(Clearwisdom.net)
Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
I obtained the Fa in July 1997. Master gave me a second chance in
life, which enabled me, a life filled with karma, to take a complete change in
direction and begin the path of cultivation. I was given the honor of Fa-rectification
period Dafa disciple. No words in the human world are sufficient enough to
express my deep gratitude to our revered Master for his benevolent salvation!
I would like to share my cultivation experience as an assistant for the last few
years in doing the" three things" well as required by our Master.
1. Keeping up group Fa-study and exercise practice to improve as one body
Master taught us in Teaching the Fa at the Assistants' Fa Conference in
Changchun, "Your most important task is to create for our students a
stable cultivation environment that's free of disturbances. This is your
greatest responsibility."
I have been working as an assistant for the last seven or eight years. As an
assistant I need to care about every fellow practitioner in addition to
organizing group Fe-study and exercise practice. We all understand that the
group Fa-study environment helps temper each one of us and we can help each
other improve our understanding of the Fa. When conflicts occur we can resolve
them straight away, so that we can improve faster and keep up with the Fa-rectification
progress. For example, there is a senior-aged practitioner in our group, who
came across a life and death tribulation with serious sickness symptoms. His
family members do not practice Falun Gong, and they urged him to go to the
hospital for treatment. If we did not handle the situation properly, it could
cause them to have some misunderstanding about Dafa. We had a group sharing
about his situation to try to help him get over this tribulation. In addition to
sending forth righteous thoughts, we all looked within ourselves, without
blaming anyone. We asked ourselves why this occurred at our practice site and
checked if there were any loopholes among ourselves. We realized that there was
a lack of caring among us and we did not share much on the Fa principles,
either. When we noticed that this practitioner could not persist when doing the
sitting meditation, we failed to encourage him and did not point it out to him
when we noticed that his movements were not quite right.
When we all started to look within ourselves, we formed a field filled with
righteous thoughts, which in turn encouraged this practitioner to look inward
and saw where he was lacking. He insisted on coming out, even just for a couple
of hours every day, to clarify the facts to people and do well the
three things, even when he was feeling very weak physically. At the same time,
he intensified his Fa-study, reading the book, listening to the Fa and reciting
the Fa. With the support of strong righteous thoughts, his family members began
to see the amazing power of Dafa. His serious symptoms began to disappear,
without him going to hospital or taking any medication. A miracle occurred. This
incident further strengthened my belief that as long as we have developed a
cultivation environment filled with righteous thoughts, nothing can stop us.
2. Combining assistance work with personal cultivation
When I first started to work as an assistant, I always required others to adhere
to my standards, instead of looking at things from the perspective of others; so
there were often conflicts between me and other practitioners. Sometimes, when I
saw that practitioners were not doing well, I would say that they were not
diligent, while in fact I was not being diligent myself. I did not have a
compassionate heart when sharing with other practitioners. I remember once when
I was sharing with a practitioner, I thought to myself: "He was not
diligent at all. I should say something harsh to wake him up as a 'stick
warning.'" However, afterwards, this practitioner seldom participated in
group Fa-study and Dafa activities. Others told me that he held some opinions
about me. I thought: "Oh dear, I might have 'hit' him too hard."
Master said in Teaching the Fa in the City of Los Angeles,
"I don't want the environment Dafa disciples have to become one in which people point fingers at each other. I want the environment to be one in which everyone can accept criticism and at the same time look inside themselves. If everyone cultivates himself, everyone looks within, and everyone cultivates himself well, won't the conflicts be few? This is a principle I have taught all along, going back to when I first began teaching the Fa. Isn't that so? Improvement for a cultivator definitely doesn't result from finger pointing, nor does it results from my criticism of you as your Master or from your pointing fingers at or criticizing each other. It comes from you cultivating yourself."
Through Fa-study and looking within, I realized that the reason I thought
others were not good enough was because I had human notions and sentiments and I
failed to do as Master taught us. Immediately I picked up the phone and called
the practitioner to apologize to him. The divide between us disappeared and he
soon returned to our practice site.
3. Only by letting go of one's self and melting in the one body can we do even
better in validating the Fa and saving sentient beings
Our practice site is located in a place where a lot of people from mainland
China reside. We realized our responsibility in saving these people. For years,
we have distributed flyers regularly on the street, and organized
truth-clarifying activities such as showing movies, establishing a quit-the-CCP
center and promoting the show by Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have engaged in
these activities as one body. In the process, we realized that only by improving
our xinxing, letting go of selfishness and cooperating well
could we achieve good results in saving sentient beings.
Take showing movies for example, from choosing movies and designing tickets, to
putting posters on the street, from distributing tickets to everyday people to
setting up the site, from putting the equipment together to sending forth
righteous thoughts to clear out the interference in other dimensions, whenever
we prepared well and cooperated well with strong righteous thoughts, there would
be more people coming to us and the effects were also good. In such situations,
we were able to show the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party
all the way through. When we did not do well, there would be fewer people coming
and there would also be more people leaving half way through.
Whenever this happened, I would organize practitioners to share on the Fa and
look within to find out the cause for it. Some practitioners felt they did not
hold a pure heart while distributing the tickets, and only tried to finish
the job as soon as they could without holding the thought that they were
there to save sentient beings. As a result, although the tickets were all gone,
only a small number of people showed up; some practitioners shared that they
were not very attentive while doing their tasks; for example, they did not put
the posters in more prominent spots and some of the films chosen were not very
interesting. When we started to look within as one body and think carefully how
we could do better in saving sentient beings, the Fa opened our wisdom and we
formed a very harmonious field with righteous thoughts.
With regard to how we let go of ourselves to cooperate with others as one body,
I also experienced some xinxing tests. Once, I spent a lot of time and
chose a popular movie, but one practitioner disagreed with the choice, saying
there was too much Communist Party culture in it. I watched it with another
practitioner and shared with others, and they all thought it was alright.
Besides, it would take a lot of time to choose another one and there were so
many other things to do. Still this practitioner insisted that the movie was no
good. Facing such a difficult situation, I remembered what Master said to
Australian practitioners, "When Dafa disciples do things as one body, even
though they might not have considered all aspects well, still, when they can
cooperate as one body, miracles will occur."(unofficial translation) When
practitioners stick to their different opinions, then we cannot cooperate well
as one body, and it would impact on the outcome of our movie-showing. In the
end, I decided to let go of selfishness and to harmonize the whole body and
chose another film.
4. It is veteran practitioners' responsibility to take good care of new
practitioners
At our practice site, we have a lot of new practitioners, and most of them are
refugees. How to organize veteran practitioners to take good care of new
practitioners, directing them to truly walk on the path of cultivation is a very
important issue and I felt I had a lot of responsibility for it. The fundamental
issue is to help new practitioners pay attention to Fa-study and help them
improve on the basis of the Fa. So we often organize group Fa-study and share
out understanding on the importance of Fa-study.
I remember when we first started group Fa-study, because we had quite a number
of new practitioners, our reading was not very good, sometimes fast
and sometimes slow, sometimes words were missed and sometimes new
words were added. Veteran practitioners did not blame them, but encouraged them
to pay more attention to Fa-study and explained to them the importance of
respecting Master and respecting the Fa and the importance of reading the Fa
properly. At the same time, we changed our way of reading the Fa. In the past,
we used to read the Fa paragraph by paragraph. We then divided into two groups,
and each group had veteran practitioners to read the Fa with new practitioners.
At the beginning, they could not synchronize in their reading, but gradually
they read better and better, and now we are back in one big group Fa-study.
Because many new practitioners came into the Fa with an intention to apply for
refugee status, so in order to help them truly become Dafa practitioners, we
organized new practitioners to study Master's teachings relevant to this issue
and shared our understandings based on the Fa, to help new practitioners to
understand the Fa principles so that they could improve.
Once a new practitioner asked me to write her testimony, but I did not do it.
Instead I shared with her on the Fa principles. Master said in Zhuan Falun,
"When one's Buddha nature emerges, it will shake 'the world of ten
directions'. Whoever sees it will come to give a hand and help this person out
unconditionally." I said to her that as long as she truly wanted to
cultivate and truly believed in Master and in the Fa, and when she let go of the
big attachment to obtaining refugee status, the outcome would be there. Later,
at the interview with an immigration officer, when asked if she had a letter of
certificate from an assistant, she said, "I don't have such a letter.
Whether you grant me a refugee status or not, I will continue to practice Falun
Dafa!" With such a strong righteous thought, her application for refugee
status was approved. This caused quite a stir among new practitioners, and
enabled them to see the power of having faith in Master and in the Fa.
5. Practice sites are a cultivation form defined by Master. We should never give
them up or change them
Master said in Teaching the Fa at the Meeting with Asia-Pacific Students,
"As your Master, I can't leave behind a single disciple, and I'll tell you
that as a coordinator, you can't leave behind a single one of my
disciples."
On the surface, an assistant is also the responsible person for a practice site,
and how we maintain this cultivation form and keep it unchanged for thousands of
years to come is also a serious test facing assistants. Along with the progress
in Fa-rectification, and in order to better validate the Fa, practitioners have
organized many project groups one after another, and consequently formed their
own group Fa-study environment. However, I believe project groups cannot replace
practice sites, and we should not ignore the cultivation environment at a
practice site with the excuse of joining other project groups. Due to the fact
that we did not have a clear understanding on this issue, many practice sites
became weaker and lost a great number of practitioners. Also, because some
practitioners became slack in their cultivation, a number of them lost their
human bodies due to illnesses. This is a very serious lesson!
Assistants have a big responsibility and yet their work appears very ordinary
and trivial. For example, whenever there is a Dafa activity, assistants will
have to notify each practitioner, calling them one by one. They will handle
things such as purchasing books, booking buses, and when fellow practitioners
come across problems, they need to show concern and care while cultivating
themselves and organizing Fa-study and other activities. Year in and year out,
they have contributed much of their time and energy. I understand that the
process of doing all this is also a process of improving my xinxing, and
this is the cultivation path Master has arranged for me. In recent years,
although I have done some work, in fact it is nothing, and I still have a long
way to meet the requirements Master has set for us. I'm determined to do even
better, assisting Master in saving sentient beings.
Lastly, I would like to share with you Master's poem "Harmonizing with
Fa"(Hong Yin Translation Version B):
Buddha's light illuminates everywhere
Propriety and justice are perfected and illuminated
Together, whole-heartedly strive upward
The path ahead is bright
Thank you, Master!
Thank you, fellow practitioners!
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Category: Journeys of Cultivation
