(Minghui.org) Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
I’ve been cultivating for four years now, and in the first few years, I didn’t know what true cultivation was or how to look within. I did the three things, but when I encountered things that made me upset or did not go smoothly, I would just move on and forget about them. I never really thought about them seriously or looked for causes. Not until the latter half of last year, when I became the coordinator for Shen Yun promotion in my area, did I start to learn how to look within.
Exposing My Sense of Inferiority During Shen Yun Promotion
In the early stage of promoting the 2012 Shen Yun show, coordinators from different areas discussed the plan to conduct presentations of Chinese culture and Shen Yun at local libraries. The earlier version of the presentation was written by a practitioner from another state who is a professor. I told the other coordinators that I didn’t have a PhD and had a very limited understanding of Chinese culture, so I doubted that I had the ability to give the presentation. Additionally, since I thought of myself as a nobody, I didn’t think anyone would be interested in listening to me. At the end of the discussion, we decided to use the name of the president of our local Falun Dafa Association as the presenter because he has a PhD and his title is “president.”
The first library I contacted was in an affluent neighborhood in my area. I visited personally and met with the director of the library. She listened to my brief introduction and then asked, “What are your qualifications for giving this presentation.” When I heard the question, I was a bit startled. Wasn’t that what I had been worrying about all along? I answered nervously without any confidence. She replied to me casually that she would give it some thought and let me know. I sensed immediately that the meeting was not a success.
At the next coordinator meeting, I shared my experience at the library. A practitioner said, “You see, what you are afraid of is what will happen to you.” She was right. I had had a sense of inferiority ever since I was a child, when I felt that I was inadequate in many areas such as talent, academic achievement, social status, and wealth. I felt I was just a mediocre person in the ordinary human world. I often felt a sense of inferiority when dealing with people who were superior to me in any of those areas. The presentation was written by a professor, and I didn’t possess his knowledge or social status, my presentation would not be credible. From a cultivation standpoint, I realized that a sense of inferiority was an attachment to fame and status and not a righteous thought. It is an incredible honor for me to be a Dafa disciple, out of billions of people living on this earth. What I have cannot be bought with money or status in this human world. Why did I still care about these human attachments? After I recognized my attachment, I successfully made many appointments for Shen Yun presentations at libraries, rotary clubs, and other organizations.
Nevertheless, human notions and attachments are rooted so deeply that they are difficult to remove all at once. On one occasion, we were going to host a Shen Yun presentation at a library near a university. For some reason, I thought to myself that there might be professors at the presentation because of the library’s proximity to the university, and the results would be much better if someone else with a higher academic degree and a sense of humor would do the Shen Yun presentation. I actually found a practitioner with all the qualities I needed and who was well known for being funny.
On the day of the presentation, I arrived early to prepare all the materials and test my laptop. About 30 people showed up, and several families came with children. From their clothing, I could tell that they were mainstream people. When it was almost time to begin, our presenter rushed in. In the interest of time, I suggested that I do the presentation myself instead of him, but he said it was not a problem and he could handle it. We then quickly replaced my laptop with his, and he began the presentation without testing his laptop. After he started, something strange happened. The audience was neither engaged nor responsive to his presentation at all. He began to get anxious, because he had done this presentation successfully before, and his audiences had always been amused by his lively presentation. But this time, it was not like that. The more he tried to be funny, the more mistakes he made with his choice of words and grammar. Sitting in the back of the room, I could not believe what was unfolding before my eyes, nor did I ever envision this was how it would turn out. While playing the Shen Yun video clip, there was an issue with the amplifier as well. Although it was fixed immediately, the damage was already done. Finally the presentation ended, the audience clapped out of courtesy, but asked no questions and left the room disappointed. The practitioners in the room were disheartened by what had just happened. We came to clarify the truth but failed to achieve our goal.
After I got home, I felt terrible. I had a heartache, as if something was squeezing my heart tightly. My mind was racing and filled with the day’s incident. On the surface, the incident was triggered by the practitioner’s failure to engage the audience, but I knew the problem could not be caused by only one person. What was my mistake, what attachment did I have? Later, the practitioner who made the presentation emailed me to apologize for his mistakes. I told him that I was responsible, too, but I hadn’t found my problem. Another practitioner in the room with us also examined herself. She told me that, before the event, she had worried that not enough people would show up and that was not a righteous thought. The next evening, I traced back to the very reason I wanted this practitioner to do the presentation. Finally I found the reason. I realized that I still cared too much about human abilities and social status. I felt that my knowledge and social status were inadequate and my lack of humor would not touch the audience despite many successful presentations I had given in the past. It was true that I am not funny, but I have won over audiences with righteous thoughts, sincerity, and fluent English. This had been proven, so why did I still cling to such an attachment? Because of my attachment, I had caused use to miss an opportunity to clarify the truth and save sentient beings.
Our benevolent Master knew that I had found my mistake, and he gave me a second chance. Two days later, I gave a presentation to the Rotary Club in the same city. It was the same presentation, the same style I had used previously, without any attempt to even try to be funny, but 50 people were mesmerized. Over and over again, they burst into laughter. They asked many questions about Shen Yun, Falun Gong, and me. This turned out to be the most engaging audience I had ever seen in all of the Shen Yun events I had been to. Through the questions and answers, I knew that they all understood what Shen Yun was about. At the meeting, there were entrepreneurs, professors, an orchestra conductor, etc. Many of them told me that they would bring their friends and families to see Shen Yun.
Master said in “Fa-Lecture during the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference:”
“In clarifying the truth, don't pay any attention to the other person's social status, and don't have some sort of concept--first and foremost they're people, and they all have a chance to choose their own futures. No matter what his occupation, first and foremost he needs to have a future, and that's the most important thing for any person. In clarifying the truth, when you hit upon a person's fundamental issues, and at the same time he feels that Dafa disciples are truly saving him, then I think the side of him that's clear about things will show itself.”
Looking Within in Times of Conflict
Two years ago, a practitioner told me about her supervisor who was treating her unfairly at work. and her job was in danger. I was worried about her. At the time, I had only started cultivation a little more than a year before and hadn’t the slightest idea that this had anything to do with me. I asked her to look within, but she said that she had done no wrong. I knew no other, better way to help but to turn to other veteran practitioners to help her look within. This practitioner was very upset with me for being so gossipy and asked me stop telling others about her situation. I felt really hurt and offended as I was only trying to help. After this incident, we had more and more conflicts during the promotion of Shen Yun. My prejudice and resentment towards her grew stronger and stronger.
One evening while I was working at a mall with a practitioner from out-of-state, a customer selected two Shen Yun tickets. He told me that he needed to confirm the time with his wife and would come back to pay for the tickets the next day at noon. He also left me his phone number. Because the out-of-state practitioner would be leaving the next day and I had planned to go to another mall, we decided that I should come back to this mall the next day to ensure that the customer would buy the tickets and avoid potential confusion that a new sales person could cause. I then called the practitioner whom I had a conflict with about exchanging malls the next day, but I was unable to reach her. The next day after doing the exercises, I asked the practitioner if I could exchange mall duty with her because I had been working in that mall for a period of time, and customers were getting acquainted with me. It would be easier to sell tickets. She said, “What are you trying to tell me exactly?” I said, “Nothing special” as I sensed her intensity, and I didn’t want to make her upset. I wanted to withdraw and told her, “Never mind.” But she continued to press me and demanded, “You better explain this clearly right now!” At the moment, I really did not have time to explain it as I got a call from a practitioner requesting my help to get an out-of-state practitioner set up in another mall. When she heard that, she said, “Since you have other practitioners’ help and I am in a bad mood, I am not going to any mall today.” When I heard that, I got really provoked. If she didn’t go to that mall at that time, there wouldn’t be anyone there. It would be after noon before I could settle in the out-of-state practitioner. Time was of the essence, so I jumped in my car and started to make phone calls to another practitioner to fill in the gap at that mall. While driving I could not help but complain about her refusal to cooperate and her throwing tantrums. In the end, the customer did not show up at the mall and I could not reach him by phone. I realized that the old forces had used the loophole caused by the conflict between me and this practitioner; we had lost another opportunity to save sentient beings. My heart was extremely heavy, but I felt I had not made any mistakes and that I was mistreated.
Master said:
“Any problem that happens to you, around you, or among you is most likely related to you, and there is something for you to get rid of. No matter whether it’s your fault or not, when my Law Bodies are having you remove your attachment, they don’t care whether it’s your fault or another person’s. As long as you have an attachment, they will try everything to have you run into problems and have you recognize the attachment that makes you fall short. Yet you’re still looking around, 'This isn’t my fault,' or you’re still thinking, 'I’m protecting the Fa.' Meanwhile, the other person is thinking, 'I’m protecting the Fa.' In fact, the conflict occurs because you probably each have faults of your own.” (“Teaching the Fa at the Conference in Europe”)
I recognized that if I didn’t find my attachment and continued to protect my self-interest, other opportunities to save sentient beings would be jeopardized. I tried really hard to think of why a seemingly unimportant request could cause such a commotion. I finally realized that my insignificant request carried several strong attachments. First of all, as a bystander, when I heard about the conflicts between the practitioner and an ordinary person, I did not realize that not only does the third party involved need to look within, but also needs to tolerate it and maintain a calm heart. When the practitioner accused me of being gossipy, it was actually signaling me to cultivate my speech and testing whether I could bear the unbearable when passing the xinxing test. Not only did I not forebear, I also carried bitterness in my heart. Every time we had a conflict, all I could see were her flaws. I thought I was a better practitioner than she was and that I was right all the time. When my show-off and competitive mentalities were uncovered, I did not suppress them. Instead, I encouraged and indulged my demon nature; furthermore, I tried to escape and cover them up. Our benevolent Master employed various ways to expose my attachments through conflict and trouble. I was so ashamed of my thoughts and behaviors; I did not regard myself as a true cultivator. That evening, I apologized to her for my mistakes and attachments.
After this conflict, during the promotion for July’s Shen Yun performances in Chicago, this practitioner and other practitioners in my area cooperated really well without trouble. As Master said:
“Everything that happens to you is a test to see whether you can regard yourself as a cultivator, find your own wrongdoing and mistakes, and conduct yourself as a cultivator. Remember these words of mine: No matter what trouble you encounter, no matter what makes you feel unpleasant inside, and no matter whether on the surface you’re right or wrong, if you are to truly regard yourself as a cultivator you should always examine yourself for causes. Ask yourself whether you have a wrong, hard-to-detect motive that’s related to the problem. If you, as a cultivator, only part with things superficially while deep down inside you still stick to something or cling to your own vital interests that you don’t allow to be undermined, I’d say to you that your cultivation is fake! If your own thinking doesn’t change, you cannot advance even one step and are deceiving yourself. Only when you truly improve from within can you make real progress. So be sure to remember this: Whenever you come across anything such as troubles, unpleasant things, or friction with others, you need to examine yourself and search within. You will find the cause of that insurmountable problem. Previously, during the qigong craze, many people understood that one’s own energy field could influence one’s surroundings. In reality, that’s not how it is. It’s because there is discord within you, which contradicts the essential nature of the cosmos, that you find everything around you in disharmony with you—that’s the relationship. Everything will follow smoothly if you adjust yourself. That’s exactly how it is.” (“Lecture at the First Conference in North America”)
Pursuit of Comfort Is NOT the Goal of Doing the Three Things
In the first few years of cultivation, every day I was filled with the happiness of obtaining the Fa. Studying the Fa, practicing the exercises, and helping out with Dafa projects were things that I could not wait to do. In the meantime, my body was cleansed by Master; everything I did became easier and easier; life was wonderful. However, in the last year, doing the three things has slowly turned into a chore. It was hard for me to focus while studying the Fa and my mind could not help but wander. Especially after both Shen Yun performances this year, things got really busy at work, and I started to skip doing the three things. The pursuit of comfort grew stronger. Only when there were important things happening that day would I do the three things in the hope that everything would go well without any issues.
Recently while studying the Fa, I recognized this pursuit. Studying the Fa and practicing the exercises are part of cultivation and are not simply to escape karmic debts that we have to pay off. The Fa gives us righteous thoughts to help us overcome xinxing and sickness tests.
Purging the Attachment of Fame in My Ordinary Job
My company recently restructured, and I was assigned to lead a large project, which has been quite a challenge. My manager’s supervisor told her that this was to test my skills in certain areas. After I learned about that, I felt pressured and stressed out. A few days passed before I realized that this feeling was not right and that I should look within for the cause. After intensifying my Fa study, I recognized that my attachment to fame was taking control. My worry and feelings of stress emerged because I cared about the results of the project and how it would affect my big boss’s view of me and my year-end review. After finding my attachment, all of a sudden, the worry and stress disappeared from my mind. I made a plan for what I needed to be done step by step and started to execute it. Although this project is still in progress, I no longer stress over the outcome. I know as long as I can purge the attachment, Master will take care of everything.
After four years of cultivation, I only now realize that, besides studying the Fa and practicing the exercises, we also need to practice true cultivation. Amidst conflicts and at critical junctures and times when our hearts are not calm, that is when we need to look within. Even if we are a bystander seeing someone else’s conflict, we ought to examine ourselves to see if we have similar attachments. When we find those attachments and mistakes, we shouldn’t shy away from them or indulge them. We should be determined to eliminate them. The time for cultivation is very limited, and I will strive forward vigorously to remove all my human attachments in order to reach the requirements for consummation.
This is my sharing today. Please kindly point out any mistakes.
Thank you, Master! Thank you, fellow practitioners!
(From the 2012 Chicago Falun Dafa Experience Sharing Conference)
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