing would pop up. At that time I could not only see them very clearly, as I was reading about very similar attachments, but also there were experiences shared on how the practitioners overcame these attachments. This happened throughout the entire day of editing.
As I read deeper into the articles though, I found they all had a very similar characteristic: These were articles that revealed the old forces' arrangements. When viewing the book as a whole, the content talks about all sorts of arrangements by the old forces, how to recognize them, ways practitioners overcame them--and if they stumbled along the way, why they stumbled and how they got back up. It was a very empowering feeling, as I felt I could see much more clearly how the old forces' arrangement interfered with the editing process of this book, trying to stop it from being published.
The original thought some had of "since there is so much interference, this project must be important" was clearly not a correct understanding. We should take the path arranged by Master. What Master says is important is important, and what Master says is not important is not important. If the old forces feel something is important, this does not necessarily mean that it is important. If the old forces feel something is not important, this does not necessarily mean it is not important. Only by looking at situations from the standpoint of the Fa can we truly see what is important and not important, and we cannot judge a situation on whether or to what degree the old forces interfere. We must take the path arranged for us by Master, obstacles or not.
Then why would the old forces interfere so much to stop the publication of the book? After the final day of editing, it was clear to me that it is precisely because this book reveals many different ways in which the old forces arrange things and interfere in Fa-rectification. Not only that, the book shares remarkable experiences on how to overcome and destroy these obstacles--how to better take our path arranged by Master. To the old forces, this is very dangerous. What would happen if all practitioners could more clearly realize the old forces' arrangements? Wouldn't we be even more clearheaded and our righteous thoughts have even more power directed at destroying the interference? Wouldn't we be able to walk our paths even better, and be less likely to take the old forces' crooked ways?
Please point out anything incorrect.
To read Compassion Overcomes Evil, please go to http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2005/8/29/64365.html
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Category: Journeys of Cultivation
