(Clearwisdom.net) Greetings, great Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
In early 1999, I learned Dafa by chance. A co-worker introduced Dafa to me. At that time, there was only one group exercise site in the city. It was far from where I lived, so I was only able to practice with a group of co-workers in our office during lunch hour.
One day I received a Falun Gong flier in my mailbox. I was so excited. I immediately called the numbers on the flier. Since contacting these fellow practitioners, we have been practicing in the park by Xinshan Reservoir every day. The number of practitioners grew from the original two people to over twenty. Some of them were couples.
Two years later, my wife became a practitioner as well. We went out to practice rain or shine. When the weather was good, we went to the park to practice. When it was raining, we practiced in the hallway of a daycare center. Sometimes, even when there was a storm, we still practiced. It was like a convenience store – running 365 days, never closed, and the atmosphere was joyous. Especially when it was raining very hard or very windy, we practiced even better and were able to get into the state of joining the mind and body together. "Group Fa Study" and "Group Practice" are two cultivation formats Master teaches us. As a Dafa practitioner who is walking toward consummation, following what Master says and practicing every day is the least we should do.
Falun Gong is a great practice. In the past seven to eight years, I’ve benefited from it significantly. Besides becoming very healthy after learning Dafa, I also understood the true meaning of being human and discovered many of my shortcomings and deeply-rooted attachments. Master says in Zhuan Falun:
"To tell you the truth, the entire cultivation process for a practitioner is one of constantly giving up human attachments."
I was previously very attached to money and fame without even realizing it. I envied others who got promotions. I even lost sleep over some coworkers or friends making unexpected money by playing the stock market. These attachments to jealousy, zealotry and the competitive mentality made me unhappy all the time. It impacted my health as well. I was lucky to have obtained Dafa. Through studying the Fa and sharing with fellow practitioners, I’ve been trying to eliminate my strong attachments.
Among my coworkers, many of them are highly educated. Some of them have studied abroad. I’ve been engaged in international business for a long time and I’ve been to many foreign countries for international conferences or research, and I’m fluent in English. In the past, I’ve written or translated many English scripts that I consider the results of my painstaking effort and wisdom. Sometimes, I didn’t like to share those scripts with my coworkers, especially those who studied abroad. It wasn’t because I was afraid of them laughing at me, it was because I didn’t want them to steal the ideas from me. This was precisely a reflection of my strong competitive and showoff mentality. I didn’t want others to have better English. I was focusing on showing off my capabilities. Especially when people came to me with English questions, I was often reserved.
Through studying the Fa, I found many of my shortcomings. Being reserved when others asked me questions meant that I didn’t reach the standard of "Truthfulness." The thought of not wanting others to do better than me is due to the attachment to jealousy, which means I didn’t reach the standard of "Compassion." Being impatient about others asking questions and being afraid of wasting my own time means I didn’t reach the standard of "Tolerance." After I realized that I didn’t meet the standards as a practitioner, I not only shared my English scripts with coworkers for them to reference, but I also offered to teach an English class for two hours each week so that I could teach everyone everything I knew. When I truly shared all my experiences and knowledge, I actually obtained more than others. When I was treating others benevolently, I raised my own level. While I was teaching others, my own knowledge increased as well. At the same time, I also showed the selfless demeanor of a Dafa practitioner to my coworkers.
Amid all the Fa-validation work projects, I was mainly responsible for work that was related to English, mostly English translations. The articles, materials and reports that we translate are mainly for the westerners to understand the wonderfulness of Dafa and the evilness of the CCP so that the international society can help stop this ruthless persecution. On the other hand, we can also help western practitioners have the opportunity to know cultivation experiences from different places in the world, along with the Fa-rectification activities and current situation so that they can keep up with the advancement of Fa-rectification. But the translation work is not as interesting as other Fa-rectification work, nor could we know immediately how many people have withdrawn from the CCP. Engaged in translation work means that you would have to sit in front of a computer and think and type at the same time. Sometimes, it can get really boring and lonely. The translation group I participated in went from the original 39 members down to very few people. At some point, there were only a few people who continued with the work. Therefore, many of us had to carry very heavy workloads.
I’ve translated over 400 articles for Dafa media in North America and Europe. Some were only one or two paragraphs. Some were many pages or even more than ten pages. The materials we translate embrace different contents. Besides the anti-persecution articles and Fa-rectification activity reports, there are also articles that concern non-practitioners that Dafa media needs. They touch different fields, such as culture, history, politics, economics, society, etc. The knowledge one person has is far from enough. Although my English is good in daily life, when I was engaged in the translation work, I found out that none of the work could be done easily. I felt that no matter what kind of articles I was translating, no matter whether they were long or short, only when I reached the standard of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance," would I be able to complete the work. "Truthfulness" means that I need to accurately represent the content of the original article, including every sentence and every word. "Compassion" means that I need to translate benevolently and with the thought of saving sentient beings so the western readers can truly understand what the original author wanted to communicate so they would gradually get away from being poisoned by the evil communist specter. "Tolerance" means that I have to be very patient. I have to do very thorough research and try to present the true meanings of every single word and sentence using another language so that it can help save sentient beings. This is being responsible for the translated articles and being responsible for Dafa.
There were xinxing tests as well while I was doing translation work. Regardless of the kind of article, it was hard to avoid the idioms or special terminologies of a given language. These terms seem to be very straightforward when we use them in our daily lives, but if we want to translate them accurately into English, it becomes difficult. It needs to be refined and polished over and over again. Or we need to do research on the Internet over and over again. Especially when looking up articles translated to Chinese from other foreign languages, if it didn’t specify the original terms or names, it becomes even harder to confirm. Sometimes, after going through detailed research and effort and looking up many web sites, we still couldn’t find an answer. Sometimes, I would have the thought of just leaving it to the editors to deal with it. But thinking further, I know better Chinese, so if even I can't find a good way to translate it, how would the western editors be able to figure out?
Often times, with stronger righteous thoughts, no matter how hard the problem was, it usually could be resolved. Therefore, strong righteous thoughts are important for doing any Fa-rectification work. When one doesn’t have strong righteous thoughts, one would feel tired, sleepy or have numb fingers and encounter interference. One wouldn’t be very productive. Sometimes, when I was done translating an article, it was already past midnight. At that time, I debated about whether I should send it out immediately and go to bed? Should I check it through to see if there are any grammar mistakes? Or whether the meanings are correctly reflected or the logic is reasonable? These are all tests. Sometimes after I spent so much time translating the article, the editor still made substantial changes, or the article was not published at all. How would I react in this kind of situation?
In Europe, there are many different languages in many countries. There are 15 different languages we use for Dafa media in Europe. But since there aren’t many European practitioners, plus not too many western practitioners know Chinese, many articles and reports are waiting to be translated from Chinese to English and then from English to other languages. Sometimes, some articles even need to be translated to a third language and then to the final language, or even more steps. Therefore, the English translation becomes "the head of a train" and critical in many situations. Sometimes, some "urgent" articles wait for several days with no one available to translate. Knowing that there is a full "train" of sentient beings that are waiting for Dafa practitioners to bring them to a wonderful final stop, we could get very anxious.
Now is a critical time for Fa-rectification. Every Dafa practitioner plays a different role, some doing face-to-face truth clarification, some using different equipment to expose the evil, some using performance or art or media to assist in Fa-rectification, and some writing or translating articles to save sentient beings, etc. Every role is important. Every task has its own challenges. However, as long as we catch up with our Great Master’s steps with righteous thoughts and righteous actions to advance together, there is no problem we can’t resolve. There is no task that can’t be accomplished. In conclusion, I would like to use Master’s lecture "Teaching the Fa at the 2001 Canada Fa Conference" for the mutual encouragement of fellow practitioners:
"It's hard, so your mighty virtue is displayed; it's hard, and so it's a good opportunity to establish your mighty virtue."
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