(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings Master! Greetings fellow practitioners!
I am a Swedish veteran practitioner. It is a great honor to be in front of you to share my experience during this special European Dafa conference in Russia. I have been to Russia several times and every time it has been a great joy to meet with all the Dafa practitioners in Russia and Eastern Europe.
I know that it is not an easy matter for Russian practitioners to attend Dafa conferences outside of Russia. It is not even an easy matter to attend one inside Russia since the country is so vast. The first time I was here in St. Petersburg many years ago I remember one story that someone told me which made a great impression on me. I was told that once one practitioner from a very remote place in Russia had to travel nearly a month to get to a Dafa conference. When this practitioner finally arrived at the Dafa conference he was beaming with joy. What difficulties this practitioner has met during this long journey I cannot even imagine. I remember thinking then that these Dafa conferences are so sacred and this Dafa practitioner surely understood the true meaning of our Dafa conferences. Nothing could have stopped this practitioner from attending our sacred Fahui.
Here we can together grow and cultivate, appreciate and learn from each other and become one strong body to meet whatever lies in front of us. Together there is nothing that we cannot overcome. This is our true legacy that Master has given to us to save the world’s sentient beings.
Today I would like to share with you my understanding of practitioners becoming one body.
Many years ago during UN activities in Geneva I remember my first thoughts regarding us being one body. Normally I always get to the group activities early and get in line early, but this day I was quite late and I was last in line, very far back. From here I could see everyone. I was overwhelmed seeing so many practitioners from all over the world standing there together. All of us came with one thought…to save sentient beings. And we were so many…And I was greatly touched by this sight. While we were doing the third exercise I noticed that some arms were up while others were down. We were all doing the same exercise and we all came with same wish but we were in different positions. Some did the exercise little faster and others did it little slower. There I had a sudden understanding that we as practitioners are perhaps not really aligned yet. At the same time I was wooed by the very thought of us being or becoming one body, and how strong and powerful our energy would be if we were completely synchronized together. I could see that we were like a grand orchestra. All of us play an instrument and one day perhaps we can play a most beautiful piece that will give out great resonance throughout the universe.
During these days I also suddenly remembered a fairytale story I had read as young child that I had completely forgotten about until then. It was about a cow that worked in the field. One day after work the cow came back in the evening to rest. While he rested his different parts started to talk to each other about who is the most important of them all. The mouth said he was most important since without eating the cow would surely die. Then the eyes said that without them the cow could not even see the food, so they are most important. Then the legs said without them the cow couldn't find the food, so they were most important. Then the stomach and even the tail had something to say. All of them got into a big argument and finally they stopped communicating. Day after day all the parts refused to do their work. The cow grew weaker and weaker every day. One day a weak voice said, "We cannot go on like this, if we do not work together, the cow will surly die." And so all of them agreed that they all were needed and they needed to work together in order to save the cow.
I know this is a fairytale story and we are not cows. Yet the principle of working together still could apply to us especially now that there are so many Dafa projects we are working on. Many of us need to work on many projects at the same time and being pressed for time our cultivation at times is not very balanced. When we work on our different projects, it is impossible to avoid xinxing problems arising among ourselves. Since I have been coordinating several projects over the years I have heard many criticisms about my coordinating work, and most of the time I really do get upset over them. Still I cannot help but appreciate the opportunity it gives me to improve myself and how it benefits my cultivation when I finally get over them. I truly believe that in the process of making every project possible, large or small, we improve together as practitioners and every one of us is needed in that process. We are different parts that come together to build a whole body.
Even though cultivation is an individual process and every practitioner has their own path, we are also very much connected with each other and all righteous thoughts we have towards one another will strengthen us while every deviant human thought will weaken us. It is not easy to see clearly through the deviated human notions, yet I think the more mature we are, the quicker we can overcome ourselves and bring fewer and fewer losses to the whole plan.
One incident not long ago comes to my mind. During the European athletic championship that was held in our city, practitioners in our area planned ten days of truth clarification activities. We did not have enough practitioners to play all the parts every day, so we had asked for help from practitioners outside our area. Our preliminary plan worked well I thought.
We started our first day's activities in front of the Chinese Consulate in the evening. The consul was leaving Sweden and because of that gave a going away party for Chinese and Swedish people. Also the whole city was having a culture festival that very day and so lots of people were out during this nice summer evening. Therefore our truth clarification reached many people that evening and I was happy.
Since we were planning to have group Fa study the next morning before we began our activities, we did not plan to meet after the evening activity the first day. A few practitioners from outside our area raised points that it would be good to meet together that very evening and not wait until morning. But we did not comply with this even though they were disappointed.
The following day after Fa study, again a few practitioners from another area pointed out things that they thought we did not think about or needed to improve. I was getting upset over the whole thing. What do they know about the situation? Why could they not just wait and see? I thought they were just complaining so I got more and more irritated and upset. The more upset I was the less understanding I became. I took every word as personal criticism. With an unbalanced heart I complained to another practitioner on the way to the activity site. She just pointed out kindly that I should not be so upset about it.
At the activity site I felt the disharmony among some of us. It looked at one point like we had too many cooks even though we were supposed to cook only one dish. At this point my heart was full of resentment towards the other practitioners.
There were many different disturbances in the beginning because of our state. Things that we needed to use and an additional car suddenly disappeared again, etc. We began that day later than planned. I began to realize that this interference manifested because of our loopholes. I also knew that my thoughts about other practitioners were not righteous and the evil was using my loopholes. I asked myself why my human side wanted so much to be right. While I was caught up in my own self-righteousness I was missing the chance to save sentient beings, and instead of working to bring harmony by doing my part I was instead creating imbalance. While I was looking at the newer practitioners having difficulties coping with this situation things became clearer to me. I knew that it was not easy for them. Looking at them I realized that I of course saw only outside myself and had not looked closely at my own shortcomings.
I knew all of this before, yet when the test and interference came I could not stop myself from falling into the trap again. Perhaps what is different now from my early days of cultivation is that I realize my shortcomings quicker and do not give more energy to them once I see it clearly. I also know that cultivation is not an easy matter, yet I feel confident that every Dafa practitioner will do their very best accordingly.
One of my very first obstacles in my cultivation was understanding true nature of the xinxing tests given to us. From the very start I had a notion that cultivators should be nice and in harmony with each other, and when the xinxing problems started to arise, I of course thought that everyone else was not doing well. So I avoided them for a few years. And of course I thought of myself as a better cultivator because of that. In reality I learned later that the opposite was true. I learned a hard lesson that I presented an experience sharing about many years back.
Xinxing tests are unavoidable in every project and we should not avoid them, but we should remember that we are all Dafa practitioners, and that we all try our best to overcome whatever hardships we are going through together. When conflicts arise I try to remember who we are. We all came unselfishly to this world to save sentient beings, and because of the contamination from the human world we at times cannot remember to behave like practitioners, yet we are Dafa disciples and as such we have a grand and sacred mission before us.
Recently we had large-scale activities in Finland that required much work from those few practitioners from Finland. One day I sent a practical email message to Finnish practitioners and received one irritated and accusatory message back from one of them. My first reaction was to fire back because obviously the message had been misunderstood. While I was writing an irritated email response another Finnish practitioner called regarding another matter. I could tell that she too was also very stressed. Suddenly I saw how pressed they all were, and how little they must have slept for many days. It seemed they felt that we could give very little help and support. Whatever was happening in Finland was not just the Finnish practitioner’s responsibility but it was also our responsibility. After the phone call I rewrote my email massage. This time I did not fire back. Instead I asked what I could do to help. I was grateful that I had been stopped before sending the message. I did not add more fuel to the irritation, that of course the evil would have liked. This incident was not a very difficult or hard test for me, yet I still learned a lot from it. I learned to be less critical. Also it reminded me to appreciate other practitioners' hard work. So while I was coordinating for a few recent Nine Commentaries seminars in Sweden I tried to remember to thank practitioners for their work. However, even with this realization I still came short in appreciating some of the practitioners.
In our efforts in becoming one body the evil tries to interfere every time. For instance when we are doing projects together as a group I have noticed many times that the evil tries to interfere in several ways. One way is trying to create an imbalance by targeting our cooperation, creating misunderstandings and disharmony among the practitioners so our disagreements become an issue. If we cannot see through this in time, it will certainly create many difficulties with the project. Another way is by creating small disagreements between two practitioners or spouses who are caught up in their own private arguments. My husband and I have over the years seen this clearly in ourselves. Whenever we are working on a project and we start to argue, we then become alert. Some practitioners pull in directions away from the project because they do not have a clear picture or see the purpose of the project. All of these situations target our own loopholes, yet if we are clear on our priorities and purpose for doing whatever we do, then the interference is easy to see through.
I believe that even though it is not easy to clearly see through one's own selfish human nature, we Dafa practitioners as a whole have matured a lot over the years. Therefore I think we should take every opportunity to better ourselves during xinxing frictions and let go of our human notions. We should help each other to overcome the difficulties and work together to create a strong foundation in becoming the truly magnificent one body we are meant to be.
I would like to end this sharing with my deepest appreciation towards all the fellow Dafa practitioners all over the world who put endless efforts into creating and finding ways to save more sentient beings. I have learned so much from all of you and hope you will keep helping me to learn more.
We are most fortunate beings in the universe. How can we not be overjoyed by the grace we received from our reverent Master? Thank you Master for giving us this greatest of opportunities to be part of this Fa-rectification.
Thank you.
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